Chapter Fifty-One

We are Gods

A/N Big action chapter, I've enjoyed this one it's been interesting, there's still a chapter left after this but this concludes like the big events. Oh and I would've done the actual sex for Anya and Xander but I'm going to do it in Touched (S7E20) it's kinda obvious why. That one will be interesting.

Andrew's head, Andrew, the world without shrimp 2002

So I said before that Warren or the ghost Warren was promising me that if I went along with his plan that we would be able to live as Gods together. And I thought that didn't sound half bad, you know being a God and all, it seemed to work out ok for that Zeus guy. But as soon as he said it I could already how amazing it would be and as soon as my imagination had started whirring, the ideas just came in tumbling out.

First of all there was the three of us, Warren and Jonathan and me and we were wearing togas like those old Roman Gods, I pictured myself in a bit of a Caesar role with Warren as my Pompey and Jonathan my Crassus, the great triumvirate of power over Rome, truest Gods. And we were sitting around in this throne room in the Senate with our gold piled up in the corner, all shiny gold coins. And there were three thrones, one for each of us.

Then I thought that maybe it was a bit pompous to expect a throne room, and a mortal plane. So I kept the togas and gold in my fantasy but I decided we'd be outside. In a gorgeous meadow with sunflowers and daisies and butterflies and Warren would have harp or something, but we'd be singing about how Godly we are. We would be very Godly I think. And there's a beautiful shining unicorn that sings for our entertainment. Then I decided to change it to bars of gold instead of coins because they make seem more rich. I suppose as Gods we would be looking down on the whole world and tittering as she drop the coins of the edge of the magical cloud we're on, Mount Olympus true home of the Gods, perhaps that means our thrones would be made out of cloud too. I wonder if cloud is wet when you sit on it? Because I don't suppose that's a good way for a God to sit. But we're definitely wearing togas.

When I explained this all to Buffy and the others they looked at me funny until I started to explain more about what I did to Jonathan. Shortly after that, Buffy looked a little fed up and just grabbed me by the arm, pulling me out of the house. The sudden movement surprised me but soon enough we were at the school, then heading down towards the basement, and then standing there. In front of that devil face, where I killed Jonathan...

Sunnydale, the world without shrimp 2003

It was staring at me. I could still see the blood pooling and dried over the surface of that black pewter. Jonathan's body laying strewn across that face. The face of the devil, the face that took Warren's form and paraded his body around like a skin suit. He used it to convince me, push me into that evil. And I was standing in front of Buffy and she was standing in front of me.

When we got to the school there were riots, it seemed like the entire student body was fighting for something eternal and damning. The school building was crumbling, the power was out but there were bins on fire - and paint almost bloodlike, on the walls. Shouts and battle-cries could be heard from the main hallways. A desolate careening.

We were four-strong, Buffy and me were heading for the basement but there was a little argument brewing between the Principal and Spike, it seemed like broiling sexual tension to me. Both hot-headed lovers that could fight to the death, something about that seemed sexy to me. But anyway, we were walking through the desertion - kids in armies running around with bandanas on their heads like cretins. Everybody was fighting and suddenly Buffy's grabbing me, pulling me roughly towards the door to the basement. I knew where we were going; I'd been there before, as you know.

We made our way down the stairs carefully, alert for any danger that may have befallen us, I was narrating this in real life too, but I didn't get very far as this was the point where Buffy told me to 'shut up' so I had to stay quiet. She turned off my tape called me a murderer again, and I started telling her what really happened. Then the story replayed over and over in my head but in different versions. The version in my head where I tried to fight back and killed him in self-defense and reaped for his murder. But then it went over again, that I was possessed, that is was the fault of the Hellmouth, the devil, the First and it was making me do it, making me push that knife through his fragile little body.

I tried to talk her out of leading me into that room, but she wouldn't listen, just dragged my hand further and made me stand in front of the seal. It was named the Seal of Dansalthar, and it was a metal disc lining the floor, carved with engravings of the beast below, writing I couldn't read and circled in possessed students. Their eyes gouged and carved over with symbols. Evil symbols. They began to fight us, I was brave and courageous and fought two of them with my bare hands, I also managed to get some of Buffy's best moves on camera as a keepsake.

