SPECIAL A/N: PLEASE READ THIS FIRST! Okay, as many of you know, in my chapters, time and characters jump around. In the Microsoft Word edition of these chapters that I have saved on my computer, these "time-slips" are demarcated with three stars (the asterisk function when SHIFT + 8 are pressed). However, on the site, these do not show up. Therefore, on certain balcony scenes, where Xander and Angelus are talking, then Buffy and Willow's conversation randomly shows up – these are happening simultaneously at different parts of the Bronze. I'm sorry the stars don't show up on the site.

ANOTHER SPECIAL A/N: I was watching the news when the shootings at VT became a news story. I think I speak for all of the community when I give my deepest sorrow and regret to those poor people and their families who now have to live without their children.

A/N: Spring Break is here!! Laughs all around, and, as I live on top of a mountain, lots and lots and lots of free time on my hands. Thus, I shall be writing at least this chapter, if not the next one over the course of this week. I'm alone in my house with Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Radio Sunnydale playing in my stereo (which is actually a good writing mix – I just want the UK edition to get here, cause I ordered it, and it's supposed to be better), and churning out the chapters. To all of my reviewers: thank you so much for maintaining your reviews, and please, if it isn't too much trouble, review this and chapter six; it means a lot to writers on this site if the reviews metre has high numbers.

Disclaimer: As posted before.

Distribution: Take what you want, just inform me (my e-mail is on the author's page) where my brainchild is going.

the Passion of Angels and Demons

chapter VI

Arrivals and Departures

"SHIT!" Buffy roared, her foot lashing out and putting a near foot-deep dent into the nearest dumpster. Willow sank down to her knees. She was still too stunned to cry, but she could feel them coming soon enough. Buffy turned and sighed as she surveyed her friend. Willow's face was stark-white and she was rocking back and forth in shock.

"He took Xander," Willow moaned. "He took Xander."

"I know, Willow," Buffy said quietly. She reached out and hauled Willow forcibly to her feet. "But come on – we've gotta find Giles; he'll know what to do." She was thinking on her feet, jumping to any logical conclusions that she possibly could. In this situation, however, she had no idea that Giles would know what to do. In this situation, all Buffy wanted to do was go home to her mother.

Xander was her rock. Willow was her best friend, her loyal confidante, but Xander had been there from the very first day of her new life in Sunnydale, standing by her side and battling against the Hellmouth's forces. Hell, he'd brought her back to life for no reason other than that he was her friend and he believed in her. He had waltzed straight into a two hundred year old vampire's home and demanded that he helped Xander find her—but Buffy stopped there in her thoughts. Thinking of Angel would just hurt her, and then make her think about Angelus, and make her cry about the mess that they were in.

Well, she was the Slayer, and she didn't have the luxury of indulging in that desire right now. What she did have the option for was taking this case to her Watcher and seeing if he could do anything about it. "Come on, Wills. It's Giles; he'll figure something out."

She refused to think of the absolutely dead look on Willow's pale, heart-shaped face that left her wondering if the red-haired witch even heard her at all.

Xander walked on his own. Occasionally he could feel eyes on him, but he wasn't concerned enough with who was staring at him to see if it was Angelus, Spike, Drusilla, or one of the nameless fledges. Angelus hadn't spoken a word since they had begun their trek to the hideout – Xander wondered if they were still holed up in the piece-of-shit abandoned factory that Spike had resided in, or if the more tasteful Angelus had found them new digs.

Xander still couldn't bring himself to think of Angelus as Angel. He knew, instinctively, that they were the same people; Angel was like Angelus' alternate personality, with the exception that they both knew everything that the other had done while in different positions, whereas a normal case of schizophrenia left the dominant personality with no memory of what the usurper had done.

Thinking in analytical terms about mental illness was keeping him from dwelling too deeply on what he'd heard tonight…or about his friends. God, Willow, he thought mournfully. His best friend would never be able to understand why he had chosen to go with Angelus…and them's the breaks. Willow had known that Xander had gone willingly with the demon; Xander had seen it in her eyes.

