Porcelain Glaze, a buffy: the vampire slayer fanfic

Disclaimer- I own nothing. The idea isn't even that original. Joss Whedon, 20th Century FOX, WB, UPN and lots of other people own the characters I use in this fanfic, except for Krill, who isn't actually even in the story. And I stole that name from VTerrice.

Spoilers- Seasons 1, 5 and 6

Author- Lyle Brown

Summary- Xander opens a package meant for Anya, and may not live to regret it.

Feedback- body_chunks@hotmail.com

Porcelain Glaze
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Short

"She's insane..." He said it in a whisper, though no one else was around.

A brown-paper package tied around the sides in a strikingly red bow, which met in a delicate knot at the center. Somewhere in the back of Xander's brain, a tiny fashion sensor bleeped. The dull brown offset the bow to no end.

Nevertheless, it was addressed to Anya (or rather Anyanka), and he definitely did not wish to suffer through another tirade over the importance of his fiancée's 'women-in-power' magazines, which up until last week had been arriving daily. He supposed they were sending them in bulk now, from the size of the package. It was rectangular in shape, about the size of a small foot locker. A foot thick, three-and-a-half feet tall...had it been upright, that is.

Damn thing could probably hold twenty magazines, rolled properly, he thought to himself. She's insane.

Suddenly the tiny sensor vanished and Xander realized he was standing in the hallway outside of his apartment, staring at a small brown package. He glanced at his Timex.

10:35 PM

His lovely if somewhat overbearing wife-to-be would return to him in ten minutes. Xander had completed construction on a large three-story house in the richest corner of Sunnydale earlier that afternoon. Anya had once again demanded a celebration involving middle-class fine wine and ritual sex on top of the check, which Xander was admittedly looking forward to. The money had been great, but-

Xander blinked. He was still out in the hall, eyes again locked on the package. What was this? Hesitation? Apprehension of a foot locker. This was silly.

He smirked and shook his head, bending down to pick up the package.

The scooby paused once more as his fingers were about to close around the container. Then he gripped the edges and lifted.

It was heavy. About eighty pounds heavy. But nine months of building houses and small office buildings and the third Sunnydale bank had made him stronger than even he would have imagined three years previous, back in high school. He picked up the package with something resembling ease and walked back into the apartment, shutting the door behind him.

Not bothering to lock the entrance, he went to the bedroom and placed the parcel at the foot of the bed. Darkness outside tried to creep in through the blinds, but the night was fended off by his brightly lit apartment. In a gray sweatshirt and blue jeans, the young man jumped backwards onto the mattress and stared up at the ceiling, trying to concentrate on what he'd be doing in twenty minutes.

His eyes wandered to the bathroom a few feet away, and he wondered if they'd do it in the sink again. It would've been more fun except the faucet kept digging into the base of his spine.

It's not magazines.

"Sure it is," he consoled himself. "It's eighty pounds of feministic goodness. Praise the power of the double-y." He raised a fist in the air half-heartedly.

It's not. Check the return address.

"All right, I will. But don't think I'm above telling myself 'I told you so'."

He rolled onto his stomach and peered over the side of the bed. Beyond the plush white comforter and silky red sheets, Xander saw the package. The label presented to his eyes what his memory already knew. There was no return address. Just a single word scrawled in thick black ink, partially obscured by the bow.

Xander reached down and nudged the ribbon aside with his middle finger. He frowned.

The word on the box was-

Krill

Awfully close to 'kill'.

"Awfully close, but not 'kill' at all. Krill."

But there was no convincing himself now. Curiosity was a cat that had burrowed itself into his skull years ago, and Buffy Summers was his everlasting cheat code. His cat had infinite lives. He hefted the rectangular box onto the bed next to him, scooting over to the middle to give himself room.

He and Anya were constantly opening each other's mail. Granted, they were never bulky containers weighing in at almost a hundred pounds, but Xander doubted Anya would get on his case too much. Besides, he could always show her the check again.

He pulled at the bow and the red material eased up, loosening around the package. When it slackened enough he pulled the ribbon out from underneath the box and let it flutter down in a blood-colored stream to the shag carpet. Reaching into the pocket of his jeans, Xander laced his grip beyond that of his Zippo lighter and grasped the Swiss army knife beneath.

Once slipping it out he tugged one of the many blades until it snapped up, reflecting the light above into his eyes. He returned his gaze to the package and proceeded to cut a line across the drab recycled paper. An equally gloomy gray lurked underneath, confirming his belief that he was holding a foot locker. The sniiiiik of the blade ended as he finished slicing open the wrapper.

Removed from it's confining shell, the locker sat before him. Unimpressive and featureless except for a single black knob in the middle, which could be twisted to open the contraption. This time Xander didn't hesitate in doing so. Hinged metal creaked as the locker door swung open to reveal...

