Title: Another Wish
Authors: Martin79 and Lysa-uk
Feedback: Please do, to either or
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: 'The Wish', and other S3 stuff.
Disclaimer: All Buffy characters copyrighted to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy etc. All originals copyrighted to the authors.
Main Characters: Willow and Xander.
Summary: After a fight with a demon, Willow and Xander find themselves in a strange dimension that makes them reassess their lives and their relationship.
Background: This story is set at the beginning of Season Four.
Notes: I'll try and keep this brief. This was a project that was written mostly by Martin79, but I was asked to kind of co-write, although all I really did was add stuff to the more personal aspect of the fic because I really believe in this specific relationship. Any praise at all should go to him, go check out his other stuff here . Also, I just wanted to point out that the strange dimension Willow and Xander find themselves in is the same as the one depicted in 'The Wish', only their vampire selves weren't dispatched in this version. If that makes any sense at all. Huh. Looks like me being brief really can't happen.
"Willow, get ready," ordered Buffy as her small group approached a vast stone Mausoleum at the far end of Sunnydale's Restfield Cemetery. "Giles, take the left and, Xander, go around the back."
"Again! Why am I round the back again?" Xander replied, shivering as the biting winter winds hit him once again. "C'mon, put me back on the front line, Sarge."
"After the last time, Indestructo-guy?" glared Buffy.
"Tiny fracture," Xander replied sheepishly. "Minuscule, actually…"
"Xander, your wrist was in plaster for a week. We're not going after a lost cat here," she added sternly. "This thing…the sprocket set…can really do a lot of damage."
"Sassprokasa" added Giles, correcting her.
"Right…Sasquatch," she said quickly. "It's killed once already that we know of, and I don't want to give it another chance. I mean, you saw that sketch thing. It's over 7ft tall. Horns and spikes everywhere and…and all that ooky stuff coming from it's head, right, Giles?"
"The book went into slightly more detail but that's about it," Giles sniffed, himself suffering from the cold, "now stop squabbling and let's get this over and done with. You would've thought a graveyard in California might be a touch warmer," he muttered to himself.
"Okay, okay. Book wins," Xander grumbled. "I'll go and wait in the mud for the all clear."
"But the back is gonna be the place with the most action," comforted Willow with a smile. "Uh-huh, action central. 'Cos when he runs in terror from us, where do you think he's gonna go? You're pretty central, Xand."
"Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "Yeah, good point. I'll go and get into my Key Guy position," he said walking away with a confident stride and a broad grin.
"Of course, should the demon flee from us, terrible sight that we are, he'll flatten Xander into a big hairy pancake," Buffy said with a shrug.
"Hey, you sent him round the back, don't look at me," frowned Willow. "Anyway, if this spell works there will be no hairy pancake."
"Which can only be a good thing," added Buffy. "Right, everyone into positions!" She said, turning her head slightly as she heard a yell and a dull thud coming from the side of the building.
Xander had tripped over a tree root and landed face down in a puddle of mud, or goo of some kind. You could never be too sure in Sunnydale. As he untangled himself he looked up at the fearsome stone building that was now crumbling and eroded through its years of neglect. It had probably not been visited in decades, let alone its grounds tended to.
Why is it I always end up in a graveyard? Xander thought, even if we were trying to locate a lost dog or…or a lost hamster we would end up back here or in some other burial ground.
This time, however, it was a lost student, Nancy Esposito, who they were on the hunt for. Nancy had disappeared from U.C. Sunnydale two days ago and her trashed dorm room was swimming in a thick green goop. Xander had quipped at the time that they should launch a search for Slimer, the loveable gluttonous spook from the 'Ghostbusters' films, but no one had found it funny. It was him who had first discovered Nancy to be missing when he had been due to take her on a date that night. Instead, he found her dorm room obliterated and oozed with no sign of her, and that's when he called the Scooby gang to arms.
