Tell the End 1
Sometimes Xander needs the occasional wake–up call. The kick in the metaphorical pants that the world doesn´t end outside of the Sunnydale city limits. Or... bad choice of words.
Maybe it would be better to say that the world can and does do its best to end just as dramatically outside Sunnydale as in.
Or maybe all the L.A. pollution has just gotten *really* bad.
Some places get acid rain, others get...
Well, okay, no. Xander´s not so much on the meteorological sciences, but he´s pretty sure that ´rain of fire´ doesn´t fall into the accepted range of precipitation. And right about now?
He´s pretty happy Anya never managed to talk him into the convertible action.
Right about now he´s just hoping to God –– that old, strange, psychopath in the sky –– that the roof of his car actually holds up.
There´s only a few more miles to the Hyperion, but... yeah.
Apocalypse + Driving = Unhappy Xander.
Had he really *volunteered* for this little fact–finding mission? Sure, Angel was the only one of them who knew more than a little about the First Evil, and sure Buffy and the others had their work cut out for them just in terms of not killing Andrew *and* tracking down Spike, but...
Right.
He has a backseat full of presents for the Angel Investigations crew and his own Zeppo nature to thank for the fact that he´s currently stuck in the traffic jam –– literally –– from hell and not doing anything remotely useful.
Well, that and his sick days.
His wiper blades are starting to melt.
He´s pretty sure that if he looks to his right and a little behind him, he´ll get a nice, clear view of an INSANE person just standing outside, waiting to get pelted to death with fiery hailstones.
Buffy always said she wanted to be a fireman when all the evil hellstuff came to an end. Xander? He´s pretty sure that a nice, quiet life in a pillow factory would be just fine for him.
Knitting. He could take up knitting.
"THE END IS ––"
*KABLAM*
And that would be road rage, friends and neighbors.
He´s just going to face front and be happy that the doom–crier landed in somebody else´s lane. Yep, happy. That´s him. He´s a happy, happy guy who did not just drive over anything that used to be alive. Nope, not at all.
In the end, his invisible blinders work so well he nearly drives right past the hotel, missing all the great parking spaces that are right in front ––
Wait.
Parking spaces in front mean running through flaming RAIN OF DEATH.
Which is, at best, problematic.
He parks anyway, and pulls out his cell phone –– perhaps the best idea Buffy *ever* had –– and considers his options. Call the folks at home and let them know they aren´t the only ones with troubles?
Not likely to be helpful, what with the First Evil still being all there and... Evil. Well, he can at least call in to the hotel and see if there´s a parking garage anywhere.
The phone rings about nineteen times before he gives up, and it occurs to him that Angel Investigations is probably hot on the case of the rain of fire, all puns intended. Okay, he can do this. This driving around looking for parking away from Death From Above thing.
Still, it takes a while for him to work up the nerve to pull back out into the street, and he refuses to call himself a wuss about that, because fire!
From the sky!
By the time he finds the parking garage –– and he´s sure he´d appreciate the architectural wonder of it being all HIDDEN like that if the inside of the car wasn´t starting to smell distinctly singed –– he´s definitely starting to jitter and jive a bit, and has to just sit *still* for a while behind the wheel.
Remind himself that he is, for the time being at least, safe.
If there´s anything the world has taught him over his twenty–one years of life or so, it´s to appreciate those moments where you´re reasonably sure you´re not going to die imminently.
Wallow in them, even.
Xander makes a point not to look too closely at his paint job as he gets out of the car, but, well, the world is just a little too bright right now for him *not* to notice the large number of blackened dents.
He´s probably not insured for this, Sunnydale–style coverage or not.
Damn.
Okay, focus. Find someplace inside the hotel, away from flaming hell–rain, wait for Angel and company to get back, ask his probably useless questions, distribute the least flammable gifts, run the fuck away.
It´s a plan.
A good plan. A *sensible* plan, even, and he has just enough time to settle on the disturbingly red couch in the lobby –– vampire decorators are *all* the same –– and be proud of it before he realizes he´s not alone.
