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Author: Chevy Impaler, a.k.a. Toys Dream The One You're WithXander Harris has been drunk for a very long time, and he's not planning to stop anytime soon. He tips his head back and takes a last gulp of Corona, then sets the empty bottle down on the wooden deck with exaggerated care. It may be the end of the world, but that doesn't justify getting sloppy. He levels a bleary, one-eyed gaze at the night sky. The moon hangs low over the horizon, and above it--roughly the same size, but much further away--is the new planet, a scarred disc of rusty brownish-red. First they'd called it M119, then Nemesis, then Wormwood, but now Xander thinks it's time he gave a name of his own. "Motherfucker," he says, and pauses to emit a frothy belch. "Planet Motherfucker." He leans over to pick up the discarded Corona bottle, weighs it in the palm of his hand, and then lobs it high into the sky in the direction of the blood-red planet. The bottle arcs through the air before plunging down into the forest, vanishing in a tangle of branches. As if in response, a light flares on the cratered surface of Planet Motherfucker. Drunk as he is, Xander knows what the light means. More monsters on their way to earth. Maybe one big one, the size of a skyscraper once it's fully uncoiled; maybe a bunch of little ones, clustered like grapes, no two in the assortment alike. In the couple of months since the planet first appeared in the sky and the rain of monsters began, he's yet to see any repeaters. The world formerly known as M119, then Nemesis, then Wormwood seems to be a place of almost infinite variety. Xander lies back on his makeshift bedding, a pile of pillows and cushions that he's gradually ferried up into his treehouse during his daily scavenging missions. He dimly wonders whether he should empty his bladder before he turns in, but it's too late, he's already asleep. ........... Somebody's shaking him. Xander wakes slowly, and it takes his eye a while to focus. It's still night, he's still safe in his treehouse, high in the branches where the monsters seldom seem to come. The stranger releases Xander's shoulders and steps back, waiting for him to wake all the way up. It's a man in a suit and tie, frowning at him through a pair of glasses. In the pale light of the moon, and the dim red glow of the new planet, Xander can see stubble on the man's cheeks. He idly wonders how he must look now; it's been weeks since he last bothered shaving. The man seems to be waiting for Xander to speak first, so he obliges. "Who the hell are you?" The stranger nods, satisfied that his host has regained consciousness. "Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. I'm here on behalf of Wolfram & Hart." That gets Xander's attention. "Wesley? The Watcher?" He squints, and decides the man does look somewhat familiar. "But I heard you were..." "Dead, yes," Wesley confirms. "But unlike my former co-workers, I was still under contract when it happened. The standard perpetuity clause, you see." Xander pulls himself up into a sitting position, and fumbles for a fresh bottle. He suddenly feels entirely too sober to be talking to ghosts, even nicely dressed ones. "We have a task for you, Mr. Harris." Wesley watches disapprovingly as Xander takes a heavy swig of Corona. "There's somebody we need you to find." This strikes Xander as terribly funny, and he laughs, the beer stinging his nose and throat as it bubbles back up. "Sorry, Wes. Already got plans for the rest of the apocalypse." Wesley sighs. "So did my employers. But it's always the ones you don't see coming, isn't it?" He turns to the open wall of the treehouse that serves as Xander's porch, and two red circles gleam in his glasses as he gazes up into the night sky. "This wasn't part of their game plan," Wesley continues. "And it's really the sort of thing that calls for a specialist. A champion, one might say." Xander drains the bottle, then rises to his feet, swaying slightly as he approaches his visitor. "Too bad," he says, "that there aren't any of those left." Wesley smiles, and given the current context, his smile seems too genuine to be entirely reassuring. "Aha," he smirks, waggling a finger in correction. "There is still one." ........... It only takes Xander a week. At first he's nervous about staking out the gravesite; for the most part, the monsters prefer to hunt at night, but the person he's supposed to find isn't likely to visit during daylight hours. So he spends his nights hiding in the bushes overlooking the grassy clearing, covered only by a camouflage blanket, drinking cold coffee to keep himself awake and trying not to piss his pants every time he hears a noise in the darkness, a muffled roar somewhere in the distance. But soon enough, Xander's patience is rewarded. Just as he's starting to drift away into fitful sleep, he becomes aware of a figure standing in the clearing below. It's a man in a long dark coat, and his slouching posture is a dead giveaway, if you'll pardon the expression. Xander eases himself out from the bushes, and comes down the slope as stealthily as he can manage, but the man already knows he's there. Angel looks up at him, his eyes hidden by shadow beneath their heavy brows. "Xander," he says by way of greeting. "You don't sound too surprised," Xander observes. He stumbles slightly at the bottom of the slope, then walks over to join Angel. "Process of elimination," Angel replies, turning his head to take in the row of markers that takes up the middle of the clearing. "You made these?" Xander nods. "The graves are empty, of