He set his gaze to the stars, thinking on happier, more oblivious times when he and Willow had sat outside and caught constellations. Virgo, Orion, Sagittarius, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Scorpio, the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, the North Star…

Angelus would have given half of a King's Ransom to be able to read what his boy was thinking of now.It was taking all of his hard-earned self-control and stoicism in order to not go back and ask. Even now he could feel Spike's eyes on his back, so he relented from the urge to turn around. Showing weakness to the enterprising Spike would only endanger him, and through him, possibly Xander. Not for the first time, he questioned the wisdom of healing Spike. His Childe had grown to be wily and independent beyond Angelus' darkest dreams when he had turned him at Drusilla's behest.

Thinking of Drusilla…He turned around to cast a hard glance at his mad Childe. She had been even crazier than usual, lately, muttering under her breath about birds rising and death flying like fire across the sky. It seemed to worsen every time that she was anywhere near Xander – that or near the both of them, when she was whispering about pain and blood and love in the air like poisonous butterflies. Sometimes he wanted to ask her if she was subject to migraines.

He turned back, sweeping his eyes to make sure that no one had followed them, though he was sure that no one had. He led his strange procession toward Harrington Street, heading towards the warehouse district near Sunnydale's docks…the "bad part of town." He was quite pleased with how Xander followed wherever he led. He continued on, lost in his introspective thoughts, unaware of Spike's eyes on the back of his head.

Spike didn't know what to think. On the one hand, he wanted to think that it was a cold day in Hell before he ever trusted his Sire again. On the other, Angelus had been almost freakishly like the old days, when they had been a big, putting-the-'fun'-in-dysfunctional family. He had even given up his blood to heal Spike's wounds, giving Spike a second chance to battle the Slayer. Despite Spike's fury over Angelus' flaunting of his relationship with Dru, he couldn't really think of himself as anything but a hypocrite when he was sharing his Sire's bed as well.

And then there was the matter of this boy…

"Giles!"

A frantic scream broke through the Watcher's reverie. He jerked out of his chair, the small shot of scotch he'd allowed himself with his evening tea flying out of his hand, splattering the ancient text in front of him. "Damn," he muttered as he tossed a napkin on the book, running toward the door. He recognised the sound of his Slayer in a panic, and he ran as fast as he could, lest he miss a chance to rescue Buffy from some great danger.

And, with Angelus on the loose, his poor Slayer was in more danger than ever.

He threw the door open to see Buffy and Willow standing, out of breath, on his front porch. It was more Willow's appearance than Buffy's that caused Giles to grab the both of them and haul them forcibly into his apartment with a strength that Buffy hadn't known that he possessed. Willow followed along like a limpet, pale despite the swiftness with which she'd been borne to the Watcher's house, her eyes wide and vacant. Giles waved his hand in front of her eyes, but she didn't so much as flinch.

"Buffy, what happened?" he asked with a calmness that he didn't feel.

"He took Xander," Buffy whispered flatly. By the shocked, stunned look to her face, Giles didn't have to ask who. What he did have to ask, however, was why.

"What happened?" he demanded, crossing to the phone on the wall. Buffy started to pace as she gathered her head together enough to tell him what happened. He held up a finger to her right as she opened her mouth, and he dialled a number that he hadn't used in nearly a month.

"Hello?" the familiar voice answered over the phone. Giles kept his face a careful blank as he responded.

"We need you here, if you're available."

Silence reigned on the other end of the line, and Giles wondered whether or not she was going to just hang up on him. Buffy was glaring at him, but it was a half-hearted glare that Giles knew she didn't really mean. She knew full well who Giles had just called…but she also knew that they would need her help if they wanted to rescue Xander. And that was something that Buffy refused to believe was something that they couldn't do.

"Of course, Rupert. It's an emergency?" Jenny Calendar asked briskly, over the sounds of putting her coat on.

They reached the factory sooner than Angelus had expected, but he had been figuring on having to drag Xander along. The conversation that he'd had with the boy had gone on better than he had ever anticipated. Xander had kept pace with the vampire pack as their master led them back to their accepted residence, never once voicing complaint. Angelus had felt Spike's eyes on his back as he purposefully led them at a pace faster than most humans would have been able to keep up with easily.

