Makes No Difference

[madimpossibledreamer]

(avon and jesse seem to be channeling taishakuten at his most demented and—honestly yeah ‘let me build a kingdom for you and then force you to tear my heart out’ does kind of seem to be their plan doesn’t it)
I had this thought during Place in the Universe, but actually getting it into a readable shape took a lot longer.

Main Points:
Buffy/Blake's 7 (Place in the Universe)
Chapter Summary: Jesse plots revenge.  Willow has her own contribution.
Word Count: 425
Rating: Teen
Background Jesse/Xander, Tara/Willow

 

        Jesse inwardly sighs at the sound of the door opening. His patience hangs by a thread, and it will just take one more well-meaning comment before it snaps entirely, and what happens after he refuses to hold himself accountable for. He’d been doing a little better at separating himself from Avon lately, but this just brought it all back and he doesn’t care anymore. Oh, he still has his mind, as calculating and vicious as the version left at the end...well, the end of everything, really. Worse, the part that feels like it’s been designed by a uncaring universe: again, the only thing keeping him in some semblance of functional is the knowledge that Blake—that Xander—might still need him, after this. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have given a single thought to the possibility of an after. Wouldn’t have bothered with this much planning, not while Xander has shut himself in the bathtub, clutching his curls in a grip that likely has to hurt and just rocks back and forth, whimpering. Blake never spoke of it, but this had been one of his greatest fears (and for good reason, given that leftover programming had been used to turn him against the crew), and to have another meddling in his mind, once again ripping away his agency, his sense of identity, must have been excruciating, until it was nothing at all.
        “Don’t even think about stopping me,” Jesse snarls, not even bothering to look up from his preparations.
        “What makes you think I’m here to stop you?” the voice asks, and that makes Jesse glance up. The voice happens to come from Willow, whose eyes are every bit as merciless and slightly dead inside, and, now, this is interesting.
        Tara might have been superficially the opposite of Gan in every way, but the core of her, the part that really matters, is exactly the same. Jesse finds that while he doesn’t burn for vengeance on her behalf like he does for Xander (so hot and so bright he would burn up the whole world, in Xander’s wake, if he is gone forever) he does feel a vicious need to avenge her as well, an echo of the anger he’d felt after the man’s loss. In Willow, he sees a kindred spirit.
        “You know all the words I said about responsible use of magic?” He waits for her to nod, because they both need this kind of flourish. “Forget every single one of them.”
        Her answering smile is downright cruel and he would wish for nothing less.