Possession

Title: Possession
Author: Marti
Pairing: X/W kinda
Rating: R for violence. Probably not that bad, but I’ll err on the side of caution…
Spoilers: ‘The Pack’ (season 1) and ‘Lover’s Walk’ (season 3)…AU after Lover’s Walk, though
Disclaimer: I’m not Great God Joss, nor Marti Noxon (seriously, Marti was my nickname years ago)…although any fanfic writer could have ended the series better than them, ok except for seeing Spike go ‘poof’ cause that was frigging COOL
Feedback: sure, go ahead. Flames over not liking theSpike thing above will go the way of Spike i.e.…’poof’. Constructive criticism is always welcome as it gives me a happy, warm gooey feeling.
Note: This was just something that came to me during a writer’s block.

“Come on, Xander. You promised you’d help make things better between Oz and me. Please?” Willow stood before her best friend since kindergarten, begging him to help her get her boyfriend back. They’d kissed and now their respective partners hated them. And they couldn’t even console each other because if they did, everyone would just say they were starting where they left off in the factory. Xander sighed and nodded his head wearily. He had always been unable to refuse the beautiful red-headed girl anything. He felt like a tall Charlie Brown. She smiled brightly at him for the first time in days and looked like she wanted to hug him. He sighed again and smiled back.

“Oh, good. Come by the factory at nine. We have to perform the spell where we want things to return to the way they were.” She bounced away from him, hugging her books to her chest.

“Fine. I’ll see you there.” He sighed and entered his English class, wondering if he would ever stop paying for his stupidity.

Xander took the bus over to the rougher side of town after dark. Of course, in Sunnydale, every part of town was the rough side once the sun set. He carried a pocket full of bottled holy water and had his fingers tightly wrapped around a stake in one hand and a crucifix in the other. He wasn’t stupid, not Alexander LaVelle Harris. He knew the dangers of doing this and knew that Willow would be upset even more so if he never showed up. He entered the abandoned warehouse to find his friend already setting up for the ritual. He sidestepped the broken steps and rushed down to her side.
“Hey, Xand! I thought I’d start a little early and save you some trouble. I know you really didn’t want to do this. Thanks again.” She smiled shyly as she started lighting some of the candles. He shrugged and took off his jacket, knowing that she would have already made this building vampire-proof.

“I didn’t want to disappoint you again, Wills. What do I do?” He asked as he watched her finish her preparations. She motioned him to sit in the center of the pentagram. He sat cross-legged and tried not to stare at her as she followed suit. She really was beautiful and he wished to god that he had seen her for what she really was two or three years before instead of trying to get every other girl at Sunnydale High. He’d ignored her as everything but his asexual friend, at least until a few weeks before.

Cordelia had been refusing to answer his phone calls and he heard from the guidance office that she had transferred to the preppie private high school on the other side of town. She had finally gotten her father to do it after all. Now, he couldn’t even call and apologize because her father had gotten a new number for his princess and caller block for his phone number. And not just his, but Willow’s, and Buffy’s as well. None of the Scoobies could call her anymore.

“Thanks, Xander. I know you want to help me get Oz back and this can keep Cordelia from leaving, too.”

“Are you sure this spell is gonna do it, Wills? I mean, some of your spells don’t have the desired results.”

“This one won’t go wrong. I promise.” She grinned and started chanting, closing her eyes and concentrating on the words. Evidently the only thing he was need for was to be here.

“Hecate, let thy will be done!” She cried after half an hour of chanting non-stop. He had started to drift off, remembering the time he’d been possessed by the hyena, remembering him and his pack coming to this factor and feeding while the other four mated. He remembered wanting Willow then, needing to mate with her as he should have years before. As the last of the chant echoed, he could feel the air tingle around him and he closed his eyes, feeling dizzy. When he opened them again, he realized that things had gone back to the way they were before. He was the hyena again and he was looking at his mate. But he could tell that another male had touched his territory—his property—and he growled low in his throat. He turned it into a quick throat clearing. She couldn’t know that the animal had come back. He smiled at his mate—his friend—and shrugged nonchalantly.

“I guess it didn’t work, Wills. It was worth the shot though. We’re just gonna have to live with the consequences of our actions and do things the old fashioned way. You ok, Willow?” He asked, reaching for her automatically, but removing his hand when he realized that he wanted to pull her into his arms and take her, mark her as his. He wanted so much to go to her. But he couldn’t, not yet. She looked sad.

“I really thought this was going to work, Xander. I had everything and all the right ingredients. And the people needed for the spell. I’m sorry for wasting your time, Xand.” She started gathering her things and putting them in her smiley faced backpack. It was the one he’d given her two years before, just after Buffy had come to Sunnydale, to remind her that although things had changed in their small town, they could still smile and have fun. “I better get home. I’ll ride the bus with you. Come on.” He put one hand on the small of her back and almost growled angrily when she jumped away from him, frowning.

“Hey! Xander, remember the new rules. No touching. We had illicit smoochies and now we can’t do the touching thing anymore. Not even friend touching.” She frowned. And he frowned too, hating Oz then for making his Willow feel ashamed of their relationship.

“Fine.” He walked next to her silently out to the nearby bus stop.

