InsaneJournal

“Run, run, as fast as you can!” sang Xander’s voice but not Xander as Faith dove behind a battered pillar. “I can smell you, stupid. Hiding is useless.”

“Then why tell me to run?” she shouted at him. But she knew the answer. After spending a year with him, she knew the answer to that very well.

His voice was suddenly right next to her ear, that of her friend’s but with a sickly sweet ring to it that told of the insanity within. “Because the hunt is so much more fun when you run,” he purred.

Faith twisted away, rolling to her feet, and lashed out with the big broadsword the moment she had the room. It slashed a line across his chest and he fell back with a scream of pain, one hand clasping the wound. He looked down at it then at her, blood red eyes narrowing as he recognized the blade in her hands – the same blade she had wielded every time they had done this in the past two months.

The blade of the alternate Xander who had gone dressed as Dante Wolfe.

The blade that could harm the sort of vampire’s of Darien O’Connell’s get.

“Bitch,” he spat then blurred and she got ready. Her eyes darted back and forth around the room, every muscle tense as she waited for him to strike.

The blow came from the side and his foot just missed her head as she dodged him. She swung again and heard him scream angrily in pain once more as she caught flesh a second time.

Faith dove out of the way as he swung at her in blind rage and kicked him to the floor, bringing the flat of the blade around and down onto his back when he tried to get up. He grunted and started to struggle upright then a shiver ran through his body before he lay still.

She stood over him, sword at the ready, for a long moment then heard Xander groan, “Christ, that burns. That really fucking burns.”

Sagging with relief, the Slayer lowered the broadsword and reached down to help him up, wincing as she saw him fingering the slash in his shirt. He smiled then said, “I’m getting better.”

“Yeah, ten minutes is the fastest you’ve managed to beat him back down. He seems pissed though.”

“He can kiss my ass for all he feels pissed about. This is my body.” Wincing, he crossed the room to the broken table where they’d left their supplies and opened the cooler there to pull out a small water bottle with the label ripped off. He tossed another towards Faith - only hers was filled with actual water and his wasn’t – then sank down to sit cross-legged on the dusty floor as he gulped down the blood. “Ow.”

“Idiot,” grumbled Faith after taking a swig from her water. She laid the sword on the table and picked up the first aid kit they’d brought along, sinking down next to him. “Off with the shirt, tough guy.”

“You nailed me a good one,” commented Xander as he obliged, tugging his ripped shirt over his head. He winced as she started cleaning the swipe across his chest and turned his arm so she could see the other spot she’d hit – a small cut along his left forearm.

She smiled as she smeared antiseptic across the wound on his chest, ignoring the twitch of the lean muscles under her hands, and gently wound a bandage around it, taping it down carefully. As she turned to look at the smaller wound, she said, “It’s a good thing we asked for Willow’s help on finding some place to do these. We’d have never thought of coming here.”

“Well we weren’t here at the time,” Xander said with a wince as he regarded the shattered halls of the Initiative around them. He reached for the bottle of blood again as she finished bandaging the other wound and took a slow sip before picking his shirt back up. “Tara sews, right? You think she could save this?”

Faith looked at the gash in the shirt, which was one of the older precious Hawaiian print ones, then said, “Sorry, Fangs, that one’s beyond saving.”

“Damn. Oh well, the reason I wore it today any way was because it’s old. Let’s head topside and call the house.”

“They’ll be glad to know things are coming along okay,” she said with a smile as she tossed the two bottles back into the cooler and slid it towards him. Then she picked up the broadsword and tugged out a cloth, carefully cleaning the blood off of it before she slid it into a sheath and slung it over her shoulder. Xander nodded as he picked up the cooler, making sure he was on the opposite side of where she had the sword slung as they walked out.

Because in her hands or not, it was something that could hurt him seriously if they weren’t careful. He didn’t like being close to it at all and had only kept it because Buffy had brought it back after they had buried Dante-Xander. It was a memento of…well, a guy he could’ve been and who might’ve been a nice guy to know if they’d been from the same universe.

And, y’know, one not been a vampire and the other a slayer that hated his immortal guts.

The moment they reached the outside, Faith’s cell phone rang and she dug it out of somewhere inside her shirt. Just as Xander was about to make a joking comment about how she had a black hole in there, her face went stony and he zeroed in on the conversation going on over the line.

“Where?” he hissed.

Then he spun, sensing something, and bounded away in a blur of movement. Faith pounded after him after yelling something into the phone and found him two blocks away, the cooler at his feet, with a blond in a cheap leather duster against a wall.

“Andrew,” she snarled in a low voice, remembering him. He hadn’t done anything to her like Warren but they’d been a part of the same group and they’d given them all hell that year.

“What the fuck are you doing back here?” snarled Xander, right in a seriously frightened Andrew’s face. But for all the nerd’s shaking, he kept quiet so the vampire smiled and went on to a new tactic. “I killed Warren, you know. Ripped him apart over the course of almost four horrifying hours after he tried to shoot Faith. Don’t think that I won’t do the same to you to, Andrew.” It was enough of the truth, anyway.

“You-you wouldn’t dare,” babbled the nerd.

Xander smiled coldly and jerked him up slightly so their noses almost touched.

“Shall I tell you how he screamed?”

Andrew swallowed hard then spilled everything, including the ghost of Warren haunting him and killing Jonathan. Xander looked at Faith slowly, both realizing that the darkness they’d sensed coming was already upon them.

“Where’s the Seal?” demanded the Slayer.

“U-under the school!”

Xander paled at that, glancing down at his watch, then looking fearfully off into the distance. “Christ,” he muttered. “Okay, you, you’re coming with us. Faith, try and get ahold of Giles – I don’t care what he’s doing for the damn Council, we need him back here three days ago.”

“Gotcha, Fangs,” she said, already dialing the number. As he walked a few feet away, he spun back towards the shivering nerd and hissed, “You got anything else to tell me, Andrew?”

“N-no,” gasped the blond. “I swear!”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not! Please, p-please, I don’t want to end up like Warren!”

“Good,” said Xander stonily. “Cause I don’t want to have to do that to someone again. Now let’s go.”

He let the nerd hit the ground and bent to pick up the cooler before hauling him along behind him…backwards. Andrew yelped and hit the ground, after which Xander picked him up with a roll of his eyes and shoved him forward. “Walk in front, Slick,” he intoned then glanced towards Faith. “Anything?”

“No answer,” she replied and he smelt the worry in her voice. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, worried as well.

Giles was far more to both of them than he was to the others. He’d given Faith a place to stay and looked after her and, hell, Xander wished the man had been his father instead of Tony Harris.

If something had happened to him…

“He’ll be fine,” he said reassuringly. “Giles has been through tougher stuff than those old sticks in the mud can throw at him.”

“I know.”