Title: Inverted Triangle (5/?)
Author: Cyclone
Feedback: Please be gentle.
Distribution: Gimme credit and a link. Plus, archived at http://fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=62966
Rating: I'm gonna go say PG-13.
Spoilers: Up to Help and diverges after it.
Disclaimer: The characters depicted herein belong to the almighty Joss. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Summary: Love on the Hellmouth is never as easy as it seems.
Author's Note: This fanfic includes B/X, W/X, B/W, and a sprinkling of T/X. Oh, and some B/X/W too. What can I say? I like love triangles.
* * *
Buffy and Anne went first, armed with stakes. Behind them were Xander and Alex, Xander carrying a broadsword while Alex gripped an axe. Willow and Rose brought up the rear.
The mansion appeared to be deserted, but an odd greenish glow emanated from the other side of a door at the back of the front room, beckoning them further.
Buffy nodded at Xander and Alex, then nodded to either side of the door. Taking their cue, the two men sidled to flank the door. Anne kicked the door down, and the two Slayers rushed in, followed quickly by Alex and Xander.
The room was empty, save for the source of the greenish glow: a swirling portal in the center of the room.
"I guess... we go in," Buffy said, eyeing it warily. Just looking at it made her nauseous. She shot a look at Anne, "Slayers first?"
Anne nodded grimly. "Slayers first. On three."
"Three!" Buffy said, and the two Slayers leaped into the portal.
Buffy found herself unable to breathe and floating down a twisting tunnel of sickly green light. It reminded her of Sliders, only green and nauseating. She swallowed the bile that threatened to rise.
She did _not_ want to find out what would happen if she threw up in here.
Finally, she tumbled face first on the ground. She gulped in the fresh air and looked around. Anne was pulling herself to her feet next to her, and behind her was a portal identical to the one in the mansion.
Everything else, on the other hand, was completely unexpected, and she stared in shock. The light of the stars and full moon revealed a forest of enormous trees standing at least a hundred feet tall surrounding them, though the clouds promised rain.
Ahead of them was an enormous castle built of worn-looking stone, covered with creeping vines. The rotted wooden drawbridge hung open, its rusted chains obviously in no condition to lift them. The porticullis was down, but smashed apart.
She turned as first Alex and Xander, then Rose and Willow landed behind them.
"Ooh, I think I'm gonna be sick," the two redheads said in stereo, covering their mouths with their hands.
"Okay, I'm guessing we go _there_," Alex said, pointing at the ancient castle.
They walked up to the vine-choked moat surrounding the castle, and Xander prodded the drawbridge dubiously with his toe. The wood creaked and shuddered, and a part of it crumbled away where his shoe touched it. "This thing doesn't look too stable."
"M-maybe we should go one at a time then?" Rose suggested halfheartedly.
Buffy shook her head, "No. That's probably what they want. To split us up. We go together."
"But how?" asked Anne. "This thing won't hold all of us."
"Like this," Buffy replied. She plucked Alex's axe out of his hand and walked over to one of the shorter trees on the edge of the moat. Then she started chopping.
After a few minutes, the tree creaked and fell with a loud crash, forming a bridge across the moat near the drawbridge.
"Well," Xander commented, "if they weren't expecting us before, they sure are now."
One by one, the two Slayers and four Slayerettes began crawling across the fallen tree toward the castle. Buffy was just about to reach the other side when it happened.
Shooting out of the moat came a snake-like head, lashing out at the nearest of the six would-be rescuers. Rose flung herself out of the way, and the moat monster's snout impacted the fallen tree, sending it spinning around.
"Whoa!" Buffy cried out as the makeshift tree bridge rocked with the impact. All she could do was cling to the wood with all her Slayer strength as the world whirled around her.
When the tree settled again, she looked back, and her heart leaped to her throat. Rose dangled precariously from the tree, her hand clutching a vine desperately. Xander reached down and grabbed her forearm...
...just as the snake creature struck again. The motion knocked Xander off-balance, and the two fell together into the moat.
"Xander!" Buffy and Willow shrieked in unison.
The witch rose to her feet, her eyes black and arms extended. Snarling at the giant snake looming above them, she thrust her hands out and bellowed, "Monstrum incendere!"
A column of fire erupted from her fingertips and blasted the snake creature, and it reared back, wailing in pain. Buffy leaped off the tree and onto the flagstoned entrance, grabbed a sharpened steel shaft that was once a part of the porticullis, and hurled it at the snake.
The makeshift javelin skewered the creature through its lower jaw, and its scream rose to an ear-splitting shriek as it withdrew, retreating back under the water.
