A/N: Well, this was unexpected! As most of you know if you've read the conclusion to Winter Song, I was being viciously attacked by writer's block the likes of which were of the incredibly painful kind. When I finally set myself down to finish Angel and Xander and rest of the gang's story, I realized that the reason I was struggling so hard was that the story I was trying to add on to was already finished, and that what I was writing was the beginning of a new story.
Funny how these little realizations can cause so much irritation and frustration, isn't it?
Therefore, I went trolling through my music files and just listened to what would inspire me in this stage of the story and Stevie Nicks' acoustic ballad "Crystal" from the soundtrack to Practical Magic kicked in. This was just enough of a love ballad that detailed everything that the two had been through with just enough of that small-town acoustic theme from the movie running through it that it was everything that I was looking for. One week after realizing that I needed to start a new story and bam! I suddenly had a prologue, a first chapter, a title song, and the beginnings of a new playlist.
Oh, the triumph of overcoming writer's block!!!!
Important Note: I'm trying my hand out on professional authorship! Hah; what I mean is that I'm currently – aside from taking another composition class in which the professor sucks and I'm having to teach myself everything thanks to her ineptitude (grr!) – working on multiple pieces of both original fiction and fanfiction. I'm tired of leaving all of my readers hanging for so long, so you guys actually aren't going to see this until I'm at least five chapters ahead of myself. Meaning, when I finish typing up chapter four, I'm going to post this prologue. Then I plan to post once a week, barring further cases of writer's block.
I waited until Tuesday this week because I wanted to start this on December the first, because Christmas is my favorite time of year. I'll start posting on Mondays after this. Well, that should be everything, so:
Off we go to the introduction!
Buffy/Angel [Winter Song Universe]:
Crystal, a Sequel to Winter Song
by PyroPadawan (Pfenix-Goddess)
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series; this story takes place in the same alternate human universe established in "Winter Song," wherein Sunnydale, California is a tiny little town where everybody knows everybody else, a town that's mentality has slowly begun to change in a more positive light over the past couple of years.
Disclaimer: Does anyone even read these things anymore? Anyway, the concept and characters of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel the Series" – two of the greatest television shows to grace the small screen, thank you very much – were created by the mastermind of Joss Whedon, although the character of Faith was created by David Greenwalt, if I'm not mistaken. In any case, although this is an alternate universe where I've changed everything out of the supernatural, the initial concept and characters still belong to Mr. Whedon and Mutant Enemy and Fox and whoever else has rights. These are their characters I'm playing with, because if they were my characters Xander and Angel would have been together for the course of the entire series. Sigh. ;)
Rating: M (for sex – both straight and gay – and language)
Warnings: Human AU, Angel/Xander slash, Buffy/Riley, Willow/Tara slash, Spike/Faith, religious themes
Plot: Two years after the events of "Winter Song," Angel and Xander honor their promise to find each other, and their homecoming brings together a full circle in the small, transformed town of Sunnydale.
Notes: This picks up about two years after "Winter Song" ended. The tile is taken from Stevie Nicks' song "Crystal." The same deal with "Winter Song" will work with "Crystal," in that we are again dealing with essentially a large songfic and a footnote will be added with the complete soundtrack to wrap it up, although there won't be a bonus one-shot at the end unless I'm feeling writing a different couple-centric story.
Ensemble:
Xander Harris: The main protagonist. Xander has finally come to terms with himself and left Sunnydale and his parents behind to carve out a new life for himself in Phoenix, Arizona. He's beginning to grow up and is slowly starting to realize that to finish moving on with his life, he has to confront his past.
Angelus "Angel" McCarthy: The man who is in love with Xander and the love of Xander's life. Angel has been seeing a therapist for the past few years and is finally beginning to move past all of the darkness in his life. Now that he has a stable career doing what he loves, he's ready to find Xander, the only thing that's missing in his life.
