Irony

*

Before I’d had a chance to consider that hunting alone on a Hellmouth infested with soldier boys was maybe a bad idea, I found myself slowing to a walk in one of the less reputable parts of town. The scent of demons was heavy, and I shook my head to clear it of a particularly acidic odor. Definitely not prey there.

I stopped outside a familiar building and paused for a minute before pushing the door open. Standing in the entrance I could smell demons: several vampires, a half demon, and something that smelled like…chicken? Okay, I know everything is supposed to taste like chicken, but smell? I wonder if… no, not going there, I do not eat demons, I told myself sharply as I walked over to the bar. Most of the patrons had gone silent. Oh yeah, they *thought* they knew me.

“Hey, Xander. Look, people are a little edgy, so now might not be the time.”

“Save it Willy,” I snapped. This is where I belonged now, and given my past, I just had to wait for someone to start a fight. Oh yeah, no doubt any number of demons wanted to eat me after years of helping the slayer thin out their numbers.

“Oh, hey, no serving minors here, I got enough trouble without getting the cops in here.” Willy complained as I took a stool at the bar.

“Don’t push me tonight, Willy.” I allowed my vision to shift so that my eyes would glow inhuman green. Time to let the demon community know they had grown by one primal demon.

“Hey, did you know there’s something wrong with your eyes?” I just growled my response

“Right, I take it you’re checking out life on the other side then. I’d be happy to spring for a drink for the newly turned. So what was it? Demonic spell? Possession? Primal? Vampire? Don’t normally see the green eyes on a vampire, but it could be a new clan.” He had his usual chirpy tone now. That Willy, always ready to roll with the punches. Often literally.

“You looking for information to sell?” I asked as I narrowed my eyes in challenge.

“What? Me? No, this is just my natural curiosity. So what will it be?” I had to think about that one for a moment. I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t know if I could actually drink it without wimping out, and I really didn’t know just how far ‘out’ I intended to be with the rather rough-looking clientele which now eyed me like a piece of dead meat that hadn’t figured out to stop talking yet. Oh yeah, this was going to be a good fight. I was craving it. And since when did I look forward to a fight?

“Blood. Animal, something herbivore if you have it,” I finally ordered.

“Okay, got cow or horse then.”

“Whichever. And throw in some whiskey.” Oh yeah, if I was going for dark and dangerous, I wanted to do it right. Do it James Dean style. Do it without looking like someone let their pet Zeppo out for the night.

“So, slayer find out about this then?” Willy was going for a casual tone as he fetched a glass and polished it showily.

“Yeah.”

“I can bet she’s not thrilled. So her and the witch off trying to find some big cure?” Willy's voice had this false carelessness about it that made me growl softly.

“How much are you planning on selling this information for?" I asked with my own fake causal expression that Willy's wide eyes suggested didn't sound very casual at all.

“What, I’m just being friendly.” Willy held up his hands in surrender, the glass clutched tightly in his sweaty grip.

“How much?” I snarled.

“Geez, you can’t even ask…” I reached out and snagged his collar before dragging him half across the counter. Two vamps behind me started growling and I slid off the stool so I would have room to counterattack if they jumped me from behind.

“Depends," Willy immediately answered, and I could smell the fear. I smiled at knowing that one person in this town now knew to not fuck with me. The smile seemed to disturb Willy because he stuttered out the rest of his answer. "All total with the regulars about $300.”

“Then you can start a tab for me with a $150 credit,” I said as I dropped him. I didn’t turn to look at the vampires, which probably pissed them off even more, but their smell didn’t have that tang that came right before an attack. I had smelled that so many times on patrol with Buffy, but I had somehow ignored my hyena’s help and instead called it some sixth sense developed on the Hellmouth. Really, it wasn’t sixth as much as me actually using one of the five.

“Right, always willing to work a deal with a good customer,” Willy said as he bent down under the counter. I could smell the metallic scent of blood at the same time that I heard the pop of a bottle top. Willy stood up with a glass nearly full of blood and put it on the counter. Reaching to the shelf behind him, he picked up the whiskey and added a healthy shot of it to the blood. “Here ya go.” I took a deep drink and regretted the whiskey almost immediately. That was quite a burn going down, but the thick creamy blood at least soothed the sting and fed the craving that had left me considering chicken flavored demon. Ew.

