From: owner-buffyfic@lists.xmission.com (buffyfic-digest) To: buffyfic-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: buffyfic-digest V2 #330 Reply-To: $SENDER Sender: owner-buffyfic@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-buffyfic@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk buffyfic-digest Tuesday, September 22 1998 Volume 02 : Number 330 In this issue: BUFFYFIC: Xander's Incredible Journey (6c/?) BUFFYFIC: ADMIN: List rules See the end of the digest for information on (un)subscribing to the buffyfic or buffyfic-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 20:11:11 PDT From: "Cutter Kinseeker" Subject: BUFFYFIC: Xander's Incredible Journey (6c/?) TITLE: "Xander's Incredible Journey" AUTHOR: Cutter Kinseeker E-MAIL: ckinseeker@hotmail.com FEEDBACK: Yes! Yes! Yes! Tell me what you think, but constructive criticism only please. No "it sucks" type messages. DISTRIBUTION: Ask me first. RATING: Mostly PG-13 for language and adult themes. A couple of parts will be R. DESCRIPTION: In the aftermath of "Becoming," Xander sets out after Buffy and winds up "becoming" in his own right. Xander and Cordelia track Buffy's trail to Bakersfield, where they learn a terrible truth and make a new friend. (This is the final part of a three-part message.) DISCLAIMER: I don't own jack. Correction--jack's probably the only thing I do own. The rest belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the Frog Network. SPOILERS: Everything up to "Becoming". S S P P O A I C L E E R Chapter Six It's a Long, Hard Road Out of [the] Hell[mouth] [section three] *** Xander burst into the second room, his nerves steeled against whatever might await him. The sight that greeted his eyes was almost anticlimactic: a spotless room that looked as though a small fight had taken place, knocking over a lamp and ruffling some sheets, but doing no real damage. Xander let out his breath in a sigh of gratitude, and thus wasn't ready when he was attacked. The figure blurred out of the closet, streaking toward Xander with an inhuman speed and precision. He was so startled that he debated between screaming and dropping his stake, but finally decided on tripping over his own heels. It was probably his klutzy fall that saved his life, however, as the creature--nothing that moved that fast could be human, surely--lashed out with a wicked-looking blade, cutting the air above the now-prone Xander's head with an audible "whoosh". As it went off-balance, Xander had a moment to take a breather and evaluate his opponent. If the glowing eyes, sharp fangs, and general facial ugliness were any indication, Xander was again facing a vampire, as he had so often done in the past. Xander lashed out with his heels, striking the vamp in the shins, just below the kneecaps, and sending him reeling back. Xander vaulted to his feet, gripping the stake tightly in his clenched fist and launched himself at the fiend with a roar that was more bluster than bravery. As he struck downward, the vamp rolled out of the way and performed a martial arts move so smooth and quick that Xander was again on his back--without the stake, this time--before he realized it had even moved. Another swift kick sent the stake flying across the room, but in the moment that the vamp's attention was diverted, Xander pulled the flask of holy water out of his cast and twisted the cap. It wouldn't budge. He tried again, but it was still stuck fast. Xander looked up at the face of his opponent and saw a grin across the creature's face, a grin that spelled Xander's doom in inch-high letters. *Great, just great*, Xander thought to himself. *I survive untold numbers of demons, possession by a hyena, various bug-based monsters, and dating Cordelia--and all to get done in by a goth-punk refugee with a bowie knife!* As the vampire prepared for the killing blow, a shrill whistle pierced the room. The creature looked up, annoyed that its enjoyment of the kill had been interrupted. Xander used the split-second afforded him to tug the cap off the bottle, which made a popping noise as it released. "Hey, long, tall, and ugly!" he shouted to regain the monster's attention. "Isn't it me you're after? Well, bring it on!" As the vampire returned its gaze to the prone teenager, Xander flicked his wrist upwards, sending a jet of lukewarm water out of the bottle's neck like champagne under pressure. His aim better than he could have ever hoped for, the stream took the vampire directly in the eyes. The creature reeled back in agonizing pain, clutching its eyes and dropping the knife it had held. "Stake!" Xander yelled, hoping that whoever had distracted the being would know what he was talking about. A thick wooden dowel, pointed at one end and blunt at the other, dropped into his hand without a word from his unseen compatriot. Xander regained his feet and charged the blinded undead beast, sending his shoulder into its unbreathing chest, knocking the creature onto its back. It offered no resistance, being too busy screeching with its pain to even notice the change in locale. Once it was down, Xander threw himself at it bodily, leading his not-inconsiderable weight with a sharp wooden point. Downward he swept, sending the stake into the monster's heart hard enough to drive it through the chest and out the back, where it imbedded in the floor. The vampire had one last moment to utter a demonic scream, its sightless eyes bugging out of its hideous face, before it and the stake were reduced to mere ash. The teenager stood, brushing dust and ash off of his shirt with his good hand and trying to shake his cast free of the detritus. *Geez*, he thought in a sort of sick wonder, *that's the first one I've ever taken care of without Buffy's help--and I still wouldn't have beaten it if it weren't for...