Summary: What if Cordelia had been Called instead of Buffy? One-Shot, implied potential C/X.
Disclaimer: "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" and all associated characters and situations are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, used for entertainment purposes without permission or intent to profit.
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"Cordelia's Calling"
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'
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Unlike his best friend, Xander Harris didn't have dreams about being accosted by the 'Queen C' of Sunnydale High, Cordelia Chase, so he definitely never expected it to happen in real life. If anyone were to wonder why a Freshman had become the Queen of the school and head of the popular crowd, her family had millions of explanations for it, most of them sitting in the bank. It was easy to be popular when your family was the wealthiest in town.
For his part, Xander was from the other side of the tracks. Though considering Sunnydale's size, the 'other side of the tracks' wasn't really that far from the 'right side of the tracks', especially if one knew that the threesome of Xander, his best friend Jesse MacNally and their best friend-who-is-a-girl - but not 'girlfriend' - Willow Rosenberg had once been a quartet with Cordelia 'Cordy' Chase as the fourth. Those days, however, had ended back in third grade with a milkshake spill and a bloody nose. Which meant that it had been about six years since Xander had last been grabbed by the arm and dragged anywhere by Cordelia, so the fact that it was happening - and that she was dragging him along so easily - was a surprise. He just wasn't sure it was a pleasant one, even if it did remind him of younger - and, dare he even think it, happier - days.
Finally, after she had dragged him out behind Sunnydale High into the area between the dumpsters and the janitor's entrance where the 'bad elements' usually hung out when they weren't doing bad element stuff, Cordelia let go of Xander's arm and turned to face him.
"Okay, two things; one, don't couples usually go behind the bleachers or something? Not that we're a couple or anything," Xander covered his metaphoric rear quickly before the brunette could even think to lose her temper with him. "And, you know, two, why me? I mean, I know Jesse wouldn't care where you dragged him as long as you were the one dragging him, cave-girl."
"I need help," Cordelia's admission slightly stunned him for a moment.
"Why come to me?"
"Simple, when I think of ridiculous, unrealistic and annoying, you're one of the first people that come to mind... and the first one that doesn't also make me sick instead of just annoyed, and that includes your creep-o buddy," the brunette informed him as she stooped down to pick something up off the ground, what it was he wasn't sure.
"I'm honored, impressed, flabbergasted, shocked, stunned, amused..." Xander pursed his lips thoughtfully, "Sorry, can't seem to think up any other terms at the moment."
"Don't be such a dweeb, dweeb," Cordelia almost snarled the words.
"Touchy..."
"Touchy, huh?" Cordelia looked him right in the eye before holding up a metal bar, assumably the object she'd picked up, "Mind explaining this?"
Then she bent it into a loop and dropped it back to the ground.
Xander blinked and gave the first answer that came to mind, "You're revealing your secret identity as Wonder Woman?"
He managed a split second to damn his own mind for coming up with the image of Cordelia wearing the Amazon champion's classic outfit before she grabbed his arm and started twisting it.
"Mind, gutter, out, dweeb," Cordelia commanded in an unhappy growl as he started to whimper slightly.
"Arm, hurting, stop, please," he managed to get out through the pain.
"Then start coming up with answers!" She snapped as she released him. Even without her trying to shove him, the action caused him to stumble backwards from the unintentional force behind it.
"How should I know any answers! I don't even know what's going on; well, except that I don't think you're the kind to take steroids... ow..." Xander answered, rubbing his sore arm. "At least not knowingly... did your cook introduce any new recipes or your personal trainer insist on a new energy drink lately, anything like that? Ow, again, by the way..."
"Not happening, my dietician monitors my menus way too closely for the first to ever happen without knowing well ahead of time," Cordelia huffed, folding her arms in frustration.
"...And your personal trainer?"
"He trains both me and Mother, so she'd be having the same..." the brunette frowned for a moment, "...problem, but she's not."
"If she was, would she tell you?" Xander asked rhetorically, an eyebrow raised as if to say 'I don't think so'.