Buffy Summers-Finn and Riley Finn: Buffy is one of Xander's best friends from Sunnydale, and Riley is Buffy's husband from Iowa. He's since moved to Sunnydale and is a sergeant on the Sunnydale police force. Buffy is the daughter of Joyce Summers, who has become something of the 'mother bear' of Sunnydale, who helps with everything from the food pantry to the local adoption center.
Willow Rosenberg and Tara McClay: Willow is Xander's best and oldest friend in Sunnydale, and Tara was in Xander's church group. The two have now moved in together and own "The Magic Box," the first pagan store in Sunnydale's environs. The two have been together for three years now.
William "Spike" Jerman and Faith Lehane: Spike is one of Xander's old friends who shared a dark relationship with Angel. Since then, they've both moved on and Spike is in a much more stable relationship with Faith, a tough South Boston girl who shares many elements of Spike's past.
Cordelia Chase: Once Xander, Willow and Buffy's enemy, Cordelia allowed herself to drop her guard and become friends with the three, renouncing her shallow compatriots. Since her family lost all of their money, Cordelia has been forced to take care of herself and, in finding sanity in self-reliance, has grown into a strong and capable young woman.
Tony and Jessica Harris: Jessica and Rev. Tony Harris are Xander's parents, and they were the founders of Sunnydale Baptist Church, reviving Sunnydale to an extremely strict and intolerant evangelical southern baptist brand of Christianity. Since Xander's leaving, the Church has been closed, and Tony has fallen back to his old demon of alcoholism while Jessica struggles to pick up the pieces.
Drusilla Campbell: Once the lover of both Angel and Spike, with more problems than any of them, and miles to go before she can finally rest.
One small town, fourteen lives, and the love big enough to hold them all together...
Crystal
Prologue: I Won't
So, maybe you're not right for me
Or maybe it's just hard to see
'Cause I get lost in your beauty
And I just stop questioning
.
'Cause when you took my heart
You took it all
And when you gave it back
It fell apart
So
.
I won't do what you told me
I won't do what you said, no
I'm not gonna stop feeling
I'm not gonna forget
I don't wanna start over
I don't wanna pretend that
You are not my lover
That you're only my friend
I won't
"I Won't" by Colbie Caillat (Breakthrough)
Two years after the snow fell in Sunnydale, Angel began his search for Xander.
Of all the things that he hadn't faced when he'd turned to Spike and Drusilla for forgetfulness, for sex, for drugs and crimes, his therapist, a kind and gentle yet very firm woman named Jenny Calendar, insisted that he had faced all of the things but his relationship with Xander.
"Angel," she said calmly, taking her reading glasses off and regarding him with her no-nonsense stare, "when you first came to me you were a mess, but you were a hopeful mess. You knew you were in trouble and you came here because you wanted to get out of trouble. That's a big step. We've talked about your dark times with your friends William and Drusilla, we've talked about Darla, we've talked about Connor." She paused, as if waiting for him to wince, but he didn't. It was still painful to think about these things, but they didn't completely consume him any longer. Instead he waited. Angel had gotten much better at waiting, these past years. Where before he had just took and took until there was nothing left to take, too mired in his selfish desires to wonder if his pain was affecting anyone else around him, now he understood that it was alright to wait for something.
"But the one subject you almost always steer away from is Xander Harris," she continued. "All I know about Xander are the happy things, how you felt when you were with him, how he helped you. But about anything else, you clam up. And, in therapy, clamming up is about as helpful as drinking Tabasco to cool off." He sighed and looked away from her large, truthful doe brown eyes. Dr. Calendar was a beautiful woman, petite and soft with lovely brown gypsy skin and soft raven hair that she kept short and styled. But it was her eyes that really got you; she had a knack for putting people at ease when she spoke, of getting the most guarded to drop their guard.
"I know," Angel said unwillingly after a moment of silence.
"You say 'I know,'" she said exasperatedly, "and yet you're still all with the brooding silence. We've talked about how helpful brooding has been for you in the past."
"Unhelpful," Angel elucidated, staring at the ground. Somehow whenever he was in here Angel felt like he was fourteen years old again, back at St. Mary's Catholic School with Sister Margaret glaring at him balefully from her front desk.