* Then he stopped. Who was it that had distracted the vampire at that critical moment? He turned back towards the door, certain he would see Cordelia standing there, looking smug and self-righteous as usual. But a part of his was also gripping to the childish, futile hope that it would be Buffy, passing back through town on her way home, come to pull his fat out of the fire once again. His expression of greeting and thanks dropped from his face like a stone into a pond when he saw that it was neither of them, leaving him with that fish-out-of-water look he had demonstrated several times before. Standing there in the doorway, a combination of fear, loathing, triumph, and bottomless agony warring for possession of her features, stood Stacy. Xander's heart went out to her instantly, as well as the sense of helplessness he had long since become accustomed to as a Slayerette. Bruises, almost black in the harsh motel lights, covered almost every inch of her visible skin, making her look like some hideous patchwork doll grown to human size. Small cuts and lacerations dominated her arms, further adding to the "patchwork" appearance; blood from these cuts dripped off her fingers, spattering gently into the thick carpet like some coppery, polluted rain. Much of the blood had dried already, covering her forearms with a brownish-red crust of scales. Where the bruises stopped, she was pale beneath her tan, obviously suffering from heavy blood loss and keeping her feet by willpower alone. She staggered and swayed as she walked toward Xander, and her eyes--burning with a dull fury--were the only part of her that seemed to be truly alive. "That was a vampire," she said in a voice that seemed to come from a great distance. Xander decided that whatever this girl had gone through had earned her the right to the truth, not some half-assed lie to cover his tracks or convince her that it was an hallucination. Her pain demanded the truth. "Yeah, it was," he said in a voice choked with shared anguish. He had seen too many people die, watched too many friends and almost-friends fall to these monsters, not to understand at least some of what she must be going through. "There's a lot of them in the world, but most of them gather in a few places. The ones that did this must have been rogues or something, vampires without a master, just wandering from town to town." Actually, he thought that they had probably been on their way to Sunnydale, but that was too complicated to go into right now. At the moment, the priority was getting an ambulance here; the police would come too, but they were not only out of their league, they were completely useless in this sort of situation. He walked slowly toward her, reaching out with his good arm. As he moved, he kept telling her that it would be all right, that everything would be okay. She might have earned the truth about other things, but he felt that she had also earned the right to hear a few comforting lies. He didn't think it would be all right at all, but as she collapsed into his arms--as much from gratitude as blood loss--he decided that maybe truth was overrated. *** When the police arrived, Xander and Cordelia gave them the Snyder-ized version of events. That is to say, a total lie that sounded like the truth. To wit, they had met Stacy and her family earlier that day and were going to get together with them for dinner; by the time they had arrived, the "massacre" had already taken place. Xander gave a thorough, but false, description of a culprit, but added that it might be wrong for two reasons: first, the guy's face was twisted and distorted, probably by something like PCP; second, Xander had been so terrified that he wouldn't make a good witness. The "gang" had apparently had several more members to it, as judging by the theft of the Carlsons' aging Winnebago. Stacy would live, though she required a number of stitches on her arms and a transfusion of blood--which was sickly ironic. Stacy could not (or would not) give the police any information about her attackers; she couldn't remember anything after the lights went out in her parents' room, so she said. Stacy's parents were the only two dead--both of them dismembered in a fashion so gruesome that a rookie cop at the scene passed out--but all three of her younger siblings were missing. The police assumed the worst, and most of them had already given up on the children. A routine patrol would turn up the Winnebago in a week, maybe two, and inside it would be the bodies of the other three Carlsons; they had seen it happen all too often before to have any real hope for them. Of course, they kept quiet about their assumptions and their fears around Stacy. They asked her a few questions every now and again, always with sympathetic smiles on their faces, and generally made sure she was safe and comfortable in a private room at the Bakersfield hospital. The day after the attack, Xander and Cordelia were still in town; the police had given them leave to go, but they wanted to make sure that Stacy would recover. The doctors kept assuring them that she would survive her wounds--which were comparatively minor--but that wasn't how they meant it. Late that afternoon, they were permitted to enter the room and speak with her in private. "How much do you really remember?" was the first question Xander asked after the nurse closed the door. Stacy swiveled her slightly