In His Blood

Xander looked through the paper again. There had to be something in his price range, because the alternative was unthinkable. 'How about a warehouse?' he thought to himself. Sunnydale seemed to have an infinite number of unused warehouses, but the search turned up nothing useable. Low on hope, he started reading the section on boats, recalling hearing about houseboats and discovered something that perked his interest. Spacious cabin aboard a ship, free utilities and cable, furnished. It was almost too good to be true, but then nothing ventured, nothing gained. Starting up his car, he headed for the docks.

Hopefully it'd work out, because the only other choice was living in his parents' basement, and he really didn't want to go there. He'd only gotten as far as Oxford before his car had died and it'll taken quite a chunk of his road trip fund and a week's worth of wages as a dishwasher at a strip club to get it fixed, or and one night of pay as a stripper… which he really didn't feel like talking about… ever. So here he was back in Sunnydale a week and a half after he'd left.

"I don't recall the docks being this foggy," Xander muttered, glad it was still daylight out, so he didn't have to worry about vamps jumping him in the fog. Pulling into a parking place, he quickly hopped out and searched for the berth listed in the ad. "Berth thirteen," Xander said, and for a brief moment through the fog he thought he saw an old fashioned wooden sailing ship, before the fog was blown away and he saw an old Carnival cruise line he had to choose any one word to describe it, it would be Gi-normous. It was the kind of ship that could carry about a thousand tourists in style from port to port while keeping them entertained.

"Is there even room for a ship that size on the dock?" Xander asked in disbelief. The fog rolled across his field of view for a moment before revealing a much smaller cruise ship, about a tenth of its previous size. Xander froze, but after a couple of minutes of waiting he began to feel a bit silly. Just because something strange was going on, didn't mean it was hostile…right? Xander sighed. "I knew the price was too good to be true."

Resigning himself to living in his parents' basement, he took one last look and saw a blonde girl looking at a section of newspaper before stepping aboard. "Shit!" Xander groaned as the fog covered the end of the pier again and he started running towards the ship through the fog, for what seemed an excessively long time. He ran up the gang plank, making the chains rattle and leapt aboard the ship, just behind the blonde girl who screamed and clutched her paper like it was a cross and he was a vampire.

Gasping for breath he fell to his knees. "Ship… Bad mojo," he managed to blurt out.

The blonde's eyes darted about as if seeing everything for the first time. "I d-didn't notice."

"Escape quickly!" he panted out waving her towards the gangplank.

"It's gone," she said staring over the rail.

Xander climbed to his feet. "Gone?" He turned and saw open water with no trace of shore. "Yeah, that's gone alright."

"Wh-what's going on?" the girl stuttered out.

"I don't know," Xander admitted. "I came here to see about renting a room when I saw a ship far too large to fit the dock and then fog obscured my view for a moment and then it was a smaller ship. I was planning on just resigning myself to living in my parents' basement, but then you came aboard, so there was mucho running to warn you, but…" He shrugged.

"And n-now we're at sea," she said.

"Looks that way," he admitted. "Xander," he introduced himself.

"Tara," she replied shyly.

"Nice to meet you, even if the situation is a bit hellmouthy."

"Hellmouthy?"

"La Boca Del Inferno," he explained.

"Idiot's hell?" she guessed.

"Oh you watch anime," he said surprised and guessing why she'd gotten it wrong. "Nah, it's Spanish for the Hellmouth."

"W-well at least we're not in idiot's hell," she offered.

He laughed. "Thanks, usually I have to make all the jokes when something like this happens."

"This ha-has happened before?" she stuttered nervously.

"Not that I know of, but I've been stuck in my fair share of weird events, so first we find weapons and then we find out what's going on."

"Okay," she said willing to follow someone who seemed to know what was going on.

With Xander in the lead they snuck inside the first open door they saw and found themselves inside what looked like a captain's cabin from a pirate movie, nautical charts laid out on a table, oil lantern hanging on the wall, large bed covered in different colored pillows and silk blankets.

