Title:          Deadly Memories

Author:      mahaliem

Rating:       R

Summary:  Prequel to "Xander Harris – Carpenter Extraordinaire" Future Xander, haunted by the past, must save the world.

Disclaimer:  Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy

Thank you to Alena for beta reading this for me.  Any errors remaining are entirely my fault.

A good memory can be more painful than a bad one.  It reminds you of what you no longer have, what you no longer are.  A remembrance of a lost friend's shy smile can cause a wrenching of the gut.  The memory of heaven can sink you into hell.

                                                - Life, Death, and Other Things I'm Not Very Good At

                                                  by A. L. Harris  

Part 1

I'd gone into the alley behind the bar to vomit out most of the alcohol in my stomach.  It wasn't the classiest thing I'd ever done, but it wasn't the worse thing, either.  Not by a long shot.

I stood there, wiping my chin with a wadded up napkin I'd found in my pocket, and felt slightly more alive than I had five minutes earlier, when I heard footsteps coming from behind me.  I turned and spied three figures walking towards me.  The darkness and my blurry eyesight made it difficult to see anything clearly, but then one of the approaching figures passed through a thin strand of light that had crawled its way out of one of the buildings, and I glimpsed yellow eyes. 

Yellow eyes meant vampires.  Vampires meant death.  Death meant I didn't have keep waking up each morning, wondering why I was still around, while so many of my friends weren't.  Death…death was good.  Going out fighting…even better.

I should have been killed ages ago by vampires, like Jesse was.  Would've been if Buffy hadn't moved to Sunnydale.  Now, years later, it looked like my fate had finally caught up with me.  Well, it was about damn time. 

Of course, I wasn't going to make things easy for them.  I was too stubborn for that.  Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed the pencil that I carried to write down any info about part-time jobs I heard about.  I didn't carry paper, since I tended to use bar napkins.  Oops.  I looked down at the recently used and discarded napkin now littering the asphalt, then shrugged my shoulders.  If I died tonight, I wouldn't need the job anyway.  

"Well, lookee here.  Seems as if this fellow just lost the contents of his stomach.  Made a quite a mess.  Wonder if he'll make as much of a mess when he loses the content of his arteries?"

My eyes were closed as I leaned against the brick wall for support, still gripping the pencil tightly, while the vamps neared.  I would have one shot, if I was lucky.  And there were three of them.  Doubted if they made No. 2s tough enough for the kind of abuse I was about to put it through. 

The lead vamp was closing the distance between us, laughing at my helplessness.  I felt his hands grab my shoulders and pull me roughly against his dead body.  It was when his fangs grazed my skin that I acted.  Swinging my arm around him, I thrust my stubby pencil into his back and through his heart.  Only after I felt the dust settle over me, did I open my eyes and attempt to ready myself for my next opponent.  I could feel a slight sticky warmth trickle down the side of my neck where the ex-vampire had sliced into it, but I did my best to ignore it.  The next one wasn't going to be so easy.

He was livid, snarling in rage that I'd killed his friend.  He slammed a fist into me and I fell to the pavement.  He took the opportunity presented to stomp on my hand, breaking my grasp upon my meager weapon as well as at least one bone.  When he kicked me in the side, I was a little glad that I'd already puked, because if I hadn't, now would've been the time.  I lay there for a moment, panting. 

He was pulling his foot back to have another go at me, when I heard a female's voice call out an order, high and harsh.

"Don't touch him."

"He killed Kevin.  He's gonna hurt till he prays that I tear out his throat."

Another kick landed on me, and I let out a sharp yelp of pain as I felt a rib shatter.  Curled into a ball, expecting another blow to land, I was shocked when the vampire attacking me exploded, sending a shower of particles over me. 

Blinking wildly, I looked up.  The female vampire was only a few feet away from me and I could see her face. 

"Drusilla?"

Her eyes glittered madly as she smiled down at me.

"I told him not to touch you, Kitten.  Need you to save the world, I do."

 * * * * *

Waking up in a bed, I gasped as the pain in my side hit me.  Gasping meant I was breathing, and breathing meant I was alive.  Still. 