They rode in silence, knowing that they couldn’t even have a normal conversation again without that night coming back to haunt them. He walked her to her French door, telling her he’d see her in school the next day and started down the sidewalk toward his own home, a couple of blocks away. After getting out of sight of Willow’s, he turned and circled around the block toward his adversary’s home. He knew he wouldn’t have long to wait for Oz to show, since the Dingoes weren’t going to be playing at the Bronze for the next few nights.

He showed up twenty minutes later, letting himself into his empty house. His parents were gone for the week to his aunt’s home in San Francisco. He dropped his guitar case on the couch and headed into the kitchen. He didn’t notice yet that the back door was slightly ajar, or that someone was watching him from the shadows. He grabbed the carton of milk from the fridge and lifted it to his lips.

“Didn’t you mother ever teach you that it’s bad manners to drink out of the carton, Oz?” Xander asked quietly, causing the shorter boy to jump and drop the milk, which began to drain all over the linoleum floor.

“Xander! What the hell are you doing here?"

“She’s not yours. Stop being around her. She’s mine. I marked her before and you’re touching what’s mine. I could smell you all over her.” Xander stepped into the light, letting Oz realize that it wasn’t the old Xander he knew standing before him. The darker haired boy’s eyes glowed with the power of the hyena and he smiled evilly at the werewolf. “It’s too bad the full moon won’t be out for another week. Then we’d be able to have some real fun. As it is now, it’s like taking candy from a baby.” He stepped toward the guitarist, slowly.

“Are you alright, Xander?” Oz backed up and tried to get out of the kitchen, but realized that the bigger guy would be able to take him down quickly. He could see something animalistic with Xander, something he’d never seen before in the laid-back member of the Scooby gang.

“Nothing’s wrong, Oz. Or, at least, there won’t be anything wrong once you’re gone.” Xander advanced slowly, letting the smaller red-head move into the living room. Giving him more room for the final showdown. He smiled.

“Excuse the hell out of me, Xander, but Cordy and I saw you and Willow kissing. I’m her boyfriend. You should be asking me for forgiveness.” Oz yelled, not enjoying the fear coursing through him. He was a werewolf and he was afraid of some skinny unremarkable kid?

Xander laughed. “If you really knew yourself and your werewolf abilities, you’d have been able to tell she’d been marked already. She’s mine and you’re not going to survive the night, wolf-boy.” Xander whispered the last, surging forward, reveling in the thrill that came when the other boy turned and ran farther into the living room, trying to reach the front door. He even paused, giving his prey a bit of a head start, before catching him at the door, one of the wolf’s arms twisting and snapping behind him from Xander’s increased strength. He gripped Oz’s head by a fistful of hair and slammed his face into the door.

Xander made a little note to clean up a bit; it wouldn’t do to leave incriminating evidence around in the police did come to investigate the guitarist’s disappearance. Of course, that wasn’t likely to happen, since more children came up missing in this little town every month than the entire rest of their country did in the same year. It was a miracle that people in Sunnydale kept having children, but then most people just closed their eyes to the darkness in their own backyard. Xander heard and felt a snap and sudden wetness, knowing he’d broken Oz’s nose.

“Why, Xander?” His prey gasped in pain.

“She’s mine. And I’m keeping her.” Xander whispered into his ear before gripping Oz’s head in each of his hands and twisting hard, listening to the snap of the neck, feeling the limp body fall to the floor in front of him. He took out his handkerchief and started wiping the blood from the other boy’s face and from the door and carpet below. After a couple of minutes, he returned to the kitchen and started cleaning the mess, trying not to leave too many fingerprints.

Half an hour later, after making sure that everything was secure, he lugged the body out to the van parked in the garage. No one had seen him enter the house and no one noticed him leaving. As far as any neighbor might remember, they’d just think that Oz had come home and left immediately afterward. He drove the van out of town into the desert. It took an hour, but he found a spot, a good secluded one. He could catch the scent of the wild dog pack, and knew this was one of their feeding grounds. This was their territory and he knew they weren’t going to pass up a freely provided meal. Although no one had told him, he knew that he himself couldn’t consume the flesh of his adversary without turning into a werewolf himself. And why would he want to downgrade to werewolf when he was smarter, stronger and more cunning as a hyena? Oz hadn’t been good enough, hadn’t been strong enough for his witch: Xander was. He was going to take care of his mate and get rid of the people who were causing her so much heartache. She’d turn to him once she realized Oz was gone, and this time he wouldn’t turn her away.

Xander smiled as he howled for the dogs. They came quickly, having smelled the blood of the dead werewolf, circling warily, wondering why there was a human there, a human who faced them with no fear. The Alpha Male came forward, growling and showing his teeth. Xander did the same, wondering if every one of the dogs would challenge him tonight. The lead dog backed down after a moment, showing Xander his back, turning away from him, letting him know that his offering to the pack was appreciated and accepted. The pregnant females in the group came forward first and started to tear the boy apart, snapping bones, ripping flesh and muscle to get to the sweet meat they knew was within.

He stood apart and smiled, a sense of finality settling over him. She was his, Willow was his, and no one was going to challenge him again for her. Willow was his mate and he’d kill anyone who got in his way again. As he started jogging back toward town, he thought about how he was going to make Buffy pay for interrupting him the last time he’d tried to mark his redheaded witch.


END

hey all, please review. reviews give me happies :-P

Marti