Disclaimer: I don't own it.
YES. This story is alive. I'm far too in love with the concept and my plans for it to let it die forever.
Thanks to Oxnate for beta-reading.
This Year's Boy
By Kylia
Chapter 7: Mistaken Identity, Mark II
February 25, 2000
Wolfram and Hart Unmarked Van, Los Angeles
Faith had been tased once in her life before. During her cross-country road-trip, being chased by that bastard Kakistos, trying to get to Sunnydale and start over - and what a fucking laugh that had turned out to be - she'd run into a vampire that got creative in his hunting. And when she'd tried to dust him, he'd given her a whole lot of volts right to the stomach.
Not a fun feeling. But even though it had hurt like fucking hell, it had only taken like half a minute to mostly wear off, and it hadn't actually stunned her for more than a second.
This... this was a hell of a lot worse. She hadn't actually been knocked out, but she'd been unable to even try to resist when these suits had bundled her up and tossed her in here. But at least she could move.
Sort of. They'd slapped cuffs on her wrists, and she couldn't break them.
I could always try that dislocating your thumb trick they do in the action movies... Faith considered, as she looked at the two men in suits, just out of reach of even a good kick to her legs. But after a moment, she turned her eyes to the woman, who was the boss.
Faith wanted to fight back, but she also didn't want to get fucking shot, and both suits had guns, and with Xander's useless reflexes, she had no fucking chance to attack before she got shot.
But she had to try something. Feeling the cuffs dig into her wrists, and trying to ignore the pain, she struggled at them.
"I'd suggest against that, Mr. Harris," the woman told her calmly.
"You really have no fucking idea what's going on, bitch, do you?" Faith snapped. She looked the woman over - rich, obviously, from those fancy diamonds on her watch, to the clothes, expensive looking pantsuit and fancy shoes... she dressed kinda like that bitch Post had dressed, but better, and less British. But she also recognized the look in her eyes - this woman was used to being the Alpha Bitch.
"Really?" The woman raised an eyebrow, unfazed. "And you're about to tell us we have no idea what we're dealing with, right? That your friend, the Slayer, is going to try to rescue you?"
Oh, as if. Faith couldn't help but laugh. Everything was going fucking wrong for her, and now, she was stuck in thise loser's body, without the gadget Mayor Wilkins had given her. So she had no way of finding a better body.
The laugh was extended, and even Faith - not one for introspection - knew the overlong laugh was about a hell of a lot more than the absurdity of B coming to save her.
Coming to save Xander's body, maybe. But maybe he'll decide he likes having boobs. Xander fucking screamed like a girl enough to be one. Pathetic. But then, all of those loser scoobies were pathetic.
And they beat you.
Shut up! Faith snarled mentally, at the little voice that said that. She didn't need that shit. She needed out, she needed a better body... she needed the fresh start she fucking deserved. She needed everything she'd deserved.
"You don't have any idea what you're dealing with, lady!" Faith snapped. "News flash: I'm not Xander!"
"Really, that's what you're going with, kid?" One of the suit-wearing apes raised an eyebrow, his sarcasm making Faith want to throttle him. But Xander's useless arms can't even try with a meathead that's got a neck that thick.
"We're not going to kill you." The woman told her, as if that was reassuring. Hell of a lot of things worse than death in this world. A lot. "Well, not unless your friends decide to refuse our simple-"
"Get it through your head, bitch," Faith snarled. "I'm not Xander!" Yeah, she figured B would try to save Xander's body - she was willing to give the Mayor the thing he needed most to ascend in exchange for Willow, and Buffy was always ready to sacrifice for her people. But just her people. No one else. God forbid Buffy ever try to drop the self-righteous act for anyone that wasn't her friends, or her undead boyfriend.
Ex-boyfriend. Whatever.
The woman looked at her, and Faith struggled at the cuffs again, but only failed. Again.
"You mean that, don't you. Well then... who are you? Shapeshifter? Body double? Optical illusion?"
Faith bit her lip for a moment, hesitating. She had no clue who these people were. That interfering bitch Cordelia had recognized them... what did she call them? Wolfram and Hat? Angel and his buddies had mentioned them too, in his office, who they figured had been trying to 'grab Xander'. Something like that. Sounded like...