“So, to answer your questions, I’m a fully integrated primal, Willow and Giles wanted to try to undo this but can’t, and Buffy knows, but she’s taking a hands off approach right now,” I answered when I put the glass down on the counter half empty.

“Yeah, well don’t take that no-stake policy too far, buddy. She’s the slayer, and it’s built into their genes. Of course, this one did have that fling with Angelus, so her demon radar may be whacked enough to let you slide.” I just grunted.

I didn’t think Buffy was a physical danger to me, but just withdrawing her approval had left me shaken. And the way Willow, Tara, and Buffy had instinctively drawn together against me said a lot. It said that I wasn’t one of them in a pretty basic way. And then of course the whole Spike situation. I didn’t even want to think about what it felt like to see Spike submit to his sire. Angel and I were… well, we didn’t care about each other on good days, and on bad days we had the whole mutual homicidal hatred thing going on. If Spike submitted to Angel… I stopped my thoughts before I could reach a natural conclusion there. Yeah, this day had officially sucked worse than normal.

A yellow demon with strange blue eyes walked up to the bar several stools down. Willy went down to fill his drink, and I turned my back to the bar so I could check out the possible opponents. Another drink and I felt ready for the fight. I put my glass down again.

The two vampires I had heard growl still stood near the jukebox in game face. A human-looking but demonic-smelling person sat nursing a beer and trying not to make eye contact. A lumbering demon who actually looked a little like a lumberjack in a plaid shirt with a hat pulled down shading his glowing yellow eyes watched me warily. Right, I was putting money on the vamps.

“Aren’t you the slayer’s puppy dog?” a gravelly voice asked and good thing I didn’t go to Vegas much because Lumberjack was the actual winner coming in by a nose. The two vampires even jumped a little, and I guessed they thought they were going to have a chance to pick a fight with me. Well, it didn’t matter to me since I just wanted to fight and I didn’t care much about who was on the other side of my fists. God, I haven’t ever felt like this, but I had to admit I liked the rush of adrenaline and the feeling of squaring off against something bigger and badder but not nearly as tough as me. And the big bonus: no Willow tears to make me feel helpless.

“I’m not anyone’s puppy,” I growled back as I let my vision go demony again. “I worked with the slayer and spent my evenings staking the worthless vampire population around here, but that’s not the same thing.”

“Traitor,” Lumberjack hissed.

“That assumes that I should feel some loyalty to demons, and that would be a no.” The two vamps moved forward now.

“So you think you can come in here without a slayer to hide behind?” skanky vamp one asked.

“I think I don’t need a slayer for you three,” I answered sweetly. Willy had just started to say something about not starting anything in the bar when the first vamp attacked. It was the clumsy strike of a fledge with a simple lunge intended to take the prey to the ground. Back in LA I had slipped a stake into the back of my stolen pants, and now I slipped it out of my waistband, twisted my body so that the vamp would be thrown to the side, and sunk the wood into his heart in one fluid move. Damn that felt good.

Before skanky vamp two could react, I jumped toward him. Instinctively he backed up, but not fast enough. I slid the stake in without much resistance, and I have to say, disappointed here. That wasn’t a fight; it was an execution.

“You’re going to die,” a deep rumbling voice informed me, and I turned to see Lumberjack shedding his shirt to reveal a total of four thickly muscled brownish arms coming out of a solid, massive body. Okay, might have bitten off more than I could chew, but I did say I wanted a fight. That same acidic odor from outside assaulted my nose as the demon flexed each of the four arms at the same time, and I dropped into a crouch and growled loudly.

Lumberjack tossed a table out of the way; I retreated to the jukebox.

Lumberjack pitched a wooden chair at me, and I dodged as a half hysterical, half hyena laugh broke out. The chair splintered harmlessly against the wall.

Lumberjack growled angrily and lunged across a table. I threw myself to the ground and scrambled under the table only to come up the other side and sink my stake into the back of the demon’s calf before retreating to the middle of the room. And wow, that was one serious bellow the big guy had on him.