The four remaining Scoobies rushed the remaining distance across the moat.
Willow dropped to her belly and reached frantically toward the suddenly calm surface, "Xander? Xander! XANDER!!!"
Anne squatted next to her and solemnly placed a hand on her shoulder, gently pulling her back up to her knees. She shook her head, "They're gone."
"NO!" she shrieked. "No..." She collapsed into Anne's arms, sobbing Xander's name.
Buffy felt like crying too, but she blinked back the tears that threatened to rise. She was the Slayer, and her sister needed her.
"We have to keep going," she choked out.
Willow suddenly jerked her head up and glared at her in shock, "How can you just-... I thought you loved him!"
"I do!" she shot back. "But we don't have time to mourn them now. We have to save Dawn."
"To _hell_ with Dawn!" she shrieked. "I just lost... Xander just..." Willow couldn't finish and crumpled into Anne's comforting arms again.
"Look," Buffy said, steeling herself, "maybe... maybe they found another way in or something."
"Do you really believe that?"
"I have to."
* * *
"Alex, get down!" Buffy called, tearing the arm off the animated statue she was fighting and hurling it at Alex's opponent.
The marble arm flew over Alex's head and crashed into his own stone opponent in the chest, and both shattered. He in turn spun and buried his axe in the chest of the statue Anne was fighting before the Slayer twisted its head off. Buffy's opponent did not last much longer.
Exhaling slowly, Alex kicked one of the stone fragments and sent it skittering down the hall. "I'm gonna have a _really_ long talk with this guy's interior decorator."
"Points for creativity, though," Anne cracked. "I mean, homicidal architecture's kinda new. Beats the old 'vampire horde' deal by a mile."
"A-actually, statues aren't technically architecture..." Willow said hesitantly. She was still holding in the pain of losing Xander, but she was coping, clinging to the faint hope that Xander and Rose had survived. She paused. "I'm being a geek, aren't I?"
They nodded in unison.
"Just checking."
* * *
"Should've kept your mouth shut, Anne," Buffy said through gritted teeth as she staked yet another vampire.
"I'm thinking yeah on that, Buffy," the other Slayer replied while flipping another vampire over her shoulder. She whirled around and staked it.
Alex's axe swung left and right, lopping off hands, arms, and heads indiscriminately while Willow did her best to hold her own. After a rather disastrous experiment with a so-called pinpoint fire spell had nearly incinerated them earlier, she had decided to just stick with levitating stakes.
And they worked out pretty well, thankfully.
"Buffy! Help!"
She turned and saw that Alex was in dire straits. Fighting with his back to a door, he now struggled with arms that reached through the door and clawed at him from the other side.
Reacting purely on instinct, she charged. She cut through her opponents like a scythe through wheat and tore him free of the grasping hands.
Just as something in the room exploded.
* * *
"Ohh..." Buffy moaned as she slowly sat up, holding her head. She had a pounding headache, and it was making it hard to think.
"Hey, how're you feeling?" a soft male voice asked.
"Like a grenade went off in my head," she groused at Alex.
He winced, "Close. The explosion was a few feet behind you. I think the vamps shielded us from the worst of it, though."
"Willow? And Anne?" she asked hopefully, looking around the elaborately decorated bedroom for them.
He looked away.
"No," she shook her head in denial and pleaded. "No. I can't believe... NO! I-I... I can't... lose them both..." she shuddered as tears began to stream down her cheeks.
"Shh, shh, it's okay," Alex said, pulling her close. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
She leaned into his shoulder, unable to stop crying. He wordlessly held her close, absentmindedly stroking her hair.
* * *
"You know," Buffy commented, "this was probably a really bad idea."
"Probably, but I'm not complaining," Alex replied.
"But I used you," she said, ashamed.
"No, you didn't, Buff," he said. "Don't ever think that. I... I wanted this as much as you did. I... with Willow and Rose gone... we're never going to get back... a-and when I look at you... I see everything I ever loved my Buffy for."
She paused and thought that one over for a long moment. "Yeah, well, still... we could've waited until we _weren't_ in mortal danger," she complained. "Not exactly how I imagined my first time with Alexander Lavelle Harris."
"Well, we'll make the second time better," he promised. "But we have to get moving if we're going to save Dawn."
"Right." *Oh, God. I can't believe I forgot about Dawn!*
* * *
"Buffy! Alex!"
The Slayer looked up, and her jaw dropped in relieved surprise, "Anne! Willow!" She turned and gave Alex a quizzical look, "I thought you said..."
He shrugged, "I guess I was wrong."
* * *
Author's Postscript:
More surprises ahead!
