Author: Cyclone
Feedback: Please be gentle.
Distribution: Gimme credit and a link.
Rating: Nothing too bad.
Spoilers: Up to the end of both series.
Disclaimer: The characters depicted herein belong to other people. I'm just borrowing them for a while.
Summary: Xander discovers he's not as normal as he thinks.
Author's Note: THIS is certainly a rare crossover. Credit goes to Yorath for his delightful input and some suggested scenes that will appear throughout this series.
It started with a bang.
Not that anyone heard it, as a foghorn was blowing when the gun went off.
Even so, it sort of upset the beings that had just left the Kage Maru, seeing as how the one in the lead immediately fell over dead.
Minako watched as four of the five remaining youma (?) suddenly formed a defensive circle around the fifth. Another blast from a foghorn, and another one of the monstrous figures collapsed, gurgling and clutching at its throat, where a dark green fluid sprayed out.
Xander scowled as two of the four survivors charged his position. One of them must've seen the muzzle flash, and these two looked quite a bit tougher than the first two he'd taken out or the other two fleeing for the ship.
He fired.
They kept coming.
"Aw, sh-..."
When Xander landed, he began patting himself down. In a moment, he found what he was looking for... and charged.
Minako stared as the man ran between the two hulking youma and... did he just slap them on the back?
He threw himself to the ground and rolled over... as the charges detonated.
Xander was breathing hard as he picked himself up and made a note to wash the eye socket. He'd swapped out the glass eye for the patch earlier -- it was harder to trace or use as a psychometric focus -- and when the demon hit him, it had torn off.
His gaze swept the ground, and he scooped up his Colt; he could find the patch later. Ignoring the pain from his (re)cracked ribs, he calmly replaced the magazine and boarded the ship.
He made a quick sweep of the deck, but as he headed for the hold, gunfire erupted from within, and he was forced to dance back.
"Since when were demons smart enough to use guns?" he wondered aloud with a certain amount of annoyance. Demons generally held guns with a certain amount of... disdain. Aside from a few vampires he'd run into, the demons he knew considered themselves above using guns.
"Screw this," he muttered.
Xander stepped away from the hold and looked around. Finding what he was looking for, he tipped over the 55-gallon drum, spilling the half-barrel of oil across the deck toward the hold.
He stepped back and fired at the deck, then scrambled down the boarding plank as the oil ignited. Just for good measure, he pulled his last demon-killer charge, set the detonator, and tossed it on board. It wasn't much, but it would make it harder for anything to survive.
Minako was so glad she'd brought her camera.
Xander usually picked up a cup of coffee, a newspaper, and a tabloid on the way to work. It was simple, expedient, and kept him up to date on things both mundane and supernatural. Giles had thrown his hands up in despair when he'd first suggested checking the tabloids back in England, before he shipped out to Africa, but it was an effective way to get an early heads-up on the weird... even if he did get the idea from a movie.
Hmm, he thought, there's the stuff on the fyarl demon two nights ago... a couple of Brachen sightings... hmm, looks like we've got a vamp nest. I'll have to check that out.
He ducked into the changing room and quickly traded his street clothes for the suit he was required to wear. Reclaiming his coffee and newspaper, he took a long pull and looked at the front page...
Pssshhhttt!
...and spat his mouthful of coffee five feet away.
One of the other members of the security detail looked at him, "What's wrong?"
Xander coughed, thumped his chest, and shook his head, "Nothing! Nothing at all. Just... drank too fast."
Splashed across the front page was a headline that read "Mysterious Vigilante Declares War On Drug Smugglers!" accompanied by a picture of the Kage Maru in flames, a silhouette of a man standing before it.
And Xander was pretty sure that silhouette was his.
"Hi, Hotaru," Xander waved. Okay, perhaps calling before a stakeout and setting up a date for the night after the stakeout might not have been the best idea...
Despite his efforts, he knew he must look like hell.
Not that this was a date. Of course not. They were just going to talk over dinner about her healing powers and some of the freaky-creepy in the world.
Author's Note:
Raise your hand if you actually think he's fooling anyone.
Uh huh. Thought so.
Hotaru frowned, "You're hurt again."
"Yeah, well..." Xander hemmed and hawed.
"I know you were fine two nights ago," she said crossly. "What happened?"
"Damn it," he mumbled under his breath, "it's not my fault demons love slamming me into concrete..." Xander cleared his throat and answered, "I had a bit of an accident on the way home." She's just getting a grip on vampires being real. Who knows how she'd react to finding out about demons?
