Fic: Love and Loyalties 2/11
Apr. 11th, 2012 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crys_lochVampire Stories, story 4
BtVS / Buffy/Willow/Xander
NC- 17
Summery: Cordelia? There are many questions that arise. Some truths are revealed. And everyone has choices to make.
Love and Loyalties, part 2.
Disclaimers and warnings are listed in part 1 and still apply.
Willow led Cordelia to the main door of a large diner off Railroad. "I hope this is okay. It always seems pretty popular, so the food is probably pretty good. And it's a good, central location."
"Center of your feeding grounds," Cordelia clarified, further punctuating the remark with a sweeping gesture at the mass of young people on their way to the restaurants, shops and clubs in the area.
Willow laughed. "That'd be boring, like eating at the same restaurant over and over again." Willow smiled at Cordelia's reaction. "I've shocked you again."
"Yeah, a little," Cordelia admitted. "I think I have it in my head. I think I know, you know? But then..." She shook her head and leaned against the wall.
"You just need some food." Willow thought about what she just said. "Okay, that's a stupid saying. But food will help." She smiled again as Cordelia rolled her eyes. "This is central because it's just down the hill from our place, so it's where we split up and meet up. Well, usually, it's actually a club nearby we use. But you don't want to go there just yet. We don't always split up. Sometimes we hunt together. That's actually a, ah, crazier time than not. Usually, though, we just kinda go our separate ways. Xander likes to roam around the city. The whole city is his, I think. Feeding ground and otherwise." Willow paused, looked around, looked anywhere but at Cordelia at the moment. "But here as well of course. For a quick bite." She abruptly turned back to Cordelia and pulled some cash out of her pocket. Handing the money over to Cordelia, she gestured towards the door. "The place doesn't close, so you don't have to worry about that."
"Thank you." Cordelia took the cash and started for the door, her mind numb, Willow's ramblings echoing dimly. Willow's hand halted her progress.
"You have your notebook with you." Willow's mind jumped to a list of more things to cover. "Good. Cause, I'm not sure how long we'll be. I mean, of course we'll be back before dawn. And I'm sure some of us will be back well before dawn. And we don't have to wait for all of us to be back. But, still, I'm not sure how long we'll be. Plus, we have to get you some new clothes. Probably not tonight. Maybe tomorrow, you can take the car and go shopping. And food, in the kitchen. Something other than coffee. That'll be strange. The kitchen actually being used. Buffy will like that."
Cordelia placed her hand on Willow's arm in an attempt to stop the flow of rambling. "Willow. Thank you. All that sounds great. But as you said, first I just need some food. We can deal with all that tomorrow, right? And I'll be fine. Right here."
"Okay then," Willow started away, "I'm usually the first done. I'll come back."
Cordelia smiled and sighed then entered the stylishly themed diner. What name did she see on the sign? The Horseshoe Cafe. Open 24 hours. Luckily, it looked like it was more diner than theme. Settling herself in a booth, she forced herself to eat, trying to remember the last time she had eaten. It was something she couldn't quite recall. It didn't matter. She was surprised to be eating food tonight at all. She had been expecting dead or undead, those few times she was self aware enough to be expecting anything at all. The desire to stay with them was a reaction without thought or meaning. That it was granted was absurd. She was alive again and after everything that happened. The fact that she was eating betrayed that. She was alive. And she had a home. And the best part was that none of that had to mean anything anymore. There was no destiny, or fight, or purpose to any of it. She had no idea how she was going to fit in to this new home but for whatever reason they let her in. They let her in. So she would let them be. And given this chance, see who she could become.