Author: Cyclone
Feedback: Please be gentle.
Distribution: Gimme credit and a link. Plus, archived at http://fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=62966
Rating: I'm gonna go say PG-13.
Spoilers: Up to Help and diverges after it.
Disclaimer: The characters depicted herein belong to the almighty Joss. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Summary: Love on the Hellmouth is never as easy as it seems.
Author's Note: This fanfic includes B/X, W/X, B/W, and a sprinkling of T/X. Oh, and some B/X/W too. What can I say? I like love triangles.
* * *
Buffy and Anne went first, armed with stakes. Behind them were Xander and Alex, Xander carrying a broadsword while Alex gripped an axe. Willow and Rose brought up the rear.
The mansion appeared to be deserted, but an odd greenish glow emanated from the other side of a door at the back of the front room, beckoning them further.
Buffy nodded at Xander and Alex, then nodded to either side of the door. Taking their cue, the two men sidled to flank the door. Anne kicked the door down, and the two Slayers rushed in, followed quickly by Alex and Xander.
The room was empty, save for the source of the greenish glow: a swirling portal in the center of the room.
"I guess... we go in," Buffy said, eyeing it warily. Just looking at it made her nauseous. She shot a look at Anne, "Slayers first?"
Anne nodded grimly. "Slayers first. On three."
"Three!" Buffy said, and the two Slayers leaped into the portal.
Buffy found herself unable to breathe and floating down a twisting tunnel of sickly green light. It reminded her of Sliders, only green and nauseating. She swallowed the bile that threatened to rise.
She did _not_ want to find out what would happen if she threw up in here.
Finally, she tumbled face first on the ground. She gulped in the fresh air and looked around. Anne was pulling herself to her feet next to her, and behind her was a portal identical to the one in the mansion.
Everything else, on the other hand, was completely unexpected, and she stared in shock. The light of the stars and full moon revealed a forest of enormous trees standing at least a hundred feet tall surrounding them, though the clouds promised rain.
Ahead of them was an enormous castle built of worn-looking stone, covered with creeping vines. The rotted wooden drawbridge hung open, its rusted chains obviously in no condition to lift them. The porticullis was down, but smashed apart.
She turned as first Alex and Xander, then Rose and Willow landed behind them.
"Ooh, I think I'm gonna be sick," the two redheads said in stereo, covering their mouths with their hands.
"Okay, I'm guessing we go _there_," Alex said, pointing at the ancient castle.
They walked up to the vine-choked moat surrounding the castle, and Xander prodded the drawbridge dubiously with his toe. The wood creaked and shuddered, and a part of it crumbled away where his shoe touched it. "This thing doesn't look too stable."
"M-maybe we should go one at a time then?" Rose suggested halfheartedly.
Buffy shook her head, "No. That's probably what they want. To split us up. We go together."
"But how?" asked Anne. "This thing won't hold all of us."
"Like this," Buffy replied. She plucked Alex's axe out of his hand and walked over to one of the shorter trees on the edge of the moat. Then she started chopping.
After a few minutes, the tree creaked and fell with a loud crash, forming a bridge across the moat near the drawbridge.
"Well," Xander commented, "if they weren't expecting us before, they sure are now."
One by one, the two Slayers and four Slayerettes began crawling across the fallen tree toward the castle. Buffy was just about to reach the other side when it happened.
Shooting out of the moat came a snake-like head, lashing out at the nearest of the six would-be rescuers. Rose flung herself out of the way, and the moat monster's snout impacted the fallen tree, sending it spinning around.
"Whoa!" Buffy cried out as the makeshift tree bridge rocked with the impact. All she could do was cling to the wood with all her Slayer strength as the world whirled around her.
When the tree settled again, she looked back, and her heart leaped to her throat. Rose dangled precariously from the tree, her hand clutching a vine desperately. Xander reached down and grabbed her forearm...
...just as the snake creature struck again. The motion knocked Xander off-balance, and the two fell together into the moat.
"Xander!" Buffy and Willow shrieked in unison.
The witch rose to her feet, her eyes black and arms extended. Snarling at the giant snake looming above them, she thrust her hands out and bellowed, "Monstrum incendere!"
A column of fire erupted from her fingertips and blasted the snake creature, and it reared back, wailing in pain. Buffy leaped off the tree and onto the flagstoned entrance, grabbed a sharpened steel shaft that was once a part of the porticullis, and hurled it at the snake.
The makeshift javelin skewered the creature through its lower jaw, and its scream rose to an ear-splitting shriek as it withdrew, retreating back under the water.
