InsaneJournal

“I thought you didn’t drink.”

Xander growled weakly in response and glared at the reflection in his glass from where his head laid on the table. Bob sighed and sat down across from him in the booth, eying the sea of beer bottles and glasses that lay scattered between them.

“I,” snarled the vampire after moment, “rather unfortunately, can no longer get drunk.”

“Damn right,” said the immortal man. “I’d die after drinking all of this haul. Bloody hell, man, have things gotten that bad?”

Xander grumbled something incoherent then sat up, scrubbing both hands across his face. He then started ticking off on his fingers and talking at the same time.

“A decade after Sunnydale, I lose Faith,” he snarled, but his voice held no anger in it. “Another decade and Giles dies from a curse no one saw coming. Six years and then I lose Willow because the Council couldn’t tell their ass from their brain.”

Bob spent a moment counting mentally then said, “And now, forty-five years after all that?”

The vampire’s face spasmed and he muttered, “Dawnie. She’s been getting worse these last few years. Her kids forced her into a home and then she ended up in the hospital on life support two months ago. And they…they’re cutting it off tonight.”

“A merciful death,” murmured Bob as Xander bowed his head onto the table. “You can’t blame yourself for this, y’know. It was bloody well bound to happen.”

“She’s the last thing I have of them, Bob,” he breathed, fighting back the tears. “She’s the last remnant of Sunnydale besides me and I’m about to lose her. My family…hell, my kid.” He sat up, slamming his fist against the table hard enough to crack it, and stared at the immortal with blood tears running down his cheeks. “And I’m going to have to pretend to be her fucking grandson to even get in to say goodbye.”

“The kids know?”

“It kinda gets obvious after a while that the guy you’ve called ‘Grandpa’ your whole life doesn’t get any older.”

“Yeah, you gotta point.” Bob reached out and picked up one of the glasses, regarding it for a moment before sitting it back down. “So you came in here and tried to drown your sorrows…”

Xander nodded then snarled, “Which did jack shit. Goddamnit…” He reached into his coat and pulled out a phone, flipping it open hurriedly. “What?!”

His expression softened then and he breathed, “Hi, sweetie. No, no, I’m not angry at you, Hannah. I promise. Yeah, pinky swear and cross my heart even.” He paused for a moment, glancing at Bob, then nodded, saying, “I’m going to be there tonight, don’t you worry. Yeah, we’ll give Grandma our goodbyes together. Promise. ‘Bye.”

As he hung up the phone, Xander closed his eyes and slowly bowed his head back to the table. Bob watched him for a long moment then gently probed, “That was…?”

“Hannah,” came the half-muffled reply. “She’s six. Dawn’s littlest grandkid.”

The vampire sat up then, wiping his face with his sleeve, and sighed. “This year just keeps getting better and better. And Di, Faith’s kid, she’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer.”

“Christ,” hissed Bob. “That’s a bloody streak of bad luck.”

“Follows me like a fucking lost puppy,” grumbled Xander. “If I could, I’d kick it and make it run yelping to go find a new master.”

“If only. But we have to take what life throws at us, as one old sergeant under me used to say, whether it be a knife or cake.”

“Pff. I’d like to stick a knife in life and see how it likes it.”

Bob smiled then looked at his watch, asking, “What time tonight exactly were they going to be…y’know?”

“Six,” replied Xander. “Why?”

“S’quarter to that now. You’d better get a move on, kid.”

“Shit. Er…can you cover the bill for me?”

The immortal nodded and said, “No trouble. Get your ass moving.”

“Thanks, Bob,” breathed Xander. He then started towards the doors of the bar, striding out them and heading in the direction he knew the hospital was. It wasn’t a long walk, so he actually walked it instead of running, savoring the cool air of the outside.

Just as he went to open the door to go into the hospital, he heard the hint of something and turned…exactly in time to just barely snatch a dart from the air.

“The hell?”

He flicked two other darts aside then and glanced around suspiciously, not sensing anything around him. Wait…he couldn’t even sense the people just there in the hospital. Was something blocking him?

No, it couldn’t be.

Xander growled and tossed the dart’s aside, starting to reach into his coat for the gun he’d begun carrying three decades ago – a big .50 Desert Eagle that carried rounds able to kill vampires and just about any demon he came across. Just as his hand closed around the handle, he caught the trickle of something just behind him and spun.

A dart caught him in the back of the neck and the person he’d sensed right as they got behind him buried a dagger up to the hilt in his side. He lashed out, trying to grab them, but his head was already spinning and he felt himself falling.

Poison! He thought desperately. No…what the hell is this?!

Twitching on the ground, he growled as he was moved, hands picking him up from the ground and carrying him into a van. Then they took his gun, his coat, the dagger he’d carried for years since taking it from Giles’ stores – even his wallet with the carefully preserved pictures of his family.

A face, female and brunette, swam into view then and he struggled to make his mind work. It should be working! There should be nothing that could do this to him!

“Very sorry,” she said, not sounding at all apologetic. “But we really need to have a look at you, vampire. I mean…think of all the things we could do with something like you.”

“No!” croaked Xander, the fear at those words allowing him to briefly break through the numbness. He reached for the Rogue as it started to swallow him again, tried to pull forward that vicious creature and wrap it around himself, but it was as trapped as he was. It roared in anger and he eventually found himself panicking, losing all sense of himself until they were both one screaming entity.

“Knock him out,” came an order then from a rough, rock-hard voice.

Xander felt the prick of a needle in his arm through the numbness and flailed behind the wall that kept him from doing anything as he started to sink into blackness. Right before it did, he heard the woman hiss in his ear, “Dawn Summers is dead. You failed her.”