A doll. A small porcelain doll. Black, beady eyes without irises. Rosy chipmunk cheeks that puffed out like a blowfish, pursed lips slightly parted which Xander had always considered fairly perverse. White skin that seemed drained of all life. Broad and black eyelashes otherwise consumed in a frenzy of blonde curls; soft hair that ran down to her neck. She was dressed in a red one-piece. A deeper red than the bow. Like a crimson tide, with white frills by her wrists and ankles representing frothy waves.

She (it) stared back at him sightlessly. Where had he gotten the sudden urge to open what looked to be a present for Anya? And why had he acted on it? Suddenly guilt-ridden, Xander began to close the lid. He stopped a second later.

The doll's demeanor had changed. The tiny fingers looked closer together, the cheeks less rosy and hadn't the lips been slightly parted, a miniscule pink tongue poking out at him? No, they couldn't have. Her mouth was closed. Eyes. The eyes were no longer sightless. They seemed...aware. Feeling very stupid, Xander leaned his head to the left.

The eyes rolled, following him.

Xander screamed and jumped back, using his knees to propel himself off the bed.

He slammed into the bedroom wall, landing hard on his ass, too stunned to move. The Swiss knife flew into a corner and out of his vision. His heart was suddenly trying to escape his chest, pounding to be let out of its ribbed prison. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head furiously. He could believe what he'd just seen, but he didn't want to. The last living doll he'd dealt with had been years ago, back at Sunnydale High. He didn't want to go through that again.

Something struck a chord in his memory. A rule of sorts. Never let a doll you suspect of being animated with life leave your sight. The same rule applied for supposedly dead serial killers and important artifacts: they have a way of disappearing. He opened his eyes and quickly got to his feet and forced himself to look inside the foot locker.

The doll was gone.

"DAMMIT!"

There was a sound of pitter-pattering; of small feet running across the floor. He jumped on top of the bed and quickly surveyed the room. No doll. He checked the bathroom to the left. No doll. He listened again.

A second later the sound reappeared. Outside of the room. Xander quickly got off the bed and reached underneath it, feeling around until he found what he was looking for. His baseball bat. At one time a device of protection in the night, the bat now saw more action as a recurring guest in the Xander-Anya sex fantasy, 'I just won the World Series!'

The tiny feet were now on linoleum. She (it, Xand', it) was in the kitchen. He bravely crossed the threshold separating the bedroom from the living room. Ducking and rolling, Xander pressed himself against the couch and slithered up it until he was able to peek over the top to the kitchen a couple yards away.

He still couldn't see the doll. But a drawer was opened, slammed shut, and then another was opened. He scoffed to himself, wondering just what the hell she (it It IT!) was doing and how exactly it had gotten high enough to open the drawers.

An unmistakable sound followed. The scrape of a stainless steel blade being dragged out of its space in the block. Anya had thought it would be a great idea to keep all of their biggest, sharpest knives in a large wooden block. He peeked over the edge again. The doll wasn't by the block, but the largest knife was gone. The Ginzu knife he'd bought off of late-nite tv. The blade that could cut through tin cans and shoe soles like melted butta'.

He silently cursed his insomnia and the opportunistic stupidity that swam alongside it, swearing off infomercials and QVC and the Home Shopping Network for the rest of his-

The doll howled and appeared suddenly on the edge of the couch, its cold black eyes glaring at him in a porcelain glaze. Its tiny fingers couldn't even wrap all the way around the hilt of the knife.

It lunged, the blade arcing in a slash aimed at his chest. He windmilled backwards, falling off of the couch and rolling to his feet. A long gash tore over his sweatshirt, but his chest was still intact. Immediately he swung the bat, yet the doll was too fast and ducked his sweep. It leapt towards him again, and he dove to the left.

He yelped in pain as he crashed into Henry, one of their potted plants (Henry was a housewarming gift from Mr. Gordo, Buffy's stuffed pig). He (Henry) was crushed underneath Xander in his haste to get back on his feet, marking the first of two more plant casualties to be caused by an angry doll and the misplaced swing of a bat.

Xander careened backwards, trying to stay on his toes while running on the balls of his feet, keeping the killer doll at a distance with a constantly moving bat.

Finally it screamed in frustration and threw the knife at him with speed and force something that size could not possibly possess. But Xander's frenzied swings were at least enough to keep him alive another minute. The wooden bat exploded in a hail of splinter shards as it connected with the bullet-like steel, throwing the blade off its course. It flew past his face, knicking his ear along the way.

Now, the chances of a bundle of circuit wires running across the inside of the apartment wall connecting with a soaring Ginzu knife are about one in a million. But Anya would later reason that the statistics would have to start somewhere. The knife landed with a solid thunk in the wall, digging into the plaster all the way to the hilt. A frizzle and a snap-crackle-pop later, and Xander was thrown into complete darkness.