She's such a good fighter. They were all on the floor, the students when she pulled out the knife, and we circled the seal, opposite sides and she began speaking. She was talking about bleeding me, that Willow had done research - that the only way to close it would be to have my blood all over it, because I awakened it and now I must pay the price. I didn't believe she'd really kill me. I begged for my life, I told her that Warren made me, that he told me Jonathan would be ok, that he wouldn't die. And now I was going to.

She said, "you didn't lose him, you murdered him." There were tears at the back of her throat as she talked, she didn't like that word, I could tell, it was like dirty water slipping into her and hated to look at me.

My eyes were watery too as I replied, "I know." And perhaps for the first time, I meant it, I accepted what I was, what I'd done to him, what I'd failed to do in protecting him and trying to grasp at what wasn't mine. I begged her again not to kill me, and the tears felt heavier now, like there were clouds under my eyes. Clouds like the ones that could've made us into Gods, a fantasy now gone, the clouds blew away with my crime.

She was talking about death, mine and the deaths of others, the girls. She told me my death would save the world, that my blood could save them all. But it wasn't true, I had guilt, I had had a choice. I was selfish in my own game and I killed him for the power, the glory. I killed my best friend for selfish gain and I wasn't under the thrall of some dark power, I was just me. Andrew. Tucker's stupid brother. And then she was holding me over the seal, the knife in her other hand as I cried. My face was wet and sticky and I could feel the heat of my guilt rising through me.

Then I fell. For a split second I'd thought it was death and I was glad, glad my death might save someone. But the light stopped, oh yeah there was a big glowing light coming out of the seal, might've forgotten to mention that. Well there was. And it was dark again, my hands fell forward onto the cold metal and I was free. I didn't understand what'd happened but I thanked her.

Xander and Anya were wrapped around each other in a squashed up bed in the basement, since neither of them actually had their own one at present. Anya's apartment having been kinda destroyed and Xander had been needed so such around the house lately he'd actually been sleeping on the couch. Not that either of them had the time to leave and go somewhere. It'd been an impulse, after that night in November, the months had slipped by and they'd needed a release.

It wasn't just that. It was Anya's idea, their whole relationship had essentially started with sex, she figured it would help fix them. Help get their relationship back to where it was, you know, physically. It was strange to both them, not like the last time at all, that had been about passion and speed and pleasure and release for the both of them. Not that it lacked meaning, it was just different. This time was much slower, very similar to their first time, slow and bumpy and nervous.

As they lay there, still and quiet. Anya smiled, she'd missed the smell of him on her body, the weight of his skin pressed up against her. Her hair was spread out wildly on the pillow and his arms had flailed across her in the peace that was their silence.

"An?" Xander said quietly, more of a whisper really. The use of that small nickname for her did make Anya feel more like her old self. Her old self that was in love with Xander and quite often wrapped around him.

"Yeah?" She replied a little louder, bringing him out of a peaceful half-slumber. He felt a little awkward, for the first time since he'd gotten his job and his flat and the life where he could afford things and had confidence. He felt like teenager Xander again, sleeping in his room at his parent's house, listening to his parents scream at each other. It held a faint memory of his prom tux hanging on the back of his door and the kiss he'd had with Anya in one of the school hallways. It was an awkwardness but one he'd rather keep; he felt his youth was back. The thing that kept him wanting her, that nothing had changed between them since that night at prom. A lot had happened, but their feelings hadn't changed.

"Are you sure you want to do this? The no marriage thing?" He asked seriously, he needed to know, if really deep down she wanted the whole white wedding thing, he knew she had last year. Maybe she still really wanted that, and he couldn't give it to her. "That we'd be together but never have that solidity?"

She shook her head before answering, pressing her nose into the side of his arm. His smell wafting into her as she inhaled him deeply. "Xander," she gave a small sigh. "I'm a thousand years old, correct?" She felt him nod in response and looked up slightly to kiss his lips lightly before continuing. "Well, I didn't really feel a lot of stuff, not really, I just lived, I just didn't die. There was vengeance and not dying. But then the vengeance went away and then there was you. You showed me what love is and how to feel it, that I could feel it, I would say again, but I don't think I'd ever felt love before. My parents died and I was left alone. And you are the most solid thing to me. All the years disappear into soup because there was nothing much excitement in them, but you, Xander, you make me feel."

Xander thought on it for a few moments, kissing her forehead and relaxing into her grip knew that for the time being they were back on track. That it really should be a secret for a while, whilst they found their footing but after then, they were going to be just fine. So all he felt he needed to reply with was, "yes, dear."