dull eyes to face Xander; they had apparently given her some kind of pain-killer, and it was slowing her down. "Everything," she replied, choking slightly on that single word, a word that contained a world of pain and anger. "I remember their faces, and their teeth, and... and... oh, God..." Her voice trailed off into a barrage of wracking sobs. Cordelia, demonstrating a nurturing instinct not even Xander had been sure she possessed, rushed forward and held the shaking girl. After a few minutes, the weeping subsided and Cordelia released Stacy. Xander looked on, started to speak, stopped, then turned away from them and finally managed to choke out what he had been thinking. "I'm so sorry, Stacy. I know how hollow and pathetic and cheap that sounds, but it's true. I'm sorry for what happened to you, and I'm sorry I couldn't save them. I- I just..." He hung his head in silence, waiting for her judgment of him. "Xander..." she started, and he was surprised to hear a note of sympathy in that voice. "You couldn't have done anything. They- My parents were already dead by the time I got there." The tears began to flow freely across her face again, but she didn't stop talking because of them. "If you had come with me when I went, you would have been killed too. I don't know why they didn't kill me too, but I do know they were going to... "When you ran away, I hated you; I thought that you were afraid, and you were just leaving me there by myself. But you came back, and that's all that really matters. You didn't have to, but you came back for me... you came back, and you fought them, and you killed that bastard that killed my parents. The only thing I regret," she stated in a steel-hard voice, "is that he isn't here right now, so you could kill him again. "You saved me, saved my life, and for that I guess I have to thank you... But I just keep thinking, 'I should have died too. It isn't fair that they died, and I'm still alive.' It just keeps going through my mind that they should have killed me too, so I wouldn't have to hurt like this..." "Stacy," began Xander cautiously, trying to think of what Giles would say in this sort of situation, "I can only begin to imagine what you're going through, but I can tell you this: It's not your fault. If anyone's to blame, it's the monsters that did this, and if I could, I'd destroy every last one of them--not just for what they've done to you, but what they've done all through history, to countless people. And the only one who could take them on wholsesale is... not around right now. "I also know something else. It's not what happens to us that defines us as people, it's how we deal with what happens to us. And I know I don't know you very well, but I think you're a strong person. You'll survive this. You'll recover. You won't ever be the same--I won't lie and say that you will--but you will come out of this stronger, tougher than before, and eventually you'll return to your normal life." "What doesn't kill us, right?" she spat bitterly. "Right now, all I feel is pain, and that's all I can imagine ever feeling again. You tell me I'll recover; what if I don't want to recover? What then? What if I like my pain? It's all I have--all that's left to me." "No," Xander said softly, "it's not. What about what was in those notebooks? You seemed so protective of them when we first met. Surely there's something in there that's important to you?" "My notes..." she whispered, turning her battered face away from the Slayerettes. "I'm writing... I *was* writing... a novel... I hadn't really started on it yet, but it was going to be so good, I know it. Now..." "You're still going to write it," Xander told her firmly. "Take your pain and put it there, where it can't hurt anybody, least of all you. Pour out all the hate and fear and pain into that novel, and by the time you're done, maybe it will be great. And more important, it'll help you. Besides, don't they say that every really good piece of writing comes from some real emotion, usually a painful one?" "Whoever 'they' are," replied Stacy, not so bitterly this time. Xander looked carefully at her, seeing the idea take root in her eyes and pushing out some of the hate. He didn't know if what he had said to her was good therapy or not, but he did know that when the pain and hate threatened to take over, a person had to keep busy or the darkness would eat them alive. For Stacy, it was writing; for another person it might be pottery, or gambling, or computer programming. For Xander, it was this little cross-country jaunt to find Buffy. He paused a moment. This trip was about more than just recovering the Slayer; it was about Xander purging himself, emptying all of those negative emotions. He had originally thought about it on his own, but it had taken The Whistler's intervention to get him moving. He scrunched his brow in concentration: the only other person they knew about who had dealt personally with Whistler before was Angel, and he had been the small demon's pawn in some sort of cosmic chess match. For the first time, Xander began to seriously consider his own role in all of this; namely, was he being manipulated too? Moved about like a piece on a board, all for the inscrutable whims of the enigmatic Whistler? And if he was, why? To what end? He tabled the questions for the time being and returned his attention to Stacy. "We'll be leaving tomorrow morning," he told her quietly. "I'm sorry we can't stay longer, but we've already lost a day and we can't afford to fall any further behind. Until then, though, is there anything we can do?" "Yeah," she