Giles found that the ooze was the calling card of Sassprokasa, a nasty demon that preyed upon young women, kidnapping and torturing its victims until their souls had been reduced to nothing. That's when it struck for the last time, sucking the remains of the soul to feed its own life energy, and devouring all the meat on the body to placate its hunger. The demon had been tracked down to the cemetery - not too hard considering it had left a thin, telltale trail of slime - and now the gang were closing in for the kill - all except Xander, that is.
He had led the posse here. It was his mission and his missing date, so he felt he should be up on the front line instead of standing in the cold and staring at a stone, featureless wall. Whiling the time away, he tried to make out shapes in its cracks but could fine nothing of any note except perhaps a couple of chips that kind of made a portion resemble Nicole Kidman. He was staring so hard that it barely registered when part of it came crashing down and a slab knocked him flying into the mess of weeds and filth that was decomposing behind the Mausoleum.
Sassprokasa accompanied the rubble, flying backward through the hole and landing on Xander's leg. It lay unconscious as he struggled to get free, making only tiny movements, fearing that it could wake up at any time.
Steadily he moved, inch by inch, freeing only a few centimetres of limb at a time. Suddenly the creature grunted and Xander's blood ran ice cold as he felt its warm, exhaled air. Like many other times during the past few years, he wished he had Buffy's slayer strength, or at least enough to easily pull himself free or keep the demon at bay should it wake up.
Speaking of Buffy, where was she? And the others come to that. What if they were already dead and with a last ounce of power Buffy had propelled her foe through the wall ready for him to defeat. Maybe he was Key Guy after all.
Gently and quietly he moved his knee out from behind one of the demon's scaled shoulders, and he briefly froze when it grunted and opened one of its yellow eyes.
Xander let out a yelp and brought his knee up quickly, smashing through a large horn on the left of its head. "Oh, great, Xander," he muttered to himself. "Make it even angrier. Why not poke it in the eye and make fun of its mom next?"
But Sassprokasa wasn't doing anything much. In fact, its once-bright red skin colour had degenerated into a muddy grey hue, still frozen in the same position and giving off a weird stench. The smell was close to that of glue or molten plastic, and made Xander pretty light-headed. He was close to passing out altogether when the sound of familiar voices kept him holding on and Willow appeared from the other side of the broken wall.
"Hey, hey, he's out here!" she shouted back inside. "And he's all…ewww!"
"Why is he all…ewww!?" Buffy appeared beside her. "Is the spell supposed to do that?"
"Think so," Willow replied. "It's supposed to dissolve the demon's fragile bone structure leaving just a big, old melty blob, to collapse into itself."
Xander tried to keep his eyes open, forgetting where he was for the moment and pushing the decomposing demon's body aside. "What's all…arrgh!" he shouted, scrambling away from it as quickly as he could with the pain still shooting up and down his leg.
"It's moving! It's moving!" Willow screamed. "And I think it spawned something."
"It can't be, the spell was very specific," explained Giles. "The demon should be dead by now, and in any case, Sassprokasa find it hard to reproduce."
"Then what's that moving in the trees, Mr Magic?" replied Buffy, treading over the demon's remains to get a better look.
"My God, it's hideous," said Giles, craning his neck to look. "Willow, we must try the spell again, get ready."
"No! No! Human alert! Definitely human!" Xander shouted with all his strength, although to anyone listening to him it sounded a slightly higher pitch than his normal voice.
"It's Xander," Willow said, relieved. "Hey you-you okay?" she asked.
"Little sludgy and I can barely move my leg," he croaked. "What happened?"
"Spell by The Amazing Willow," replied Buffy. "She's getting to be quite the Sabrina."
"Wow, it knocked him through the wall?" Xander asked, straining to sit upright.
"Yeah, huge bolts of power shot from my fingertips and was like 'back demon or thou shalt feel my wrath'," Willow described with a huge grin on her face that seemed infectious as she looked at him and Buffy.
"Very impressive," added Buffy.
"Oh, come on," sniffed Giles. "The demon stumbled backwards and tripped over a statue. Hardly the stuff of legend."
"But I made it sound more exciting, more impressive," Willow said, frowning at Giles as she and Buffy helped Xander into a more comfortable position and moved away from the demon's remains that were already becoming part of the earth.