I took a quick survey of my surroundings.  The only illumination in the room was a couple of candles, one on a chest of drawers and another on the nightstand beside me.  The lack of light caused deep shadows to collect in the corners and the far sides.  There didn't appear to be any windows, though there was a door. 

I started to ease out from under the covers to make my way to the door when I realized something and stopped.  I was naked.  Not only naked, but after giving myself a discreet sniff, clean, too.  Panic clawed at my mind.  While I'd been out, someone had stripped and bathed me.

Okay, I could deal with this, and I would.  Just as soon as my brain stopped running around screaming in a high, yippy voice.  Focus, Harris, focus.  There were sheets on this bed.  Sheets I could use to wrap myself in and…hey, they were flannel. Whoever had saved me had flannel sheets…warm and fuzzy and a reminder of visiting Grandma Harris, who always baked the best peanut butter cookies.  Would anything evil use them? 

I heard a humming then, that got louder, closer.   The door opened and Drusilla swayed inside, holding a mug, a bowl, and something else that I couldn't see.  That answered my question.  Evil would use flannel sheets…crazy evil would, anyway.  She placed most of the items she held on the dresser, then swung to face me, her long red velvet dress swirling slightly around her ankles. 

"Ooh, Kitten's awake and wants to play."

"Um…Drusilla…where am I?"

She looked at me as if I were the crazy one and sat down next to me, ignoring how I tried to scootch to the other side.

"You're in my bed."

"Yeah…I am.  But what am I doing here?"

"Laying down, which is wrong.  Mummy needs you to sit."

Drusilla started to pull the covers off of me, but I grabbed them before they got past my waist.  Gingerly, I sat up.  A piece of advice – if you're naked and weaponless in a powerful vampire's bed and that vampire asks you to do something, the smartest thing to do is to obey.

I was astounded to discover as I sat, that Drusilla was holding a large roll of coban.  Where she'd gotten the adhesive bandage, I had no idea, and since my head still ached, I decided it was better not to speculate on that subject. 

With more gentleness than I ever thought possible, Drusilla began to wrap my ribs.  Her cool fingers brushed against my flesh as she efficiently wound the bandage around my torso, providing my injured body with needed support.  She leaned close to me as she worked, reaching around me to pass the bandage from one hand to the other.  Her breasts would press against my naked chest as she did so, while her long dark hair caressed my shoulders.       

The male body is really a wonder.  It can be hurt, the adrenaline pumping at the danger that surrounds it, fear oozing from its pores, but it can still manage to get a hard-on.  I was now proof of that.  I tried to hide the effect her closeness was having on me, but the best I could do was to make sure that the covers were bunched in that area.  I didn't want to offend her.  I've thought about what I'd like to see on my headstone lots of times.  One thing I didn't want etched, though, was Xander Harris - killed because he couldn't control his prick. 

She finished up the roll at last, and I let out a small sigh of relief as she straightened away from me.  Smiling, she ran one palm over her handiwork, confirming that the area was completely covered, then looked at me.  I managed to give her a small smile of gratitude.  Suddenly, she whacked me hard on the spot she'd just taken so much care in tending to, and I let out a shriek. 

"Stupid boy.  Mustn't drink the sherry and cordials.  Nasty, smelly stuff."

Boy, that was some technique she had, for trying to stop people from drinking too much.  Made me wonder why people bothered with AA meetings and the Betty Ford clinic when all they really needed was a loony vampire to knock them around. 

Having collapsed on my side, trying hard to control the pain, I shook my head at her.

"Won't touch them again.  Ever.  Learned my lesson."

Pleased at my response, she rose and went to the dresser where she retrieved the mug and bowl.  As she neared, I smelled food and…coffee?  Drusilla had brought me coffee!  I immediately repented all the nasty things I'd been calling her in my head.  She was a goddess, a goddess bearing the miracle created by the combination of coffee grounds and hot water.

Greedily, I sat back up and reached for the caffeineated goodness.  I noted that it wasn't steaming hot as I wrapped my hands around the mug, but I didn't care.  I didn't even care that she sat back down next to me and petted my hair and hummed happily as I drank. 

When I emptied the cup, she took it from me and handed me the bowl filled with soup.  I was going to refuse it, but a frown began to appear on her face, so I quickly accepted the offering.  Looking down, I noted with relief that the soup appeared to be vegetable.  No unknown meat and its source to worry about, then.      

