The Adventures of Deadboy and Zeppo

--Rating---------------------
Vampire Sex with blood and biting, but not described in lurid detail.
--Pairing(s)-----------------
Angel/Vamp!Xander
--Feedback----------------------
Craved, needed like air, big old feedback whore here.
--Author's Notes-------------------
The most up do date version of this story is available at http://www.litgal.vague-disclaimer.org/
--Disclaimer-----------------------
Totally don't own these characters. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox and not making ANY money at all. So, this and all later chapters are written just for fun.



Angel stopped at the smell of vampire. Young vampire. He suppressed an urge to growl at an invader who would have the temerity to move in on his territory. Pushing his demon to the background, he moved closer and a second smell hit him. Cordelia. Damn.

Angel silently sped down the stairs of the Hyperion hoping to catch the intruder before the young vampire could hurt her. In the lobby he froze as he tracked the scents back to the employee area. Moving carefully he pushed through a door and now he could hear the voices.

Voices?

Angel had been willing to overlook the whole Harmony incident, but enough was enough. She couldn't keep talking to vampires. He paused to try and figure out who was in his kitchen with Cordelia.

"I just don't know what to do," a male voice said miserably.

"She really did go too far this time. But you know you can't stay here. If Gunn sees you…"

"Maybe that'd be best. I don't know where else to go." Angel stopped in confusion at the sound of a depressed fledge. This was making less sense all the time.

"You can't just give up."

"Yeah, actually I can. My sire gave up on me. Spike threatened to sell me to the Initiative. Riley offered to have me chipped. Giles suggested staking me, and Buffy and Willow just wanted me gone, so I’m not really seeing a reason to keep going." Angel froze in horror of what those words implied. His demon rattled its cage at the thought of punishing the creature who had stood between him and his prey at that hospital, and the soul just wanted the fledge with its familiar voice to go away.

"They're just upset. But you have other reasons to live."

"The Babylon 5 plate collection doesn't seem all that important now, and once I ate my parents, the vengeance and gore and blood seemed… okay, it still seemed pretty damned satisfying." Angel didn't wait any longer; he threw himself through the swinging door. Since Cordy was the one closest to the door, he grabbed her and thrust her behind him as he challenged a game-faced Xander.

"Deadboy," Xander hissed through his fangs.

"Cordelia, get out to the lobby," Angel said as he watched the fledge wearing Xander Harris' body move to the center of the kitchen.

"If you think for one minute…" Cordelia started arguing, but Xander interrupted her.

"Cordy, just get out of here," he said as he dropped out of his crouch and stood with slumping shoulders and a hand braced on the stainless steel counter.

"Xander Harris…" Cordelia started.

"Cordy, please," Xander's demon face fell away, and the soft curves of Xander's human face turned to her with wide brown eyes. Angel could smell the fear, the outright terror, and his own demon reveled in the scent. The human this creature had once been had called Angel *boy*, had challenged him, had belittled him, and the demon demanded revenge so loudly that the soul couldn't even think straight around Xander. But Xander was dead, and the fledge who wore his face would soon follow. "It's just… Cordy if you have one ounce of love for the friend I used to be, just go."

"Angel," Cordy turned her steel edged voice on him.

"Cordy, I won't stake him without talking to you about it first, so go back to the lobby." Reassured by his promise, Cordelia backed out of the kitchen.

"You two play nice!" she ordered right before going through the doors, and Angel focused all his attention on the human-faced demon standing in his hotel.

"You seem to have changed teams," Angel said as he stepped forward, and Xander backed up even more quickly.

"Yeah, so I guess this puts us on opposite sides again, huh?" Xander kept his human face in place, and Angel couldn't imagine the effort that required considering that Xander was so young that he still smelled of his own death and fear poured off him.

"You think showing me that face and cringing will save you?" Angel demanded. This wasn't Xander. This was a demon wearing Xander's face, but this demon had Xander's memory and would be a nice substitute for Angel to work out some of his aggressions toward the late Xander Harris.

"I'm not cringing," the demon snarled back, his true face showing with a snap of fangs.

"You seem to have inherited Xander's stupidity coming here. You don't have a chance against me." Angel had expected the fledge to lunge into a surprise attack or drop to his knees and beg or maybe even run for the door.