"Still impressed, though," Xander said, trying to comfort her. "Turning an unpronounceable demon to mulch has to beat pulling a rabbit out of a hat."
"Why did you say that?" Buffy shouted, giving her Watcher a brief whack on the arm.
"Buffy, please remember that you are much stronger than me," said Giles, rubbing his hurt arm. "What you think is a little tap can be quite painful!"
"Oh, I didn't forget," Buffy smiled sweetly.
"So what about Nancy?" asked Xander. "Is she…? I mean, did you find her?"
"No trace, I'm afraid," replied Buffy solemnly. "He probably finished her off hours ago"
Xander didn't reply, he couldn't find the words. Since his relationship with Cordelia finished and his affair with Willow had to end there hadn't been anyone new on the horizon apart from a brief date with Anya. Then along came Nancy, with long brown hair, big eyes and a shared taste for life's absurdities. She never believed all the vampire and demon tales that were bandied around town and would probably be enjoying a good laugh at it all if she knew how her life ended, or indeed if she had survived.
"Right, well," announced Giles breaking through the silence. "If we are finished here, a brief patrol before bedtime won't hurt."
"What about Xander?" asked Willow. "Are you fit to travel?"
"Maybe," he replied, trying to stand up but feeling the pain in his leg kicking in again. "I think I'd better give it another half-hour," he said, resuming his seat on the ground.
"How about carrying him home first?" suggested Giles.
"Great idea," Xander spat back. "Parade the freak through the streets. We could have a ticker-tape parade too and everyone could sing 'Hail the conquering loser!'"
"Tough patient," noted Buffy.
"I could stay and look after him for a little while," Willow suggested. "I don't have anywhere to be and Oz's gig doesn't start until ten."
They all agreed it would be for the best so everyone said their goodbyes for the night as Buffy and Giles left for another graveyard.
"This sucks," grumbled Xander. "Everyone else survives with little scratches, I get a ten ton demon on my limb. I hate having all the powers of Mighty Joe Public!"
"Buffy's really the only one with superpowers," replied Willow, taking a seat beside him. "Me and Giles are normal."
"Hey, you both do magic, anything comes at either of you and you can just poof it away or turn it into something. What can I do, stare at it? Hope it dies laughing?" he continued.
"Is that bin comfortable?" said Willow quietly.
"Bin?"
"Your garbage bin, Oscar the grouch," she replied.
"Hey, I am not Oscar the grouch! You would complain too if you had my injuries!" he yelled at her.
"I have had and worse, but if you don't want me here then fine, wallow in your self pity and sludge!" she yelled back and stood up.
"Don't go, please," he said quickly and apologetically. "I'm sorry, I…arrgh!" he said, straining his leg as he leaned forward.
Willow immediately sat back down and rolled up his trouser leg to examine it. Taking out a tissue from her bag she began to wipe the blood away tenderly. She looked back up at him, surprised that his eyes were fixed on her instead of the leg wound, and she quickly looked away. The intensity of his stare had caught her off-guard, and now her hand was faltering above the gash she had been working on. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm herself, telling herself that she didn't just get a hot flush over the guy she was supposed to be over.
When she finally plucked up the courage to lift her eyes toward him again, he was still looking at her with…something…in his eyes that she couldn't quite read, but that may have had something to do with the fact that her brain had temporarily stopped working.
Her eyes met his, and just for a second, she stopped breathing, and that familiar ache to be in his arms rushed over her again. It was something she thought she'd gotten out of her system when they'd had their little 'incident', but now…here it was, rearing its ugly head at her, taunting her and telling her that he was looking at her with the same thoughts in his head. It told her to just lean forward those few inches, just close the distance between them and then…
"Thank you for staying," Xander uttered slowly.
"My pleasure," she smiled, the tension breaking. "Is there anything more I can do?"
"I don't know, do you still have that nurse uniform?" he grinned.
Willow blushed "Xander, don't…" she said, breaking eye contact with him and ducking her head.
"C'mon," he said playfully. "Little white dress, stockings. I think it would really help me."
