Title: Blood Bag
Author: Shin Willow.
Spoilers: Season 6 a little.
Category: Drama
Rating: R
Summery: Xander probably shouldn't tell demons his darkest secrets, former or otherwise.
Muffled, heavy beat of the music inside the nightclub thrummed through the brick wall, the dirty steel door, the roof, everything. Xander leaned hard against the brick wall opposite the club's, just as dirty and cold as its neighbor and he listened to the drums, and watched the dried blood colored wall waiting for something to come through the door. Literally, waiting for some thing to come through.
Took forever to get used to the guns. He felt all John Woo back here, 'cept he wasn't quite as cool looking when he uses the 9's. He might, but he couldn't really see himself squeezing bullets out of magazines like they were going out of style. Xander in so many ways missed swinging stakes and the medieval stuff: axes, swords and crossbows--the good stuff. Stuff that took him back, way, way back in the day. Days he missed awfully.
God, and the black trench! Xander so got it now why Dead Boy went around in one whenever he could. Before, he thought the vampire was trying to look all cool, but now Xander believed the coat was for hiding the blood. Whose ever.
The steel door bangs against the wall, clangs a vibrating rumble, then drowns when the pulsating music, Techno hip-hop mix, obnoxiously blaring rushes out into the alleyway. Two men, maybe, but Xander doubts it, stumble out. They look drunk, propping each other up as they come out and they don't see him. Xander thinks they are drunk, because these are vampires and vampires don't miss nothin'. Not the dangerous ones.
Guns stay in his hands, which are down at his sides. Fingers aren't even curled around the triggers. He's still not sure if these are the vampires he's searching for. Two of hundreds. So Xander waits while the pair amble forward, boots crunching over a dark rainbow of broken beer bottles and pulverized cocaine vials. Waits until they're about to turn and walk away down the alley, out onto the crowded sidewalk. Xander clears his throat, not very loud. It's kind of polite, the way Giles might.
This catches their attention and first one cranes his head around lazily and looks straight at Xander, darkness being no hindrance for a vampire, then the other sort of tilts his head back to look around the back of the first vampire's head. And that's them. Xander's fingers creep around the triggers.
"Hey, Kenny man, look! It's Blood Bag!" The first vampire exclaims. Xander can see the genuine look of surprise on its face. A face Xander could never forget, even while in game.
"No way! It is! Fuck me, what's it been? Three years? Jesus, I thought he was dead!"
"No way," the vampire not named Kenny replies as he steps away from the vampire that was. "Remember how we all fed off him? I think I must have sucked on him--and I mean that in a totally non-gay way--for an hour and he never even lost consciousness. He was like the fuckin' Bloody Horn of Plenty. I don't think he can die."
"No, no, I heard from Heath he bought it after we left Sunnydale," Kenny said shaking his head.
"Heath? That pussy? Guy probably makes up shit just to get morons, like you, to listen to him."
"Fuck you."
"No means no, buddy."
Both vampires were coming at Xander, never really acknowledging he was anything but their next victim. Or all you can eat buffet. Xander listened and watched silently, wanting them close, so close he'd see their eyes wide and bright. Involuntary breath, probably warm from the sweltering atmosphere inside the night club, heavy and nasty from alcohol, on his face.
"Maybe after we feed we can sell him to Loris. I bet he'd pay a grip for a running supply," Kenny suggested.
"Yeah, be better than that stagnant shit he buys from the Banks."
Xander listened to these words unblinkingly; they were words he'd heard many times before after finding the others. From the demons and vampires who knew who and what he was. Xander trained himself not to be afraid of the threats anymore. Of the promise of a future where he becomes an endless tap to be fed upon.
Xander and the vampires stood barely a foot apart, Xander unmoving against the wall. Still watchful, still silent. Fingers tight, tight around those triggers, almost applying the right amount of pressure.
"He hasn't aged. I told you. He smells young like back then."
"Maybe we should keep him for ourselves then."
"Right, it'll be like having a pet. We'll have to feed him and bathe him--"
"Bathe him?"
"Yeah, why the hell do you think I don't bite bums? I hate eating dirty food."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. We'll sell him, after we--"
The guns are up, and fast because even the vampires don't see Xander's arms move. Silenced nozzle of the weapons biting briefly into the soft flesh under their chins before Xander pops off two rounds from each gun into the vampires' skulls. The nameless vampire collapses and evaporates into a neat pile of dust; oddly his gray matter survives and runs down the grimy brick wall belonging to the club. Kenny's head remains intact, at least in comparison to his pal's. The force of the blast throws him back, stumbles, not unlike when he exited the club, before falling to the cutting cement.
Xander held the guns in place and watches the vampire twitch on the ground. He's seen this before, made it happen dozens of times. Xander knows vampires can't take direct headshots without losing most of their motor functions. Depending on which parts of the brain he's demolished with bullets, the vampires can become little more than cockroaches after their heads are chopped off. All reflex, no mind. Sometimes all mind and no reflex.
Kenny is the former.
Xander aims the 9 in his right hand at the vampire's left kneecap, fires. Next, the right and fires. Might as well be shooting a side of beef. Xander walks up to Kenny, his sneakers quiet on the glass. Kenny's eyes are wide, glassy and brown and fading. Blood began pooling around his head, cold before it even touches the ground. Xander aims the 9 at the vampire's neck and sends three bullets through flesh and bone. Tearing it all apart and Kenny is dust. Only his stolen blood souping shards of glass proved he was ever there in the alley.
Xander slipped the gats into the deep pockets of his trench. Two down, three hundred and forty-two to go. Turning, memories of the two vampires he killed there already disappearing from his memory, Xander made to leave the alley. By tomorrow he wouldn't even remember killing them. As promised.
"How long can you keep this up, Xander?"
Xander stopped walking but kept his back to the speaker.
"Until it's all over."
"Won't ever be over. Not between you and me. Not until you know nothing but suffering."
"You never did do anything half way, didja?"
"Half-assed is your way of doing things. I like to finish what I start."
"You didn't finish me," Xander whispered.
"Because I'm not finished with you. Not by half."
"I'm coming after you, Anya."
"If your precious Buffy and Willow couldn't take me what the hell makes you think you can?"
Xander finally revolves. Head bowed and says staring at the ground, "They don't want you dead bad enough, Ahn."
"It's nice to hear you're not apologizing anymore. Gotta say it bugged. Not like it meant shit, anyway."
Xander said nothing. He could feel himself shutting down completely. He can't handle Anya, not at all, not with emotions in play. Useless emoting that could never be resolved with the pistols in his coat. With slugs in her brains.
When the silence is ten seconds old, Anya breaks it. "How long did they feed on you? I forget."
"Ten years... but then you knew that. You watched."
"Sometimes, every now and then, just to see if you were still having a good time. Oh, and Spike sends his best."
Xander said nothing, moved not an inch.
Anyanka gave a sharp bark of laughter and said, "Time. Time was when I only had to go, 'Ssssspy'-- and you went ballistic. Golly-gee, Xander, it's like you don't care he left you there for years, joined your friends and was fucking Saint Buffy all while you bled for a living. Have you let that go already?"
"Anya," Xander began, raising his head to meet the demon's eyes, "you'll scream. I promise, you'll scream."
Anya smiled and began to vanish in a haze of gray smoke and swirling yellow bolts of energy. Highlighting every grimy detail of the alleyway. "I guess making one of your greatest fears come true kind of pissed you off, didn't it, Xander?"
Anya became a ghost, features growing vaguer and vaguer until she was disappeared. Just her parting words lingered, "Live Xander, trudge on and on. It's what you do best no matter how bad it gets. Always loved that about you..."