InsaneJournal

F-Faith?

A faint presence nudged at her from the corner of her mind and the wounded Slayer woke from her sleep with a start. Sitting upright in the hospital bed, she was aware of Giles in the chair next to her looking up from the book he’d been reading. After a moment she calmed and closed her eyes, reaching back towards that presence touching her mind.

Xander?

His presence pulsed faintly against hers and she felt the harsh swoop of shame before he closed himself off from her. Tara, he managed to choke out. Tell Tara…wards. She’ll know.

Xander, what do you mean? XANDER! She screamed wordlessly aloud and flailed after him as his presence faded, as suddenly there and gone like a light switch cut off.

Giles touched her arm then, drawing her gaze towards him, and asked, “Xander?” After all, she’d told him that they could reach each other for short periods of time.

“Tara,” she said shortly to the Watcher. “He said Tara knew.”

“I’ll call her. You stay there, Faith, you hear me?”

She nodded and watched him as he went over to the phone in the room, dialing out carefully. As he talked, she deliberately eavesdropped and waved him on as he turned towards her after hanging it up.

“Go,” said Faith. “I swear I’ll stay here – he’d scream at me if I didn’t and I don’t want to send Dawn into a panic if she wakes up to find me gone.” Smiling towards the teenager asleep on a couch someone had dragged in, she added softly, “Just bring him back.”

“We will,” promise Giles. He gripped one of her hands tightly for a moment then grabbed his coat and was gone. Faith sighed into the nearly empty room then and leaned back into the bed to wait.

“What have you done, Fangs?” she murmured. “What are you so ashamed that you’ve done?”

---

You let me out.

“And I just put you back in,” hissed Xander aloud, his voice broken and hoarse. “Now damn well stay there, you sick sonovabitch.”

The Rogue chuckled darkly at that and purred, I couldn’t talk at all if you didn’t let me. Admit it…you like the freedom I give.

“Your freedom comes with too high a price.”

Only because you’re a sentimental sap! A little bloodshed and slaughter every once in a while is good for the soul. I’d have thought you’d learned that in our earlier outings.

Xander tried to sneer but didn’t quite manage it. Instead he grunted and rolled over onto his back in the grime of the room hidden deep in the sewer tunnels and covered with enough wards that the First would’ve had a hard time getting out.

“Fuck off.”

I’d be a pleasure. But first I need our pretty little piece of work…

“YOU LEAVE FAITH ALONE, YOU BASTARD!”

Temper, temper! Admonished the Rogue. She’s our pretty little Faithie, stupid. After all…we’re one and the same no matter how much you deny it.

“I am nothing like you,” hissed the vampire between bared fangs.

Not now. Give it time. Heheh…you enjoyed me ripping that little shit apart as much as I did. Though I do admit I could’ve gotten another two hours playtime out of him if you hadn’t insisted on finally killing him. A real pity, y’know?

“Shut. Up.”

You’re a pansy. A horrible fucking excuse for a vampire.

“He tried to kill her. Of course I’d enjoy tearing him apart.”

The Rogue laughed at that.

Then why didn’t you kill him yourself?

No answer came and it laughed even harder. See! It crowed wildly. See how much you really want to use me, pansy? Gotta make me do your damn dirty work – not that I didn’t enjoy it. But next time you have to bring more than one party favor to the big bash.

“SHUT. UP.”

Make me, hissed the Rogue with a sneer. Xander snarled and flailed upright, stagnant water and blood flying into the air, slamming mental walls down and doors shut. The Rogue laughed madly the entire time and he kept piling everything between him and it until he couldn’t hear the cackling anymore.

When he couldn’t hear it, he curled up with his forehead resting against his knees and grabbed fistfuls of his hair in either hand, eyes shut tight in a vain attempt to keep the tears out. He started shuddering and shaking a moment later and gasped, “I’m not like you. I’m not, I’m not…”

Yes, hissed the voice faintly, somehow snaking past everything he’d thrown between himself and it. You are.

The vampire was on his feet with a roar at that. He punched furiously at one of the stone walls and bellowed, “I WILL NOT BE A MONSTER!”

Someday.

“NEVER!”

“Xander?” came an exclamation suddenly from the other side of the locked door. He jerked in shock for a moment then a low whine exited his throat.