But then, Xander wasn't exactly like most people, was he?

He turned to survey the group, his eyes lingering on Xander. The boy was carefully avoiding his eyes at this point, his face flushed, though not with exertion. Angelus knew that the pain of leaving his friends behind was bad for his boy, and that irritated him. He wanted Xander to follow him without thinking about that Slayer bitch and his little witch friend. He crushed that thought. Xander's loyalty was what had made him more than imminently desirable to Angelus.

And for some reason, that was what he wanted. Not devotion, not mastery over the boy. He wanted what Angel had had – the boy's caring. He wanted to look across the room and catch the boy staring at him with masked love in his eyes, he wanted Xander to be as loyal to him as he was to his other friends. He wanted Xander to love him.

"You," he snapped suddenly, breaking the silence by addressing two minions who had been edging a little too close to Xander for the boy's protection. The two minions instantly cowered backward, looking like they were ready to drop to their knees and kowtow shamelessly to spare themselves. As well they should, he thought disdainfully. Throughout his life as a vampire, Angelus had made himself notorious for being possessive; the last vampire that had crossed him had tried to injure one of his precious Childers, and Angelus hadn't let him die until he'd tortured him for two weeks.

He relented, though, in light of the fact that at this point, he didn't have near as many minions as he would have liked. That had always been Spike's problem; he didn't see the value in near-useless foot soldiers. Angelus did. Elevating a mere minion to House status in vampiric society gave it more social status, as well as protection, which would ensure absolute loyalty. Not to mention that if any vampire ever had aspirations of becoming more than just a run-of-the-mill idiot whose only thoughts was blood and destruction, they quickly allied themselves with strong master vampires.

Now that the Slayer had done away with the Master, that mouldy old fool, Angelus had no doubts in his mind that he was the strongest of them all. Many would claim that Dracula was stronger (him or Kakistos), but Angelus discounted this. Dracula was a poufy idiot whose only real thoughts ran along what would further his own notoriety and what cape went well with what clichéd blood-red brooch. As for Kakistos, he'd lost all of his real power after the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment – no one cared for a washed-up has been whose vicious Maenad followers were now extinct.

"Go and hunt for dinner – and, if you don't start hunting before you stand in your master's presence, I'll personally make you eat your own spleens before killing you," he snapped icily, forcibly bringing his thoughts back to the present. He could see the relief on their faces as they rushed to comply – relief being that they had escaped a tongue-lashing from the great Angelus without permanent scarring.

He watched the two scurry off in that annoying, inelegant way that minions had, then he turned and nodded at Spike. Spike had lived with Angelus long enough to know his Sire's rendition of the 'silently telling you to bugger off' look, and he took control of the little minion marquee as he and Dru entered their abode. Angelus stayed behind, looking at Xander, who finally lifted his gaze to meet the demon's gaze.

They were all gathered in Buffy's living room. The Slayer was pacing equal steps up and down Giles' living room floor, behind the large couch: One, two, three, four, five; one, two, three, four, five… She remembered in amusement when she had shared this habit with Xander and he had instantly diagnosed her with OCD, while Willow had looked on, laughing. The amusement quickly turned to bitter anger when thoughts of Xander instantly led to the situation in which they now found themselves.

Buffy wasn't sure that she would ever be the same again, really. Her tryst with Angel had been, in her mind, the most wonderful night of her life…until. Until she'd woken up to find out that it had been the biggest mistake of her life, a mistake that would lead to a never ending nightmare that would haunt her and her friends for such a long time…She sighed. In her life, especially considering that she was a Slayer living on a Hellmouth, whenever things were going too perfectly, Hell usually came up with something to screw it up. And things had been going perfectly – Xander and Angel were even starting to talk to each other, Willow had come out of her shell and was noticing the attention that Oz was paying to her, Cordelia was becoming a true friend underneath the superficial layers, Giles and Jenny were starting to heat back up again.

So, of course, Angel, her one true love, had reverted back to the most evil and vicious vampire to ever walk the face of the Earth, reuniting with his insane, psychotic Childers Spike and Drusilla to heal Spike and reunite nearly all of the Scourge of Europe. They were only missing Darla, the maleficent Sire of Angelus himself, but in truth, the other three scared her more than Darla ever had (she had no idea what Darla had done to gain such notoriety, but Buffy's knowledge of her in Sunnydale had been so limited that she hadn't gained any true amount of fear of the beautiful blonde.