Law firm. And not one of the good guy ones, no, one of the skuzzy ones, that got all the criminals off.
I need a fresh start. They could give me one in my body. Faith didn't want to go back to her body - she'd burned that behind her, but with the mayor's gift gone, she didn't have a lot of options. Xander hadn't cared, said something about Red having magic to do it. Which meant...
Maybe I don't need to go back to my body. Just give me a vamp's body...
That would be better. Even if they could give her some sort of fancy new identity, if she ever got caught or noticed or something... no. Better to just be someone totally new. Start over. Pick a new name too. Definitely not Hope or Charity. What the fuck her druggie mother had been doing picking 'Faith' as her name...
They wanted Buffy to do something. They wanted a slayer to do something.
"I'm Faith," she said after that moment's thought. "The slayer. Or I would be, if I hadn't switched bodies with this loser."
The woman raised an eyebrow. "Say I believe you. Why would you do that? What's your incentive to switch with Mr. Harris?" She grabbed one of those file folders lawyers used, opening it. "And aren't you supposed to be in a coma?"
"How the hell do you know that?!" She'd looked at the name on her chart when she'd woken up - it hadn't been her name.
"Please. We're Wolfram and Hart." Right. That's the name. "We keep an eye on the Slayer line. And we keep an eye on men like Richard Wilkins I, II and III. Well, if we're doing names, I might as well introduce myself." The woman smirked, then held out a hand. Which of course, Faith couldn't take, thanks to the cuffs. "Lilah Morgan."
They knew the Mayor had done the whole 'pretending to be his dad and granddad' thing. And where he'd hidden her. And why.
Fucking bastards probably knew everything. This 'Lilah' chick had that smug look of someone who felt like she knew everything. Like Red, but worse.
"Well, I got better," Faith snapped. "The Mayor left a present. Was gonna use it on someone better, but then the Tea and Crumpets brigade came over from the mother country. Didn't have a lot of options. Wasn't planning on staying with this one."
Lilah chuckled, "Well, things don't always go as planned, clearly. So I take it that means that Mr. Harris is in your body, then?" She looked back at the file in her hands. "I thought that brunette with Miss Chase looked familiar." She chuckled, though Faith didn't think she meant it with humor. Smug bitch.
"I suppose that makes our job easier," she said, like she was thinking out loud.
"The hell are you talking about? What do you even want B to do?"
"Slay Angel, of course. When our psychics said one of her friends was in town, we figured we'd grab Mr. Harris and deliver an ultimatum. See, everyone's favorite friendly neighborhood vampire-with-a-soul has been causing a lot of problems for our firm recently. Unfortunately, he's not exactly easy to kill."
Tell me about it. Even special poison hadn't done the job, and meant Faith had nearly been vamp food. And then he'd lived anyway.
Still... Faith couldn't help but laugh again. So Angel and Wes and Cordy had been right about what they wanted.
"I'll tell you the same thing I told Angel when he said he thought that's why you were trying to grab Xander. Never gonna happen. B won't hurt Angel to save anyone's life. 'Specially not Xander!" Not with how much Xander hated Angel. He'd tried to get her to kill him - well, him and that giant bitch Post.
"Sent him to hell to save the world. Someone had to, anyway, the way Angelus was set to awaken Acathla." That was the second time someone had said something about Buffy sending Angel to hell.
"What the -" Faith started, but Lilah didn't stop talking, back to that 'thinking out loud' shit.
"Of course, now, we can always have Mr. Harris take care of Angel for us, if he ever wants his body back." Faith felt her blood go cold. Fuck.
If that... no. And since Xander would never do that... they'd kill her.
No. Faith was not dying. Not when she'd been so close to getting this done. To being done with all this bullshit. The cops, and the council and Buffy and her little friends.
Everything keeps going goddamn wrong!
"No, no - that's not gonna work." Faith said quickly, knowing she had to talk fast. "Look, you have all your little 'keep an eye on things shit', but I know these idiots. B won't kill Angel, and Xander won't do anything - himself - that would make Buffy angry at him."
"And you have a better idea, then?" There was something about the way Lilah raised her eyebrow
"You've got all these guys with guns, you've got psychics - you guys have magic, right?" Lilah nodded, slowly. "You get me my body back, I take care of Angel for you. Take care of Buffy too, so she doesn't come after you for revenge. Then you get me a new start - new body, new life, new everything. Everyone's happy."