Lumberjack snapped up off the table and turned to me with his eyes glowing brightly. I smiled and lowered my head. Off in the distance Willy was blithering on about something, but I ignored him. The sharp odor increased as Lumberjack picked up a chair in his two right arms and made a fist with his two left arms. And really, not looking so much like a lumberjack now. He actually looked more like some monster out of marvel comics, and he smelled like a chemical spill.

“Wow, bathe much?” I sneered and the chair came swinging at me. Using every bit of speed I could muster with all my hyena upgrades, I bounded backwards and threw a chair at the demon’s legs as he stomped after me. The chair collapsed under his tree trunk-looking legs, and I held the stake out in front of me as I retreated. Right, I just remembered that hyenas were pack hunters.

“You’re going to die, traitor,” the demon rumbled, and I made a circuit, ending up back near the jukebox.

“Probably, but I doubt you’ll do it,” I answered, a six inch stake between me and Mr. Stinky. Oh yeah, hyena had short-circuited the brain for sure, ‘cause I wasn’t taking the blame for this bit of stupidity.

The demon lumbered forward, and at the last second I reached down and grabbed the broken chair back. The demon let his weight fall forward towards me. The idiot probably thought I was cringing in horror, but I’d faced bigger and badder even before going all primal-y. I jammed the dull edge of the broken wood into the edge of the juke box and the demon nicely impaled himself on the sharp end as I scrambled away with another cackling laugh.

The demon turned toward me with ooze spurting out of the wound and a gurgling noise from its mouth.

“Traitor,” he said as he stumbled forward. His right arms dropped the chair, and I picked up a bar stool and swung with all my might. The stool connected with the demon’s injured midsection with an unhealthy sounding squish. The demon also caught me by the wrist, and oh shit.

I pulled back, but the demon’s hand tightened to the point that I could almost feel bones crunching against one another. Ignoring the pain, I brought my left leg up and kicked the demon’s injured midsection as hard as I could. My foot not only landed solidly in the center, but broke the skin and now there was thick, yellowish ooze all over my boot. Unfortunately, one of the demon’s left hands caught my foot so that now I was held by my right hand and my left foot and this was becoming a strange upright game of twister.

I grabbed a chair with my free hand, and the demon, who was moving very sluggishly now, brought up one of his two free hands to cover his face. Instead I braced my weight with my arms and brought up my right leg to kick at the injured midsection. I got in a good three kicks before the demon could grab my second leg

Now I knew this had to look funny because I hung limply from the demon’s grip, unable to do much other that punch ineffectively at a leg with my left hand. But the demon was fading quickly. Three of his hands were busy holding me, and he was leaning on the bar with the fourth to keep upright. As the oozing increased to flooding, I used my free hand to push myself away from the demon’s body because oh my god that smelled like the worst stuff I had ever smelled. Probably because it actually was the worst stuff I’d ever smelled, which was saying something, considering all the time I’d spent in sewers lately.

The demon sank to its knees, and my butt made contact with the floor. I scooted away from the growing pool of ooze and waited for the creature to weaken more. Eventually it dropped my right leg and then my left. I got to my feet and pulled my hand free. The creature’s skin was fading to grey, and the stench was overwhelming, which would explain the empty bar, empty except for Willy who stood with a shocked expression on his face.

Without waiting for the creature to actually die, I headed for the door. I felt a hell of a lot better, but I still had some aggression to work out. A visit to one or two cemeteries would help.

“Hey,” Willy cried out when I reached the door. I turned back to look at him. “Who’s going to pay for all this?”

“He is,” I said nodding toward the body which was quickly disintegrating into grey ooze. Outside I started running again, looking for any prey unlucky enough to run into me.

I wandered into the park about the time that the horizon started sending tendrils of pinkish gold into the sky. Several dusted vampires and two dead demons later I had definitely worked through the anger, so that all that was left was this pain of being alone, without pack. Yep, that would be hyena logic, but it still hurt just as much.

I watched the false dawn feeling worse than when I’d left Giles’ place. Well, there went that last hope. I remembered when I was about four and I insisted I was going to run away from home. I really wanted my mom to follow me, but instead she stayed inside watching soap operas and I ended up curling up in the front seat of her car. God, I really was pathetic because fifteen years later I just felt like curling up because no one had followed me.