Now, Buffy was waking up every morning in tears, her mother was beginning to get suspicious enough to start asking questions about her daughter's strange hours, Giles and Jenny were again split, Oz was a werewolf, and Xander had been kidnapped by Angelus. Thinking about his strange behaviour before Angelus had taken him from the Bronze, Buffy had to swallow the bitter pill that Angelus had probably been stalking Xander for a while now, thus leading to the boy's totally wiggy behaviour.

She sighed again and turned to regard the other three in the surprisingly spacious living room. Willow was sitting on an easy chair, while Giles stood behind her and Jenny Calendar knelt in front of her, peering into the redhead's eyes. They were trying to bring Willow out of the strange, self-imposed shock that the girl had sunk into as soon as Buffy had dragged her away from the site where Xander had been snatched by Angelus and a pack of vampires. Willow's eyes were wide and vacant, her skin was paler than normal, and she hadn't spoken a word since she'd arrived at Giles' apartment.

"She's okay," Jenny announced calmly, standing up and moving away from the practically comatose girl.

"Okay?" Buffy snapped. "Look at her! She hasn't even—"

"Buffy," Jenny broke in gently. She's just in some kind of shock. She's been hit hard tonight, and she's going to take a while to get over it. She'll snap out of it on her own time; the mind needs time to heal itself."

Buffy opened her mouth to blast the witch, but Giles gave her a warning look, and she backed off. It said a lot about how fast she'd had to grow up since her seventeenth birthday that she even allowed Jenny to be here at all. The last time that she had had a conversation with the woman was right after Buffy had had a prophetic dream that Jenny Calendar was actually a Gypsy witch named Janna of the Kalderash tribe – the tribe who had originally cursed Angelus with a soul, turning him into Angel. Jenny had been sent to Sunnydale to ensure that Angel still suffered with remorse for his crimes against the Gypsy tribe, so she posed as the Computer Science teacher at Sunnydale High. What Jenny hadn't counted on was falling in love with Giles and finding out that Buffy was the Slayer, and that Angel and Buffy had fallen in love themselves.

Jenny's uncle Tomas had come to Sunnydale, furious with her due to the fact that the Elder Mother of the Kalderash tribe had had a vision telling her that Angel's suffering and guilt was less than it should have been with the Curse still intact. They had fought, and Jenny had conspired to separate Buffy and Angel. The plan had fallen apart, however, and Angel had reverted back to Angelus after experiencing a moment of pure happiness in Buffy's arms. Buffy would never, ever forget the first victim of Angelus' torture that she had seen: Jenny's uncle Tomas, spread-eagled on his hotel room bed, a look of pure horror obscuring his face (due, no doubt, to the vicious wounds all over his body, suggesting hours of torture), and a bloody gash in his neck where Angelus had ripped his jugular vein out with his teeth. The blood that had gushed all over the hotel room had been used to leave a bloody valentine on the wall for Buffy to find:

WAS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?

"Buffy," Jenny said presently, her voice drawing Buffy out of her melancholic reverie. She started slightly as she flew out of her thoughts, slamming her back into the present. She glanced around to see that Giles had taken a seat on the loveseat that she was pacing behind, and Jenny sat in the chair across from Willow. "We need you to tell us exactly what happened. Then we can make a decision from there," the witch said calmly, glancing at Giles to see if he agreed. Not surprisingly, her Watcher nodded; Buffy had to admit to herself that it was the wisest choice of action. She grudgingly admitted it, that is.

"Okay," she said, putting a firm halt to her pacing. She walked over to stand next to Willow. Maybe if her friend heard her talking about Xander, then she could snap out of this eerie sort of whitespace she'd sunk into. "We had all gone out to the Bronze, cause we wanted to get away…" she trailed off quietly, then mentally hit herself across the face. She needed to dig out of this welling of despair if she wanted to help her friend out. "We wanted to have some fun. I did a patrol through three of the cemeteries on the way to the Bronze, but there weren't any vamps in any of them. When we were in the club, Xander said that he needed some air. He went up to the second level, and me and Willow started talking about how Xander had been acting lately—"

"How he'd been acting?" Giles cut in quickly, confused.