"Except for Angel and Miss Summers," Lilah nodded. Faith just sneered. Those two deserve it all and more. Taking and ruining Buffy's 'perfect' little life would have been the best revenge, but murder would have to do. "It's a promising offer, I'll admit." Lilah looked down at the file,and without looking back at Faith, she went on, "Let me think about it... no."
"The fu- why not?!" Faith demanded.
"It's your record of successes." Lilah smirked, closing the file and looking at her, dead on. "You don't have any."
NO! Faith wasn't - no, this wasn't happening, this wasn't...
"YOU BITCH!"
Faith tried to jump to her feet, not caring that her hands were cuffed behind her back, tried to lunge at Lilah - all she managed though, was to get almost onto her feet, somehow, and then the lunge failed, leaving her unbalanced and she dropped, landing on the van's floor, barely managing to turn her head so she didn't smash her nose into it.
"See what I mean?" Lilah chuckled.
February 25, 2000
Outside Angel's Building, Los Angeles
Xander stared at the retreating van and SUV for a few seconds, and then blinked, letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
God- I...
He'd been so close to getting his body back and this whole... nightmare - even if it had had a few pleasant parts - being over.
He sucked in a shuddering breath as someone else spoke. He realized after a moment it was Anya.
"They just took your body Xander... now what? We can't put you back in your body if we don't even have it."
"No, no we can't," Buffy said. "Which is why we're going to have to go get it back."
Cordelia laughed, "Go get it back? Buffy, do you have any idea who they are? Or where they are? Or even what they want?!"
"And I suppose you do?" Buffy snapped.
"As a matter of fact, I do, Buffy. God forbid maybe I know something about what I've been spending the last six months of my life doing!" Before she could keep going, the front doors opened and Wesley came out, brandishing a taser and behind him, Angel, standing in the doorway, a smouldering blanket over his head.
Wait. Wesley?
Xander blinked, and looked again. Yup. Wesley the failed idiot Watcher Wimpdam-Priss himself. Since when was he here? Shouldn't he have -
Guess not. And he's working with Angel... and Cordelia. Xander felt a moment of stupid - twice over - jealousy. Cordelia wasn't his to be jealous over, and he had Anya, and he was over Cordelia. He was over her.
He still regretted how it had gone down, but that was a different thing entirely.
"Wes! There you are! Took you long enough!" Cordelia snapped.
"Well, yes... sorry," Wesley said, "I had to find the -" he held up the taser as he kept going. "I didn't think Mr. Harris would appreciate his body being hit with a crossbow bolt through the shoulder when he got-" Wesley's eyes lighted on him - on 'Faith'.
"Faith. What - what are you doing here? Conscious?" He sounded a bit... wavering, but not the pants-shitting terrified Xander would have expected. Then Wesley blinked, "And why hasn't Miss Summers -"
"I'm not Faith, okay?" Xander said, dropping his head into his hand and rubbing at his eyes, feeling a frustration headache - less at being mistaken for Faith and more everything having gone wrong. He felt... furious, really, behind everything. But not at anyone in particular - not anyone here, in his immediate vicinity, anyway.
He wanted to hit something though. Or someone. Whatever worked.
He felt like what he imagined his dad on a bender felt like, a thought that, once he had it, terrified him.
"Apparently Faith was the one possessing Xander," Cordelia chimed in. "Speaking of - Wolfram and Hart decided that they really wanted Xander, so they came and abducted what they thought was him."
"Good lord, really?" Wesley blinked, lowering his crossbow. "My apologies Mr. Harri-"
"Xander," Xander interrupted, looking back up at the Watcher. He caught Cordelia making a self-satisfied smirk out of the corner of his eye. What's that about?
"Very well," Wesley nodded, then he looked to Giles. "And how long has Faith been conscious? Why was I not informed?"
"Three days, or so, and because it didn't seem particularly relevant. Why are you even here, Wesley?" Giles was speaking to Wesley, but he was eying Angel warily. Which of course only brought to the front of his mind all the reasons Giles had to eye Angel like that.