said, narrowing her eyes slightly, "there is, in fact. You said earlier that there was someone that could fight the monsters that killed my family, take on any of them and win. Who?" "Well," said Xander nervously, "that's kind of a long story, but it's also the reason we have to leave tomorrow..." "Well, tell me." "Go on, Xander," interjected Cordelia, who both of them had almost forgotten, "tell her. I'll drive tomorrow, and you can sleep in the car, so don't worry about how long it takes. You two can start talking; I'll go get some drinks and a couple of chairs." Xander was so stunned at the idea of Cordelia volunteering to do anything that he was totally speechless for nearly a minute, before Stacy coughed into her hand, gently reminding him of what he had to do. He grinned sheepishly at her and shrugged, then stepped to the edge of the bed and began to speak. "It really all began for us almost two years ago, on a warm day in March, when a girl named Buffy Summers moved to our town, Sunnydale. I went head over heels for her right away, literally..." *** A Californian highway; sometime after dawn: "Do you think she'll be all right by herself?" asked Cordelia. Xander repressed a yawn so he could answer her. "Well, the doctors said that they'll release her in about a week if there aren't any complications. The police won't need her unless they catch a suspect, which they won't, of course." "How terrible for her... I can't even think what it must be like for her. I don't know what I'd do if my parents died like that..." Cordelia held back a shudder and went on. "Did she say where she's going after they let her go? Do you think she'll go home?" "She told me that she has an aunt and uncle up in Colorado; she tried to get hold of them, but the message on their machine said that they're on vacation until the middle of June. She's gonna grab a bus to Denver and then take a cab the rest of the way to Boulder; that's where they live. I don't know how she has the money to do all that, but she refused to let me give her any of ours." "You offered her our money? *My* money?" Cordelia asked in false indignation. Actually, Stacy refused to take money from Xander because Cordelia had already given her almost five hundred dollars--as a gift, not a loan. She was secretly glad that Stacy hadn't said anything to Xander about her act of kindness; it wouldn't be good for her image if he found out she had done something nice of her own accord. "Sorry to have bothered," he said frostily. "Besides, she seemed to be okay on her own. Said she still had her purse, and her parents gave her birthday money to her early this year, so she's not hurting as far as that goes. She mentioned something about staying at the Y-" "Speaking of buses," Cordelia said to steer Xander's mind off its single track, "you haven't told me which bus we're supposed to be following yet." "Well, from Bakersfield, Buffy went to Los Angeles. I guess she was going to stay with her dad or something, but when Willow called him, he said he hadn't seen her. I don't know why she kept moving on, but whatever the reason, she left LA almost immediately. The Greyhound people don't have good record-keeping, but one of the people at the ticket desk said they remembered her. We've also got another beaten mugger for confirmation." "Then where are we headed?" Cordelia asked testily. "Las Vegas," Xander muttered. She looked at her boyfriend to make sure she had heard correctly, but his eyes were closed and his breathing slow and even. He was asleep. She smiled at his unconscious form, then returned to the task of navigating across the state and towards Nevada. Cordelia didn't know how he stayed so calm through everything, but she was glad that someone did. They had only been out a few days, but this trip had pulled them closer together than ever before. She almost dreaded the moment when they found Buffy, because then they would have to go home and everything would go back to how it used to be: Xander drooling over Buffy, Buffy pining over her fallen Angel, and Cordelia stuck in the middle of it all. For a moment, she entertained the idea that maybe they wouldn't find Buffy at all, but restrained the idea; finding Buffy was more important than just their stupid love triangle... or was it a love rectangle? Cordelia shook her head and returned to the business of driving. Someday, Xander would have to make a choice between them, but that day wasn't today. For that she was thankful, since when it came right down to it, she already knew which of them his choice would be--and she also knew that it wouldn't be her. Xander slept on, oblivious to his girlfriend's deep thoughts. He slept most of the day, waking up only when Cordelia stopped to find a place for the night. END CHAPTER SIX Cutter Kinseeker - -Chieftain of the Wolfriders - -Holder of New Moon, artifact sword - -Slayer of the dreaded beast Madcoil - -Keeper of Xander's firm belief that he could take Angelus with the help of a bunch of orderlies, cops, doctors, and nurses (KBD) - -Keeper of Xander's derisive sneer at Angelus (KBD) - -Keeper of Xander's jaunty stake-whittling tune ("School Hard") - -Keeper of Willow's longing gaze at Xander while he talks about the unattainable ("Some Assembly Required") - -Keeper of Giles' masochistic need to spar with Buffy - -Keeper of Cordelia's divine request for aspirin ("School Hard") - -Keeper of Buffy's need for a warning label (KBD) "AYOOOOOOOOAAAAAAHHH!!!!" --Cutter Kinseeker "From famine to feast and back to famine again." --Skywise Visit the Holt of Cutter Kinseeker http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/2234/ ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 10:26:16 -0400 (EDT) From: sah Subject: BUFFYFIC: ADMIN: List rules Welcome! This list is for fiction related to "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," both the TV series and the movie. To ensure that we all get to enjoy as much fiction as possible, please adhere to the following guidelines, and please save them for future reference. 