Fic: CPA2
Author: norgco
type: Buffy/XFiles/Smallville crossover
Rating: NC-17? Lady Midath, my ex, says I'm a terrible judge of what is too much.
Disclaimer: I own none of it
Feedback: Does anyone like it?
CPA2
by norgco
The eastern Pacific, 2100hrs local time.
Two people were preparing to dive off a rented boat, people who by rights should have had someone more experienced in charge, given their limited Scuba experience. But the dark haired man had done an awful lot that was against the rules in the last few years, and wanted to keep the whole thing secret. The short, red haired woman with him was, as usual, wondering how he talked her into these things.
"Relax Scully, a little dive in the beautiful Pacific, it's like a vacation." Fox Mulder checked his gear again, and his partners too. It was basic safety, and he had been taught this by a friend who was, like most of his friends for some reason, paranoid, and committed to the 'anything you did not personally check just before use will break on you' school of thought.
"Wreck diving in Truck Lagoon is a vacation, night diving for vampires off Los Angeles is not." Scully had only recently qualified, and in a false name as befitted their 'on the lam' status.
"Why would you want to dive on a sunken Japanese fleet when you can look for the undead?" Mulder was genuinely puzzled. His partner looked at him for a while, before asking a question many would have asked a decade before.
"Mulder, is your psychiatrist on danger money?"
"Yes, why?" Getting a psychiatrist who works by chat room had not been easy, bless the Lone Gunmen wherever they were.
"Just checking."
The water was not too cold, and they had been given very specific instructions of where to look, including precise grid co-ordinates to program into the GPS. So they went down, keeping a careful eye on the instructions about diving to these depths. Both had decompression charts, and were acutely aware of the dangers of ignoring them. Eventually they approached the bottom, and saw what they had been told would be there, a metal cage. The man in it was looking at them with wild hope, and no air tanks. Clearly this was Angel.
WE ARE HERE TO GET YOU OUT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? Mulder wrote on a slate and showed the caged individual, who nodded back.
I AM GOING TO USE EXPLOSIVES TO OPEN THE CAGE. A nervous nod.
Mulder had the pre-packaged shaped charges in a bag, and wrapped them around the bars and lock. Then the two former FBI agents swam back, out of blast range. Angel was not supposed to be in danger from this, if their source was to be believed. There was a muffled thud, and bubbles rose from the cage.
WE WILL GET THE CHAINS OFF WITH ON THE BOAT, OK?
Again a nod and they attached floatation bags to the chained vampire and inflated them from their air tanks, giving the undead neutral buoyancy. It was a slow trip back from 300 ft, with the prescribed stops to decompress so as to avoid 'the bends'.
Scully was seriously troubled by her inability to find a rationalization for the man with them. His calm way of looking at them would have been normal, if it was not from someone without air for this long. Mulder would be insufferable after this.
The dive boat, 2240hrs.
Watching the vampire, because that was clearly what he was, gulp down 5 blood bags and several pints of fresh water made Dana Scully cringe. It was not the blood, or the vampire, as such, but the fact that Spooky Mulder finally had proof she could not deny about something she had refused to believe in. The difficulty of getting the bound man/vampire/whatever on board was solved with a winch, something she had thought of before the dive, and a salve to her ego.
The explosives had been prepared by Mulder's 'dive instructor', a former Navy SEAL, which would have been more confidence inspiring if he had not kept trying to convince them that Elvis lived in an underwater city he visited regularly. Not too odd for one of the former profiler's friends, but still...
"Who are you two, how did you know I was there?" Angel had lost track of time, and had not idea how long he had been underwater. But since Cordelia, Gunn and Fred were not here, presumably someone else had sent them, but not a government agency with such limited resources.
"We are, or were, FBI agents." Mulder explained, having fought down the reflex response 'Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, FBI.' "We had a, a visitor, who told us to come here for you."
"What was so special about a visitor that you laid on all this, clearly without official backing, on her say so?"
"She appeared in the middle of our hotel room out of nowhere, told us, and just disappeared again." Scully had checked for holographic projectors and hallucinogenic drugs in their systems before agreeing to go along with the dive, but she had gone along finally. "She said she was Cordelia Chase, and she 'ascended' on the way to meet you the night you were stuck in that cage."
Angel stripped down and washed the salt water off himself before changing into dry clothing. He was too wrung out emotionally to care about being naked, and the way Scully suggested it sounded like doctors orders anyway.
With the boat headed back in all he wanted to do was find out if everyone else was alight. Gunn, Fred, even Wesley who he had been planing the slow death of. Had Connor attacked them too?
"Can I use your mobile, I have to call my friends?"
"Cordelia said she would arrange to have us met. And that everyone seems to be about as alright as they were when this happened." Angel was wondering about Wesley, he had had a lot of time to think in that cage, about betrayal in particular. Wesley had been presented with convincing, false evidence and acted on it, as had Connor, who had believed Angel had murdered his 'father.' If he could forgive Connor while actually being locked in a cage and dumped into the ocean by him, why not the former watcher? His mission was supposed to be about saving souls, wasn't it, how could he himself be forgiven if he refused it of a man who had been a close friend?
The Hyperion hotel, a few days later.
The celebration over Angels return had wound down eventually. He had been gone for many months, and a lot had happened in that time that had proven the value of the individual skills lost in the run up to his prolonged dunking. Gunn and Fred had been in over their heads in their own way, and brought Wesley back to help. He was also assisting Faith, who was out of prison, and working as an accountant, of all things, in Sunnydale. Faith actually commuted to slay in Los Angeles, and seemed to have acquired huge financial resources.
It was when Faith started explaining the current situation in Sunnydale that the radical changes while he was 'away' sank in. Willow lost her Lesbian lover (Angel hadn't even known she's changed teams), skinned the murderer alive and tried to destroy the world. After all else failed, after she had beaten the rest of the Scoobies, Giles nearly to death, Xander just talked her out of it. He just stood directly in her line of fire, absorbing energies intended to destroy the whole world, and calmly talked her out of it. Was it the third or fourth apocalypse he had averted, more?