"Don't do this," she stuttered. "I can't… What about Oz?…I…"
"I know," Xander replied, his expression suddenly serious again, hanging his head.
"You know what," she said. "I can do a quick healing spell to get you up and home if…if you want?" she offered.
"Yes," he replied. "Yes, that's a good idea. More healing. Get us both out of here."
Willow kept her eyes from meeting his again and kept her gaze firmly on her bag, still stocked with stuff from her previous spell. She laid out a couple of items on the ground and searched around for more. "Oh, shoot! No sage!" she exclaimed. "I-I need to go to the Magic Box. I'll be back soon."
"Can't it be done without sage?" he asked. "Or a sage substitute, like…leaves or…bark something like that? Please stay?" he pleaded.
Willow still avoided eye contact, getting up and starting to walk away "Don't worry, I'll be back in a flash. Don't go running away now," she said with a smile.
"Just a quick couple lengths of the Atlantic and I'll be right with you," he smiled back.
When she hurried off, she glanced back at him, only briefly, but with one of those reassuring grins he remembered so well from their past. Somehow, seeing her bright, hopeful grin and the thought that she would be back with him soon made him cheer up, but a part of him was still angry about the accident.
Xander was sick of being ordinary.
When he joined up with Buffy he felt that his life was about to get more exciting, if a little death defying. He was one of them, but slowly they all seemed to reveal themselves to be different. Willow trained with Giles and was on her way to becoming a full witch, Oz was a werewolf and even Angel was revealed to be a vampire. Now he was inched out altogether. Everyone was something and he was still nothing. Maybe they should've had a power-sharing thing. Obviously, the deity responsible for granting such things thought otherwise, deciding to keep him mortal. Anything would've done: invisibility, elasticity, human fireball, human ice-block…anything.
Buffy and Willow had both turned him down in the past and both have taken supernatural lovers, Oz the werewolf and Angel, a vampire. Perhaps that was what he should be; a vampire, strong, powerful and immortal.
As he thought about it more and more it became a stronger desire, a wish. The slime covering various parts of his body started bubbling and heating up. It multiplied, thinned out and spread throughout his body. Xander started to panic, but he couldn't move his body as it spread up to his neck. He tried to move his hands to cover his face but it was too late, the slime washed over him and began glowing green.
The next few moments he was in a limbo, drowning in something, unable to open his eyes, cry out, feel or smell anything. Inside he was terrified.
"Wsssshhhh…aaaagh" he screamed as he woke up with a start, like a gentle jolt from a bad nightmare. Covered in sweat he looked around him at a dark Sunnydale and wondered how he made it from the cemetery to the centre of town. Perhaps the ooze was like a teleporter and he could get back to it just by saying 'Beam me up, Slimey', but then he started to feel his leg again. It was moving and he couldn't feel any pain or indeed anything at all.
The sludge was trickling from his body and just lay in a puddle next to his feet. Dusting himself down he noticed he was wearing different trousers, more leathery and a black jacket, too, over a white vest, but strangely enough he couldn't feel the cold at all. The people in the streets were all wearing large overcoats and scarves, scurrying away, obviously frightened of something. A small girl with brown hair, perhaps fifteen, sixteen years old, shot past him followed by another girl with short red hair who was also dressed head to toe in leather gear.
Willow…it looked like Willow.
Running to catch up with her he tripped over a broken piece of sidewalk and slammed into the wall. "Dammit!" he shouted, thumping his fist in to the wall. His hand embedded itself into the brick, his fist still clenched in the mortar of the building and he looked on in amazement at how deep it went in and how painless he now felt.
In fact, he noticed he was feeling more ruthless, even hungry and his face began to contort into a different shape. He touched it, running his hand all over his head, feeling all the bumps and bruises he now had, even though the rest of his body remained the same.
The shape his face had become reminded him of an image, an image he had seen many times before, and frantically he examined inside his mouth, cutting his finger in the process on something sharp. Taking out his finger and staring at the blood trickling over his skin, he came to one conclusion: either Mr. Matheson, his dentist, had been secretly filing his teeth into a point while he was in the chair…or he had now become a vampire!