"I never expected to survive our little meeting, Deadboy," the fledge said as he again dropped into his human face.

"Then I won't disappoint you," Angel moved fast enough that the Xander-demon didn't even have time to retreat. Angel put his forearm on the demon's throat and slammed him back into the cupboard so hard that the impact of the demon's head against the metal reverberated through the room. One of Xander's hands grabbed his shoulder while the other ineffectually pulled down on the arm. He was such a young fledge that its instinct to breathe was still firmly implanted, and Angel watched the mad struggles subside as the vampire realized that he couldn't suffocate.

"I only promised I wouldn't stake you," Angel said as he allowed his own demon to the front. His fangs dropped down, and Angel watched Xander's face ripple between the demon face and human mask. He started leaning in toward Xander's neck, using his arm to push the demon's chin up. While Angel had expected kicking and squirming and struggling, Xander simply tilted his head back and went still.

A small part of Angel started wondering at the strange behavior, but he had given his demon rein, and the sight of that vulnerable neck short-circuited all other thoughts as he drove long fangs into the fledge's flesh.

"Oh my god, Angel, let go of him right now." Cordy shrieked, and Angel threw himself backwards, only keeping one hand on Xander's chest, but Xander didn't even try to fight back.

"Cordelia, go watch the desk," Angel said slowly, struggling to bring his demon back under control. Whenever he allowed his violence to feed the demon, he always struggled to regain his balance, as if sanity was a balance beam he walked and the demon's madness threatened to tip him over the first time he lost control. However this time, Angel had to close his eyes and concentrate to put Angelus back in the box.

"Cordy, it's fine, just leave," Xander added quietly. Angel looked up toward Cordelia and was caught in the woman's accusatory glare. He glanced back toward Xander and could see why. The fledge's neck was badly torn and blood trickled down the front of his shirt and onto Angel's hand. Angel flashed on another image, the image of William struggling as Angelus had held him against the brick with William's blood dripping down. Boy had gotten a good horse killed, and he had come close to a final death that day. The taste of William's blood, the taste of Xander's blood, the taste of his own blood all mixed in his memories.

"Call Buffy. Tell her that…"

"I think she knows. She's the one who told Xander to head for the hills and not look back." Cordy stood with her arms crossed defiantly.

"Tell her that Spike got rid of the chip somehow," Angel said with clenched teeth and wished for not the first time that Cordelia would just listen.

"No. He didn't. God, I'd kill myself before I'd let fangless get a fang in me, and yeah me being dead does make that sound a little redundant." Angel could feel Xander press against his hand now as the fledge tried to step forward, but Angel's years and Xander's blood loss meant that he didn't have the strength to put up any significant fight. "Of course, if you want to kill him anyway, that's fine with me too since he tried to sell me."

"If not Spike…" Angel let his words trail off as he thought of his favorite childe pouting about her lost kitten.

"Dru," he said in a flat tone. The others kept encouraging him to be more human and show more emotion, but as he felt his demon anger rise, he knew they didn't really want to see this part of him.

"She said she had to punish Buffy for stealing Spike's eyes, and I'm hoping that was one of her crazy sayings because I don't think of Buffy as the eye-stealing kind."

"So she turned ye," Angel finished as he silently cursed his insane childe. Even his demon said that he'd gone a little far with her.

"Yeah. Turned me and dropped me on the slayer's lawn." Xander's struggles had stopped and he leaned back into the wall and closed his eyes. "So let's just get this over with."

Angel had been looking around the kitchen but at those words his head snapped back to this fledge who didn't act like a fledge. Xander had tilted his head to the side so that the neck wound opened a little more and a trail of fresh blood flowed over the tracks already drying against his pale skin.

"Angel, don't even think it mister," Cordy warned, but Xander just stood still as the smell of fear and blood and submission made Angel's demon crowd forward.

"Cordy, go get the chains." Angel blessed his luck when she turned and practically ran from the kitchen without argument. Xander simply opened his eyes a crack so that he watched from behind his lashes. Angel had a flash of William giving him that same sad, resigned expression after a beating, and Angel stepped back away from the fledge before he lost control.

"You, sit," Angel snapped in his deepest voice, and the fledge's legs went out from under him leaving him to slide down the wall to the floor. Angel looked down at the miserable and reeking fledge that was the newest member of the line of Aurelius.