And still the gang didn't seem to take Harris seriously, which puzzled and enraged the souled vampire. He had never actually LIKED, Xander, partly because of the White Knight's suspicions about Angel's trustworthiness.
Angel had believed his soul was an absolute protection, and only after the whole 'feed the lawyers to Darla and Drusila' debacle had he realized the truth. He wasn't trustworthy, someday it might be necessary for someone to dust him, even with his soul intact, and the Zeppo had known it all along.
Angel had started wondering why none of the people who hung around Harris could see that 'the clown' was the most ruthless, cold bloodedly analytical individual the nearly quarter millennium old vampire had ever met. Were they blind or was it the hellmouth affecting their minds somehow? Judging the book by its cover is human, but this was getting ridiculous. Suddenly it hit him, who to send to investigate this, now that thanks to Faith's employers money was not an issue.
"Mulder, how would you like to investigate another X-File?"
*****************
Mulder & Scully's car, on the coast road to Sunnydale.
Former Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully was reviewing the information they had acquired about the Xander Harris case. She wondered when her life had changed to the point where they would consider an X-File investigation was warranted by the fact that someone was totally ordinary. Well, maybe not totally ordinary, but the things he was being singled out for seemed like, well...she was having trouble thinking of a term, proof she was tired and wrung out from the last few days.
"Mulder, tell me, why is Xander an X-File because he thought letting one of Europe's most famous torture murderers hang out with his friends was dangerous? Because that is where this case starts, with the fact that he was the only one of the Slayerettes who never trusted Angel, and who told the vampire slayer to slay him when he reverted and wanted to destroy the world."
It had taken a fair amount of explanation to get the red headed woman to believe what had happened over the last seven years or so. It had not taken much longer for her to really appreciate how warped the view of the people around her was.
"What would you have done about Angelus and the Acathla episode?" Mulder was amused, and also feeling way out of his depth. Going from trying to prove the existence of paranormal phenomena and consistently failing, to working for a vampire and his collection of demon hunters was still a big mental jump. And Scully seemed to be shifting ground on him about this, at least her mind seemed to wander off whenever the Harris boy's 'sorry Buffy, but you have to kill your boyfriend' advice was mentioned, and the hostile reception it got. Even Angel said it was perfectly reasonable, and a kinder fate than what had actually happened to him.
"I grew up in a cold war Navy family, you know that Mulder, I grew up listening to my father, and then brother, discuss apocalyptic situations as something they could very easily be decision makers in." Fox was only too well aware of Scully's family background, that her father and elder brother captained of nuclear capable warships. Were was this going? "Sometimes a bunch of them would sit around in the lounge room after a barbecue, have a drink or three, and discuss how someday they may be ordered to fire their nuclear weapons. What situations justified using them, that sort of thing."
It was quiet in the car as they drove through the California night. They would get to the Summers House around midnight, and were expected. Off to the left the moon shone on the waters, picking up a million points of light as the wave tops were illuminated. The occasional freighter sat off the coast, navigation lights showing against the darkness. It was warm, and palm trees swayed against a gentle evening breeze. Scully discussing the end of the world under these circumstances was surreal, somehow, but this must have been normal circumstances for the evening captains shoptalk she was relating.
"And the thing they all seemed to agree on was that if someone wanted to attack us, to destroy us, then shooting first was the only sane thing to do, if you were certain he was going to attack and that you could stop him with your own." Her voice was still calm, reasonable, just a woman relating overheard conversations. "Turning a foreign capital city into radioactive rubble is something the men in my family actually have to face the prospect of doing, so I know what any of them would have done if they knew about Angelus and Acathla. They would have nuked Sunnydale to glass just to be sure, and worried about the court marshal and execution later."
Fox Mulder had never really thought about nuclear war, about having to fight one, of having that kind of responsibility. He was a loner, after all, obsessive and paranoid, and not someone who would ever make it through the psychological screening process of a military organization that was not totally desperate. He had understood this about himself, intellectually, and why he never had gotten along with people in uniform.
That his partner had grown up among people who had been trusted with the ability destroy whole nations at the push of a button, that Armageddon was a dinner table conversation topic in her childhood, had never really hit him before.
The road they were taking was not the fastest way to their destination, but it would get them there on time and was a beautiful piece of winding coastal highway. Every so often they came to a town, and slowed to the speed limit as they ran through, people coming back from the beach, surfboards under the arms of some of the more die-hard waxheads. Scully and Mulder were both thinking about what it would have been like, on one of those pre-Acathla nights, to watch a inbound missile streak in towards Sunnydale over the warm surf and palm trees.
Would the watchers have time to wonder who had launched, before the fireball vaporized 50,000 or 100,000 people, to wonder at being condemned to a fiery death by their own Navy? 100,000 now to save 6,000,000,000 later, those were the sort of trade offs Scully's menfolk, and, clearly to Dana, Xander Harris, faced as the moral dilemmas of their lives.
Mulder had been seeing Xander Harris as an interesting man to profile, possibly only in relation to the people who thought him boringly ordinary. He had never been told to investigate someone for being considered normal before, after all.
"Mulder, Angel called Mr Harris ruthless and cold bloodedly analytical, and wondered how no-one else seemed to see it. All they see is the runner up for class clown, the guy who goes for doughnuts, they never put the two together. But I grew up with that kind of dichotomy, to me its ordinary, a part of my girlhood, dear dad who I know loved us, who had to the power to help destroy or save the world. I may never be able to see my family again, and now my childhood hits me in the face again."
Casa Summers, Midnight.