"So, then, let's stop the brooding and start the...okay, that sentence is way too hokey for me to even finish it with a straight face," Dr. Calendar sighed. Angel snorted, and when he looked up her eyes were crinkling in that friendly way that they had when he'd told her about the first time he'd made love to Darla. He smiled and stared out of the window at the gentle, teasing California sun that reminded him of Xander's smile. There were parts of this story that were painful, parts that he didn't want to talk about, but at the core of it was Xander, something Angel could carry in his heart like one of Willow's enchantments.
"The first night I saw Xander was the strangest thing that had ever happened to me. I'd never believed in that love at first sight crap. I was...with Drusilla. That morning she'd had one of her fits and before I knew it she and Spike and I were in bed. Spike was breaking faster than I was, at that point. After it was over he just flew out of the apartment and he called me later that night to say that he was starting his job as the DJ over at the Bronze, and that he was meeting some old friends there and they'd invited me along.
"Dru and I left, even though she was trying to get me to...to stay in with her, that night." Angel paused, willing his fists to unclench. Jenny said nothing, nor did she write anything down. It wasn't necessary; she was letting the story unwind from Angel the way that it needed to be. "I walked in and the lights flashed over the crowd, and I remember thinking that it was so...so inexplicable that they'd hit him just at that right moment, but they did, and he was staring at me, and our eyes met and then there was just something there, something big and undefinable and more powerful than anything in my life, not my father or sister or mother or even Darla.
"I didn't like the feeling. It was like I had this responsibility to him, this need to introduce myself and hear him speak. So when Spike came over with all of the rest of the gang and Buffy introduced herself, I let myself be interested in her. Buffy's very beautiful, you know, and she was...what's the word – vivacious, that was it. Xander left pretty quickly and I let myself forget him by talking to Buffy, and before the night was over I had her phone number. I used to be good at playing that game.
"So I started dating Buffy. It was stupid, really; she was more into it than I was, and I was still with Spike and Dru, and feeling more and more sorry for myself." Angel's voice hardened in self-disgust. "But almost every time I met up with Buffy he was there. And I'd find myself waiting to ask her out until I knew that she was hanging out with her friends. And I thought that he didn't like me at first, the way he avoided me – we couldn't even say two words to each other, really; and I'd end up being even more angry at myself for trying to see him.
"I tried to care about Buffy that way! But I couldn't really care about anyone when I was trying to lose myself all the time, trying to take care of Dru, trying to stop Spike from leaving us. And then, one night, I'd had another fight with Spike and Dru and walked out, so I was alone, starting to drink, and there was a knock on the door. I don't know how to even describe what I felt when I opened the door and he was there, the moon behind him like a crown around his head, like he was bathed in this, this light that I shouldn't even try to touch because I could kill it, the darkness around me could infect it. But the look on his face when he saw how depressed I was, it was like I wanted to be better for him, to guard that light and make him smile. I'd never seen Xander smile before.
"He's beautiful. You wouldn't think that he is, but he is. He's got this big goofy grin that'll make you feel better, and these big brown puppy dog eyes, and golden skin and curves everywhere they're supposed to be, and lips..." Angel trailed off, embarrassed, but Jenny gave him an encouraging smile. "He was so embarrassed, I suppose, walking and seeing me there with my shirt off, drinking, he just started babbling, and you never really hear babble until Xander or Willow sets off. And I just couldn't help myself, I had to touch that light so I just put my hand on those lips and it was like there was this burst or a shock and it was the greatest feeling I'd ever felt.
"I...made him sit next to me, because I wanted to feel that again. We started talking and it was like this big bubble had grown up all around us and I was telling him everything about myself, things I hadn't even talked about with Spike and Dru, and he was holding my hand, helping me through it. And I told him about Darla, about Connor, and for the first time I had someone tell me that I wasn't fucked up, that he thought I was a good person, this boy who didn't even know me, and that was more golden than anything else; I hang onto him telling me that more than anything else.