course. It just seemed like somebody should... It seemed like there ought to be something." Angel looks down at the marker before him, the one that reads Buffy Anne Summers. "I wish I'd been there." That gets Xander's back up. "But you never were, were you? Not when she needed you." He takes in the row of markers with a grand sweep of his arm. "Wanna see the others? Willow? Giles? There's even one for Dawn, with a little pink bow on the top." Suddenly Angel's in his face, lifting him off the ground, all fangs and glowing eyes. "Just say the word, and I can send you to join them." "You won't kill me." Xander's trying to play it cool, but he knows he's out of practice. "You don't kill people." "You're thinking of somebody else." But Angel lets him go, and Xander slumps to the ground in a heap. "So, was the stakeout your idea?" Xander nods. "Figured you wouldn't pass up a good brooding opportunity. Some things never change." "Everything changes." Angel shoots him an unreadable look, then begins striding off back to the main road. "You coming, or are you waiting for me to bring the car around?" ........... They're driving with the headlights off, because light attracts the monsters. Every now and then they hear something thrashing in the woods along the side of the road, or glimpse something moving through the fields off in the distance, and Angel pulls the car over, stops the engine, waits for the creatures to pass by. "They're not as aggressive as they used to be," Xander says. "Not what you'd call proactive." He takes another gulp of beer, because these days the California Highway Patrol is very much the least of their problems. "I think they're slowing down," Angel muses. "Trying to conserve energy. There aren't that many people left for them to eat." Xander peers out through the side window. The scarred red face of Planet Motherfucker stares back, a flare of light winking at him like a single eye. "They're still coming, though." Angel nods, and they continue up the winding road into the Sierra Nevada mountains. A bottle later, Xander has forgotten what the plan was. "What's the plan again?" "There's no point trying to fight them down here," Angel says. "They'll just keep coming." "Uh-huh," Xander agrees. "That's what Willow said." He remembers Willow, flushed with excitement, explaining her plan. If we can focus the powers of every wicca, every mage, on earth... Then we can send this whole planet away. Banish it into another dimension. And Buffy, tired but resolute, marshaling the troops for one last battle. We'll stop this thing. That's what we do. Except, as it turned out, not this time. The planet still hung there up there in space, bombarding the world with nightmare creatures, caressing it with tidal forces, leering down at the ever-fewer survivors to remind them that there are some things you can't stop with a stake and a sword and a pocketful of magic. Here I am, said M119 or Nemesis or whatever the hell its name was. Come and get me. Play me a little chin music, baby, if your arms are long enough. Angel interrupts his reverie. "We can't get there by rocket, even if we felt like playing astronaut. But there's a place up here in the mountains. A portal, a gateway... Maybe we can use it. If it's still there." Xander is getting drowsy now, his thoughts growing slow and fuzzy. He knows he won't remember the plan when he wakes up, knows he's going to be asking Angel to explain it again in the morning, and right now he doesn't care. But there's one thing he does need to know. "Angel? If you knew about this portal thing all along..." He pauses, then presses on, his voice sluggish with sleep and alcohol. "Why didn't you do anything? Why wait until now?" The car rolls on through the night, and by the time Angel takes his eyes off the dark road ahead, he can tell Xander is fast asleep. So he doesn't answer--not in words, anyway. But he lifts his hand from the wheel, reaches over, places his cold palm on Xander's warm cheek. Angel can feel the heat of the young man's blood, the pulse of his heart. He lets his fingers slide down Xander's neck, tracing the path of the carotid artery down to the collarbone. This warmth, he thinks. It's been so long since he's felt it. It's been so long since he's felt connected. Keeping his eyes on the road, Angel reaches behind him, fumbling through the junk they've piled in the back seat. He finds the blanket, tugs it through the gap between the front seats, and drapes it carefully over Xander's sleeping form. It may be the end of the world, but these little things still matter. ........... The following night, they journey on foot up into the mountains, leaving the car back on the road and carrying as many provisions as they can. It's cold up in the Sierras, and the snow is luminous in the waning moonlight, painting the world in patterns of black and blue-gray. Then the new planet rises, tinting the snow blood-red. Its light grows stronger as the moon dims. By the end, Angel is practically dragging Xander up the slope. It seems like Angel's going to have to sling his companion over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, but instead he sighs and settles down onto a rock. The spot he's picked is fairly level, and while Xander sits shivering in his fur-lined coat, Angel clears a patch of ground and lights a small fire. "Are you sure it's safe?" Xander asks, teeth chattering, as he huddles close to the campfire. "They don't seem to like the cold," Angel says, and he looks up at the red planet speculatively. "It must be pretty warm over there." Gradually, the fire warms them, and Xander wriggles out