Everyone was still awake when they pulled up in front of the house, and called to be escorted from there car to the house. It would have seemed crazy if they had not actually met a vampire, that they could be prey for something on the short walk up the driveway to the front door. The 'unconventional' sleeping arrangements at the house had been explained by Faith as part of their briefing in LA. And had provided some interesting new knowledge of vampire physiology, as the souled vampire turned an interesting shade of purple while Faith explained it all.
"HE'S SLEEPING WITH BUFFY!"
"Plus Anya, and Willow, and me of course. And we really do get some sleep, eventually, for a magically endowed stud he's a big cuddly teddy bear, nice to snuggle up to." Faith liked Angel, he had seen the potential good in her when few others had, but watching his face change colour was too good to miss. "Buffy is the only one not part of a couple though, so Anya insists Xander give her special attention, and as the only straight woman of the group B's getting less action than the rest of us anyway."
The souled vampire had looked about to burst a blood vessel as the necessary explanations were made, after all the investigators had been specifically asked to come to grips with the mind set of the Scooby's. So the social situation was part of what they had to get a grip on. However much they tried to avoid phrasing it that way in Angel's presence. The dark slayer's attempt to smooth things over by changing the subject had its own set of problems.
"Karnak demons, you're working for Karnak demons?" Angel again, since Wesley already knew and the rest wouldn't know a Karnak demon from a pixie. "The third largest Accounting firm in the world is owned and staffed by Karnak demons, and they are paying you to do bookkeeping?"
"I do audits now, at least the preliminary work, I'm not just a bookkeeper!" Faith was ticked. She had to stay in the hotel overnight, with patrolling at night and several work appointments the next day, and she wanted to end this and get ready. "Yes Angel, the money to bring the hotel back up to code and pay the back taxes, etc., it all came from a bunch of business demons who think paying to prevent the end of the world is a sound insurance investment."
With that she had gone up to her room to change out of her work clothes into patrol gear, and the rest had had the spectacle of a 250 year old vampire in a stuttering rage to deal with. Mulder and Scully had gone up to their room, which Fred had decorated when given advanced warning by Cordelia that a newly wed couple would be staying there.
It featured a four-poster bed, with mirrors on the roof and walls, lights that could be dimmed or brightened, and mounting points on the bed for the handcuffs and silk ropes lying on the bed. She had also provided an interesting collection of 'toys' not all of which they could work out the use of. Neither former agent wanted to think about what the mousy looking physicist was getting up to with Gunn, after she had explained that 'I didn't include anything kinky cause, being ex-FBI, you're both probably really conservative.'
"Hi, you must be Mulder and Scully, I'm Buffy." It was a perky looking blonde wearing a crucifix, recognisable from photos. She seemed cheerful, and fit the blonde bimbo stereotype that she apparently cultivated as part of her hunting technique. There was a group of obvious SWAT team men saying goodbye and getting into a dark van, clearly the Blue Team Faith had mentioned. Mulder was disoriented again, just by the idea of a police force that actually took paranormal phenomena seriously enough to train and equip full time patrols to deal with it.
The inside of the Summers house was very suburban conventional, at least on the ground floor. The bedrooms were upstairs, and apparently the ex-agents were sleeping on in Buffy's sister's room tonight, Dawn being at a friends place overnight. They looked around the group, still awake at this time of night due to their odd nightly activities, and saw various stages of fear, acceptance, and excitement looking back at them. A heavily pregnant red head, presumably Willow, spoke up excitedly.
"Einstein's twin paradox, a new interpretation, I read it, your thesis, I read it." She was more tired than she was used to being at this time of night, due to the pregnancy, but being rich she could sleep in the day, and the baby kicked at night making sleep hard anyway. "But, have you thought about the quantum mechanical implications if..."
"Will, stop, breathe, you can interrogate the nice woman later. Right now I think we should just introduce ourselves, have a drink or two and go to bed." The only male in the group, clearly the much mentioned Xander Harris. "Willow did a background check on you when we heard you were coming, and, your undergraduate thesis excited her. I keep telling her you might not have done that stuff in years, but..."
"Oh come on Xander, how can anyone not be excited by the quantum mechanical re-interpretation of Relativistic physics? I mean, once you've gotten involved in something like that you can't just stop, it's too much fun to give up, I mean..."
A woman materialised in the middle of the room, and looked at Mulder, Scully and the babbling mother to be. She smiled and turned to Scully, one of only two people in the room who thought her sudden appearance in any way odd.
"Hi, I'm Anyanka, why don't we end this silly sit and talk bit and get straight to the orgy?"
******************
Mulder and Scully's hotel room, Sunnydale, 9.15pm,
Tuesday.
Fox Mulder was puzzled about what to be puzzled about. He and Scully were here as investigators for a P.I. in Los Angeles, who found certain behaviours of acquaintances here in Sunnydale strange. On arrival, it was learned that the definition of the world 'strange', was subject to much dispute. After all Angel, the p.i., was a vampire, and the strange behaviour was the tendency of a group of professional demon fighters to regard one of their number as 'normal guy.'
"Mulder, tell me if I have this right." Dana Scully was actually in agreement about things with him for once, which was disconcerting in and of itself. "The quote, Normal Guy end quote, was hit by a Troll, with its hammer, sustaining an arm injury which cured itself in a week or two. Said Troll Hammer was subsequently used to BEAT A GOD TO DEATH! But none of his friends seem to think that it was in any way unusual for Mr Harris to get away with only trivial injuries. But they were puzzled and angry when he had, a few years earlier, argued it was dangerous to allow a known mass murderer to continue to exist and try to destroy the world because they had a vague possibility of saving him as an individual."
"You have it right."
"Call me strange Mulder but I tend to assume humans are easier to kill than Gods, maybe it's my Catholic upbringing. And is it just my Navy brat childhood that says that risking the destruction of the Earth for the sake of one man, the man who is trying to destroy it, seems irresponsible?"
