The graveyard;

 

“I can’t do this.” She says, falling behind.  “He’d be so… disappointed.  He was always so ‘zen,’ and hey, look how I remembered him, with a bloody apocalyptic rampage…”

 

“He’d understand, Willow.”

 

“How could he?  I *killed* people, Xander.  He wouldn’t have wanted that.  He wouldn’t have wanted me, after that…”

 

Taking her tiny arms in his hands, he pulls her towards him so that she’s right up against his chest, looking up into his face through watering eyes.  “Yeah, he was the most laid-back guy I knew that still had a pulse, but that wasn’t *all* he was.  When you were in danger, he went with his heart, every time.  I *know* this Willow.  When I was the one hurting you, I was on the receiving end of it.”  She looks unconvinced, and starts to pull away, but he holds her fast, “No man on this earth would understand better what it’s like to have feelings overpower you, to do things you regret.  He had to deal with it every month.  He was the one who had to wake up and hear *you* apologize to *him* for shooting him with a tranquilizer dart, because he’d gotten out and tried to kill you, *again.*  It’s why he went all walkabout.  He learned to control it for you, Willow, so that he’d never have to hear that story again.” She’s no longer pulling away, and Xander releases her arms and lets her settle into his chest.  “So that he’d never have to wake up and hear one of us tell a story where you didn’t get the dart off in time…”

 

He strokes her hair, muttering softer now.  “Maybe that’s what you can do to remember him.  Don’t just leave it with the bloody apocalyptic rampage thing.  Remember how he learned to control the wolf for you, and learn to control the powerful feelings inside of you, for him.”

 

Looking up into his face, still red-eyed, but now smiling, “When did you get all Obi-Wan?”

 

Xander smiles back, “I’ll be whoever I have to be for my Willow.  I’ll always be here for you.”

 

             *****************************************************

 

The vineyard, round one;

 

Everything has gone to hell in a hurry.  Buffy hit the wall so hard that she looked dead, and Xander felt his heart stop for a second.  But she’s moving again, and everyone is scrambling to just get the hell out of here.  Caleb’s just too strong, too fast, and they need to regroup before he kills anyone else.  He grabs the arm of some girl who’s barely conscious in front of him and pushes her towards the stairs, when an arm grabs him and spins him around and there’s psycho preacher guy, gripping his head in both hands with fingers driving into his skull like hot iron.

 

Some words just get burned into your brain.  He’ll never forget the look in Caleb’s eyes, the heat of his breath, the iron grip of his fingers as he says, “So you’re the one who sees.  Let’s see what we can do about that.”  And then his thumbs descend into Xander’s eyes and he hears someone screaming and screaming as it all goes black.

 

              ******************************************************

 

The hospital;

 

He’s not real clear on what happened next.  Someone much stronger than him jerked him out of there, he remembers hitting walls and trying to struggle before the small hands suddenly let go and everything went sideways.  He’s pretty sure they had to knock him out to get him out of there, since he couldn’t see and was just slowing them down with his pathetic attempts to help.  Or his equally pathetic attempts to break the terrifying iron-strong grip on his wrist, just as desperate and just as futile as his earlier attempts to break Caleb’s implacable hold on his skull.

 

He’s in bed now, and he can feel bandages over his face, and an aching emptiness beneath.  They’ve had to restrain him, because the first thing he did in his drugged state was start tearing off the bandages, so that he could see.  He didn’t recognize the voices of anyone present, but now he’s startled by a hand grasping his.  Again, that hideous strength and it feels like his whole body is pulling away, trying to escape the source of all the hurting.  The hand withdraws, and he can hear them talking, and finally he hears Buffy apologizing before she leaves, but he’s too shaken to reply.

 

“It’s me Xander, on your left, I’m just going to take your hand now…” Willow says to his side, her tiny hand settling down on top of his, and even with the warning, he starts a little before reaching out to take her hand in a crushing grip.

 

“Get out, Willow, run!  He was here, just now…” he babbles in a panic, barely able to breathe.

 

“That was Buffy, Xander.  Just Buffy.”

 

“He was so strong.  So strong.  I kept pulling at his hands, but I was like trying to fight a freight train.  I couldn’t, I just couldn’t…” he can feel himself slipping away, it’s all suddenly too much, and he feels a cool hand on his forehead as everything rushes away into the distance.

 

           *******************************************************

 

He dreams of women, not an infrequent occurrence, but this time is different.

 

Buffy is there, with dirt under her nails, from having dug her way out of her grave, shirt torn open to show off her breasts, which are sullied by bits of dried blood from long-ago kills.  Her hair is wild and free, oily matted locks moving like snakes of their volition.  Her hands are twisted like claws and she dances with wild abandon to imaginary music, like Drusilla.  Her face is lustful as she licks blood and dirt from her hands, and smears it across her breasts as she dances towards Xander, who is tied and helpless, and yet standing upright.  She moves against him and now he can hear the music in the background.  Cibo Matto are playing, and Buffy is now wearing a tight black dress and  far too much makeup, with her hair and nails and skin still clotted with the gore of countless battles.  She grinds up against him, and instead of arousal, he feels pain as she cuts into him, as if her soft skin has been replaced with blades of bone.  He can feel himself bleeding from where she has pressed up against him, his chest, his stomach, his groin and thighs, and it spurts forth in black rivulets like some grotesque orgasm, each shuddering pulsation one of sharp pain and shameful pleasure.  He can hear her laughing and her foul serpentine hair cutting into his chest like steel wire, squirming around like worms.  Her tiny hands scrape along his thighs like claws, and he can feel slick black fluid running down his legs from where she has touched him.

 

And suddenly his arms are free, and he’s holding her in his arms, and her hair is black, fading to red.  He looks down to her, but it’s like holding a furnace, and he can see the darkness, the evil forces of magic crawling around in her like serpents.  Her hair hangs limp and lifeless, her skin is pale and her eyes dark and sunken, as if every living part of her is dead, except for the dark forces animating her.  He can see the serpent crawling out of her mouth as she calls on Osirus to return Buffy, and he can see that it’s just the one that got away, that she has thousands more crawling inside of her, twisting around, throttling every living part of her and flying forth every time she calls on the darkness to work her will.  This close, he can feel her skin bulge and settle as the things inside of her move, and he grows aroused now, at this unwholesome sensation, of all the things inside of her slithering up against his body like a thousand cold hands with tiny searching fingers.  She smiles up to him, “I’ll be whoever I have to be for my Xander.  I’ll always be here for you.  As dirty and disgusting as you want it.  Wet and warm and open, all for you, always for you.”  He can feel himself sliding into her and the serpents make room for him, sliding alongside him.  When he comes it’s hot and wrong, and he can feel them entering him as he enters her, sliding up inside of him to coil and thrash inside of his belly.

 

He wakes thrashing, sheets soaked, and his cheeks burn in shame as he hears the nurses’ mutterings of disgust that they have to clean up this mess.  He can see them, in his mind’s eye, clear as day.  They are in no position to talk, their own secret shames burn as hot…

 

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