"I kissed him, and...I can't even describe it, what it was like, what I was feeling. After, I felt so wretched – it was his first kiss, and I'd used that to make myself feel better, and I was still dating Buffy, and he was so conflicted about everything that had happened, that I let him leave, even though it killed me. That next night, I wanted to forget him, forget this thing that was so big and unstoppable between us that I used Buffy to do it. I took her virginity from her just to try to get away from myself, and Xander was so hurt by it, and so was she, because she wasn't ready, and I felt like pond scum.
"And I couldn't stop talking about him, and Dru was getting furious and taking it out on everyone and Spike kept trying to get me to leave him alone, and that was when things at home were finally breaking, things that should've broken a long time ago. I was confused and angry, and the next time I saw Xander I hurt him and he ran away from me and..." Angel's voice broke. It was still bad, thinking about that night, about the look in Xander's eyes and the bruise he'd left on his boy's face.
"Go on," Jenny said, after he was silent for a moment. Her eyes didn't judge him, and he valued that more than anything. Angel nodded and fixed his gaze on the beautiful day outside before he continued.
"Me and Buffy had an argument, and she told me we were on a break, whatever the hell that meant, and every night I'd just take Dru or Spike or both and try to tell myself that it was all as comforting as it'd been a few years ago, but I couldn't ignore how much we were fighting or how deep Drusilla was trying to dig her claws into both of us, and I knew that Spike was unhappy and it was killing me because I do love Spike, just not like...anyway, I started drinking again, I'd lose some days, I'd keep some others. I was working nights at a grocery store to make ends meet, and I was miserable, and then, one night, Xander was at my door.
"He made me look at myself and see how I was just letting myself fall apart, and he made me ashamed. He dumped out the beer and made me take a shower, and then I was kissing him again because that was all I'd been thinking about, and he kissed me back and for a moment it was just bliss. I tried to push him away again but he wouldn't let me. He...he told me he loved me," Angel said in wonder. "And it was pure, and good, and unselfish, and everything that I wasn't but everything that I wanted to be. So we said we'd see each other, and...
"And, then, Dru came home and she just...she just went crazy, and I was sleeping with her again, and then Spike was home and he came to bed too, and it was just so wrong, so bad, and Spike and I lost...well, you know, and Dru just exploded. That was when Spike said that he was leaving, and that he was leaving us. It was like getting a hole punched through you, and of course Dru wasn't making things any better, and then Xander walked in.
"Me and Spike fought, of course, and then I did the wrong thing again and I hurt him again. He left with Spike and I felt like he was rejecting me for Spike, or something, and I just went on a bender, and I ended up back at the apartment that night fucked up on god knows what and there's Dru, waiting for me, fighting me all the way to the bedroom, and it was hard and dirty and just the way she liked it and it was like I was punishing myself with sex, like every thrust into her hurt as much as I needed it to.
"Spike had brought Xander back, and they walked in, and Xander said my name and the hurt, the pain in his voice and in his eyes when he saw me there...I've never hated myself more than in that exact moment. I tried to follow him but he left, and Dru left, and Spike left, and I was alone, and angry and bitter and scared. That night was when I finally let myself realize that I'd fallen in love with Xander, somehow, someway somewhere. And I knew that Spike and Dru and I were over, that we had been for months but that none of us had been able to let go till now.
"So I cleaned myself up and I went to Xander's to apologize a few days later. He let me in, too, which was more than I deserved. He just...held me, and he forgave me, and he let me talk about everything that I needed to say, everything that I wanted to say. We went to his bedroom and for the first time I was in someone's bedroom, in their bed, and they didn't expect me to perform like a dog. He just held me, and let me hold him, and all of our clothes were on, and I was closer to him in that moment than I'd been to anyone, ever, my whole life.
"And he told me that he loved me, too, and that he was going to give me time to heal myself, because he wouldn't be my crutch the way that I'd used Spike and Dru as a crutch. And I told him that I'd show him we could be together, and he promised that he'd wait for me."