She had been living in a greater and greater world of unreality and surrealism. Living with and working for Vampires, witches, vampire slayers, and various odd - some extremely odd - demons had her questioning her sanity in a way even knowing Mulder for a decade had not achieved. What is and is not acceptable morally when the end of the world may result from your actions had been part of the 'shop talk' of her Navy family, as she had told Mulder on the drive here. Risking Armageddon for one person was inexcusable, her father, brother and their shipmate had always argued. Was the fact that Xander was taking the same line on this as her male relatives clouding her judgement?
"Who's crazy here?"
The former FBI agents were dealing with this under a larger budget than they had during there years in government service. It allowed them, among other things, to escape the embarrassing situation in the Summers household. Anya, a.k.a. Anyanka patron demon of Scorned Women, had simply assumed they would take part in the nightly orgy.
On the first night exhaustion and unfamiliarity had gotten them out, but Scully's Catholic upbringing was being pushed to the limits even before being propositioned by a bisexual demon that assumed there was really no such thing as a heterosexual woman. Buffy seemed to be the only straight woman of the four, excluding Dawn, as everyone did. Their hotel room was extremely comfortable and not far from Sunnydale, a luxurious base of operations.
The Magic Box, Wednesday Morning
Rupert Giles had been provided with the results of DNA testing, courtesy of Faith's demonic employers. And now he had a real problem, because this was, according to said Karnak demons, properly Mulder and Scully's area of expertise. But it concerned a man who he had grown to think of as his son, who now had to be told something that might make or break him. The pair of former agents walked in, exactly on time, and came to the new upstairs area. Ever the good host, the Englishman made coffee on the espresso machine for the others, and Earl Grey tea for himself.
"Mr Giles, you said you have important news?" Scully said, curious after the somewhat cryptic call bringing them here today. "Yes, it concerns being I have been told you know as 'Super soldiers.' In particular the early experimentation process that produced the final product." The former librarian noticed the sudden change in demeanour from the other two, and correctly assumed it was not the result of overdoing the caramel in the red heads late again. "It also provides some of the answer to the question you were sent here to solve."
"What does Xander Harris have to do with the genetic engineering of..."
"Mulder it would explain how he keeps coming back from all those injuries." Dana Scully commented. The Super Soldiers were part of the reason she and Mulder were on the run, and why their son had been anonymously adopted out to a family producing organic produce in Kansas named Kent, apparently a second adoption on their part. It was painful every time she thought about it, but the SS were nearly indestructible, indeed seemed unkillable, as well as being able to punch through steel doors, breathe underwater and other interesting things. "If Xander is one of them why has he not tried to kill us yet?"
"Why would I try to kill you?" Xander Harris was in his suit, carrying a plate of Danishes. His construction business was going from strength to strength, and he insisted that his doughnut and pastry franchise compete on quality rather than price. They were spreading rapidly, providing money he did not really need and an ego boost he definitely did. "And who is the 'them' I am supposed to be one of?"
Fox Mulder proceeded to give a background explanation of the whole genetic super soldier nightmare, in particular mentioning that they seemed to be produced from normal people, or at least some were. Experimentation on ova and then implanting to unknowing women seemed to be part of it too. It was good the youngest man there was sitting down, because otherwise the news would have floored him.
"But I can't be one of them, I mean I'm not super strong or an exceptional fighter or any of those things."
"Xander you have a series of traits that are missing from them, ones that are arguably more important to creating a super army than individual skills." Rupert Giles new enough history to know what distinguished a winning army from a losing one, after all the individual Roman Legionnaire was physically inferior to nearly all the barbarians they slaughtered to create the empire. And they only lost it after their organizational edge was lost.
"You are unhesitatingly willing to die for your comrades in arms, you have a very clear vision of what is and is not a threat in circumstances where the rest of us fail to do so and your sometimes ruthless decisions about eliminating them, your success in construction shows really impressive organizational and logistical gifts..."
The construction manager still had his 'soldier guy' memories from Halloween, enough to appreciate what was being said. In particular that 'a champion team will beat a team of champions every time', that organization, teamwork and discipline are why modern western elite forces often kill 30 or more for every man they lose against badly trained and organized opponents. It was a lot to think about.
"But I'm a failed experiment?" It was a depressing thought.
"Whoever came up with this project seemed to not know why the Marine Corps motto is 'Always Faithful', and not We kill For Fun." It was Scully again, she had grown up around this after all. "They left out things like loyalty and compassion as irrelevant and seem to have been really surprised when their creations turned on them. Or maybe the fact that you are younger than most of the super soldiers means someone realized the problem too late, we will never know now."
"We still have to explain why your friends never noticed you are essentially unkillable, of course." Mulder added. After all it was not Xander himself they were investigating, it was the hellmouth inhabitants attitude to him they were checking on.
Casa Summers, that night.
Faith watched the love of her life sleep, curled up next to Anya. Sometimes she just liked to watch Willow sleep, see her face relaxed and at peace in the moonlight. It was a romantic side she had never suspected she had, and yet it was so basic to her now. Xander sat his head on her shoulder, she was sitting in his lap, in a large chair that gave the best view of the sleeping women. He had his arms around her waist and was nibbling on her right ear, apparently no longer troubled by the news of earlier that day.
"I love her so much x-man, the way she smiles, the way she hugs me at random times, the way..."
"The way she can use her tongue and both hands on you at the same time?" Xander commented, prompting a slap on the thigh with full slayer strength. A normal man would have limped for a week after a hit like that, but the former Zeppo just kissed her cheek. "Hey it's a reasonable comment, Anya loses co-ordination at, a, crucial moments, I've been watching"
And, of course, the dark slayer was well aware that the vengeance demon was not the lover Willow was, but had not thought Xander had noticed such details, given he was generally 'busy' with Buffy when it was happening. She couldn't help but wonder if the ability to notice crucial details and process them in distracting situations was another engineered trait, or if he was just a horny stud. Probably just a horny stud, she decided, as she felt his erection rise against her.