"Xander's been really wiggy lately – he jumps a lot, and he won't talk about it. I don't think he's been sleeping much either," Buffy explained quickly. Jenny looked up at this, interested.

"Has he been acting like he's been being followed?" Jenny asked, sounding urgent. Buffy slowed down in her thinking. She knew that anything she could remember would help her friend at this point.

"Yeah," she said slowly. She thought back, hard, to the times when Xander would go out on patrol with her. "Yeah – he'd look over his shoulder a lot, like someone was staring at him! Willow was thinking that maybe Angel had…well…" she trailed off awkwardly.

"Started following him," Jenny finished smoothly, looking distinctly unruffled. "It would fit; Angelus has a pattern of stalking 'special' victims for months. It's what he did with Drusilla – the girl would wake up to find different presents or members of her family dead where only she would walk. If Angelus has been stalking Xander as closely as he did with Drusilla, then I fear that he might—"

"Turn Xander," Willow whispered. Buffy jumped, nearly upsetting the light stand next to her. It was the first thing that her friend had said since this impromptu meeting had started. Her face was still pale, but there was pure determination shining in her eyes – yup, Willow had her Resolve Face on. Buffy had seen it before; when Willow looked that determined, she wouldn't stop until whatever problem she was up against was solved.

"Yes," Jenny said bluntly, though she gave Willow a gently encouraging smile. The novice Wiccan gave her teacher a small smile in return, and Giles nodded to himself. He also nodded to Buffy, and the Slayer took that as her cue to continue the story.

"Well, we hadn't seen Xander in like, fifteen minutes, so I went up to check on him. When I got up there, Angelus had Xander around the chest. Me and Will were trying to do a point thing, me taking his right and she his left, but Angelus had already figured that we'd try that. When we got up there, Spike and Dru were waiting. Spike's back," she said quietly. Giles started violently at that. Buffy didn't blame him; Spike had killed two Slayers in his undead lifetime, and Angelus had killed at least four. Drusilla, no one had any idea.

"I couldn't fight off all three of them anyway, but then like five lackeys jumped up too. He grabbed Xander and he jumped out the window, and by the time me and Willow got out to the front of the club, they were gone."

"No," Willow said quietly. She flushed as they all looked at her, and she stared out the window. Buffy knew that whatever her friend was going to say now would be intensely personal, so she shut up and let Willow have her say. "He didn't take Xander anywhere."

"What?" Giles asked quietly. When Willow turned to face them, she sounded small and scared.

"Xander went with him…willingly."

Xander didn't know what to think as Angelus slowly approached him. He'd followed the vampire blindly to the factory, not even thinking to be afraid. He was essentially marching into the belly of the beast – from what he'd seen of Angelus' forces, it stood to reason that there were going to be more than a small pack of vampires living within the factory. Buffy had had a hard enough time fighting off all of the Master's forces back during her first year in Sunnydale; compared to Angelus, the Master was small beans.

Thinking of Buffy led him to thinking of how he got in this whole mess, and also the inescapable guilt of being attracted to Angelus after what had happened with Buffy and Angel. Thinking of Angel in itself was strange; Xander had finally admitted to himself some time ago that he had been crushing on Angel hard. Not wanting to admit it to himself had led to the snarking and the insults that had constantly passed back and forth between himself and the souled vampire. He missed Angel…but he couldn't get Angelus out of his mind.

He felt like he was tearing himself apart at the seams, and having the outrageously gorgeous demon staring at him like he was a treat to be devoured wasn't helping the mental serenity, either.

"Xander, come with me," Angelus said quietly. It wasn't a question. Xander could feel doors of opportunity slamming open and shut. He was lost in a midnight forest where there was no moon to guide his steps, only the pale face of Angelus. Two worlds that he straddled now: the daemonic, and the human. He had the feeling that if he ran now, Angelus would allow him to leave…only to come for him later. Xander couldn't live his entire life on the run; it just wasn't who he was, how he was made.

