Date written: Fri 30 Oct 2009
Author: Starway Man
E-mail: theop at hotkey dot net dot au
Disclaimer: The Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Sandollar, Kuzui, Fox, WB and UPN; I don't own 'em, and I never will. I also do not own any other characters from any television shows, movies, comics, videogames or literature that I might use. This work is meant merely for enjoyment, and no profit is being made off of it. Some of the text is from various TV episodes or movies or comics or videogames or literature, and so does not belong to me of course.
Rating: Overall R, with mostly PG-13 parts.
Symbols: " " denotes speech, ( italics ) specifies thoughts, and # # indicates phone voice.
Main characters: Xander, ensemble
Warnings: There is some violence, bad language, character death and mention of sexual situations in these stories.
Author Notes: A couple of years ago Night Hunter MGS (a.k.a. Matt) wrote an awesome series of stories called "31 Days of Xanderween" (http://www. fanfiction. net/s/3813208/1/31_Days_of_Xanderween), where he published one Halloween fic for each day of October. I was inspired enough to want to do my own version of the concept, and he has graciously allowed me to use his idea for this series of fanfic stories.
Author Notes 2: Well, it's getting to be near that point in time. There's only one more story to go after this one! Thanks to everybody who's stayed with me so far, and I hope you've enjoyed this series of stories. Jason Barnett, about Angel staying human during 1999 – I've done that plot bunny before (a LONG time ago) in the story "All Things New". As for Cordelia, once she got cursed with the visions she was almost inevitably doomed to die in a few years from the brain damage, and I didn't want that to happen in the previous story. Now, onto this fanfic; it's the product of an idea I had where "what if Angel was afraid of Xander instead of the other way around?", and my rather convoluted thought processes came up with this.
Acknowledgments: My thanks of course to Matt for allowing me to dabble with his original idea this way. Also, my deepest gratitude to all my beta readers – Francis Eugene, Greywizard, American Soldier and Nodakskip – for all their help in getting these stories finished on time!
Classification: Alternate Universe, Angst, Crossover, Romance, YAHF
Summary: Thirty-one versions of Halloween, Xander-style. Fic-a-day series.
Title:31 Days of Xanderween Part Deux
***
Story 30: Necromantic twist
Central office of Passport Applications, London, England
October 20th, 1997
"I don't understand," Ethan Rayne said, looking perplexed as he stared at the Englishman on the other side of the counter. "I've filled out all the proper forms, haven't I? And I need a passport, because I certainly can't go abroad without one. So what exactly is the problem, if I might ask?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but I don't know the answer to that," his companion said politely. "All I know is your application was rejected by someone in the Passport office. If you'd care to fill out the forms and apply again..."
"Oh, bleeding heck – and hang on, don't tell me that I'll have to pay the bloody application fee again?" Ethan demanded, his ire growing.
"I'm afraid so, yes," the civil servant said apologetically.
Ethan started fuming, as he calculated scenarios in his head. ( Bloody hell... )
Even if he filled in the forms and they were processed today, by the time he got his passport, it would be too late to find 'Ripper' on the Hellmouth and play that little Halloween prank on him. After all, the amount of time needed to negotiate with the local chamber of commerce and set up a costume shop, not to mention get enough advertising for a significant number of people to come into his store – no, if you were going to do something like this you had to do it right, and it looked like he had been checkmated by the hand of fate.
( Oh, well, I guess there's always next year... ) he mentally sighed, giving up for now. Ethan just quickly said his curt farewells to the clerk and left the Passport office.
Not long afterwards he ran into two old chums of his, Deidre Page and Philip Henry. Like Ethan they were initiates of the sleepwalker demon known as Eyghon, who had recently come back somehow and possessed the man named Thomas Sutcliff. The group was targeted for termination; but luckily after joining forces, Deidre, Philip and Ethan eventually managed to defeat the demon, torching Thomas's corpse and moving on with their lives afterwards.
And over in Sunnydale, Rupert Giles, Watcher to the vampire Slayer named Buffy Summers, remained in complete ignorance of the affairs of those he had called friends during the days of his wilder youth.