* * *
Willow made her way past the crowds to the quieter streets that led down the hill and towards the bay. Her favorite hunting ground. When she reached the bottom, the crowds were gone, the street lights were few and the quiet night was hers. First, this throbbing hunger. Instead of the usual left onto the public path that lined the bay, Willow turned right onto the road that would lead her into the section that held the working docks, the big commercial docks. Freight, fish, any cargo- legal and not passed through here. The bulk freight was redistributed and loaded onto trucks or train cars. The fish to the cannery or frozen, then sent out. Real working docks. All day and night. Constant, busy, distracted. Easy. Shadows pot marked the area as flood lights only centered on the working zones. Willow didn't have long to wait until one of her favorite prey crossed near. He was a sailor, a freight hand. He spent months out at sea at a time and only days on shore. His gait was awkward and Willow took advantage as she swung him around quickly and kicked his knee, sending him down to a more manageable height; to take him from behind. He had some fire, some strength, surprised her and pulled her around to face him; tried to fight back. Smiling, Willow easily regained control, pinned his arms to his body and forced him back on his knees. She watched him take in her yellow eyes, the ridges on her brow, the fangs cruelly revealed with a smile. She could smell the fear then, overpowering everything else: the anger, the sweat, the sea. Willow was sure there wasn't much he feared and she was silently pleased that she was one of those things. Before blind panic started, Willow bent forward and bit down forcefully onto his neck, holding him in place. His blood thrust into her and she opened herself to it.
* * *
Xander started immediately for downtown. A play was starting soon at the local theater. Couples were strolling toward the theater from the underground parking area. Finely dressed for a not so casual evening. Keeping up appearances. These people were just pretending. Suddenly the whole world seemed to be just pretending some meaning. Good guys, bad guys: they were all the same. Just some beings trying to control. Just some people trying to be better than others. Xander slipped down into the underground parking area. He watched a younger couple get out of a slick black Mercedes and start to make their way up to the theater. It was with practiced ease that he subdued and drained them within the shadows of empty cars. Tasted the wine they had with dinner.
* * *
Buffy wandered slowly down Railroad Ave. till she reached the bus/train station at the end. The nights were getting shorter now. This night could almost be considered warm. Still, she was less dressed than any of the other pedestrians. The simple tank top and low hip jeans she wore garnering open stares. She enjoyed the attention. Buffy leaned against the bus stop cover and waited. A bus arrived. The usual transfer of people off then on happened. One of the young men exiting the bus strayed behind as the others quickly journeyed to their destinations. He zipped up his leather jacket as his eyes openly leered over her. He waited as well; for the bus to pull away, for the others to pass by. Buffy smiled. She was hoping someone would make the choice for her. When they were alone, he approached; slowly, trying to appear casual and friendly. But the steal of his stare and the increased heartbeat she could hear gave him away.
“Aren’t you cold?” he quipped. His gaze traversed over her body again.
“Yes,” Buffy replied and to prove it, she graced her hand lightly over his own.
He pulled back his hand then recovered himself. Attempting to sound suave but coming across as vaguely menacing, he made the offer she knew was coming next. “Why don’t you come back with me to my place and I’ll warm you up.”
Buffy rolled her eyes and simply started to walk away.
“Hey you bitch! What the fuck! I’m talking to you. Don’t you dare just walk away from me.” His voice was truly menacing now, low and instantly angry.
This was where the women usually made the mistake of stopping and turning around, ready to argue back until he simply took what he wanted from them. This was when Buffy knew he would follow. She had lured many a vampire to their final death this way. She picked up the pace just enough that he had to hurry to catch up. Her retreat spiked his anger past control and he rushed upon her. Buffy easily caught his lunge and tossed him against one of the parked cars. Stunned, he flailed wildly at her as she slipped in and held him close. He blanched at her ridged form, her yellow eyes. Buffy smiled and bent forward slipping her fangs into his neck. When it was done, she couldn’t help thinking she was indeed warmer now. The immediate hunger abated, Buffy started back down Railroad Ave. to the more populated area of town.