"An accident?" Hotaru sputtered in disbelief. Not even Usagi's this accident-prone, she thought. "Where do you work anyway?" she asked.
"The British Embassy."
"Oh."
Now she thought she understood. She'd read Ian Fleming.
It was, Hotaru decided, a good day. Oh, sure, Michiru-mama and Haruka-papa seemed preoccupied with something, and Setsuna-mama hadn't been seen for a week, but that was actually fairly normal.
That her date was apparently some kind of vampire-hunting secret agent for the British government certainly added a whole new level of "cool" to the situation, and as a bonus, it meant he wasn't freaking out over her ability to heal people!
They were at a secluded table in the back corner of a nice Italian restaurant. Soft violin music was piped in through overhead speakers, and there was enough of a crowd scattered throughout the restaurant to create enough noise to covered their quiet conversation.
"So why does a vampire turn to dust like that?"
"I don't really know," Xander said. "There are two competing theories on that, though. One, the demon soul flash fries the body as it leaves, or two, the demonic energies decay the body rapidly but hold it together and intact while it's in residence. Personally, I'm betting on theory one."
"Oh," Hotaru said, not knowing what else to say to that. While she knew why youma and their ilk dusted -- they were artificial constructs of magical energy that just fell apart once that energy stopped -- she couldn't really apply the same logic to vampires. After all, unlike youma, they had real bodies.
"You said..." she hesitated, "you said healing magic was difficult. Why?"
"You have to be very precise," Xander explained. "Do too much, and you cause cancer. Don't do enough, and you could cause complications such as scar tissue. Go sideways a little, and you get all sorts of other problems. Plus you've got to deal with ancillary problems like infection, and healing diseases is even harder."
"Because you have to remove all the infectious agents," Hotaru guessed, "or rewrite the DNA in every affected cell for genetic diseases, right?"
Xander blinked and mumbled, "Uh, yeah, something like that, I guess." He'd never actually known the specifics and hadn't really inquired too deeply into that area. He'd managed to commit to memory the first half of Willow's babble on the dangers of healing magic before his eyes started glazing over, though.
They lapsed into silence, which Xander would normally have been happy with if she wasn't shooting those looks at him.
For her part, Hotaru was wondering what to say next. Between shooting covert glances at him and the occasional bite from her food, she wasn't coming up with any ideas.
Xander was not comfortable. He was currently walking through a park, at night, holding hands with a very attractive young woman. That was three for three for things that had never worked out well for him in the past.
"So, where are you from, Xander?" Hotaru asked, breaking the silence that had started in the restaurant.
"California," he said. "Sunnydale."
She gasped, "You mean...?"
"Yeah," he said with a humorless smile, "the Sinkhole. I was there when it went down."
"Must've been quite a sight."
He looked up at the sky, "Yeah, well, I had other things on my mind at the time."
Hotaru frowned at the look on Xander's face. In an instant, he had gone from right next to her to a million kilometers away. What happened then... whatever it was... must have torn him apart.
"Let me tell you about my family," she said, flashing him a sunny smile. She hated seeing him like this.
Some of Haruka-papa's more amusing antics should lighten him up.
"She actually did that?" Xander laughed in disbelief. "You're kidding? I never thought anyone could put two hundred pounds of Jell-O to good use like that!"
"She still refuses to talk about it," Hotaru said with a smile as they stopped. The walk had taken them from the restaurant, through the park, to where they stood now, outside her home. "I had a great time tonight."
"So did I," he replied.
Suddenly, they spun until they were back to back and looked around, scanning the immediate area, heads whipping around comically.
After a moment without any attacking undead, demonic, magical, or parental forces, they relaxed and turned to face each other again. Xander scratched the back of his head and chuckled as Hotaru simply blushed and looked down, clasping her hands together in embarrassment.
"Uh..." Xander coughed. "I guess... I guess I'll be going now."
"Wait," Hotaru said, looking up at him. She reached up and pulled his head down, tiptoeing just long enough to brush her lips across his.
At least, that was the plan, but a quick peck turned into a long kiss, which turned into... something else. It wasn't mad with passion, but there was something... different.
After a moment, they broke apart, and Xander stumbled away. "I'll, uh... I'll see you later," he said, resisting the urge to start whistling as he left.
Hotaru just stood there, a dazed look on her face, for the next minute or so.
What on Earth was that he did his tongue?
Author's Postscript:
Heheheh. Xander's Magnificent Tongue strikes again!