"Okay, you might have a point there at least," Cordelia grudgingly admitted. It wasn't like it was a massive secret that she had a closer relationship with her parents' money than with her parents themselves. For that matter, they had a closer relationship with their money than with each other, now that she thought about it.
"Since there's not been a news report about a sudden outbreak of She-Hulks, I guess it's not in the water, either," Xander remarked.
"Great, now if we could get away from what it's not and start figuring out what the hell it is that's happening to me, that'd be twice the great," Cordelia snapped annoyed that the dweeb was bringing his geek-isms into her problems.
"Hey, you came to me," Xander reminded her with a hint of his own annoyance. "That means you have to pay the costs, including geek-isms and mind-in-the-gutter."
The girl with him rolled her eyes, "I don't know if any help is going to be worth that..."
Xander looked at her in a mixture of amusement, pity and disbelief, "Would you prefer getting dragged off to a government testing facility to be dissected so they can try to duplicate whatever happened to you and create an army of super-soldiers?"
"Uh..." Cordelia grimaced, "Would they put me back together again? Properly, I mean, like with a good plastic surgeon instead of some emergency room meatball surgeon?"
"Cordy..." Xander couldn't keep from groaning, "You'd be dead."
"Yeah, that would be bad, I guess." Cordelia frowned, "I'm not sure what that would do to my lifetime subscriptions to Runway, Fashion and The 'Lipstick of The Month' Club."
"Do I look like Harmony or Blue?" Xander asked in frustration. "I don't need the queen bee-airhead act, Cordelia."
The glare he recieved in response was enough to tell him both that she wasn't happy with him calling her a 'queen bee-airhead' and that she'd try not to let 'Queen C' out any more until they had some kind of clue what was going on.
"So, since we now know that I don't have the first clue what's going on since you shot down my 'Amazon Princess' theory, what's the next step?" He asked, relaxing slightly.
"I can't believe I'm actually about to say this," Cordelia's nose wrinkled in disgust, "But maybe there's something in the school library about this... whatever this is that's going on."
"The school library, you mean the creepy school library with way too many books on weird stuff for a high school to have?" Whether he'd liked it or not, Xander had ended up browsing the shelves while Willow was in there and he and Jesse were waiting on her to find whatever books she wanted; some of the titles read like the horror movie section down at the local video rental place.
"I heard from Daddy that the new British librarian who the school board hired last year donated most of those himself. So wrong... Nobody should have that many books on ghosts and monsters, except goth-wannabes that think they're some kind of 'creatures of the night' and shop for makeup at the office supply store," Cordelia added that last part with an annoyed grimace.
"So... are you saying they're worse than my shirts?" Xander asked.
"God of Shopping, forgive me for this; but, yes, Xander, there actually are things in this world worse than those dumpster-reject shirts of yours."
"I'm tempted to have that carved into a plaque, complete with date, and bronzed."
"Oh, good, then I can hit you over the head with it," Cordelia clenched her teeth in frustration.
"If I were Jesse, he'd make a comment about 'you only hurt the one you love', so that'd be proof that you really loved him," Xander observed almost without thinking about it.
"Which is why I came to you and not him, dumbass!" Cordelia swore, causing Xander's eyes to widen slightly.
"Do your parents know you're using that kind of language, Cordelia Chase?"
"With everything that's going on right now, you really think I care what my parents would think of my language? Dumbass!" Cordelia repeated the term angrily.
There was really only one thing that Xander could say, a very sarcastic, "'Yes, dear'."
He was pretty sure he was going to have a bruise on his arm the next morning, where she had punched him after that, but at least it wasn't broken... Cracked maybe, but he didn't think it was broken.
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For most schools, the creepiest, most foreboding room would be the Principal's office - or the Vice Principal's, depending on who handled discipline - or maybe the cafeteria, but at Sunnydale High, it was easily the school library and no one could really figure out why that was so. All anyone knew was the the library was somewhere to be avoided at all costs and, if against all odds had to be visited, should have any business there completed and the place gotten out of as quickly as possible.