"And that was when you started coming to me," Jenny interjected, and Angel jumped; sometimes, Jenny was so quiet it was hard to remember that she was there. Jenny laughed at him gently, and she looked away as he discreetly wiped his eyes.
"Yeah, that was when I came to you, and when I went to AA, and when I applied for a semester at UC Sunnydale," Angel acknowledged.
"And, of course, when you started fighting with Drusilla," Jenny pointed out. Angel nodded. They didn't keep talking about it, though; she'd helped him through that ordeal. The night he'd finally been forced to call the police to get Drusilla away from him, it'd been Jenny who he'd called first, and then Spike. Spike had been golden that night, helping him clean, picking up the pieces.
"You're really gonna do all of this for Xander?" Spike asked skeptically, after they'd finished cleaning the mess. Angel regarded him seriously.
"Not just for Xander, Spike. He made me see that I need to do this for myself, too." Spike nodded wisely, and he fixed Angel with a serious look.
"I needed to do it for myself, too, mate," Spike said. He clutched Angel's shoulder and Angel grinned at him weakly. "You've made some good steps. But there's something I need you to understand: I'm not your competition for Xander because he's like my little brother. You hurt him, and I'll kill you, and if you get away from me you're gonna be running from Buffy, Willow, Tara, and Cordelia, and god knows you don't want them on your arse!" They both shared a chuckle at that.
"I'd never hurt him, Spike," Angel vowed. "I love him."
"Good," Spike said. "He deserves that. And call me a pouf, but you do too." Angel leaned in and kissed him, one last time, and there was a moment when it was like their first kiss, before William had become Spike, and Spike kissed him back gently, before they both broke apart. It was a healing kiss, it was a goodbye.
"So do you, Spike," Angel said softly.
"Don't you worry about me, old man," Spike said, punching him lightly on the arm. "Just...call me, next time, please, when Dru goes off the deep end."
"I will. And, Spike? Thank you," Angel said. "For...everything."
"You're my friend, Angel. Not more than that, but not less," Spike explained. They hugged each other solemnly before Spike took his leave, and then Angel was alone in the apartment, finally starting to pick the pieces of the picture back together.
"So what happened to Xander after you cleaned up, Angel?" Jenny prompted him, bringing him back to the present. Angel smiled. This was a good period, a grace period.
"I...courted him, the way my grand-da would've put it," he admitted, blushing. "We went all over Sunnydale, at night, you know, so his parents wouldn't find out. We went to the beach and I showed him my spot in the desert, and I picked him up for lunch from school. I'll never forget the smile on his face when I showed up. I lived for those lunch dates, you know? I think that he did, too. The only times that we ever fought were when I brought up his parents. I was so mad at them, the way they wanted to force him to do all this shite that he didn't want to do, how he couldn't...
"Anyway, it went really good for a few months, but he was just getting tenser and tenser the closer he got to graduation day, because his parents...well, you've met Tony Harris before. He just rejected everything that Xander said, everything he was that didn't jive with their view of religion. By the end of April Xander was a prisoner in his own home, and he still wouldn't admit that his parents had done anything wrong! It all really came to a head the night he spent the night at my apartment.
"That was the day I called you about the fight I had with Drusilla; she'd come back and tried to make everything the way it was, and I told her I was clean, that I wasn't doing that anymore, and she completely lost it, broke down sobbing like I hadn't seen her cry before, and it was just...it hurt, you know? But I'd tried to get her to therapy, tried to get her to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and it just wasn't taking. She won't admit that she has a problem, won't admit that...well, anyway, Xander showed up after he fought with his parents and we almost...went farther, but, I think that...I hope that I could have stopped it. We weren't ready, at least, I wasn't, not after...everything."
"That's a mature decision, Angel," Jenny said approvingly.
"Well, it didn't much matter because Dru stormed back in and attacked him anyway. I got her out of there, but he was shook up, and so was I. He spent the night, in the bed with me on the couch. That morning..." he smiled stupidly. "It was the best morning of my life, kissing him awake, making breakfast and coffee together, sharing the bathroom. It was the most normal thing, and it made me weak in the knees, thinking that I wanted it to be like that and so did he.