***
Outside Ethan's Costume Shop, Sunnydale, California
October 30th, 1998
Xander Harris felt like pure scum as he headed towards the Halloween costume shop, and the reasons for that involved his best friend named Willow Rosenberg.
Things were rather different here and now than they would have been in a world where Ethan had arrived in town last year. For example, nothing much had happened during Halloween twelve months ago; all the high school students had taken their little brats out trick o' treating for a couple of hours, and then returned them to their parents at the school without incident.
About the most exciting occurrence was Buffy finding out that her undead boyfriend Angel wasn't all that keen on her noblewoman costume, and so the next day she had decided to try the tavern wench approach instead – to much greater effectiveness.
The lack of possession by a Halloween costume persona was a problem, however. Not so much for Buffy or Willow, who would have rejected everything concerning a snobbish noblewoman and a noncorporeal ghost anyway, but for Xander – it was a significantly different story. Too many threads of fate depended on him acquiring and retaining those Halloween costume memories in order to prevent disaster and even the end of the world, further down the line.
Fortunately, disaster and the apocalypse had been avoided when Angel had managed to get on a boat with the arm of the Judge back in January, thanks to Xander showing up in the right place at the wrong time. Thus, Angel had never lost his soul and had eventually come back to prevent the demon Acathla from destroying the world, four months later.
But fate can be a fickle mistress, and the Hellmouth definitely had this nasty habit of throwing the unexpected at you. In this case, the unexpected involved Xander and the new Slayer named Faith Lehane.
Faith had arrived in town and integrated into Buffy's social circle not long after Harris had broken up with his girlfriend, Cordelia Chase. The break-up itself was due to the fact that, because Buffy had never run away to Los Angeles over the summer, she had been there for the nightly patrols after school resumed; and Xander and Cordy had had a relationship-destroying fight in a cemetery after the cheerleader's return from the Las Palmas resort in Mexico.
But that wasn't why Xander was feeling like scum right now. The reason for that was that he and Willow had been sharing illicit smoochies for the last two weeks, ever since Homecoming – Miss Rosenberg had been cheating on her boyfriend with her best male friend, despite how horrible it made both her and Xander feel.
( I'm an evil, nasty person, ) Xander thought to himself in shame as he entered the shop. ( WHY am I doing this to Oz? He's a decent guy, someone real special to Willow. Okay, he gets more than a little hairy three nights a month, but that's not his fault! Damn it, am I so desperate for a woman that I'm willing to discard ALL my morals? )
"Can I be of assistance, young man?" a cultured British voice asked as the male teen quickly looked around.
"Yeah, I'm looking for something that's, uh, cheap and simple for tomorrow night. Don't have much money on me, I'm afraid," Harris confessed to Ethan.
Seeing Xander's glum look, Ethan asked, "Is there anything in particular you're looking for?"
"I guess...something that says 'good guy'," Xander said contemplatively. "I dunno, maybe I should just dress up like Giles-"
"Giles? Rupert Giles, by any chance?" Ethan smiled like a shark as he saw Xander nod. "Well, what a coincidence! I know him quite well, Rupert's an old friend. So I insist you take something on the house. Like...this!" The British man gave Xander a coat, one that he had acquired third-hand in Los Angeles.
"It's yours for free, in exchange for some good word of mouth publicity for my store," he offered with a wide smile. "What do you say?"
The coat was tweed, and of decent quality. But unfortunately, Xander had no idea what he was letting himself in for as he nodded his head, because Ethan had secretly cursed everything in his shop for all of his customers to become their Halloween costumes tomorrow night.
Better late than never, at least according to Ethan Rayne's rather twisted point of view.
***
Sunnydale High School, Sunnydale, California
November 1st, 1998
It was a Sunday morning, but Faith the vampire Slayer was heading straight for the school, anyhow. She was still far too wired from the events of last night to do otherwise.
( What the freaking hell happened, anyway? ) the brunette Chosen One asked herself yet again. ( Everybody turned into their damn Halloween costumes? Dog Boy and Red became Romeo and Juliet, and B became Little Red Riding Hood? It's a damn good thing Fang and I were there to prevent 'em all getting killed. But hey, I wonder what happened to X... )
As Faith entered the library, she was rather surprised to see Xander sitting on the steps to the mezzanine level – and she was shocked to see that he was silently weeping.