I almost wish he'd give me an excuse to punch him. Revenge for that time he pretended to team-up with Faith... Just punch, though. As long as Angel was one of the good guys, anyway.
"Maybe we should have this conversation inside, guys?" Buffy cut in, gesturing to the door.
"Right," Wesley nodded. All of them - himself, Cordelia, Buffy, Wesley, Tara, Willow, Anya, and Angel all headed into the building. Giles stayed behind to get the car into a legal parking spot, saying he'd follow them.
They headed into what turned out to be Angel's apartment, a pretty large space, with old weapons on the wall, some art, some sculptures. All looking pretty expensive. Immortality gives you a chance to make money, I guess. Xander wondered how Angelus - and thus Angel had gotten that money. Theft, probably, at least when he'd been evil. And then... interest in a bank account.
Something I've heard about. Haven't really gotten to see it myself. Most of the money he had made in his various jobs before finally getting into construction had gone right out of his account to pay for his rent, or food or anything else he needed to buy. He hadn't really had the chance to see interest at work.
"Okay, so, we're all here, so just - what the hell happened?" Cordelia demanded. "Because all I know is that I got a vision-" at the confused expression on his face - and on the faces of Buffy and Willow -, Cordelia nodded. "Yes. I get visions of people in trouble, Angel goes to face them, and if it's a demon, Wesley identifies them and how to kill them. Anyway, moving on," she put bluntly, speaking a bit loudly as it to stop anyone else from speaking up.
"I saw you getting tased and thrown into a van... or your body anyway. But I thought it was you. Kept thinking that until I found you, and Wes and I brought you back here." Cordelia elaborated. "Then... something was off. You didn't seem like yourself."
"Xander - or... Faith," Angel said after a moment. "He - she - said 'he' needed to talk to me about something important. Implied it was about you," he nodded towards Buffy, slowly, looking away quickly. "Then Cordy burst in, and 'he' had this metal device-"
"Draconian Katra," Willow said, holding up the box with the glowing green ball again. "Tara and I cooked up our own version."
"So you're Tara then?" Cordelia looked to the witch in question, who nodded hesitantly. Cordelia eyed Tara, then looked over at Willow, furrowing her brow a moment, then shook her head, dismissing a thought. "Which is good, because Faith destroyed the other one," Cordelia noted. "Why was she even in you of all people to begin with, Xander?!"
"Gee, thanks Cordy, way to make a guy feel appreciated," Xander snarked. He saw Anya's expression get a bit jealous after a moment, and he moved over to his girlfriend, taking her hand and squeezing it gently - very gently. "That wasn't her plan. Pretty sure she was planning on grabbing Buffy, at first. She nabbed me off the street, so she could lure Buffy into a trap." Xander explained.
"Then the Council's goons showed up and she switched bodies to get away," Xander finished. "Then Willow and Tara tracked Faith here with a spell and-"
"And now she's gone and Xander's still stick in this wrong body," Anya interrupted. "What are you going to do about it?" She looked at Buffy, then Angel.
"I'm sorry, who are you?" Cordelia asked, then blinked, "Wait. You're - you're that former demon. Anya."
"She's my girlfriend," Xander elaborated, and Anya leaned against his side a bit.
"Girlfriend?" Cordelia chuckled, not sounding skeptical, just... laughing. And not in a fun 'laughing with you' sort of way.
"Yes, I'm his girlfriend, and I'd like him to have his body back, for several reasons, but one of them being so we can have many org-" Anya started, and Xander cleared his throat, interrupting.
"So, explanations and introductions out of the way, why does this...Wolfram and Hart want me so bad? Who are they?"
"That's easy - they're the premier client services organization for demons, vampires and other evil forces, and have been, in one form or another, for centuries." Anya chimed in. "I did business with them myself a few times, though nothing in the last century." Xander turned to Anya, and raised an eyebrow at the somewhat chipper way she described that.
"They're a law firm," Angel said.
"Evil lawyers?" Buffy snorted a little. "Way to play to type."
"They represent the worst of the worst, not just among demons and vampires. And they're not above using demons and vampires to protect their clients. Just the other day, Angel rescued a witness against one of their clients from a pack of demons Wolfram and Hart contracted to kill him. Without that witness, their client might have gone free." Wesley elaborated. "Angel has come up against them and their clients several times. Which would be why they were trying to grab you - or what they thought was you."