“Giles…”

His hearing caught the sharp intake of breaths on the other side of the door and then, “Are they down? GET THEM BLOODY DOWN NOW!”

Xander swayed suddenly and fell to his knees as Giles shoved the door open, Willow and Tara right behind him. The Watcher collapsed next to him in the blood and water, grasping him around the shoulders with one arm and holding him up as he almost collapsed. “I’ve got you, son,” he hissed and the vampire sagged against him gratefully.

At a sob from the door, he looked up and saw Tara hugging Willow tightly as his best friend sobbed into her girlfriend’s chest. Then he looked at Giles, saw the worry and the fear in his eyes, and closed his own.

This is what I have to remember, he railed mentally. This is what I live for, what I fight for, what I don’t just drown myself under that monster for. My family…

“Faith?” he gasped, sure she’d have come as well.

“She’s fine,” answered Giles. Carefully the older man levered them both upright, tugging one of Xander’s arms across his shoulders and holding him steady on his feet. “I’m not so sure about you though.”

“I’ll be okay.”

But he knew that all of them knew better than that. And anyone could smell the blood that practically choked the air in this room.

The blood and that crumpled mass of flesh flung haphazardly into a dark, far corner was all that remained of Warren Mears. All that was left of the man that had tried to kill Faith.

If he wasn’t dead and knew a resurrection spell was madness, Giles would have bring him back and kill him a second time.

Xander sagged against him and he frowned at his surrogate son, giving him a little shake. Eyes stained dark purple shifted towards him and the Watcher hissed, “You’re not ‘okay’.”

“No,” replied the vampire wearily. “I…I was stupid. When I couldn’t kill him, I…damnit, Giles, I let that thing out and I let it have him. And I watched! I watched from the back of my mind and I took joy out of what it was doing to him, took joy from watching him in pain.” He dropped his head, unable to look at his surrogate father now, and asked, “What sort of person does that make me?”

There was silence for a moment then Giles said softly, “It was a horrible thing, yes. But…even the best of us fall to that sometimes.”

“Would you have done it? Would you have killed him if I hadn’t?”

“Yes.”

Xander nodded then laughed hoarsely. “Glad someone can understand. Faith’s gonna kill me…all that work I did to keep it back and I just go and let it out on a whim. Just because I couldn’t kill the bastard that tried to kill her. God, I am a pansy.”

Giles frowned as he started them moving forward towards the door, softly saying, “No. No, I think you’re just as human as the rest of us, son.”

There was only a grunt in reply then they came to a halt, Xander turning to look at Willow. She stared at him from within the circle of Tara’s arms in the doorway, taking in his weariness, the remorse that stained his eyes in emotion and color, and the blood smeared across his clothes and skin. Then she darted forward and pressed herself against his side, sobbing like a child. He wrapped an arm around her, leaning his head against her, and murmured, “S’okay, Wills.”

“You’re an ass,” she sobbed into his shirt.

“Yeah,” said Xander as he closed his eyes, “I know.”

“Don’t you ever do that again. You hear me, Xander?” They looked at each other then and she continued, “Or I’ll…I’ll do something really nasty to you. And see? Resolve face.”

“Resolve face,” he murmured, nodding. “I gotcha.”

“Good,” said Willow. She buried her face in the crook of his shoulder and hissed, “Bastard.”

Xander smiled and hugged her tightly before saying, “Let’s go home.”

“Th-the body?” queried Tara as Giles and Xander shuffled through the doorway after Willow moved away. The vampire stiffened then turned to look over his shoulder, the remorse in his eyes flickering to hate for one brief instant.

“Let it rot,” he hissed. “The bastard doesn’t deserve a burial.”

Then they were moving again, the two witches closing the door on the corpse of Warren before they followed, hand in hand. As they stepped out into sunlight, Xander groaned and murmured, “I almost wish it could burn me away.”

“No, you don’t,” said Giles as he opened the door of his car and eased the vampire down into the seat.

A dark chuckle answered him and he frowned worriedly at his surrogate son as he said, “You’re right, I don’t. But it’d be a way to make the pain go away.” The man clasped the vampire’s shoulder tightly for a moment then moved around the car, turning the key as he heard the girls get into the back. He glanced towards Xander in the seat next to him then shifted it into drive with a world-weary sigh.

And he wished desperately that there were someway to reverse what had happened to the young man he’d come to consider a son.