She decided to use the chair for its secondary purpose, the one Xander had had it custom built like so much of the 'playroom' furnishings. It could be adjusted to allow a variety of sexual positions to be engaged in comfortably, and she rose up clear of him, then sat down, impaling herself on him. They started to move together, both watching their beloved sleep, knowing there loved ones would enjoy hearing about this later on. It was a strange relationship, in many ways, but it worked. And, as an added bonus, produced a line of furnishings that were starting to sell well through sex shops when there 'recreational' uses were explained with the aid of full size 'action' posters.
Posing for the pictures personally had been Anya's idea, and the decision to obscure the faces had puzzled her, as had Buffy's refusal to pose. The rest had joined in with varying degrees of enthusiasm, Willow thinking her pregnant form was inappropriate but insisting on doing a new poster after having the baby. She was more than happy to help get the other three 'in the mood', and take the pictures. Faith had insisted on checking with her employers, Accounting being a conservative industry they might not be thrilled. They had no problems, not really understanding human sexual inhibitions, but insisted on having the legal branches of the conglomerate check that the pictures actually were anonymous enough.
The posters started selling well enough to be a money-spinner in there own right, which was puzzling for a time. Then it was realised that an extraordinary number of demons and vampires had begun buying them after word leaked that a Slayer was one of the 'models'. Some were being used for target practice with knives, guns and darts, others for the more normal uses of pornography. Buffy, perhaps predictably, developed a sudden urge to pose for at least one poster, riding Xander with Faith and Anya in the background, her breasts bouncing and glistening with sweat.
Scully and Mulder took this as more proof that the blonde slayer was in serious need of psychiatric help. Where to get that help without having her committed was one more problem for them to solve. Perhaps the dark slayers employers could find someone. The amount of help they were providing, the changes it had caused, and the rapidly increasing dependence on it that was developing probably warranted another investigation. They would certainly consider it.
***************
Xander Harris's Office, study area, Monday evening
Xander Harris was deliberately doing something he had spent his life being told he couldn't do, or at least do well. he was thinking. In particular he was trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together, the puzzle of Slayers and their nature. His discussions with the Karnak Chronicle Keepers had put a very different perspective on things from the Watcher diaries, starting much earlier and from an outside perspective. It explained to some extent why Buffy had lived longer than most slayers, even counting two deaths. Few slayers lasted more than six months, almost none lived to be tested on their 18th birthday.
Or so the Watcher diaries said.
The Karnak Chronicles told a very different story, and reconciling the two accounts, and his encounters with the First Slayer, was a problem. None of the three versions were necessarily a lie, but like any historical account personal agendas and prejudices had to be taken into consideration. The Karnak had had no direct dealings with Slayers before Faith, or at least not friendly ones. But they therefore had less need to justify their actions in terms of why the slayer lived or died. They were probably objective, and certainly covered pre Watchers Council times, as by definition the Watchers Diaries did not.
The Chronicles began after the expulsion of the Old Ones, but failed to say how much after. However they did include tens of thousands of years of history before the creation of the Watchers Council. He had not actually read them all, of course, but the summaries and histories drawn from them set the Slayer in a social context radically different from anything the council had ever considered.
The Council had begun in a settled, agricultural society, where social status determined who was allowed to be armed, and passing property down from father to sons meant controlling female sexuality, so that there was certainty in who the 'legitimate heir' was. And slayers, in a culture where a 16-year-old girl was by definition a married woman with children, had to fit in somehow, had to be seen to be controlled by a responsible male who was not doing anything 'inappropriate' with her. The familiar Watcher/Slayer relationship grew out of this culture.
"It's not how it started though, that's not how it was at all." The youngest male of the slayer's associates said, as he sipped his coffee. It was actually a blend one of the foremen had introduced him to, traditional Arab coffee with special spices, made with sugar and a special open copper pot. More trouble than the espresso machine, but he enjoyed the taste and the break involved in making it.
The slayer originally existed in a world with only a few million humans in it, but they were hunter-gatherers for whom being armed was taken for granted. To this day some African herders carried wooden spears whenever they were awake. In a world full of dangerous predators the early slayers had been the top hunter of one particular type of predator, with literally millions of others who would kill them if threatened, or simply to show off their manhood, as a hunter or herdsman does with predators.
Instead of a lone slayer protecting a world full of unarmed targets, she was one full time vampire hunter in a world where anyone attacked by one would probably be armed with a perfectly workable vampire killing weapon. Several people, actually, in the average hunting band, people with enough practical experience not to freeze when facing what was just one more predator in a world full of them.
Xander sipped his coffee, and wondered about the things not recorded, because the Karnak of these times were too much outsiders to see or understand the details of how the slayer fit into the human society of the time. Slayers were mentioned as outsiders, to an extent, but with a clear awed respect from other humans for their obvious supernatural status. As protective supernatural beings they were not bound by the social norms of the tribes they moved through, as evidenced by their being offered, and accepting, food, shelter, and sex partners as offerings for their help. Being offered sex partners was still standard hospitality in Central Asia and the South Pacific into the twentieth century, but NOT for FEMALE travellers, of which there essentially were none.
"The hungry and horny thing goes way back, doesn't it Faith?" he mused, unaware that he was no longer alone. The figures behind him walked silently towards him, like the hunters they were, stalking him. They were within touching distance before he became aware of them, seeing something close to him move out of the corner of his eye.
"Buffy, Faith, you scared me out of a years growth." They were smiling at him, the smile of horny slayers. He noticed they were freshly showered, and wearing large towels. His office area included an apartment, in fact included the whole floor of the building, with a spa and, as Dana Scully had put it, 'another orgy room'.