Warm, wet liquid streamed down his neck and onto his shoulder. He reached a hand up to the side of his head. His earlobe had been sliced open.

Ignoring the pain as best as he could, Xander improvised. He took off his ripped shirt, tearing away at the fabric. A long strip of cotton dangled from his left hand. He picked up the demolished bat and tied the fabric around it. Then he took his lighter from his jeans and quickly struck up a weak flame along the cotton. Without any lighter fluid the fire wouldn't last long, but neither would he if he didn't think of something quick. He pushed the Zippo back into his jeans.

The doll was nowhere to be seen. The growing flames on his bat-torch cast long shadows around his apartment. His porcelain nemesis could be anywhere. But what (other than his puny flame) could he protect himself with?

It wasn't magazines. I told you so.

"Oh, shut up." He whispered venomously to himself.

The gun! He brightened considerably at this remembrance. Five months ago he and Anya had invested in buying a semi-automatic pistol, a nine millimeter Beretta which had thankfully not become a sex toy. Instead it collected dust in the bedroom closet. Being of a politically liberal standpoint, he and Anya had agreed to put a coded lock on the gun. Even though they didn't have children presently, they reasoned that they would one day have many. Actually Anya reasoned that. Xander had simply sided on the right half of precaution.

The bedroom was too quiet. Somehow it had never seemed this silent since he'd moved in. Nothing creaked, nothing moaned, nothing even tapped softly. The only sounds were Xander's labored breathing and the flame from his make-shift torch licking at black space.

He waited five seconds before slowly proceeding to the closet. At a sloth's pace he slid the door open, his eyes flittering wildly around the room for any sign of deathly-white porcelain.

The closet door open wide enough for him to slip inside, Xander gave the room one last fevered glance before turning his back. With an abrupt feeling of claustrophobia, he ran one shaky hand up and down the white knick-knack cluttered shelves. Droplets of sweat kept running into his eyes and down his naked chest, mixing with the blood gracing his neck and shoulder. His ear felt numb, but the blood-flow had decreased considerably.

Xander stopped looking for the gun just long enough to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand.

Blinking, a quick shot of chrome and silver glimmered like the light at the end of the tunnel in his eyes. He tugged at a bit of metal sticking out from between two Letterman Davis shoe boxes. He laughed out loud as he grasped the gun, than immediately sucked in a gasp of air at doing so.

Pitter-patter. Tiny feet rushing to meet him.

Cold fear splashing into the pit of his stomach like the tip of an iceberg, Xander fell to his knees and one-handedly fumbled with the lock around the trigger.

Three numbers, three numbers, what were they-

Pitter-patter. The sound grew closer.

Three numbers, they represented something, a momentous event-

BANG! Something slamming open out in the foyer. Twenty more tiny steps and there would be two people in closet.

Three numbers, THREE STINKING NUMBERS!, wait, an epiphany, the numbers were a date-

Feet stomping madly, angrily, heavily.

A birth-date, no, an anniversary, no, the engagement, YES!

Heavy footfalls outside of the bedroom, something whispered, something dropped.

Very warm, no time to think, need both hands for code, month...got it; 5-

Whispers, whispers. Pitter-patter, a scream.

VERY WARM, NO TIME, DAY...21, gun unlocked, trigger ready-

Xander burst outside of the brightly lit closet with the Beretta in both hands, pulling the trigger at the first thing that moved.

Click. An empty gun. He forgot they had never loaded it.

"Xander, what the hell are you doing?!"

Anya. "ANYA!"

She stood there, just outside of the bedroom, her eyes wide in disbelief. She held a small brown bag in one hand (wine) and a video cassette in the other (porn).

"Xander, why are you half-naked already? And why are all the lights out and why do you have the gun?" Suddenly her eyes shifted to his left. "And why is the closet on fire?"

He turned and looked at the closet. He'd dropped the torch. The closet was on fire.

Stumbling to his feet, Xander looked desperately to his lover. "An', honey, go get the fire extinguisher from the hall, would you?"

"I want answers."

"I know, I know. Just go get the extinguisher and we'll talk."

Her brow furrowed. "Xander-"

"Anya, pressing issue here, home on fire!"

She stuck her tongue out at him and disappeared around the corner.

With a heavy sigh, Xander sat down on the bed.

An excruciating pain filled his side, and he bit back a scream. He looked to the source of his pain. The doll on the bed beside him, looking up at him with those eyes, the blackest eyes, as she held his Swiss army knife in place. In his torso.

With what little strength he had left he pushed the doll away. It took his knife with it (she, it's a she) landing on the floor only three feet away. Xander rose up, light-headed and nauseous. He slammed the bedroom door shut and locked it before turning to his left and lunging into the bathroom. He fell gracelessly onto the cold hard surface, scrabbling to get inside. Another explosion of white-hot agony in his foot. The porcelain psycho stabbed him in his right foot.