1. Fiction should have Buffy characters in it and clearly be related to Buffy. Crossovers are great, and expected, but general vampire/monster stories that aren't in the Buffy universe and don't use Buffy characters belong somewhere else. 2. Discussion of posted fiction is permitted onlist. Please put "DISCUSS" in your subject line. Requests for missing story parts should go directly to the author, and not be posted to the list. Discussion that is not related directly to the fiction should go over to the general Buffy list. Discussion of fiction is expected to follow common netiquette guidelines and use PG-13 language. 3. No advertising of items or services, Buffy related or not, and no posting of non-story items such as .gifs, sound files, etc.. No attached files of kind-- if your mailer makes your fiction into attached files, you need to find another way to get it to the list. 4. If you're writing a story and including advance information on a new episode, and you're posting your story earlier than the national viewing time, please: **Mark the post as a "spoiler" in the subject header. **Leave about twelve lines (blank or with non-spoiler info) at the top of the post. This ensures that anyone who doesn't like knowing about an episode ahead of time is "protected." :) The blank space is for people whose mailers automatically open up the next piece of mail, without giving them a chance to see "spoiler" in the header. Spoiler warnings are not necessary after the start of the episode's national viewing time, which is currently set at 9 p.m. Mondays, Eastern Standard Time. Spoiler warnings are not necessary for reruns. 5. This list is absolutely NOT for erotic fiction. stronger than sexually PG-13 material is to be posted to the list under any circumstances. A story may be R rated for violence or language, however. If you have a question about something's suitability for posting, feel free to ask one of the listowners. Sending sexually explicit material will get you immediately and permanently unsubscribed. No exceptions. 6. By subscribing and/or posting to this list, you acknowledge that Buffy the Vampire slayer and all characters associated with either the televised series or the motion picture were created by Josh Whedon and are owned by Mutant Enemy productions, Kuzui Productions, Sandollar Productions, and 20th Century Fox. All stories posted to this list are for entertainment purposes only, are not sold for profit of any kind, and are not intended to infringe on any copyrights. 7. When posting stories to the list, please follow the following formatting guidelines - --No story parts longer than 250 lines - --No lines longer than 75 characters - --Turn off your "smart quotes"-- many readers receive these as garbage or weird symbols - --Put the title of the story in the subject header, indicate if it's a multipart story, and if so what part this is. Example: Buffy Meets Godzilla (2/65) indicates that this post is part two of a 65 part story. 8. If a story is rated "R" for language/violence, indicate this in an introduction. For example, "There's a really bloody fight scene at the end of this part" or "if you don't like dismemberment, stop reading now!" If there's chance that someone might be disturbed by something in your story (even if it's not rated R) please include some kind of warning up front. 9. And last, but not least, the listowners reserve the right to deny subscription (new, renewed, or continued) to the list for any individual(s). PLEASE NOTE: not following any or all of these rules will get you the following: **First offense: offender is unsubscribed for one week. **Second offense: offender is unsubscribed to the Buffyfic list for a minimum of three months. **If the offender returns and does it again, they're offlist permanently. As noted above, posting sexually explicit material is the exception -- you go straight to permanent unsubbing. Again, welcome! If you have any questions about these rules, please contact either one of us offlist. If you have subscription problems or questions, the fastest way to get help is to e-mail one of us at the addresses below, at the kirby@xmission.com addy which is the "official" e-mail owner of the list. Jill Kirby (jtkirby@mcs.com) & sah (romana@mindspring.com) Listowners, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fiction List buffyfic@xmission.com ------------------------------ End of buffyfic-digest V2 #330 ****************************** To subscribe to buffyfic or buffyfic-digest, send the command subscribe buffyfic-digest or subscribe buffy to majordomo@xmission.com. You will need to go through a confirmation process, and the listowners have to manually approve your subscription request, so it may take some time. To unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@xmission.com with unsubscribe buffyfic-digest or unsubscribe buffyfic in the body. Back issues of this digest can be found at: ftp://ftp.xmission.com/pub/lists/buffyfic/archive/ Dalton Spence has also provided an index of the buffyfic archive at: http://www.hwcn.org/~ag775/BUFFYFIC.HTM For help, contact Jill Kirby (jtkirby@mcs.com) or sah (romana@mindspring.com)