Actually Scully and Mulder had been the first to use it for its intended purpose. They had received a report about their son, William, who had been adopted out to protect him from the pursuing Super Soldiers. The Kent's, of Smallville Kansas, seemed like a painfully wholesome all American family, with one adopted child already, a son Dawn's age named Clark. The Karnak Elders had an ally in the town, Lex Luthor, who was a friend of Clarks and promised to provide regular updates. The former agents had been delirious with joy to finally hear good news about
William, and demanded to 'christen' the 'play room' to celebrate.
"I have made a decision, well a couple of decisions." Buffy announced, as she helped lead the totally unprotesting construction boss from his study. She seemed nervous, but also more aroused than normal. Unknown to either of the others, an incident had occurred a few days ago that had caused her to rethink things she had thought totally settled. "I, well, you remember I was late getting home on Friday night?"
"Yes" Xander said, as Faith removed his pants and underwear, while he ripped off her towel. "I stopped off for a coffee and Danish, at your main restaurant, Xander." The pastry stores all had a sit down area, reasonably classy. "I, um, er, I , ah..."
"What?" The other two were sufficiently distracted by the blonde's nervousness to stop what they were doing temporarily. Buffy seemed scarred of something, whatever had happened had rattled her and made her fear rejection. Xander did what he always did in such situations, he forgot his personal business entirely and tried to help. "Whatever it is Buffy, we will help, you know that, right? Don't be afraid, just tell us."
"I had sex with a woman in the toilet, and we were really loud and people kept pounding on the stall door to get us to quiet down and now I can't go back because the staff will all stare at me, and I'M STRAIGHT, HOW COULD I let her seduce me, I mean I asked her if I could share her table because it was crowded and I touched her leg and she smiled and ..."
"So you suspect some kind of spell?"
Given their experiences with sex spells and 'thy will be done' spells it was an obvious question. "If you do don't you think you should avoid sexual situations until we have checked it out?"
Faith Wilkins could only admire Xanders self control, given that this news was the answer to his most cherished fantasy. He had told them, it was no secret among the group. Faith was sorry she had not been the other woman, and getting her mind beyond that image was proving impossible.
"No, yes, I don't know..." Then Buffy kissed Faith passionately, dropping her towel and running her hand over the other slayers breasts. Then she pulled the dark haired woman closer, not breaking the kiss the entire time. Eventually she stopped. "The toilet wasn't the first for me."
"What, I thought she was the first woman for you?" Xander was proud of being able to think any kind of coherent thought, given the sight of two of the sexiest women in the world kissing and groping each other in front of him.
"NO, I mean, she didn't actually seduce me." Buffy was lying on the massage couch, face up, while Faith gave what she called her 'sensual massage.' The blonde slayer had never had one before, given the multiple orgasms inevitably resulting and her supposed hetro status. "When I sat down and accidentally touched her leg, she just smiled at me, then reached down and unzipped my dress, you know it was the red one with the big zip on the side, and she masturbated me till I came at the top of my lungs right there at the table with everyone watching."
The employed Harris noticed that the Buffster had turned on the video recording gear Anya had insisted were appropriate for an orgy area. He hadn't noticed when she did it, being distracted, but at this point he wouldn't have cared if it was going as a live feed to the Vatican.
"I'll never be able to go back to that place againnnn...oh yes, oh yes, oh that feels good, oh yes..."
Xanders Office area Play Room, some time Tuesday morning
"So, Buffy, have I just callously used a woman who was under a spell and couldn't help herself?" Faith was genuinely concerned, and her only defence would be the same as Buffy, that after a night of slaying she was too horny to control herself. As for Xander was still under the 'perfect male sex toy' spell Willow had put him under for Anya's last Birthday, because trying to remove it would certainly remove his entire sex drive and almost certainly kill him. Having decided to live with the effects, including the loss of control under circumstances like this, he could hardly complain now that he was unable to say no to his blonde friend the previous night.
"No, I was actually getting a lot less sex than the rest of the female Scooby's, so I have a lot to catch up on. So I have several months of girl/girl sex to catch up on this week, and if people think I'm a lesbian slut, well..."
"Well what?"
"I'll tell them, no, I am a bisexual slut." The two women laughed. Xander decided to get help checking this out, Giles would be embarrassed but the Coven in England was bound to have someone who could check out whether a spell was involved.
The Magic Box conference room, a week later
"Mr Harris, Mr Giles, let me assure you there is no spell of any kind over any of your group." The witch the coven had sent was quiet competence herself, and very reassuring. It confirmed what Xanders continued research into pre-council slayers had indicated, that slayers were not really human, and given the freedom to do so formed a sub culture of their own. Faiths 'slaying makes you hungry and horney' seemed far more 'normal' for slayers than the Watchers Council's 'virgin to the grave' outlook.
"But her behaviour, the sudden change in, er, sexual orientation, how do you explain it?" The former librarian asked.
"We have been checking Mr Harris's research, and this appears quite natural for slayers. It would appear that Slayers simply need sex the way they need food, in greater amounts and varieties than one would expect." Gwendoline watched the older of the two men squirm uncomfortably, but clearly accept the truth laid out before him. A father is normally uncomfortable with the idea of his daughter and sex, and Giles was more of a father to Buffy than Hank Summers had ever been. "Which is why Buffy has been drawn to non-human lovers, only they can even partly keep up with her needs in a monogamous relationship. And why she had become more and more miserable over the years, and why Council slayers normally die so young, being too closely watched and brainwashed even to masturbate, they deteriorate and become vulnerable."
"You make it sound like a medical condition." Xander commented. The witch was also a medical specialist of some kind, which was why she specifically had been sent. She had performed a medical on Buffy and Faith, and compared the results to the one done by at the request of Faiths employer's months earlier as part of the lavish medical insurance they provided all the demon fighters now. "What did your tests show?"