Most assuredly not alone, unless you wanted to get into the metaphysical stuff about what is or is not behind Angel´s eyes at the moment, and hey, that guy really can *loom*, can´t he?
Especially over the back of a certain couch, where a certain wayward Scooby just happens to be lounging.
"Hey," Xander says, only it comes out a lot like ´gah.´
"Xander." And that´s... really non–committal.
"That´s me. Hey, I called, but..."
"I haven´t been answering the phone."
Xander nods slowly, which causes Angel to disappear and reappear in that upside down way that only happens when one individual is looming unhelpfully over another. Xander decides to stand up, since it doesn´t look as though Angel is going to, well, *move*. "So... Apocalypse Right About Now, hunh?"
"What are you doing here, Xander?"
Well, there was definitely *some* kind of emotion behind that last, though Xander wouldn´t bet his own money on what, exactly it was. "Well, originally to deliver gifts and go on a little Scooby fact–finding mission about the First Evil, since you spent some quality time with it, but..." Xander gestures at the world outside the smoke–darkened French doors. "Need some help? And really, feel free to say ´no, we´ve got it all under control.´"
Angel just looks at him for long, awkward moments.
And continues to look.
And, really, looks some more.
"Er... Is something... wrong? I mean, other than the whole rain of fire thing you´ve got going on?"
And that gets a smirk out of Angel, or really, more like the ghost of one. "Wrong. Is something..." Small, humorless laugh, and Angel has turned that Deadboy Stare of Doom on his own hand, where he´s holding... hair?
Dark hair. A tuft of it. Xander makes a concentrated effort not to run screaming first, ask questions later. God, he is NEVER going to like dealing with vampires. "Yeah. Wrong. Like... um. Wrong." Like, whose hair is that, Angel?
Angel stares at the hair for a few more seconds before dusting it off his fingers. They both watch it waft down to the floor, and Xander is really proud of the way he´s not making any assumptions. There´s a gold star in this for him for sure.
"Because, hey, if you need to talk about some ––"
"Have you ever seen something that you... really didn´t need to see? No, that´s a stupid question. Of course you have." And now Angel is looking at *him*, and that´s...
Well, that´s definitely a look. The kind of look that reminds you about things like vampiric strength, and vampiric speed, and hey, that´s a *vampire*. An apparently deeply *upset* vampire, and one without the handy modern technology of a chip in its head.
"You´ve seen... you´ve seen all sorts of things, haven´t you, Xander?"
"Sailing ships, sealing wax, the whole nine yards, hey Angel, about ––"
"And you just keep... living. Being human. After everything."
"Well, see, that´s kind of my thing. Humanity and all that. Angel ––"
"You´ve never considered... other options?"
"Um..."
"Or do the options just consider you, and somehow move on?"
And Angel is very close now. If Xander were to look down, say, to get a better look at that tuft of hair, his forehead would probably bump into something cold and hard and large and belonging to oddly talkative vampire. This isn´t a good thing. Xander takes a very deliberate step back. "That... seems to be how it works."
Angel nods slowly, and keeps nodding. Or rather just moving his head in a very strange way, eyes half–lidded and bright with something Xander doesn´t have a name for. After a while, he realizes that he´s being... sniffed.
"So... where´s that wacky gang of yours? Here any minute, right? Wes, Gunn, Cordy ––"
Angel´s face... ripples. That´s the only word for it. Like there´s something right beneath the skin (demon, that´s a DEMON) trying very hard to get out and failing only with effort. "No, I don´t think so."
"No?" It comes out very small.
"Are you still afraid of me, Xander?"
"Well, you know, I´m confident enough in my own masculinity to say you´re being really fucking creepy right now. As opposed to your normal, baseline level of Just Plain Creepy."
Cracked smile. "I think that´s right. I think... I think I *should* be the scariest thing at any given point in time, don´t you?"
"Uh... can I have door number two, behind which is the vacation in the Bahamas and never, ever having this conversation?"
Angel closes the all–too–small space between them, still smiling as though he thinks Xander has any hope in the world that it´s real. "Just say ´yes,´ Xander. It´s easier."