The four remaining Scoobies rushed the remaining distance across the moat.
Willow dropped to her belly and reached frantically toward the suddenly calm surface, "Xander? Xander! XANDER!!!"
Anne squatted next to her and solemnly placed a hand on her shoulder, gently pulling her back up to her knees. She shook her head, "They're gone."
"NO!" she shrieked. "No..." She collapsed into Anne's arms, sobbing Xander's name.
Buffy felt like crying too, but she blinked back the tears that threatened to rise. She was the Slayer, and her sister needed her.
"We have to keep going," she choked out.
Willow suddenly jerked her head up and glared at her in shock, "How can you just-... I thought you loved him!"
"I do!" she shot back. "But we don't have time to mourn them now. We have to save Dawn."
"To _hell_ with Dawn!" she shrieked. "I just lost... Xander just..." Willow couldn't finish and crumpled into Anne's comforting arms again.
"Look," Buffy said, steeling herself, "maybe... maybe they found another way in or something."
"Do you really believe that?"
"I have to."
* * *
"Alex, get down!" Buffy called, tearing the arm off the animated statue she was fighting and hurling it at Alex's opponent.
The marble arm flew over Alex's head and crashed into his own stone opponent in the chest, and both shattered. He in turn spun and buried his axe in the chest of the statue Anne was fighting before the Slayer twisted its head off. Buffy's opponent did not last much longer.
Exhaling slowly, Alex kicked one of the stone fragments and sent it skittering down the hall. "I'm gonna have a _really_ long talk with this guy's interior decorator."
"Points for creativity, though," Anne cracked. "I mean, homicidal architecture's kinda new. Beats the old 'vampire horde' deal by a mile."
"A-actually, statues aren't technically architecture..." Willow said hesitantly. She was still holding in the pain of losing Xander, but she was coping, clinging to the faint hope that Xander and Rose had survived. She paused. "I'm being a geek, aren't I?"
They nodded in unison.
"Just checking."
* * *
"Should've kept your mouth shut, Anne," Buffy said through gritted teeth as she staked yet another vampire.
"I'm thinking yeah on that, Buffy," the other Slayer replied while flipping another vampire over her shoulder. She whirled around and staked it.
Alex's axe swung left and right, lopping off hands, arms, and heads indiscriminately while Willow did her best to hold her own. After a rather disastrous experiment with a so-called pinpoint fire spell had nearly incinerated them earlier, she had decided to just stick with levitating stakes.
And they worked out pretty well, thankfully.
"Buffy! Help!"
She turned and saw that Alex was in dire straits. Fighting with his back to a door, he now struggled with arms that reached through the door and clawed at him from the other side.
Reacting purely on instinct, she charged. She cut through her opponents like a scythe through wheat and tore him free of the grasping hands.
Just as something in the room exploded.
* * *
"Ohh..." Buffy moaned as she slowly sat up, holding her head. She had a pounding headache, and it was making it hard to think.
"Hey, how're you feeling?" a soft male voice asked.
"Like a grenade went off in my head," she groused at Alex.
He winced, "Close. The explosion was a few feet behind you. I think the vamps shielded us from the worst of it, though."
"Willow? And Anne?" she asked hopefully, looking around the elaborately decorated bedroom for them.
He looked away.
"No," she shook her head in denial and pleaded. "No. I can't believe... NO! I-I... I can't... lose them both..." she shuddered as tears began to stream down her cheeks.
"Shh, shh, it's okay," Alex said, pulling her close. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
She leaned into his shoulder, unable to stop crying. He wordlessly held her close, absentmindedly stroking her hair.
* * *
"You know," Buffy commented, "this was probably a really bad idea."
"Probably, but I'm not complaining," Alex replied.
"But I used you," she said, ashamed.
"No, you didn't, Buff," he said. "Don't ever think that. I... I wanted this as much as you did. I... with Willow and Rose gone... we're never going to get back... a-and when I look at you... I see everything I ever loved my Buffy for."
She paused and thought that one over for a long moment. "Yeah, well, still... we could've waited until we _weren't_ in mortal danger," she complained. "Not exactly how I imagined my first time with Alexander Lavelle Harris."
"Well, we'll make the second time better," he promised. "But we have to get moving if we're going to save Dawn."
"Right." *Oh, God. I can't believe I forgot about Dawn!*
* * *
"Buffy! Alex!"
The Slayer looked up, and her jaw dropped in relieved surprise, "Anne! Willow!" She turned and gave Alex a quizzical look, "I thought you said..."
He shrugged, "I guess I was wrong."
* * *
Author's Postscript:
More surprises ahead!