It was surprisingly good and I soon finished it off, having been much hungrier than I thought.  I handed the dish and spoon to Drusilla, who stood and carried it and the mug back to the dresser.  Returning, she stood over me, a smile on her face.  I tentatively smiled back.  Her smile widened.  A memory stirred, a vague recollection of something she'd said before I'd passed out. 

"Um…what did you mean about saving the world?"

"The world is falling into nothingness."

"And I'm supposed to do something about that?  Sorry, but you've got the wrong guy."

I was getting to the point where my fear was fading and apathy was setting it.  Therefore, it took me totally by surprise when she yanked the covers away from me and wrapped her hand around my cock.  Okay…my apathy just ran away, screaming. 

I'd lost my earlier erection, but as she stroked and pulled, it returned…with a vengeance.  Gathering what little wits I still had, I fought down the hormones that were applauding impending sex, pried her fingers away from me and scrambled to the far side of the bed.  She simply licked her lips and followed.  I scooted farther away.  She laughed and moved closer.  I scooted some more…and promptly fell off the edge of the bed, landing on my rump. 

Drusilla must have thought that this was a wonderful game, because she gleefully lifted her skirts and followed me down to the floor, her slight weight landing on my lower legs, trapping me.  While my upper half twisted and turned, following my brain's order to escape, my lower half was involved in a full-scale mutiny…with my cock leading them.  I tried to push her arms away, but my hands joined the revolt and gripped them tightly instead.   

She enfolded her fist around me, pumping me, and I groaned.  I would've thought that the coolness of the grip would be a turn-off.  Instead, it had the opposite effect.  The temperature difference only heightened my awareness of what was happening.  Made me feel it even more intensely.  Meanwhile, the fingers of her other hand busied themselves with my balls, massaging them, making them tighten, then moved behind them, caressing the sensitive skin hidden there. 

Any pleas I had for her to release me turned into moans and groans.  She seemed to feed on the noises that rose from me, her strokes becoming stronger, her fingers more insistent.   I felt a dampness forming where her soft folds met my thighs, and I realized that Drusilla was not wearing underwear.  That thought made my head swirl. 

Did she ever wear underwear?  All that time while I was in high school, had she been prancing around Sunnydale, threatening us with a bare backside?   Shit.  If she had been, I was glad I'd never known.  My hormones had been on high alert back then, anyway.  Knowing that little factoid might have caused my brain to leak from my ears.

Speaking of leaking, I was more than ready when she moved up my body and lowered herself on me.  Oh God!  I could feel her so damn well as the coolness of her body slid around me, encased me.  My hands moved to Drusilla's hips as I thrust up into her.  She rode me hard, her muscles clenching and releasing me, until nothing existed but where we were joined. 

Luckily, some part of my brain was still functioning, and my hand slipped down between our bodies and started to rub her.  Making the crazy, dangerous vampire come first could be a survival skill.  I figured that my life might depend on it.  Only a few moments of teasing and fondling her sensitive flesh passed, before Drusilla let out a high-pitched cry and I felt her muscles spasm around me.  With relief, I let myself go, thrusting into her until I, too, came with shudders and a shout.

She collapsed on top of me as I lay panting, trying to get my breath back.  I felt Drusilla's long-nailed fingertips play over my chest, drumming on my muscles, skimming over the bandage around my torso, before she laid her hand flat over my heart, which was still pounding furiously.    Lifting her head, she looked at me, wonder spread across her face as she realized how truly alive I was.  My hands moved from where they still rested on her hips to her cheeks, and I caressed their softness.  Then her face shifted, her eyes turned yellow and her fangs emerged.  Whoa.  Way to kill the afterglow.

I grabbed her shoulders and tried to push her off, but she was too damn strong.  Shit, shit, shit.  She moved up my body, placed her face at my neck and I felt a cool tongue lick the spot where the vampire's fangs had scratched the skin.

"Drusilla, I'm all for eating and sex, but not this kind of eating."

She giggled.  Then a sharp pain erupted as her teeth pierced my flesh and she began to drink from me.  My last thought before I lost consciousness was that I always knew that being a demon magnet would be the death of me.    

TBC