Okay, be honest. I felt like curling up because Spike hadn’t followed me. Shit. Things had looked so good until Angel came back in the picture, and I would really think that the whole hot pokers incident would put that relationship back on ice, but nope. Angel and Spike had closed ranks like *pack* last night. And my own pack… Yeah, so not going there.

I wandered over to the swings and settled in on the rubber seat. The metal S hooks on either side of the seat dug into my hips since I was a bit larger than the standard swing swinger, but I just pushed off. And let gravity pull me forward and back. I gripped the chains and leaned all the way back on the upswing, pointing my toes and throwing my weight. On the downswing I dragged my feet through the sand. Feet? I looked around and realized that the stolen boots had disappeared, which was not of the good in several ways. I guessed that my stuff was all gone so replacement shoes could be a problem, plus there was the whole ‘when the hell did I take off my shoes’ thing. Couldn’t do anything about it now since I didn’t see the boots anywhere in the park.

So, back to swinging and toe dragging through the sand.

“Hey, I thought I’d find you here.” I stuck out my heels and dug them into the sand to stop the swing. Great predator I turned out to be, the slayer comes up behind me and I’m too busy swinging to notice.

“Buffy.” I answered. Noncommittal enough to be both noncommittal and rude.

“You missed a fun night,” she said as she took up a seat on the swing next to mine. I just grunted my noncommittally answer.

“Spike tore us all new ones about how you were the loyal one and we were all ungrateful, and may I say that getting ripped into about friendship by a vampire is a new experience. I don’t think they cover that in watcher training, either.” I looked over at her curiously and she gave me her best wicked smile, the smile she got when she was about to do something really mean to someone we both didn’t like. Usually it meant that she was about to slip a plastic spider into Cordy’s convertible or her specially prepared lunch or her locker.

“Giles got all smarty insulty like. He called Spike puerile and inconsequential and a bunch of other stuff that sounded like it came out of that SAT prep class Mom made me take. Then Spike said it would be worth the headache to eat Giles, and he actually jumped at Giles. Luckily Angel got to Spike before Spike got to Giles.” Oh great. A Spike and Angel story, and wasn’t that was sure to put me in a better mood. I glared at Buffy, but I don’t think she noticed. Either that or I was just so grouchy in general that my glare didn’t look any different from my glance at this point. Buffy started twirling her swing so that the two seat chains wrapped around each other in a spiral.

“Spike and Angel started really tearing into each other and Giles threatened to stake both of them if any more furniture got broken, so they went out on the lawn where things got really interesting. I thought we had Angelus there for a minute because he went all Irish on us and said something about ‘do chirping don dials’ which Giles told me I really didn’t want translated, and he called Spike an ‘amadan’, which Giles said meant ‘idiot’.

“And then it got really, really interesting because one of Giles’ neighbors called the police and Spike and Angel had to run for it because they didn’t want to get in some high speed chase in Angel’s convertible. Well, actually Angel didn’t want to get in a chase, and he had to drag Spike away. Angel ended up calling on his cell phone later and talking to Giles.”

“That must have been a fun conversation,” I said as Buffy pulled up her feet and let her swing twirl her around.

“Yep,” she agreed when the swing stopped. “Giles said that Angel said something about these really dangerous portals, so we’re going to have another meeting tonight.” Buffy fell silent, and I spent the time watching the shadow on the monkey bars float across the slowly moving merry-go-round. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Well, I could, but it wasn’t nice. Besides, part of me felt like Buffy deserved some discomfort for the whole trust comment.

“Xander,” Buffy said in a strained tone, and I turned to look at her. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean any of it.”

“I know,” I said. Well, there went the whole making her suffer plan. Yep, when it comes to the women in my life I am one giant marshmallow, which might make it a good thing that I’ve decided to swing the other thing, no pun intended what with me being on a swing talking about swinging while swinging and that would be a babble. At least the hyena gave me one very handy superpower: keeping my mouth shut while babbling.

“When Riley said you’d killed….” Buffy stopped.

“You went right to the Faith thing,” I finished for her.

“So totally.”