Hard knocks on the bedroom door. "Xander! Xander, what's going on?"

He shouted for her to stay away, and swore at the pain so evident in his voice. He yanked the knife out of the bottom of his heel and used his other foot to close the bathroom door hard on the doll. He pushed himself up to his knees and, for whatever reason, locked the door, throwing himself back into complete darkness.

Anya's muffled cries reached him through the door. "Just don't try to come in, Anya! Stay back!" He shouted at the top of his lungs. Still, a second later he heard a loud bashing noise against the bedroom door. She was using the fire extinguisher as a battering ram.

"ANYA, NO!" He knew it wouldn't matter what he said. She'd fight her way in anyway.

Needing some form of light, he pulled out his Zippo again. Flicking open the cap and thumbing the roller, he allowed himself a small pocket of light.

The blade of his knife, layered in his blood, slammed into the bathroom door at an impossible force. A tiny fist came in with it, then pulled back out again. Through the minuscule flame from his lighter he caught something small and black glinting through the hole.

Her eyes. She was looking in at him.

Three punches later and he was losing hope fast. With its inhuman strength, the doll would be inside the room and upon him in half a minute. And he could hear the wood of the bedroom door splintering as well. Anya was going to get herself killed rushing in after him.

His heart swelled and threatened to burst as he envisioned her in pain. Her skin, her body, her lips, stretched in anguish, her soft hair charred from the apartment burning down-

He blinked. Hair. Charred. Stabilizing himself on one foot, Xander swung open the medicine cabinet and waved his Zippo's flame around, searching. Wincing at the pain in his side and his head and foot, he found the canister and grabbed at it.

Unfortunately he tried to put both feet on the ground. The wound to his right foot grew in intensity and he fell back, sliding down the wall. Xander was beginning to feel faint from the pain. His eyes drooped and his head lolled to one side.

The doll slammed through the final portion of its hole in the bottom of the bathroom door, leering at him from the fire's light in the bedroom. Its red dress roiled just like a sea of blood, with white frills resembling frothy waves. He heard the oddly distant noise of Anya bursting into the bedroom.

Xander twisted the cap off of the hairspray, fighting the sweet advances of unconsciousness. The doll screamed at him.

He smiled lazily and winked at the doll. "Porcelain bitch."

He held up the hairspray to his lighter. Pointed his lighter at the doll.

She brandished his knife and snarled, lunging for the kill.

She never knew what hit her. Xander press down on the hairspray funnel as hard as he could, jettisoning a stream of fire that blasted into her. The red dress exploded in a wash of yellow flame, and she flew backwards to the entrance.

The Zeppo watched the porcelain burn. Even as he felt arms surround him he watched it melt. Right down until the beady black eyes stared at nothing in particular, sightlessly, as they slowly dissolved.

* * *

A hard rocking sensation woke him out of a deep, comfortable sleep.

"Hey," a familiar voice shouted, "I don't think you get paid to pick out every speed bump in town. You're going to make his cuts worse!"

"Relax, lady, he's fine. Those are superficial wounds, nothing to be afraid of."

"Yeah, well, just watch it! I know people, very powerful people who would be more than happy to give you some 'superficial' wounds."

The man didn't respond. Xander opened his eyes. He was lying down. He had bandages on his foot, his waist and the side of his head. My ear...

An angel stared down at him. A very surly, angry looking angel.

"You're awake."

"Yes, and I'm suddenly wishing I wasn't."

Anya grimaced. "I'd hurt you if I wasn't so afraid of...hurting you."

He grinned. "Hey, I'm alive, you're alive...you still got the porno and the wine?"

Her frown grew deeper. "I left them at the house. How could you lock me out like that? I was worried, I thought I was going to loose you. I don't like that feeling. And living here I get it way too often."

Xander stopped smiling and touched her cheek. "I'm sorry. I panicked. I don't want to see you get hurt, An'."

She rubbed her face against his palm and closed her eyes. "I don't want to see you get hurt either."

He sighed. "Why don't you ask Krill why he does."

Her eyes opened wide. "Krill?!"

He nodded. "Yeah. That's who sent the doll."

"Oh, no! Krill doesn't want to hurt you! Baby, that was a wedding present."

"...come again."

"Yes, Krill must think you're a demon. The doll is supposed to help demon couples keep humans out of their home."

"Oh...isn't that nice."

It was Anya's turn to grin. "No, but this is." She reached into her purse and pulled out the check. She danced the check in front of him. "The fire took out the closet and part of the bathroom, but that's about it. Too bad about the bat, though."

Xander rolled his eyes.

"Hey," she said, offended, "I saw th-"

He leaned up from the stretcher and pressed his lips against hers. She eagerly reciprocated, and the kiss deepened.

Xander fell back into a warm, loving sleep in her arms.

END