of his coat. Angel, for his part, removes first his coat and then his shirt, shifting closer and closer to the fire until he's sitting dangerously near. He hums with what almost sounds like pleasure as the fire heats his body. Xander squints through the flames, noticing the symbols that cover Angel's chest and arms. They look like tattoos, ornate and intricate, and they seem to writhe and twist in the firelight. Angel notices him looking. "They're for protection. To hide me from," and he almost smiles, "my former employers. Borrowed the idea from an old friend." Xander finishes the bottle he's been nursing, and sets it carefully down on the thawing ground. "So aren't you worried they'll find you? Since they were the ones who, you know, sent me." "I don't think anyone cares about that now," Angel replies, and he sounds a little sad when he says it. "Excuse me a moment." Xander staggers off into the snow to relieve himself, realizing as soon as he stands that he's already more than a few sheets to the wind. When he comes swaying back to their campsite, he stops for a second, watching Angel warming himself at the flames. The vampire's broad back is a silhouette against the fire. Xander stoops, placing the palms of his hands on Angel's shoulders. He doesn't know why, but he does it. Angel's back is cold; the warmth of the fire hasn't penetrated all the way through his body. But when Angel twists and reaches up to Xander's face, pulls it down towards his own, his hand is warm with borrowed heat. And when his mouth opens, when it gently closes over Xander's own, his lips and tongue are as warm as those of a living man. After a moment, Xander pulls away, and Angel's hand falls away from his face. "I didn't," Xander protests. "I didn't mean to. I just, I think I've had too much to drink." Angel rises from his spot beside the campfire, turns towards Xander, and his face is just a dark outline against the fire's glow. "It doesn't matter," Angel says, and his voice seems both amused and tender. "None of it matters now." "I didn't want to," Xander begins, but then Angel takes a step forward, lowers his mouth to Xander's neck. His arms wrap around Xander, pulling him close, and with his tongue he traces the path of the artery in the young man's neck, feeling the blood pulse quicker at its touch. "I won't bite," Angel murmurs. He brushes his lips down the length of Xander's neck, and the young man gasps as if in pain. "I just want to hold you." "No," Xander says weakly, as Angel works a hand under his shirt, runs it down the front of his chest, brings it up again to lightly circle the nipple. Xander moans again, and as if of their own accord, his hands come up around Angel's waist, slide down to his buttocks, pull him closer. "Why not?" Angel asks. He takes another step away from the fire, moving them both back in an awkward tango. "If it's the end of the world, then why not?" Xander doesn't answer, just tips his head back, eye closed. Angel places his lips to Xander's neck, while his hand moves down to cup the young man's crotch, to slide between his thighs. They sink to the ground, Angel carrying Xander down as his legs buckle. He looks down at the young man's face, sees the tears glinting in his eye, his trembling lips. "Please," Xander says, and fear and shame and need are all mingled together in his expression. "Don't hurt me." But Angel has existed for almost three centuries, and he's seen and done everything there is to see and do, and he only hurts the ones he loves when he means to do so. ........... It's morning when Xander wakes, and for a few seconds he's blinded by the dazzle of sunlight reflecting off the snow. He lies there a minute, wincing at the pain of his hangover headache, and gradually the memories of the previous night come tiptoeing back into his thoughts. He rolls over, suddenly alarmed, and sees a pile of blankets on the far side of the extinguished campfire. As Xander watches, something shifts position beneath the blankets, and he hears Angel's voice, muttering something in his sleep. For a moment Xander imagines himself sitting up, casting aside his blankets, striding across the campfire's ashes to where Angel lies sleeping, tearing away the fabric to expose the vampire to the bright light of the sun. The rays burn through Angel's flesh like drops of acid, dissolving skin and muscle and gut, worrying him down to the bone. He writhes there for an instant, a living dead skeleton like something out of a Ray Harryhausen movie, raising his crumbling fingers to shield himself from the awful brightness. Then there's only dust, picked up by a gust of wind and scattered across the ashes of last night's fire. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But Xander doesn't sit up, and he doesn't cross the campsite. Instead he groans, rolls over, goes back to sleep. ........... The following night, they walk on in silence, trudging steadily up through the mountains until they're almost at the peak. At last they reach their destination, an arched doorway carved into the living rock, which leads them down a spiraling staircase to some kind of ancient temple which Xander finds indistinguishable from every other ancient temple he's ever seen. Xander settles onto the stone floor while Angel explores the temple, foraging through piles of crumbling scrolls and heaps of icons, relics, trinkets. Every now and then the vampire emerges from a dusty alcove brandishing a stone tablet, a glass sphere filled with viscous green fluid, an ornately carved bronze wheel which looks like a spare gear from some enormous clock. Sometimes Angel