* * *
Willow walked up the hill and over onto the college campus. She missed school. Found herself regretting that she never had the chance to get a college degree. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She had the chance, back in high school. All the top colleges wanted her, would accept her. She chose to stay in Sunnydale. From that choice on, what was chance and what was fate, she could never really sort out. She admitted her acceptance of a darker power into her soul was her doing. But the rest… no amount of meditating at the Devon Coven could help her sort and catalog all the events that led up to Buffy’s death. No amount of puzzling could untangle the knots in the web connecting her life with Buffy and Xander. During her recovery, she realized but never told the Coven members, it was always love. Love was the motivation, the rationalization, the intention. Love and chaos trump plans and fate every time, no matter what the myths say. Willow smiled, mentally setting aside the tired rhetoric in her mind. She should take a mythology class. The nights were getting too short now she realized to take actual night classes. But she could take college courses online. Maybe even finally get a degree, or two. She reminded herself she had all the time in the world. Her new thoughts lightened her step and Willow started paying more attention to the campus life around her. She pulled a coin out of her pocket and started to flip it absently.
* * *
Xander left the downtown area for the more residential part of town. Not the mansions by the water, but the collection of smaller homes up the hill. The old part of Bellingham, peeling paint, half wanted junk in the yard. He listened to their TV’s and radios. Could smell what was left of dinners. Bare life frosted over underlying rust and decay. Shouting inside a nearby house caught Xander’s attention. He knew this one-sided berating. Remembered it well, still. “You no good, ungrateful, selfish…” It went on and on. He heard the violence, the crying. Xander slipped carefully to the house and peeked inside. The boy was no more than ten years old he guessed. The father, stumbling in his drunken state still managed to land his fist over the boy’s back and shoulders. Then the front door burst open. The boy, running out and down the front steps. The father, yelling at him to get back inside. Xander watched the boy pause for a moment before he decided to take off down the street. To a friend’s house he supposed. Xander watched as the father awkwardly made it down the front steps, quieter now that he was outside and possibly in view of the neighbors, seething in wrath at the boy’s retreating form. Xander didn’t even think about it. He moved silently behind the man and with all his strength brought the man’s head down onto one of the steps. The blood pooled quickly. He growled at the scent: copper and earthy. Tainted. Let it stain this place like all the other symbols he’d seen painted in blood. Xander quickly left the neighborhood, running off the surge of anger and away from the memories.
* * *
Buffy felt aimless tonight and tired. Cordelia entering their lives kept surfacing in her thoughts. Since nothing else was engaging her, Buffy returned to the Horseshoe Café. She found Cordelia in a booth near the back and sat down across from her.
“You’re done early,” Cordelia wondered at Buffy’s unexpected presence.
Buffy shrugged. “Not that hungry tonight I guess. I did feed on some asshole, probably a rapist, so I guess I did my civic duty for the night.”
“You still do that? The civic duty thing I mean.” Cordelia closed her journal and settled in for the potentially unsettling conversation to come.
“No.” Buffy looked into Cordelia’s eyes willing her to understand the blunt truth.
Cordelia nodded her head. “Well, thank you anyway, I guess.”
Buffy let the conversation lull. She wasn’t trying to make Cordelia nervous. She was waiting for the real question she needed to ask to form firmly in her mind. “Cordy…”
Cordelia willed herself to look into Buffy’s eyes. She was actually glad one of them was with her again. Relieved in a way that it was Buffy. Ironically, they had the most to sort out if there was to be a life together. Out of the four, they had the least past, the most superficial contact, yet the greatest entanglement: Angel.
“Did you tell Angel what happened to us, what I’ve become?” Buffy continued.
“No.” Cordelia was quick to reaffirm. “I went from coma girl who didn’t know, to appearing to Angel; for one last pep talk, one last fount of information, but not that information; to supposedly dead girl. They kept me in some kind of limbo after that. That’s when I saw the end of everything. Sunnydale. Angel. Everything after. It was like video they ran for me. Some bad B rate movie. Then they just dropped me here when I made my decision.”
