Chapter 22: Will 'o the Whisper
Jan. 6th, 2020 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerMain Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Bleach (I Hope Tomorrow's a Better Day)
Chapter Summary: Something feels...off.
Word Count: 1395
Rating: Gen
And then there was Jesse. Nothing was wrong. His best friend wasn’t gone. There wasn’t a hole in his life. It just makes the world black and white. Vampires are evil and need staking.
So this isn’t much different. Everything feels normal, now that he’s settling into this new normal. He still has his job, but for the first time since they went to college he feels part of the group again. He’s useful for more than just driving and delivering stuff the girls need. Buffy’s taking to the flash-step thing with ease, and the whole trick of flexing her reiatsu is perfect for getting the vamps to settle down for an easy kill (though there was that one time she’d accidentally knocked out everybody next to the graveyard, but if there was one thing Buffy was good at besides picking up on combat techniques easily it’s learning from her mistakes).
A little infuriatingly, Buffy’s much better at recovering from that sort of thing, too, which she doesn’t hesitate to use against him when they spar. It’s probably the fact that she’s not fully human, that Slayers are just a little bit weird. Hikari-san gets even more intrigued by that, though he reminds her no matter how many times they ask Giles-san for answers he’s no more likely to have any. Apparently, that’s something that the Watchers’ Council way back when didn’t bother to document—or, Xander thinks more probably, that’s the sort of secret only jerks like Travers have their hands on. Giles-san is kind of not the most high-rank, so it might be an inner circle taichou sort of deal.
And no, Miss Sword, it is not a good idea to invade Watchers’ Council HQ for some knowledge, even in spirit form. It feels like they’d have some way to notice and some sort of ghost-prevention measures. She assures him Shinigami are less in danger from such things than your average Whole (their word for ghost, which confuses him until he figures out it’s just a contrast to a Hollow), but sees his point after a little while.
Willow asks him for a few lessons on kidou, and bullies him into teaching her a little, though she’s promised not to use it until she’s come up with a better solution than tea to replace spiritual powers. Hikari-san doesn’t believe her, to which he explains that she’s never broken a pinky promise with him.
She probably senses that he doesn’t fully believe, either, given that she’s latched on to his soul or something. It’s not that he thinks Willow would mean to break the promise, ever, but if there’s one thing that’s stayed constant, it’s her hungry curiosity. She’d taken the whole ‘knowledge is power’ thing and ran with it, only before Buffy that only involved great grades. Now it’s magic. Before the whole near-death experience, he’d not given it a second thought, caught up in his own head. Now, he can feel that hunger, and it makes him uncomfortable, because that kind of restless hunger reminds him of a Hollow. He doesn’t want to feel scared of Willow, or that he’s going to have to do something about her. Fortunately, she hasn’t noticed yet.
Tara is…well, Tara’s weird. Even with the explanation of ‘magic sword in my soul’, she’s still really shy around him, even though he’d asked and apparently she wasn’t stuttering in front of Buffy or Giles anymore. The aura or whatever she’d mentioned was still bothering her, only she doesn’t bring it up again, to him or to Willow. She’s not even scared of Buffy, who probably has more power than he does. Scratch that, no. She does. They’re fairly evenly matched when it comes to sparring, and if Buffy goes to Soul Society following her hopefully long-in-the-future death, she’ll definitely be Eleventh, by the way she glows at being able to go all out. Still, she’d frozen like a rabbit in front of a wolf when he’d gently confronted her with a simple question, so he’s reluctant to go any further.
And there’s Spike, who’s just started behaving really weirdly. He has to get his kicks from somewhere, but this is something entirely different. Where Xander’s concerned, anymore, he fluctuates between predatory, flirtatious (probably just to see him squirm), serious, amused, and, probably most concerning, what almost, almost, appears like worry.
Hikari-san is perfectly polite about it all. Sometimes she’ll get angry, but he figures it’s probably a not-human thing. Most vamps and demons seem to have an anger management problem, and while Hikari-san is neither of thost things, she is also not human. She eventually gets comfortable using him as a go-between to relay her comments to the Scoobies, and he hadn’t been kidding about her no longer being alone, which he can feel she didn’t fully believe and doesn’t know quite what to do with when she has it, to rely on other people. Part of him says he’s still just getting used to something else existing in his soul, while another part just suggests there’s something wrong.
There are moments he doesn’t fully remember. He seems to remember that Anya had showed up once, at some point, but he hasn’t seen her since, which almost makes him panic. When he tries to think back on what had happened in the conversation, he can’t entirely remember, just gets something that feels and looks blank. It’s not; there’s something there, but it’s vague and dreamlike enough he can’t even figure out if it hadn’t even happened in reality, just in his sleep. To be fair, his dreams have been a little weird lately, probably his brain trying to process the memories of a Zanpuktou as well as his own. Anya had decided so out of the blue that she wanted him. Maybe she’d decided that he wasn’t worth her time—fairly likely, since that’s the conclusion all the other romantic partners he’s had before now had come to.
Sure, Spike’s supposed to be there, now that he’s living in Xander’s basement, but there have been times where he’ll seemingly lose his memories there, too. Then again, he’s tired enough from the combination of work and patrol that he’ll sometimes just pass out when he gets home, so he tries to think it’s just that.
The whispers are a little disconcerting, particularly when they follow him into waking life (does it count as auditory hallucinations if he knows where they’re from?, he wonders, amused). They have to do with Hikari-san’s power—or maybe that’s just a Zanpuktou thing. They’re not human, after all. Who knows how a sword-spirit works? Aside from Giles-san, and he’s not going to ask about that and waste the man’s time.