Xander blinked, "Because I don't like Angel? Sure, not a fan of him," he looked dead at Angel as he said that, not that Angel was likely to care, "But doesn't mean I'm gonna have fun with a bunch of evil demon lawyers,"
"The lawyers at Wolfram and Hart are mostly human," Anya cut in, looking annoyed at him, as she often did when he expressed distaste for demons. I don't - he cut off that train of thought.
"Right. But-"
"Because they were going to try to use you to make Buffy kill Angel, obviously!" Cordelia said, one hand thrown up a bit in frustration for a moment. "Duh!"
Xander blinked, and realized how much sense that made... but also...
Would it work? It took the end of the world for Buffy to be willing to kill Angelus. Sure, she'd traded the Box to the Mayor to save Willow, but that was -
Buffy was looking at the ground, biting her lip, and Xander wondered if she was unsure what she'd have done in that situation. He'd like to think Buffy would pick his life over Angel's, but...
As long as Angel was one of the good guys, killing him was murder. And asking Buffy to murder someone - especially Angel - was a lot to expect out of his friend.
"I'd rather not die, but someone else getting killed to keep me alive doesn't really sound that much fun either," Xander said quickly, trying to deflect the awkward questions that might come if anyone stayed on that topic for long.
"They don't have Xander, but I mean - if they have demons and vampires working for them... do they have warlocks working for them?" Willow chimed in. Wesley nodded. "Then even if they don't believe Faith if she tells them she's not Xander, they'll figure it out. So they still have him. I mean, they can always kill your body..." her quick speech quickly slowed down as she reached that part, as she seemed to realize just what she was saying, her expression falling.
"Well, that's not going to happen." Buffy said with certainty. "Where are they?" She turned to Angel. "Where's their hideout? We can go tonight - you, me, Xander, as long as he has Faith's slayer power, Willow and Tara for magic support, get them quick, get in close so they can't-"
"They don't have a hideout, they have an office building," Angel told her, interrupting, sounding almost... exasperated. "You can't just go in guns blazing. Not least because they have guns." Angel shook his head, turning to look at Buffy. "Bullets just hurt me - they can kill you, Buffy. And - this isn't Sunnydale! You can't just charge into the offices of a law firm - even one with Wolfram and Hart's reputation among the police - and start beating people up without the cops showing up."
"And the LAPD actually does their job!" Cordelia said, with mock-surprise. "So yeah, you're going to have to - gasp - plan something, Buffy!"
"Cordy," Angel said, his tone not exactly scolding, but totally sounding not happy with her commentary.
Yup. They're still always siding with each other, Xander grumbled in his head.
"She's right though," he said, back to Buffy and glancing briefly at Xander. "We do need a plan. Wolfram and Hart isn't just another demon or master vampire, or even the Mayor."
"Is it anything like a top secret military outfit with a base under Sunnydale?" Buffy asked, smiling.
Angel blinked. "What?"
"Yeah, that's what we've been dealing with in Sunnydale. And now a demon cyborg frankenstein." She waved a hand, "It's a whole thing. Spike got defanged and neutered by them too." Angel looked confused.
"They put a chip in his head that stops him hurting humans. It's funny because he's helpless. Though then he decided hitting demons was enough fun to do that instead." Xander rolled his eyes a little.
"Spike? Can't hurt people?" Angel actually smiled a little, maybe even smirked at that. "Sounds like hell for him."
"He hates it," Xander agreed, almost grinning as he remembered just how absolutely pathetic Spike had been when crashing at his place.
"He really does," Buffy agreed, then shook her head. "But I snuck into this secret military base." She furrowed her brow, "It was actually way too easy for some sort of top secret base, but... whatever. So... alright. Why don't we do that?"
"You snuck onto a military base?" Cordelia blinked. She turned to Willow. "What about you?" Right. He'd done that with Cordelia, though they had gotten caught. Xander still wondered what would have happened if that private hadn't fallen for his - let's face it - really bad lies.
I think saying he held his gun like a sissy was what really threw him off.
"Nope, still the odd one out on that front," Willow replied. "We still have a bit more of Xander's hair, so if they're not keeping him at their office, maybe we can find him somewhere else." Willow held up the crystal, which was pointing off to one side. Hopefully in the direction Faith was with his body.