Buffy nodded as she accepted the answer. “And Angel’s gone? He died a hero? He’s free?”
“Yes,” Cordelia quietly confirmed. She kept her eyes on Buffy. Waited while a passing waitress asked if she could get her anything. Hid her surprise when Buffy asked for a beer.
“You were, are, in love with him?” Buffy’s voice was warm, subdued.
“Yes.” Cordelia didn’t try to fight it or hide it.
The waitress interrupted again by placing the beer down and belatedly asking to see Buffy’s ID. Buffy smiled as she produced the driver’s license from her pocket. After scanning the card, the waitress smiled, handed back the license and walked away.
“How did…” Cordelia didn’t think Buffy was any older than herself.
“Willow,” Buffy offered with a smile. “Did you want one?”
“No thanks,” Cordelia shook her head. “I’ll probably get drunk as a skunk later if you have any at your place.”
“The hard stuff,” Buffy confirmed. “We have a fully stocked bar. Help yourself. It’s your place now too.”
Cordelia nodded thoughtfully. “Do you still love Angel? Can you still feel love at all?”
Buffy stalled by taking a few pulls of the beer. “I can remember feeling love for Angel. Still feel it a little, so it must be pretty strong. We love, Cordy. Just… to feel that connection usually means we have to be touching each other as well. We need the physical connection. And there’s no simple love of humanity. No greater spiritual love. No connection like that at all.”
“Actually sounds nice right now,” Cordelia sighed. “I wish I didn’t feel all this.”
“I’m glad someone’s able to grieve,” Buffy confessed. “He deserves that.”
An almost comfortable silence of acknowledgement followed.
“So, what’s with the book I keep seeing with you now?” Buffy broke in after the moment, taking another sip of beer.
“It’s just for me. To help me sort my life before. To remember…I guess to remember the people I love. I swear. Here.” Cordelia slid the offending journal across the table to Buffy.
Buffy smiled and slid it back. “I kept a diary once. Writing things down… it can help.”
Cordelia let out a sigh of relief and took the journal back. “It’s better than everything spinning over and over again in my head. Though, it feels like that won’t really stop.”
“It won’t.” Buffy confirmed. “But it could be worse. You could have actually died before you were here. You could be trying to remember Heaven.”
The suggestion took Cordelia out of her own troubled past for a moment. She’d heard the rumors, the bits of information that passed if not flowed between the two groups. Buffy had been in Heaven before she was pulled back here. With all the events going on in her own life at the time, she never really thought much on it. Couldn’t ponder much of it now. “I don’t think I’ll ever be seeing Heaven,” Cordelia mentally slammed the door on the whole idea. “With what the good guys turned out to be I don’t know if there really is such a place, anyway.”
“There is,” Buffy confirmed. “It might not be what we think or where we think. And it probably has nothing to do with God. But it’s there, somewhere. Something we’ve named Heaven.”
“That’s good. I guess.” Cordelia didn’t want to think about any of this right now.
“You’ll probably be going shopping tomorrow, right? For clothes and stuff?” Buffy relaxed into the booth, leaning against the side. All appearance of the previous topic gone.
“Yeah, probably,” Cordelia cautiously confirmed.
“Well, since you’re now our appointed daytime liaison, would you pick out some clothes for me? This Walmart stuff is just awful and evil.”
Cordelia’s laugh released much of her nervous energy. “I’d be happy to. I won’t even remark on how long I’ve been wanting to choose your outfits for you.”
“Cordelia…” Buffy voice carried a tone of warning.
Cordelia just smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll be trying not to piss you guys off for at least a few days. Seriously, give me some kind of list and I’ll see what I can find for ya.”
“Thanks.” Buffy half smiled. “We’ll start with some proper underwear.”