“I’m not proud of killing those guys, but I’m not going to lie about it because I really didn’t have a choice.”

“They were *people*, Xander.”

“Yeah, people who were actively trying to kill and-or capture me. I’m not feeling good about them being dead because they were just soldiers and I know what it’s like to get crappy orders. But they declared this war and they decided I was on the other side, so I’m not going to lose a lot sleep over it.” Okay, that was a lie. I was losing major sleep over it, but I still knew I had done the right thing.

“The Xander I know would have been horrified.”

“I suppose a part of me is, but you have no idea what the Initiative is capable of, and I do, of course I still think I would be suffering nightmares to end all nightmares if I could actually fall asleep,” I admitted. Yeah, so much for being cool and keeping up the tough image.

“Oh, Xander. I am so sorry we believed them. I’m never going to forgive myself for not knowing that you needed help.” Her eyes were big and shiny now with unshed tears. That put me right over the edge from “make her suffer” to “comfort my friend.”

“Xander in distress, slayer to the rescue,” I quipped.

“Well, except when you come to the rescue,” Buffy said and I looked over at her in surprise. I didn’t usually get that kind of support, and I have to say it felt kinda good. Okay, it felt really, really good.

“The imposter—pretty bad?” I asked.

“Oh yeah.” Buffy had that tone of voice that told me that not only did she agree but she was ready to multiply my comment by about a hundred. “He pointed out that we had left him behind and asked him to do things that made it difficult for him to keep a job, and we didn’t even know when he had a job, and he got fired for being late again because he was doing the whole patrol thing because Willow and I were studying. He said that Anya was more interested in having a man to make her feel normal, which she so wasn’t, than she was interesting in actually having a relationship. And he said that he wasn’t going to spend his life putting his life on hold for the rest of us. It was pretty harsh.”

“Ouch.” I said. I wanted to say things like ‘no duh’ and ‘you just now figured this one out?’ but I limited myself to saying ‘ouch’ and thinking all the other things without saying them. I wondered if that was Oz’s trick. Maybe my inner hyena had taken secret lessons from his inner wolf when I wasn't watching.

“Like I said, oh yeah,” she said sadly. And there was the silence again. I never understood that song about silence echoing, but I could believe it. Usually silence with the Scoobies was this comfortable thing where we were all tired and relaxed and recouping from major demon poundage. Now I could hear the silence in a not so good way.

“Riley never showed up,” Buffy said quietly. I was about to go into my standard Riley abuse when her tone of voice registered.

“Was he supposed to?” I asked just as quietly, and she stopped twirling her swing so that her back was to me. Oh boy, hiding feelings was never of the good.

“He said he had made emergency plans with a friend in the Initiative, another soldier named Graham. He said he’d sent a signal and Graham would give him a ride back to Sunnydale and drop him off at Giles. He even used a secure Internet line he’d set up with Willow so no one could track him.”

“But they tracked him anyway.”

“I think so. If they know that he helped you escape…”

“He’s in serious shit.” I finished.

“I’m not sorry he helped you; he did the right thing getting you out, but I can’t just leave him in there. And now I’m feeling even worse because I *did* leave you in there.” Buffy swung her seat around and I could see stress and pain that would have looked natural on a 60 year old survivor of the civil war in Ethiopia.

“I don’t blame you,” I said, and I honestly meant it. “I just want you to accept me like I am now. And while I still think Riley is a jerk with funny hair, I will help you get him out,” I finished. She graced me with one of those smiles that still lit the world even if she wasn’t my whole world anymore.

“Maybe he is a little too into rules,” she said as she wrinkled her nose in disgust. “But the hair is a low blow, mister.” Buffy backhanded me gently and the world suddenly seemed a much brighter place. Of course sunrise might have had something to do with that too. Now I just had to break it to her that I was gay… or bi maybe… and lusting after a vampire… and kinky… and depending on what had happened when Spike and Angel ran for it, this just might be a moot point. I thought of how they’d drawn together in the face of the Scoobies’ hostility, and I had to wonder whether by submitting to Angel, Spike wasn’t trying to send me some sort of message. Right- one disaster at a time, and Riley had moved to the front of the line.

Damn. There were days I hated being the white knight.