"See, that´s kind of the thing. I like to know what I´m agreeing to at any point of time. Saves me from those embarrassing ––" And that´s a hand over his mouth, broad and cool and unnaturally smooth.
If he was feeling the least bit suicidal, he´d bite it.
Or if he wasn´t absolutely positive that it would send entirely the wrong message.
"Xander, Xander... I´m really glad to see you here today. Did I mention that? Because I am. Glad."
Xander blinks in what he hopes is an encourage–the–psychotic–vampire– to–return–to–his–senses way.
"This hotel... it´s really big, you know? Echoing with everyone whose ever been here. Laughed here. *Fucked* here... or elsewhere." Angel shakes like a dog but doesn´t move his hand. "That doesn´t make any sense, does it?"
Xander shakes his head cautiously.
"I didn´t think so. But just wait. One day you´re going to have a home, and you´ll invite people into it. People you love. People you *trust*. And then you know what´ll happen, Xander?"
Other hand in his hair, pushing it back from his face. When did he start sweating?
"Well, I think you can guess."
Xander swallows hard, breathes in smoke and that vague sense of iron (blood) that lingers around every vampire Xander´s ever met. There´s nothing suspicious here, there´s no reason whatsoever for him not to allow himself to blink, joke, brush Angel´s hand aside and demand to know what the fuck is going *on*.
There´s a tuft of dark (familiar) hair on the floor and Angel, a guy who just happens to have the very real ability to snap him like a twig, is acting like the part of the movie where the serial killer stops being charming and starts being himself.
What with the sniffing, fake smiles, and complete lack of respect for personal space and... *fuck* this.
Xander reaches up, very slowly, and grabs Angel´s wrist.
Tugs his hand away from his face, watching the smile turn into something briefly bemused before settling back into unlovely smirk–land.
"I think you need to tell me *exactly* what´s going on," he says, and he´s proud of how solid it comes out. They can carve it on his tombstone: Didn´t act half as shit–scared as he usually was.
"*I* think... you don´t really want to know ––"
"*Fuck* you, Angel, and fuck your creepy asshole headgames. You don´t ––"
And it´s one of those moments when Xander is absolutely positive that the reason people aren´t allowed to time–travel is because they´d spend way more time saving their own asses than doing anything useful for the world because that flat, low, ripping sound is nothing but a snarl and those are *teeth* in his throat.
And his brain is no help at all for this, because all he can think of is stupid, useless trivia:
He´s never been bitten before.
He never thought it would be Angel, not really.
This is the kind of pain he never wanted to know, but he does now, and he always will, he knows, he knows, he...
... is heading for the floor.
He knows there´s something he should do about that, that the floor is going to hurt, that there´s no carpeting, that it´s taking a really long time, that he´s... stopped.
Caught.
Bleeding and caught and being stared down at by...
"Angel?" His voice is harder to hear than it should be.
"Just me, Xander..." And Angel licks his lips.
It occurs to Xander that no one, not even a vampire, should look that hungry *after* a meal. It occurs to Xander that maybe, just maybe, he could´ve made a phonecall back to Sunnydale *after* not getting an answer at the Hyperion. Or, you know, hightailed it the fuck out of L.A. and his neck feels so *wet*.
"Your blood is... very sweet. Did you know that?" And Angel hefts him close to upright again, staring at him wildly for long seconds before his eyes settle back into something solid and not at all reassuring. "You probably didn´t. Humans never pay *attention*."
And he wants to protest that, he´s been paying all *sorts* of attention, it was just a matter of not making the right choices with the information he gathered. What comes out of his mouth is only breath, though, tinged only slightly with the hint of speech.
"You´re *still* trying to talk?" Low, amused chuckle that doesn´t reach his eyes. Or does, but only by way of ´violent and dangerous´ land. "I guess I´d have to rip your throat out completely to get you to stop, hunh?"
Xander gurgles in response. The edges of his vision are way too dark, and he can´t tell if it´s shock or blood–loss or the fact that twenty minutes ago he was absolutely positive he wasn´t going to die. Which is probably just another variety of shock.