And why should he run, anyway?

Back in the human world, he had Buffy and Willow, and Giles and Cordelia, but what was there for him, really? Fighting a war every night against the forces of darkness alongside a witch and a Slayer, while he just stood in the background, taking a punch every now and again? Xander Harris, the Zeppo, the loser of the group with no real powers. Hell, even Cordelia Chase could research better than he could. And if he went back there, would he ever not wonder about what Angelus had said? Would he be able to rest, or be haunted by the demon's words, spending the rest of his life searching for the answers to his past, which he might not ever be able to find?

He thought of Willow, his best friend, as close to him as a sister. He'd seen the pain in her eyes as he'd left with Angelus, and it had knifed him in the heart. He would never want to cause her pain, ever. Would she understand why he was here now? Would Buffy? He could think of Buffy as his best friend now, as well; the last pangs of the awkward teenage crush melting away in the face of one of the best (albeit strangely psycho) friendships he'd ever had. Buffy had filled the hole that Jesse's death had ripped in Xander's heart. Giles had taken Xander under his wing, become the parent that Xander had never had.

Could he be selfish enough to cause them pain searching for the answers to his life?

He looked up to the golden gaze of the vampire, his angelic face twisted in that strangely beautiful demonic visage, a bolt of pure possessiveness apparent in his savage gaze. The eyes of the vampire stuck Xander in place, held him, possessed him. And he knew that the answer was 'yes,' had always been yes. And he knew which decision he would make.

Angelus watched his boy, carefully not making any movements, leaving it open for Xander to make his own choices. He would train the boy in obedience later; for now, Xander had to agree to stay with him willingly or Angelus' well-laid plans would be set back. Xander would be his, body, mind, and soul. Angelus would own him. He watched curiously as the agonised mask of indecisive thought wavered, and then smoothed itself out of Xander's face. A decision had been made, a door in Xander's thoughts had been closed. Angelus held his hand out.

Neither boy nor demon acknowledged the bolt of erotic electricity that raced up both of their spines as Xander took Angelus' hand.

They walked together into the factory, and Xander knew then that this was a departure from everything that he'd ever known, and that he was entering the unknown, likely forever. For once in his life, it was a good feeling.

A/N: Okay, I'm working on another story right now. I know, I thought I wasn't going to while I was writing this one as well. But, since I have the whole plotline already worked out and the first chapter of the other story ready to be posted by the end of this week, I'm going to do it, damn it! Anyway, all of the real meat of the Xangelus-y goodness is going to start in the next chapter. Author's warning: all of the Scooby meetings from here on out will be total angst-fests as they try to get Xander back. But they also reach some important decisions, so don't skip over anything. I promise, it is all very important.

A note about the other story: I don't know how many people will be interested, because there weren't a lot of people that liked the movie, but I did, so I'm writing this fic. It's called Elektra and will be posted in (you guessed it!) the Elektra category in MOVIES. It's the first part of a trilogy, and will hopefully be pretty good. That being said, if any of my kick-ass reviewers from this story will review that story, I'll cry of happiness (I was going to say die, but then you guys wouldn't know the ending of this story, because I wouldn't be able to write it, and that would thuswise suck).

AND A BONUS TO MY REVIEWERS: Thank you so, so much for all of the reviews. I have nearly forty reviews (which sounds kind of small compared to some of the stories on this site, but it's really, really big to me, so hah), and only one of them was bad. You guys are the stuff that makes the writer keep writing. So, with that in mind, even with the first chapter of my other story being posted soon, I swear I'll try to post the next chapter by the end of next week. You guys rock!

Spread the word! Pimp my story out to your friends (just kidding)!

Until next chapter, I remain your faithful author,

PyroPadawan.

(Oh, and P. S.: I'm really friggin' tired of my pen name. I made it up like, three, four years ago when I was still a Star Wars nut and trying to tie the Phoenix (my personal totem) into it. It's kind of crappy. If anyone knows how to change your pen name without changing anything else or withdrawing your stories off the site and putting them on a different account, please drop me a line and tell me how to do this. The help is really, really appreciated. Thanks!)