* * *
Willow continued around the campus. She was no longer hunting. Simply thinking. Cordelia would need her own means, her own money if she was to help them with this semi-human life they’ve chosen. She’s felt semi-human for many years now. Like Buffy, she supposed. Except without the anchor of a calling. Or minus the ball and chain was another way to think of it. Maybe that was the reason… She stopped her mind there. The weight of those years was off her shoulders now. She really had to get out of the habit of analyzing it over and over for answers. It didn’t matter anymore. They’ve been given a fresh start. She chuckled to herself at the absurdity of that phrase for this situation. The thought brought her mind back to the problem of giving Cordelia means. It would also give her opportunity. But she’d already had the opportunity. She stopped abruptly when it occurred to her that she trusted Cordelia. She trusted her. She could remember before: Angel’s group in L.A. and Buffy’s in Sunnydale. Cordelia and herself were the lines of communication between the two. It was far less volatile than Angel and Buffy, or Xander and anyone. It had even started to become easy, with bits of gossip and how are yous thrown in. Willow shook her head and let the memories recede. She paused to flip the coin a few times, watching the outcomes. So maybe there wasn’t any grand reason to the universe or for everything that happens. There still seemed to be connections; series of events that would turn flaming hatred into budding friendship into enough of a reason for Cordelia to choose them and for them to accept Cordelia. And no matter how tragic the event or how well planned the escape, these connections were stronger. Willow started walking again by changing directions and heading down to the path by the sea.
* * *
Xander found himself back down the hill and near the bus/train station. He slowed to a stop and leaned against the wall of a deserted warehouse. The silence inside the buildings around him helped to calm his mind. His previous sudden stormy rage just as quickly dissipated. The howl of the night was now a low deep purr. The raving call he felt, the craving empty need, was dimmed. Not gone, just… He suspected it was Buffy, his Sire’s blood, the mystical mix unique in this world. She couldn’t let him go when he was human. She did give him free will as a vampire. Maybe that was why he so readily accepted Cordelia into their home. After the shock wore off. After feeling all the memories that flooded back that morning. After hearing the end of her story. And after realizing Buffy and Willow were going to say she could stay. He may have free will in the night but he still had little choice. Still, there was a sense of freedom and permission. There was no calling compelling any of them anymore. No higher duty. He certainly didn’t have to worry about their falling to the darkness that they fought. He didn’t have to fight their demons any longer. Freedom was nothing left to lose according to the song. They’ve all been through enough that he could give Cordelia that place of freedom as well. The faint muffled sound of struggling pulled his attention. Xander walked slowly over to the mouth of a nearby alley to investigate.
Xander turned into the alley and found the cause of the sound. There were three vampires and one young street kid. With those odds, he found it strange he heard anything at all. Then he noticed they were tossing the kid between them like it was some kind of schoolyard game.
“Why don’t you let the kid go?” Xander suggested, surprising them.
“Who the hell are you?” the vampire in the center shouted, pulling the kid closer and in front of him as a shield.
Xander shrugged. “No one.”
“Then why should I let him go?” the vampire continued.
Xander walked closer and let his vampire features show. “Because he’s just a kid.”
“And you’re what? Some kind of good vampire?” The center vampire was clearly the leader. He didn’t act intimidated. The other two were less certain and kept glancing between Xander and their leader.
“I’m no Angel,” Xander smirked. He regretted that the humor, maybe even irony, was lost.
The vampire twisted the kid’s head, snapping his neck, and let him drop to the ground. “He was too filthy to eat anyway.”
Xander shook his head but made no move to interfere or even show a reaction. He instead took the time to size up the leader. He was older, well dressed, calm and confident. Probably some big hot shot business man when he was human. Xander could almost see the words ‘executive sales’ stenciled on the business cards of his previous life. Maybe having got himself into this mess he could simply talk himself out of it.
“You’re one of the new ones aren’t you? You and the two hotties I’ve seen in the club,” the vampire approached Xander, pausing just out of reach.
“I’m new,” Xander confirmed. “Just trying to settle down somewhere.”