"Shh..."
He shudders at the feel of Angel´s thumb on his mouth, but flinching just makes his knees go watery.
"Drusilla was so *upset* when she couldn´t drag you home with her. Did I tell you that? Spike was so very, very jealous. Hell, so was I. And incredulous. But you know, I think I see the appeal. You´re just so very... very... soft." And Angel is showing more teeth than have the right to be in *any* smile.
Xander struggles, but there´s nothing moving. He feels like a puppet with half its strings cut, and Angel is *dragging* him somewhere.
"No, really, you have to see this..."
And suddenly they´re in a *bathroom* of all places, and the harsh white light off the tiles makes Xander flinch and squeeze his eyes shut.
"No, no, really, *look*." Angel yanks his head up and Xander feels more than a few hairs go and then he´s staring at himself, wide–eyed and leaking steadily from the throat. Open–mouthed and shocked, paler than he´s been since that one winter where it was actually cold for a month, only... not.
Pale *under* his tan.
Hunched up and alone in the mirror, alone and safe and *alone*, except that he´s not. Except that it´s Angel holding him up in this fucked–up position, Angel whispering in his ear, "it´s your eyes, Xander. Or maybe it´s your mouth. Maybe if you grew a beard you wouldn´t look half so... no. It would still be there. Waiting."
And Xander watches in the mirror as the skin at the side of his throat pushes *in*, seemingly without any outside help, and maybe if he could just focus on the mirror, on the empty mirror...
But Angel´s tongue is rough, cool and dry and so *hungry* on him, licking him clean like a melting popsicle and impossible to ignore. Hand on his head, tilting him away.
Other arm wrapped around his waist, holding him upright. Holding him still.
"... just waiting for someone to open you up and find it..."
And he can feel Angel shift (whose hair oh god whose), feel those bumps and ridges pressed up hard to his skin, feel the hands on him get at once harder and more possessive and he knows...
No. He doesn´t have to know anything, now.
Knowledge isn´t anything...
He can feel every millimeter of the fangs this time, sinking in slow and cold and hot and wrong, feel the press of Angel´s lips when the fangs are all the way in, some awful parody of a kiss, and he can take this, he´s sure he can take this, but then Angel slides his fangs *out*.
Just not all the way.
And then back in, sawing through flesh and muscle and Xander doesn´t know if it´s the knowledge, or the feeling, or just the horrible *control* of it.
And his own face in the mirror is slack and dull, eyes flaring bright with every new rip of pain.
He can die like this.
He probably will.
And there´s nothing he can do but... take it.
The first suck is almost a relief, if only because the sawing comes to an end, but then Angel doesn´t make it fast.
It´s slow, and it´s dirty, and it´s almost soft, the way he´d touch Anya when her nipples were sore but she still wanted sex. The way you touched anyone you knew you could hurt, and hurt easily.
Angel pulls out with a slow, ripping noise Xander didn´t need to hear. "You taste so *good*." Lets him go, making sure he´s braced on the small, porcelain sink.
Xander can´t decide if it´s cold or not, his hands feel just as numbed and stupid as the rest of him.
Or they do until Angel drags his own fingers over them, and up his arms. Slides them under the baggy sleeves of Xander´s shirt and shivering just makes the empty feeling in his neck worse.
Makes him more aware than he really wants to be of the body looming invisibly over his, and not even the empty glare of the mirror can help with that.
"I should´ve done this years ago..."
"Stop..." Nothing but a hoarse and utterly unconvincing whisper.
"No."
And he watches the fabric of his shirt smooth itself down in the mirror, tries not to feel those big hands on his chest, tries not to think, and jerks nearly hard enough to fall when Angel rips the buttons open.
His t–shirt is slicked to his body with cold, clammy sweat he wasn´t aware of until now, until *just* now with Angel´s hands pressing it even tighter to his body.
Xander tries to curl his fists tighter around the sink, tries to feel anything but ––
"I want you to make a *lot* of noise." Blunt, human–enough teeth on the back of his neck. "Do that for me, Xander?"