"Wolfram and Hart might be able to confuse such magics, so perhaps a latter resort, if other options don't prevail," Wesley suggested. "Regardless, Miss Summers is right - though I'm not sure how easy sneaking into Wolfram and Hart would be."
"Probably depends on where exactly you want to go," Xander mused. "I mean - it's a public business, so... people come and go all the time, right?"
Wesley nodded, "Seems true enough."
February 25, 2000
Angel's Apartment, Los Angeles
Angel was not happy that so many people were in his space. Cordelia could tell that with just a glance. He also was not really happy with having Buffy around, which Cordelia fully supported. Buffy and Angel being in the same city was not a good idea. Fortunately, the last visit Buffy had had seemed to have burned some sort of bridge between them, because Buffy and Angelboth had a lot less of the pining vibe around them.
Which was very, very good.
Drawing up a plan to rescue Xander's body from Wolfram and Hart was stalling on the fact that they didn't know enough about how to break in yet. Sneaking in had been eventually decided on Angel, rather than Buffy - the argument Giles and Wesley had made having convinced Buffy to hang back for the moment - Angel could put on a suit and tie and carry a briefcase and blend in a lot better than short, bottle-blonde, peppy and very memorable Buffy.
That meant they had to wait until dark, but it would do. Thankfully, Angel did have a big enough apartment for everyone to actually be in, especially once the vampire retreated upstairs to his office, to sit in the dark away from everyone.
Xander and Anya and Buffy were over in the kitchen, sitting at the dining room table and talking. Cordelia was... very very surprised Xander was dating Anya, and just as much so that Anya was apparently dating Xander. He hadn't seemed to enjoy taking Anya to the prom.
Who knows. She had trouble understanding the appeal of Xander to anyone - herself included. Her year-long brush with madness over Xander was over, thank god.
She was curious how Xander was handling being in Faith's body - had to be different, to say the least. He probably misses his dick. Guys always thought with them, after all. Though knowing him, he was probably thrilled at the chance to not be the powerless Zeppo of the group now, even briefly.
Shaking her head, Cordelia saw Tara, Willow, Wesley and Giles talking about spells that might be of use. Well, Willow Giles and Wesley were talking. That Tara girl was mostly just staying quiet and close to Willow, occasionally holding her hand.
That, really, had been the most surprising thing about her former 'friends' from Sunnydale - that Willow was into girls too.
Oh, the others didn't know, and she wasn't sure if Willow was totally sure of what she was feeling, but the sapphic vibes coming off Willow when she looked at, or stood next to, or held hands with, or talked to, or did anything else with or towards Tara were almost as strong as when Tara looked at Willow.
Of course, if she likes women, why did she have to go and make out with Xander? Sure, she was over her relationship with Xander, but no one liked being cheated on, and if Willow had just realized she liked girls sooner-
Though that didn't mean anything would have changed. Willow could be bi. Cordelia had no intention of asking - whatever the redhead knew about her own feelings, Cordelia was certain her friends didn't even have the slightest idea.
I don't like people lying, but being in the closet isn't lying.
Cordelia sighed after a long moment, then headed over to the elevator. There wasn't any paperwork to do - the joys of this business being very slow sometimes - but at least there was a computer there. She didn't want to spend any time chatting with Buffy or Xander - and she didn't really like Anya either. She wasn't sure why - maybe just because of how weird she'd been about getting Cordelia to make a wish the first time they met.
Obviously there must have been something wrong with her wishing powers. Cordelia hadn't realized there was anything specifically weird about Anya until close to graduation when she'd enlightened them all about what an 'Ascension' was.
But if she'd been a demon then, nothing had taken - Cordelia distinctly remembered wishing Xander would never again feel the touch of another woman (that had been a momentarily cathartic spiteful bit of fun) and that had clearly not happened.
Regardless, there was something about Anya she didn't like.
And she had nothing to add in a conversation about magic.
So wasting a bit of time on the computer it was. She was hoping the Powers that Be would give her some sort of helpful vision, but so far, nothing. Might be the first time I'm looking forward to one.
Until then, or until Angel went on and then came back from his little trip to Wolfram and Hart, there wasn't much else they could do.