"Xander? What are ya doing here? And what's wrong?" the Boston Slayer asked, a frown on her face.
"Cordelia's dead," Xander replied, wiping his eyes. "She and a bunch of her friends got killed last night. I heard on the news that it's being blamed on 'gang violence', instead of the real Hellmouthy reason. I, I...I know we were broken up and all, but I still..."
Faith was instantly very uncomfortable. She'd figured this guy had been overcompensating lately for the loss of his stuck-up girlfriend; but this sort of genuine grief was something totally unexpected, and she had no idea how to deal with it. Sad to say, but she didn't do relationships, being a 'want, take, have' kind of girl.
"Well, uh, I'm sorry and all that," the dark-haired Slayer finally said. "So there's gonna be a funeral, right? You going to attend?"
"I should, but I don't know if it's a good idea," Xander admitted, finally getting up from the stairs and pulling himself back together. "I mean, I might be tempted to do something stupid and try to bring her back to life – only she wouldn't really be my Cordy anymore, would she?"
"HUH? You can actually do that sort of shit? I thought Red was the Sabrina around here," Faith asked in confusion.
"I couldn't before, but I can now. Last night – I turned into my Halloween costume," Xander admitted, arousing the Slayer's suspicions. "Only I didn't turn into Giles – I turned into someone else. A bad guy living in Los Angeles, who lost his coat recently."
"What's his name?"
Xander turned away, fighting just to say the name out loud. He knew that he had to, but he really didn't want to say it. It was a name he wanted to forget, with all his heart and soul.
"Magnus Hainsley."
***
1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, California
November 26th, 1998
"What the hell is going on, Xander?" Buffy Summers demanded of Harris in her most authoritative voice. "How did you do what you did earlier on tonight?"
( Good thing her mom's not here for this, I guess. Betcha Mrs. S would wig out for sure after hearing THIS conversation. ) Xander exchanged a glance with Faith, who simply shrugged; which meant that he was strictly on his own.
"How's Willow, have you heard?" Harris then asked.
"She's fine – she's still pretty terrified after Spike kidnapped her like that, but Oz said on the phone that, uh, physically at least, she's okay," Buffy frowned. "Now answer the damn question – how did you make all those vampires freeze up on the street like that? It was totally freak-worthy – well, it would have been if I hadn't been too busy staking everything with a bumpy forehead in sight. Now spill!"
"May as well, X," Faith shrugged again. "I told ya it'd come to this eventually."
"You knew?" Angel asked suspiciously.
"Yeah, she knew," Xander finally admitted. He was in a bit of state of flux right now, even if Spike hadn't smashed him over the head recently; mostly because Harris had left that science lab a lot earlier than he otherwise would have, after telling Willow it was all over between them. "I told her, nearly a month ago."
"And you didn't tell me you could do – whatever it is you can do, why?" Buffy demanded angrily.
"Because I knew you wouldn't trust me anymore, once you found out that I'm a necromancer now," Harris said simply.
Angel moved back at once, something Buffy did not fail to notice. "What's a necro-whatever?"
"Someone with total power over the dead," Angel said thickly. "Including vampires. A necromancer can force someone like me to do anything at all, even against my will – Xander could make me stake myself at any time, and there'd be nothing I could do to stop him..."
"Yo, Fang! Everyone knows X wouldn't do something like that," Faith said in exasperation, as Buffy's eyes went wide. "It's been two years, right? You're an established white hat and all, remember?"
"How did you become this necro-monger thingy?" Buffy demanded, her eyes just as flinty as Xander had known they would be. "Willow's the magic girl around here!"
Xander audibly sighed. "It was Halloween, Buff. I got turned into my costume like just about everyone else, and well, you know my record with magic." He was referring to events such as the hyena possession, and the Valentine's Day love spell. "Some of it must have stuck, even after the chaos spell was over."