To Xander's great joy, he found a cutlass and a tricorn hat, both of which he immediately donned.

Tara found a dagger and slipped it in her purse, a large Levi number that could almost double as a backpack. "Why the hat?" she asked.

"I've got a cutlass, I might as well wear the hat," Xander replied with a grin, trying to keep their spirits up.

Tara took a red silk handkerchief off the table and tied it around her head, making Xander smile. "R-ready when you are captain," she said.

Opening the door they saw it now opened up onto the main deck of an old wooden sailing ship. The two cautiously ventured out and spotted a man dressed… like a pirate; ruffled white shirt, dungaree pants, leather boots. The only he was missing was a tricorn had and a cutlass.

"So, you've finally come," the man said, not even looking at them as he leaned on the rail and stared out at the sea.

"Yes, and now we would like to leave," Xander said putting a hand on the hilt of the cutlass.

"We?!" The man quickly turned and saw the two of them. "I'm sorry, I was only expecting one person, but I guess the sea called you both. Well you'll have to flip a coin to decide, because I'm tired and ready to rest."

"Decide what?!" Xander exclaimed.

"Oh yeah, I haven't told ya yet. Sorry, seems like a century since I've talked to another living soul. This is the Flying Dutchman, and I'm Will Turner," he waked up to the two looking like he wouldn't be more than twenty at most, his dirty blond hair blowing behind him.

"Xander Harris, confused," he said moving in between Will and Tara.

"I wouldn't hurt her," Will said. "I don't want to hurt anyone. Listen, I'm the captain and it's my job to ensure the souls of sailors get where they're going, but I was lured in and trapped by an evil man nearly a century ago. God only knows why, but the how is easy to understand," Will rattled off.

"Why are we here?" Xander asked seeing that Will had gone a bit off, stuck by himself for so long.

"The shackles holding he here are weakening," Will explained. "I asked the sea to call for a new captain, savy?

"Not even a little," Xander said confused. "Can we just say no?"

Will groaned. "Don't be difficult, one of you has to become the new captain, while the other can walk away, but for that to happen I need to be stabbed in the heart, oh!"

Will stumbled back, a wooden stake sticking out of the left side of his chest.

Tara looked horrified as she backed away.

"Did you just stick a wooden stake in my chest?" Will asked stunned.

"Sorry," Xander apologized, "but now you get to rest, I get your curse, and she gets to return home, right?"

"No, because my heart isn't in my chest," Will said exasperated. "And I liked this shirt. Elizabeth got it for me."

"You just stabbed him in the chest," Tara said, pale. "And he's not even bleeding."

"Yeah, I'm used to dealing with vamps and they always have their hearts on them."

"Well, don't blame me," Will said, "Wilkins ran off with my heart, so you need to find it and then stab it."

"And the one doing so gets cursed, got it," Xander said.

"It's not really a curse," Will argued. "I mean, eternal youth, heal from anything, travel anywhere on the water. Oh, and you get to command a giant squid called The Leviathan."

"And never set foot on land but once every century?" Xander asked, recalling a bit about the legend.

"Not even," Will waved it off. "That's a great exaggeration. You can set foot on land whenever you like, but only during leap day can you rest and heal on land. You need to be on the boat to rest and heal the rest of the time, well excepting the whole fall back extra hour on daylight savings time, but at most it's just a nap then."

"Then why have you been on board this entire time?" Xander asked.

"Because he used my heart to make me stay here," Will explained. "Now Wilkins is a tough customer, and while I can't get off this boat, I can move the gangplank to another pier."

"And one of us has to take the gig?" Xander asked, thinking it didn't sound all that bad really.

"There are countless souls trapped in between that need to move on," Will said. "Someone has to help them."

"Trapped?" Tara asked.

"Exactly," Will said. "I help souls get to where they're going, well ones who died at sea anyway."

"Well… I always wanted job security with health and dental," Xander joked. "How do I find your heart?"

"I've got a magic compass…"

Shortly…

Tara consulted the compass again, before leading Xander deeper into the cemetery. "Th-this way."

Typing by : chrono2x!