"A series of major hormone imbalances, with stress and blood pressure levels that would have killed both Slayers eventually. Faith's has been corrected and Buffy's are improving rapidly." And embarrassed smile from the woman in front of them. "Actually we obtained before and after sex readings from them, and there was a measurable improvement."
Faith and Willow's bedroom, Summers House that night.
They had finished watching the videodisk of that memorable Monday night in the playroom. Faith had been proud to be part of Buffy's 'coming out', and as long as the video stayed strictly among them it was not a problem. What had been more of a cause for thinking had been Xanders news about the slayers interesting hormone problem, and its cure. Apparently Buffy had been keeping the United States sex toy industry profitable almost by herself for the last few years, but it was still no substitute for a good man and a few very good women.
"Just think of me as part of your health and fitness program." Willow smiled at her girlfriend, and snuggled up closer to her. She was nearing the end of her pregnancy, and only the two of them could really fit into the bed, where three had been routine before. The sound of massed shotguns at maximum rate of fire sounded in the distance, followed by the faint sound of Red Team singing their victory song. It was a normal night in Sunnydale, with the RRT teams having multiplied beyond the ability of the slayers to accompany them all. The more experienced teams were operating alone now, rotating the slayers through the teams seemed the way to go in future.
"After the baby is born it will all change again, of course."
"As long as I have you I can handle anything. I love you Willow."
*************
Faith Wilkins place of employment, Sunday morning.
John Smith, the imaginatively named head of the Sunnydale branch of Harvey, Norman and Bates Accounting, looked at the television picture and sighed. It showed the gutted remains of the Wolfram & Hart building in Los Angeles, as would any other channel he turned to. No one had made it out, the entire building full of people had died there and it was international news as a major disaster/terrorist incident. He had no proof, of course, without speaking to the man, but his assumption was that his ally in Smallville had decided that an enemy with all its potential targets in one building was too tempting to pass up.
All the Senior Partners had been attending a meeting on the top floor when the exits had electronically sealed and VX nerve gas had flooded the building through the air conditioning system. No one with a will to live wanted to look less than eager to the Senior Partners, so the whole Wolfram and Hart staff had been in their offices at the time. A fire of as yet unexplained intensity had then broken out, ignored by the building fire fighting system. The computer back up information, stored elsewhere, was destroyed the same way at the same time. One of the major threats to human civilization, and therefore the Karnak race's standard of living, could be downgraded to zero threat potential for the moment.
"Mr Smith, do you want me to go after whoever did this?" Faith Wilkins asked, not having had any explanation of her bosses suspicions or why she had been called in at this early hour of a Sunday. She could only conclude, incorrectly, that her slayer services were needed. "Have the Elders decided that even those guys didn't deserve this?"
"Actually it is felt that they got off lightly. Every one of them volunteered to serve the cause of the First Evil, and is therefore as legitimate a target as any vampire." Choosing the right person to send on this mission had been fairly easy, through a process of elimination. First it had to be someone who already believed what he had just said to Faith, and therefore it could not be one of the 'we can't kill humans' Scoobies. That really only left Xander Harris and the dark slayer. "I want you to go to Smallville, Kansas, and learn if a supporter of the cause who is based there did this. You will understand this is too delicate a matter to entrust to possibly bugged electronic communications."
"Who were these guys, and why me?"
"They were the First Evils personal law firm, and you are needed because the alternative is Mr Harris, who would be a suspect in this himself if he had the available resources. Also as a representative of Mr Luthors' accountants you have an obvious cover story that a small time California building contractor does not." Faith could not really argue with the logic of this, after her sex toys response when Scully had mentioned her contention that, faced with the threat of awakening Acathla, her brother would have nuked Sunnydale. The rest of the Scoobs had been horrified, Xander had said, quietly, 'well what else would you expect him to do?' "You will be flying to Metropolis at noon, and a rental car will be waiting for you for the drive to Smallville. You are expected, and will stay in Mr Luthor's Castle for however long is needed."
"Castle?"
"Yes, his father had it shipped in stone by stone from Scotland, apparently. You did bring an overnight case, as asked, didn't you? Mr Luthor will supply any needs you have for a longer stay, any needs at all." And with that the discussion went into the details of what to ask and what to do.
Casa Summers, Tuesday morning, Willow and Faith's room
Willow Rosenburg woke up without her girlfriend again. It was the third morning in a row this had happened, if you included Sunday, which she did. Phone calls and email did not make up for her beloved's absence, but she did her best not to be a nagging wife. WIFE? Where did that come from? When had she started thinking of her former enemy as her one and only? It was obvious when she thought about it.
It was Tara's visitation to the gang, of course, that had been the turning point. She had made it clear that she WANTED Willow to find a new love, that it would all work out when they arrived in heaven, 'that is why it's called heaven, because everything works out', was how her late lover had phrased it. Buffy, who had also had a visitation, had started talking about her time in paradise, trying to explain what was only understandable to someone who had actually been there.
Sometimes she tried to think what it would eventually be like with her, Tara and Faith together in heaven, and that inevitably led to explosive sex with whoever of the gang was handy. At first she had been nervous about explaining this fantasy to Faith, for fear the slayer would feel threatened, feel she was competing with a ghost. Faith had responded with an elaborately detailed version of the same dream, resulting in a threesome, with Anya doing a surprisingly good impersonation of Tara. The red heads dead girlfriend had visited the demon too, and coached her on it when the fantasies of the other two women had started running in the same direction.
"But now I miss my Faith." She mumbled, feeling Xander's arm curled over her and cupping her right breast. It was good to have her oldest friend here to comfort her and attend the Lamaze classes. But it was different with the accountant so far away, attending to 'delicate negotiations with an important client', and apparently wearing out said client with her sexual demands. Faith's exaggerated slayer sexual needs had not gone away, and the tales of her exploits in the small town would probably be being retold there for generations. Willow felt good about that, that the woman she loved was having as good a time as she could while still missing her.