"Well, then we'll just tell Giles when he comes back from Breaker's Woods, and he'll get rid of it somehow," Buffy decided instantly.
"Why?" Faith demanded at once. "In case you ain't noticed, X has got a handy-dandy little talent there. Comes in real useful when he patrols with me, I gotta tell you. The bloodsuckers don't even put up a fight when I stake 'em!"
"Xander, you've been patrolling with Faith? What are you, out of your mind? You could get hurt or killed!" Buffy yelled without thinking.
Xander said nothing, just staring at the blonde Slayer. So did Faith and Angel. The uncomfortable silence was finally broken when Buffy said uncertainly, "Well, you know what I mean..."
"No, I don't think I do. You saying that I'm incompetent? Or that the only person Xander's allowed to patrol with is you?" Faith asked challengingly.
"NO! It's just that it's Xander, and-and I worry..." Buffy replied in that same uncertain tone of voice.
"You worried that he's gonna die?" Miss Lehane asked darkly. "No, I'd say it's something more along the lines that he'll make your boy toy kill himself. 'Cause after this particular conversation, I gotta take back what I said before. You really are concerned that Fang's gonna fit into a Dust Buster soon, on account of you simply don't trust X with that kind of power over his undead ass," Faith stated harshly.
"No, that's not true!" Buffy said desperately. "I DO trust Xander, it's just..."
"Who possessed you during Halloween?" Angel asked after she trailed off. "What was his name?"
Xander looked ill for a few moments. "Magnus Hainsley."
"Who's that?" Buffy asked, once she had seen his expression.
"A black hat in LA. Rich with old money, and even older mojo," Harris replied despondently. "I can remember his entire life as if I'd lived it myself, and believe you me, I wish I didn't. Hainsley owns a big block of shares in this evil law firm called Wolfram & Hart, and basically, he's connected everywhere. The entertainment industry, banking and finance, construction and engineering, and even politics – Senator Helen Brucker in LA, she's actually an evil demon hiding in a human body thanks to what Hainsley did," Harris shuddered. "I've been having nightmares about that over the past few weeks, I promise you."
"Okay, well, we'll have to take care of her somehow. But I still think that once Giles comes back-" Buffy started to say.
"No," Angel spoke up abruptly, much to Buffy's shock. "It's Xander's body, and it's his life, his choice. This isn't something that you can decide for him, Buffy."
"But I'm the Slayer!" Buffy said, almost unable to believe that her beloved had actually said that.
"Ah, excuse me B, but you're 'a' Slayer now. We're the Chosen Two here, remember?" Faith asked slowly. "Seems to me you tend to forget that, whenever it suits you."
"No I don't," Buffy said in a freezing cold tone of voice.
"Yeah, well, I think I should be going now," Xander said, heading for the door. He knew his blonde friend well enough when to accurately predict the upcoming arrival of Hurricane Buffy. "Faith, you coming?"
"Right behind you," Miss Lehane said with a smirk, as she followed him out. "I'll see you and Jeeves in the library on Monday, B."
"God, she gets me so annoyed sometimes!" Miss Summers growled to her boyfriend, throwing her arms up into the air. "I really ought to start calling her 'F' again!"
***
Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale, California
February 1st, 1999
As Xander heard Jack O'Toole chanting in the cemetery and a pair of hands burst out of the grave at their feet, he didn't wonder how it was that his life had turned out like this. Mostly because Harris was too busy watching his date for the evening, Lysette Torchio, run away screaming at the top of her lungs.
It had been a long time now since Halloween and Spike's subsequent brief return to the Hellmouth. A lot had changed, not the least of which had been the complicated relationships between all the members of the Scooby Gang. Well, it wasn't like their lives had been normal before, but these days, it was almost as if abnormality was the definition of normality around here.
Buffy didn't actually come out and say it, but it was obvious that she HATED the fact that her Xander-shaped friend held the power of life or death over the vampire she loved. Most likely, that was why Miss Summers had done her best to keep Harris away from Angel at all times, and why she'd also tried to convince Giles into doing some sort of magical rite to strip Xander of his power, despite her Watcher's pleas to just leave him alone.