“Name’s Alec Rollins. And I’m gonna make you an unbelievably great offer right now,” the vampire continued. “You’re new here, so you might not know. Reyes is the master vampire in this city. Complacent bastard. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going down. I’m going to offer you the chance to join us. We’ll have the whole city.”
Xander laughed. “The city? That’s your grand plan?” Seeing the look of anger rise to the vampire’s features, Xander let his laughter die and waved him off. “Sorry. It’s just I’m used to hearing ‘bring the old ones back’, or ‘hell on earth’. Look, I wish you all luck with that, but I’m gonna have to say no.”
“Don’t be too hasty,” the vampire took a step closer. The other two moved to flanking positions. “You have balls. I like that. I’m offering you power, money, a management position in what will be a city wide operation. What have you got now? Two women to take care of that are probably more trouble than they’re worth?”
Xander laughed again. He couldn’t help it. “Trouble, yes, you have no idea. But definitely worth.” He tried to sober himself, acknowledge the situation. “You seem like a smart man. If you’re really experienced enough to run this city, then you’ll hear what I’m about to say. Leave me and mine alone. You think I have balls? You should see the set on those women. Just let us be.”
They were at the standoff point in the conversation. Xander wasn’t really worried. He didn’t carry a weapon any more, but he didn’t think it mattered. That fact must have been conveyed. He watched as the vampire nodded to the others and they walked out of the alley, giving Xander as wide a berth as possible.
“Just don’t get in my way again,” the vampire tossed out as he was leaving.
Xander turned and left as well. Freedom. Well, he was almost free. He realized he wouldn’t give up Buffy and Willow for anything. Not for position or power. And there was no longer the need to consume the world or watch it consumed. They were his only real need now. And the chance to give Cordelia the freedom of her own life felt like a bonus.
* * *
“Rupert, you’ve been staring at that single page for an hour now.” Jenny walked over to stand just behind where he was seated and started to rub his slouched and tense shoulders. “Is it code that holds the key?” She looked over his shoulder to read the seemingly innocuous journal for herself.
Giles removed his glasses and tossed them onto the desk. He leaned back into Jenny’s ministrations. “I’d take code over such a poor translation any day. In these journals of Marcus the Mad Monk are the findings to an ambitious experiment. Marcus held that it would be possible to return the souls of vampires. He sought to do this not as an act of vengeance, but to allow for the possibility of redemption. He believed that since the damned were so out of no blame of their own but of another’s doing, then using magics to this end would be righteous.” Giles took a deep breath and shrugged his shoulders. “That’s not really here nor there. I just want to know how he did it. Rumors have implied that he was successful. But this translation I was able to find is rubbish. The translator either believed Marcus to be truly mad and so created a tale of folly, or thought vampires to be only myth and so kept trying to form some metaphorical meaning. Or both.”
Jenny crossed over to the desk and sat back against it, facing Giles. “I don’t think returning their souls is the answer. There’s a reason my people used it as a curse.”
“And with you here back in my life I can’t kill them,” Giles bluntly admitted. “This is just a way to occupy my mind for the moment,” he tried to dismiss the impending moral dilemma.
“Then I have a better idea,” Jenny leaned forward a little. “Let’s go out.”
“It’s dark. Are you sure you’re ready?” Giles took one of Jenny’s hands gently in his own.
“Are you?” Jenny countered. She squeezed his hand and smiled. “I know what I said, but it’s time. It’s probably past time. I don’t want to search for them. I’m just feeling antsy tonight. I was thinking we could go to that blues club down on Holly St. by Railroad. I was thinking, maybe in the midst of all this,” she nodded her head towards the desk top full of research, “I could start living.”
Giles smiled. “As you wish.”
“Oh, I love that movie,” Jenny exclaimed as she started for the door.
“What movie?” Giles shut the journal, retrieved his glasses and followed.
* * *