glowers, disappointed by the progress of his search; sometimes he seems pleasantly surprised, and he adds another object to the pile he's gathering before the weathered altar. The work goes on, and Xander slips in and out of consciousness, losing track of time. The only light comes from the temple's torches, and he can no longer tell whether it's day or night. At length, he becomes anxious. "Hey," he asks, as Angel stands in rapt contemplation of a complex astronomical chart, "are we on any kind of a timetable here?" Angel gives him a look of surprise, as if suddenly reminded of Xander's presence. "No, not really. I think pretty much everyone must be dead by now." Xander's jaw hangs open for a few seconds. "Ev... everyone? All dead?" Angel nods, and returns to his chart. "From what I've been seeing out there, I think we're probably down to the thousands. Maybe only hundreds by now. A blow like that... human civilization's not going to survive it." "Then what's the point?!" Xander rises to his feet, horrified. "Why are we even doing this?" Angel shrugs indifferently. "Why not?" Xander's still working on his response as Angel finishes studying the chart and snaps the scroll shut. "Okay," Angel says, with a satisified smile. "I think we can do this." "Do what exactly?" Xander doesn't like the look he sees in Angel's eyes. "How did this plan go again?" "We're going to go pay the neighbors a visit." Angel turns towards the ancient altar, around which he's arranged the various relics and devices into a rough circle. "Open the gateway, and through we go." He looks back at Xander with a smirk. "On a one-way trip to your Planet Motherfucker." "We?" Xander waves his hands before him in protest as the vampire advances towards him. "Wait up a minute. We're talking outer space here. We're talking about a fucking alien planet." "You couldn't survive there," Angel agrees. "Not as you are now. But I need you with me." His face rearranges itself with a sound like creaking leather, and he stretches out his arms to embrace Xander. Xander must know it's hopeless, because he doesn't try to fight. Instead he stands there, arms at his sides, eye closed. He tells himself to be brave, wills himself not to cry. "Please," Xander says hopelessly. "I don't..." He feels the touch of teeth at his neck, sliding through the skin and into the pulsing vein. As consciousness fades, he wraps his arms around Angel's broad back, pulling the vampire closer, clinging to the only thing that's left as his world comes to an end. ........... Xander sleeps, or so it seems to him, and while he sleeps he dreams. He sees his body curled on the flagstones of the temple floor, tenderly wrapped in a blanket like a sleeping infant. He sees Angel moving about the altar, making the final adjustments to the complex mechanisms which will open a gateway to a faraway planet. And he sees a man in a suit and tie and glasses, gazing down at his corpse with a wistful smile. "Well," says Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. "I suppose we'll see how it goes from here, won't we?" Another figure steps up to join him. It's a woman, elegant and dark-haired, and there's a colorful scarf around her neck that conceals the spot where her head was once cut from her shoulders. "It's time for us to go, Wes," the woman says. "This isn't our concern anymore." Wesley turns to the woman, and he gazes at her for a silent moment. His look is hard to read; perhaps it could be taken for tenderness, or perhaps it's merely resignation. Then he looks down at the floor, where Xander's body lies in the sleep that divides human life from vampiric unlife, and his parting words are a wry whisper. "If you can't be with the one you love..." ........... When Xander wakes, Angel is standing over him, offering him his wrist. "I have some stuff from the bloodbank," Angel says, "but for the first time, fresh is always better." Xander drinks, hesitantly at first, but then with increasing enthusiasm, until at last Angel has to pull his wrist away. Then the older vampire picks up a plastic bag filled with red liquid and tosses it to Xander. "Well?" Xander asks, regarding the blood pack dubiously. "Am I supposed to rip it open with my teeth, or what?" "You want a cup?" Angel seems almost perplexed. "Please," Xander replies. "It may be the end of the world, but it's not the end of table manners." Angel doesn't move for a moment. "Look," he begins, and you can tell this is awkward for him. "I know I didn't give you a choice. But if you really don't want to go through with this..." He slumps, as if anticipating rejection. "I can finish you now. Let you rest in peace." Xander holds out his hand, flexing his fingers impatiently, and Angel goes digging through their bags for a drinking cup. Then he watches anxiously as Xander tears the plastic, pours the thick red fluid into the cup, and drinks it thirstily down, barely even gagging at the cloying texture of the cold blood. Eventually Xander has had his fill, and begins wiping his mouth clean with a shirtsleeve. Angel hovers nervously, waiting for Xander's reply. "So," he asks, "are you in?" Xander rises to his feet, tossing the cup aside, and he gives Angel a broad grin. "Sure," he says. "Why not?" Angel and Xander walk towards the stone altar, hand in hand. As they go, they stoop to pick up the backpacks that Angel has prepared, and each vampire hoists a canvas bundle of swords, spears, axes, weapons of all kinds. Then they step together through the portal, and onto the blood-red surface of the unknown world beyond. [end]
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