The alarm went off, it was 6.30 and Xander had to go to work today. Sleepily he reached for the alarm, fumbling around until finally he turned it off. Then he snuggled up closer to his pregnant friend, ready to go back to sleep. The alarm would go off again in five minutes, and then every five minutes until 7.30, his actual wake up time. He preferred it this way, as a child he had had a series of alarm clocks set to different times which produced the same effect.
Lex Luthor's bedroom, also Tuesday morning.
"So, how did you meet Clark?"
Both Faith and the bald man liked to talk after sex, it was one of many things they had in common. Faith included a strong possibility of turning to the dark side in that, and would warn her boss in no uncertain terms about it. Lex had grown up with his father's attempts to shape his character, and the elder Luthor reminded her strongly of the prison gang bosses she had met, but without the prison survival imperative driving them. Cutthroat competition was only a phrase in his world, and she had only contempt for people who thought they were tough because they could and did ruin thousands of lives with a phone call to close a plant. Lex had exactly one friend in the world, who was also his only source of conventional moral guidance, the aforementioned Clark Kent.
"He saved my life when I ran my Porsche off a bridge." Faith had heard the story already, from a proud Jonathan Kent, during a visit to see the Kent's newest adopted child, Jeff Kent, aka William Scully. Lex had made up some story about changing his produce order, and wanting to see Jeff, which second part was perfectly true. The billionaire was curious why she kept after details about Clark. "Why do you ask?
"What species is he?"
"WHAT?"
She was suddenly gripped by a fully alert and clearly alarmed Lex Luthor, who was looking her in the eyes with a terrible focus.
"Well he's clearly not human, he just looks like one. As a slayer I like to know these things, I mean, he's obviously a good guy demon but I have never got this exact vibe before and I'm curious." The dark slayer understood she had made her first really major mistake of the mission, simply through relaxing too much. The man in bed with her was allied to the Karnak Demons against various threats, and knew about vampires and demons and werewolves of my, vampires and demons and werewolves, so she had subconsciously felt free to relax and talk openly. "If it sounded like a threat or something sorry, it's just a professional reflex to keep up with this stuff."
"Clark isn't human. That's his secret, he's not human" Lex was stunned, and agitated, getting out of bed and walking to the bar fridge. He took out a bottle of Bollinger Champaign and some strawberries, then poured them both a drink, and sat the fruit on the table next to the slayer. Faith was really struck by it as a display of wealth, that when feeling the need for a stiff drink this man reached for the best French bubbly and strawberries, not the cheap scotch of anyone else she had known. "Why didn't he tell me, I'm his friend, why didn't he tell me?"
"Humans tend to react badly to finding out someone is a demon, even the Scooby gang back in Sunnydale, who know a few good demons, have a We Cannot Kill Humans policy. They kill demons like they kill bacteria, no emotion at all, no loss of sleep, but even the most evil of humans is supposed to be immune. The kid's probably terrified of anyone finding out, of losing his perfect family." And the Kent's were so perfect, so wholesome middle America it was hard to believe. Then, of course, there were Clarks school friends, people like Chloe Sullivan and Lana Lang, girls who's darkest secret seemed to be thinking he was cute without having the nerve to tell him. "Pa Kent reminds me a little of the Mayor of Sunnydale, and I nearly sold my soul for his friendship when I was Clarks age. For you and the Kent's and his school pals, I would have, and thought I got a bargain."
Lex slugged down a second glass and poured a third, then helped himself to another strawberry. Clearly he was thinking about it all and if this was his version of breaking down and hitting the bottle, which it clearly was, then he seriously needed a life. Faith had told him enough of her past that the explanation did not come as a shock, and he had told her of the whole 'club zero' nightmare. They both had dark pasts they were embarrassed about, that they wanted to keep present friends from knowing or thinking about.
He was the only person she had ever spoken to about the pure joy and exhilaration she had felt when killing people for the Mayor. It had actually amounted to a few dozen people, she had not bothered to even remember exactly. Each time was the purest pleasure, the most amazing high, it made the joy of vampire slaying feel like digging weeds by comparison. Faith knew all about people who were as bad as the worst vampire, because she had been one. Both she and Lex understood that was why she was here, and that Lex needed help to keep from going the same way. Currently all he had was the friendship of a seventeen year old of unknown species, and it wasn't enough.
"Lex, before you get completely tanked, we need to agree on some things. One, you did do the Wolfram and Hart thing, right?"
"Abso fragging lutely damnit!" Said the bald man with the Babylon 5 obsession.
"Two, we take things slowly on the checking out what Clark is situation, because we might scare him off and the world needs more people who's hobby seems to be saving other people's lives."
"Roger dodger."
"Three, you need to keep the mass murder thing under control 'cause, and I speak from experience, it's a terrible habit to have to break"
"Only if you agree to be my liaison with the Elders." The second bottle was nearly empty, It was five in the morning and Faith had only had two glasses. Lex now had a handful of strawberries in one hand and his full glass in the other, and still looked James Bond cool.
"Only if I can bring Willow and the baby next time, and you provide the baby sitter."
"Zathras is used to being beast of other peoples burdens. Is sad life, probably sad death, but still, there is symmetry."
"I'll take that as a yes. Four, when you start quoting Zathras you either need to stop watching your Babylon 5 dvd's or make friends with Xander, because he is the only other person I know who does that."
"We can fly the whole group out in my private jet, it's a 767." Then his features brightened. "I can have a B5 marathon with Xander, I have never done that with anyone else there!"
The former psycho slut slayer felt resigned to a long slow campaign to save Lex's soul. That much was certain. Maybe they could bring Mulder and Scully out too, as long as they promised not to break down when they saw William/Jeff and terrify the Kent's. She would be sleeping with her precious Willow tonight, and that made any amount of random Zathras quoting acceptable.
END