Willow had been shocked to learn what Xander was capable of now, and equally shocked at Buffy's reaction to the news. The young woman had moved past her own obsession with Xander these days, because she and Oz had been sleeping together ever since Christmas last year – and so Miss Rosenberg was able to analyse the situation clearly and logically.
She knew that a) Xander had admitted that he loved Buffy at the end of sophomore year; b) Buffy had admitted she didn't feel the same way about him at the time; and c) nowadays, both of them were bull-headed enough to do something stupid in order to get their own way, if push ever came to shove. Put it all together, and Willow figured it would have been best if her former crush had simply kept his mouth shut all those years ago.
But be that as it may, Angel and Faith hadn't wanted to take sides or provoke anybody and so had done their best to stay out of it. A very wise decision, too, all things considered.
As for Xander, oddly enough he just wished that Cordelia was still around. Not as a girlfriend – he had pretty much moved on from those feelings by now – but because her blunt and tactless advice would have been most welcome. No matter what else you could say about her, Miss Chase had never been one to shirk away from facing the cold harsh truth of any situation, and likewise, she'd never been afraid to speak her mind about any subject that concerned her.
"Bob, you big hideous corpse – come here!" Jack said, bring Xander back to reality as the zombie finished rising up out of the grave right in front of him.
"Dude! You raised me!" Bob started laughing with delight, as he swung his best friend around. "Yes! Big Bob is back!"
"What the hell is going on here?" Xander spoke up, drawing the attention of Jack and Bob. "Jack, THIS is your idea of 'getting the boys'?"
"Yeah, what of it?" O'Toole scowled. "You got a problem with dead people, Harris?"
"As a matter of fact, I do," Xander shot back. "Especially since most of them that I know are vampires, and go around killing innocent people!"
"Who the hell is this twerp?" the Bob zombie demanded, staring at O'Toole in annoyance and confusion.
"He WAS our wheel man for tonight," Jack scowled again, before he brought out his knife called Katie. "But now he's just roadkill!"
Just as Jack lunged, Xander gestured at Bob. Unable to resist a necromancer, who, as has been said, had absolute power over the lifeless, the zombie grabbed Jack's wrist and then, very much against his will, Bob firmly restrained O'Toole from moving.
"What the fu-!" Bob cried out. "What's happening to me?"
"It's him, he's doing this somehow," Jack snarled, having seen the gesture Xander had made. "Harris, I swear I'm gonna carve you up and serve you with gravy for this! First the eyes, then the tongue. Then I'm gonna break every one of your fingers! And after that-"
"Jack, will you just shut up?!" Xander demanded hotly, almost unable to believe the sociopathic bully was making such threats in his current position. But then, after O'Toole simply closed his mouth with a snap, Xander's suspicions grew. "Hey, what's going on? Why'd you do that?" Silence. "Answer me!"
"I...have...to...obey...you," Jack gritted out, teeth gnashing as Bob continued to hold him prisoner.
"What? But you're not a vampire or a zombie..." At that moment, Xander finally seemed to get it. "Or are you?"
With another gesture, he forced Jack to lift up his shirt, and there it was – a series of bullet holes from a drive-by shooting three weeks ago. "Well, well. Look who's a member of the deadite squad!"
"Dude, how are you doing this?" Bob asked Harris in confusion, sick and tired of being manipulated like a puppet on a string.
Xander shrugged as he let both zombies go. "I'm a necromancer."
Bob's rotting eyes went wide as he stared at O'Toole. "Buddy, you chose someone like that as a wheel man? What are you, retarded?"
"Hey, you take that back right now! Or else I'll put you exactly where I just took you out of!" Jack said angrily, holding up the chicken foot talisman he'd used for carrying out the raising ritual.
Not thinking clearly, Bob tried to grab the chicken foot for himself. But O'Toole wasn't about to stand for that, and so a fight broke out. The two dead boys began punching each other, with the occasional kick to the groin thrown in as well. It wasn't too nasty at first, but then the fight started to get a lot more vicious, as the two dead things abandoned any pretence of friendship.
Xander thought about stopping it, but in the end, decided to simply let his companions have their fun...