"This is the scene in the horror movie where someone comes up behind the heroes and startle them, then when they turn around to yell at their friend who did it, the real horror comes up from the direction they were just facing," Xander rambled as they walked down the empty hall, most students having actually gone to their homerooms and first period classes, leaving them in the hall alone for the moment.
"I'd tell you to shut up and stop being an idiot-geek, but..." Cordelia looked around them and inhaled slowly, "But considering my current situation, I'm almost afraid you could actually be right about something and this would - God help me - be it..."
"Please don't agree with me, especially about this," Xander responded with a grimace. "I always thought us agreeing on anything now-days would cause the end of the world and right now; super-powered Cordy Chase, creepy feelings in the school hallways, the end of the world seems way too close to the truth..."
There was a part of her that really wanted to agree with him on that factor too, but the way he was talking to her struck a nerve, "Shut up and stop being an idiot-geek."
"I ramble when I'm afraid, deal with it."
"Sure..." Cordelia held up a fist, "I'll just do that by breaking your jaw, how about that?"
Xander let out a quick huffing sigh as he realized that they had reached their destination while talking, "Oh, I've never been so glad to see a library before, even this one..."
"You've seen libraries before?" Cordelia asked, trying to get in one last cut.
"Yeah, waiting for Wills to come out of them," Xander answered, causing Cordelia to clench her teeth and push the door open hard enough for it to slam against the wall behind it on her way in.
Inside the library, from the way the door slammed open and a teenage girl stormed in behind it, the librarian was left to conclude that the person whom on he had been waiting had finally seen fit to arrive.
"Uh, um, property destruction is strongly against the school rules," he informed her, trying to sound stern and commanding to establish himself in the leadership role early on.
"I'll keep that in mind in case I get the urge to burn down the gym or something," Xander quipped as he entered the room behind Cordelia, glancing to the side as the door closed behind him to take in the cracked sheetrock where it had hit the wall. It crossed his mind that it would probably be a good idea to keep Jesse far away from his crush for a while, lest he be crushed himself.
"I say!" The librarian pulled a small cloth from his jacket pocket and removed his glasses to begin polishing them furiously.
"Yeah, whatever you say," Cordelia flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Where do you keep the reference books on weird things in this place, anyway?"
"Still say that for spontaneously developing super-strength, the comic book shop would probably be a better resource," Xander remarked.
"Yes, well, this is-is something that needs to-to be discussed on a one-to-one basis, for lack of a-a better term," the librarian answered.
"I stay, he stays; he goes, I goes, Crumpet-man," Cordelia snapped. "Him I trust, even if I don't like him, you? Not with the knowing, not with the trusting."
"Especially not since that sounded way too like an adult male trying to get a teenage girl alone in private," Xander folded his arms and his face hardened. Strangely enough, it reminded Cordelia of her father's expression the last time he'd learned she'd gone over her limit on her credit cards. "Do terms like 'abuse of power' and 'attempted statutory rape' sound like anything you recognize, Brit-man?"
That was enough to have the librarian stammering so badly that no words could be heard, only random sounds as he tried and failed to respond. Xander merely lowered his head slightly and raised his eyebrows in an unspoken challenge. After a few moments of attempted intimidation that didn't seem to affect the young man, the librarian finally submitted and sighed in resignation.
"I see," said the librarian, though seeing didn't mean he liked or even approved of the situation. However, there was always the consideration of having the boy removed later on if it was needed. Decision made, the librarian reached under the counter and lifted out an obviously old book, "I believe this is what it is for which you are looking."
Almost ceremoniously, he laid it on the counter so that the two teens could see the one word printed on the aged leather cover; 'Vampyr'.
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Author's Note: And Fade To Black! I do not plan on continuing this. It's simply an idea of what would happen based on the concept that floats around the internet about the similarities between Hemery High Buffy and Sunnydale High Cordelia and how Cordy could just as easily been a Potential and Called. If you really want more, simply imagine what the movie might have been like with Cordy, Xander and Giles in Sunnydale instead of Buffy, Pike and Merrick in LA, but I don't plan on writing it...