"I took him to prom, sort of – we went up to the desert and I gave him my ring, and he always wore it, no matter what. After Drusilla outed him at the school he came out to his parents, and that night he showed up with a bruise on his face...We talked it out, and we slept together – not, you know, like that, but just touching. He left the next morning, and I told him that I'd wait for him. I haven't seen him in two years. And I haven't been with anybody since then. I tried, for a few weeks, with Cordelia, but we both agreed we were better as friends anyway. She told me she couldn't be with me because she could see the look in my eyes when I talked about Xander and that she remembered the same look on Xander's face when he talked about me."
"And have you seen or spoken to Xander since he left? Written letters, anything?"
"No," Angel admitted. "I don't know where he is, specifically – no one does. He sends postcards to Joyce – Buffy's mom – and she shares them with us. He's doing really good, it sounds like."
"It hurts you that he's doing good without you," Jenny stated.
"No!" Angel denied. "I'm glad! I...okay, a little, yeah. But I'm doing good too," he said defensively. "I just...miss him. I want to think that he misses me too."
"From what you've told me, I'd bet that he does. Angel, have you spoken to Drusilla since that night?"
"No," Angel said, confused.
"Well, that's probably a good thing," Jenny said. She paused to collect her thoughts before fixing him with a look. "But, you see, no matter how good you're doing – how clean, how many true friends, how successful – a life without someone to share it with is empty, particularly if you're still in love with someone. Distance shouldn't matter. You've hit the bottom harder than most people and with the help of Xander and yourself you've brought yourself right back up. It's time to finish righting yourself, and I don't think you're going to until you've kept your promise and found him."
"Do you believe in God?" Angel asked her, fingering the claddagh ring that he and Xander wore, a promise, a kiss, something under the moon that was as magic as everything else.
"Well..." Jenny said slowly. "I'm not a Christian, if that's what you mean. But I do believe in a higher power. There's too much wonder in this world to be explained. Why do you ask?"
"Xander believes in God. He believes so strongly...I want to believe, too, but I don't know if I can."
"I believe that there's something more going on between the two of you. I believe that two people can find each other when they're meant to, Angel, and the two of you seem to have come into each other's lives exactly when you were needed. If that was the work of God, who knows? But, maybe, Xander just wants you to have faith. Have faith that there is something else out there, bringing the two of you together – and have faith in Xander. If he loves you as much as you love him, he'll be waiting for you." Jenny smiled at him gently, and Angel was surprised to feel a grin spreading across his own face.
"Now, get out of her, Angel McCarthy. I'm giving you a clean bill of health, and I don't expect to see you here for a few months, at least." She stood up and shook his hand, her eyes mocking him gently with the laughter he found there. Angel grinned back, and then he was walking out of her office with his back straight and a smile on her face, feeling better than he had in months.
Find Xander. Maybe it wasn't going to be easy, but nothing worth it every was. He'd find him, and then he could go on with life from there. The sun fell on him on a brilliant day, and maybe, just maybe, that was God, too, pointing him on his way. Angel bowed his head and kept walking, but his smile just kept growing.
But I say you lose when you give up what you love
And I've lived my life without you long enough, so
.
I won't do what you told me
I won't do what you said, no
I'm not gonna stop feeling
I"m not gonna forget
I don't wanna start over
I don't wanna pretend that
You are not my lover
That you're only my friend
Oh, no, I won't.
A/N: Okay, so that's been trying to get out of me for the past few months! Ugh! Overcoming writer's block can actually be almost as frustrating as having it in the first place, once you realize what was blocking you! So, I know that this was almost a recap of Winter Song, but it was kind of necessary, and it's good to have Angel's point of view, too.
Coming next chapter: Where Xander's been, what he's been up to, and the choice he's going to have to make.
Peace and love, y'all, and I'll see ya next chapter!