...when, of all the rotten luck, the chicken foot got trampled by the wrestling zombies. With the talisman destroyed and their source of supernatural animation gone, both men simply dropped to the ground as the lifeless corpses they really were.
"Jack? Bob?" Xander utterly failed to get any sort of response. The powers of a necromancer didn't include making the dead speak of their own free will.
"Huh. Well, that was kinda anti-climatic..."
***
Sunnydale High School, Sunnydale, California
February 2nd, 1999
Xander walked up behind his friends, listening to them chat amongst themselves. Last night, Buffy, Willow, Faith, Giles and Angel had managed to prevent the end of the world when the Hellmouth had been opened by the Sisterhood of Jhe, an apocalyptic female demon cult.
As a result of the battle, Buffy's arm was in a sling, and Giles had some nasty scratches across his left cheek, ear and neck. Willow and Oz looked okay physically, but the witch and the werewolf were both deeply affected by the fight they had witnessed.
"...the world continues to turn," Giles finished up whatever he'd been saying.
"And no one will ever know how close it came to stopping. Never know what we did," Willow nodded.
Xander chuckled silently. ( If only they knew... )
He had come to the school last night after simply leaving the zombies behind in the cemetery, only to find himself in the middle of a war zone; and if he hadn't been there while the others were busy battling the Hellmouth demon, most likely the Sisterhood of Jhe and the werewolf version of Oz would have crashed the party and brought about Armageddon.
( Yeah, I'd say last night was a good lesson in humility. I may have my own thing, my own power now, but there are still LOTS of demons and monsters that can hack me into little pieces! ) Xander thought to himself. ( Low profile, definitely the way to go. For now, anyway. )
"Xander!" Harris stopped at the sound of Buffy's voice, as she managed to catch up with him. "I saw you just now, you just walked past everybody – why didn't you stop to talk to us?"
"Got some things on my mind, Buff," Xander said noncommittally. He gestured off to the side, "Need to talk to Faith about something too."
Miss Summers saw the junior Slayer approaching and nodded. "Well, when you're done with her, I'd like to talk to you as well. See, last night, some things happened..."
"Yeah, I heard Angel talking about the upcoming apocalypse at the Bronze last night. Glad to see you guys handled it okay," Xander told her truthfully.
"It got kinda crazy, I'll admit," Buffy said. "But when Angel was down and out like that, and the Hellmouth demon almost tore him apart – at that moment I realized that if only you'd been there, you could have gotten him to safety just by waving your fingers the way you do." Buffy took in a deep breath and released it, slowly. "The man I love could have ended up dust, and if he had – I, I'd have never been able to forgive myself for insisting that you not be there last night."
"Hey. Whassup?" Faith said in her deliciously throaty Boston accent, intrigued by the sight of Buffy and Xander actually having a conversation.
"Just, just me – finally realizing that I was wrong and Angel was right, that I should trust my one of my best friends no matter how different I wish things were with him," Buffy said bluntly, before she smiled and left.
"Well, that was kinda unexpected," Xander said musingly. Then he said to Faith, "I hear congratulations are in order. You saved the world, right?"
"Guess so," Faith shrugged, smirking. "Helped do it, anyway. So, what did you get up to last night?"
"Would you believe nothing but enjoy the quiet life?" Xander asked her with a grin, deciding to keep quiet about Oz almost mauling him to death and the Sisterhood chasing him throughout the school.
Let his friends have their day in the sun, they deserved it.
Faith suddenly squinted at him suspiciously. She had the distinct impression that this guy knew something that she didn't, something amusing too from the look on his face. She said, "What? Quiet? You?"
"I like the quiet," Xander still had the damned annoying grin on his face.
"Since when?"
Xander stuck his arm out, and Faith permitted him to escort her over to the rest of the Scooby Gang at the nearby table. It was an old-fashioned gesture, and it was also evidence that not everything he'd picked up from Magnus Hainsley was of the bad variety.
As the countdown to Graduation began Harris said to the Slayer, "Always, Faith. Always."
***
Next: Story 31 - Alpha And Omega