“Earth to Xander!” Buffy waves from out on the water. He’d kind of hoped she’d wear a swimsuit, but no, she’d used one of her spare uniforms—she’d wrangled Tara into helping make something very like his own Shihakusho, only purple and flowery. It kind of reminded him—or Hikari-san—of someone, but this wasn’t the time to think about that further and space out when she was trying to get his attention.
It takes him a moment to realize she’s using flash-step on the water, that’s how she’s out there. At the moment, she’s just showing off.
“Look, you can’t keep pushing me like this. Not everyone recovers as fast as a Slayer,” he calls to her with a smile, but he runs to meet her, sinking slightly as he’s still in his body and using any powers while he’s in his body is a little problematic. He’d jump out, but he can’t afford to just abandon his body on a public beach. He’s still using it. Sometimes.
Out of the corner of his eyes, the surface of the water looks extremely shallow, like it’s right above a sand flat. But he blinks and that’s gone, so he ignores it. Just like everything else. Just like—
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Bleach (I Hope Tomorrow's a Better Day)
Chapter Summary: Something feels...off.
Word Count: 1395
Rating: Gen
Xander has had a lot of practice pretending that nothing’s wrong. At first, it was his family. He didn’t particularly care if the rest of the school. If anything, most of the school knew, and it was just Willow he’d been lying to. And himself. Because he couldn’t deal, either. He had a normal family. A normal life. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but perfect families don’t exist.
And then there was Jesse. Nothing was wrong. His best friend wasn’t gone. There wasn’t a hole in his life. It just makes the world black and white. Vampires are evil and need staking.
So this isn’t much different. Everything feels normal, now that he’s settling into this new normal. He still has his job, but for the first time since they went to college he feels part of the group again. He’s useful for more than just driving and delivering stuff the girls need. Buffy’s taking to the flash-step thing with ease, and the whole trick of flexing her reiatsu is perfect for getting the vamps to settle down for an easy kill (though there was that one time she’d accidentally knocked out everybody next to the graveyard, but if there was one thing Buffy was good at besides picking up on combat techniques easily it’s learning from her mistakes).
A little infuriatingly, Buffy’s much better at recovering from that sort of thing, too, which she doesn’t hesitate to use against him when they spar. It’s probably the fact that she’s not fully human, that Slayers are just a little bit weird. Hikari-san gets even more intrigued by that, though he reminds her no matter how many times they ask Giles-san for answers he’s no more likely to have any. Apparently, that’s something that the Watchers’ Council way back when didn’t bother to document—or, Xander thinks more probably, that’s the sort of secret only jerks like Travers have their hands on. Giles-san is kind of not the most high-rank, so it might be an inner circle taichou sort of deal.
And no, Miss Sword, it is not a good idea to invade Watchers’ Council HQ for some knowledge, even in spirit form. It feels like they’d have some way to notice and some sort of ghost-prevention measures. She assures him Shinigami are less in danger from such things than your average Whole (their word for ghost, which confuses him until he figures out it’s just a contrast to a Hollow), but sees his point after a little while.
Willow asks him for a few lessons on kidou, and bullies him into teaching her a little, though she’s promised not to use it until she’s come up with a better solution than tea to replace spiritual powers. Hikari-san doesn’t believe her, to which he explains that she’s never broken a pinky promise with him.
She probably senses that he doesn’t fully believe, either, given that she’s latched on to his soul or something. It’s not that he thinks Willow would mean to break the promise, ever, but if there’s one thing that’s stayed constant, it’s her hungry curiosity. She’d taken the whole ‘knowledge is power’ thing and ran with it, only before Buffy that only involved great grades. Now it’s magic. Before the whole near-death experience, he’d not given it a second thought, caught up in his own head. Now, he can feel that hunger, and it makes him uncomfortable, because that kind of restless hunger reminds him of a Hollow. He doesn’t want to feel scared of Willow, or that he’s going to have to do something about her. Fortunately, she hasn’t noticed yet.
Tara is…well, Tara’s weird. Even with the explanation of ‘magic sword in my soul’, she’s still really shy around him, even though he’d asked and apparently she wasn’t stuttering in front of Buffy or Giles anymore. The aura or whatever she’d mentioned was still bothering her, only she doesn’t bring it up again, to him or to Willow. She’s not even scared of Buffy, who probably has more power than he does. Scratch that, no. She does. They’re fairly evenly matched when it comes to sparring, and if Buffy goes to Soul Society following her hopefully long-in-the-future death, she’ll definitely be Eleventh, by the way she glows at being able to go all out. Still, she’d frozen like a rabbit in front of a wolf when he’d gently confronted her with a simple question, so he’s reluctant to go any further.
And there’s Spike, who’s just started behaving really weirdly. He has to get his kicks from somewhere, but this is something entirely different. Where Xander’s concerned, anymore, he fluctuates between predatory, flirtatious (probably just to see him squirm), serious, amused, and, probably most concerning, what almost, almost, appears like worry.
Hikari-san is perfectly polite about it all. Sometimes she’ll get angry, but he figures it’s probably a not-human thing. Most vamps and demons seem to have an anger management problem, and while Hikari-san is neither of thost things, she is also not human. She eventually gets comfortable using him as a go-between to relay her comments to the Scoobies, and he hadn’t been kidding about her no longer being alone, which he can feel she didn’t fully believe and doesn’t know quite what to do with when she has it, to rely on other people. Part of him says he’s still just getting used to something else existing in his soul, while another part just suggests there’s something wrong.
There are moments he doesn’t fully remember. He seems to remember that Anya had showed up once, at some point, but he hasn’t seen her since, which almost makes him panic. When he tries to think back on what had happened in the conversation, he can’t entirely remember, just gets something that feels and looks blank. It’s not; there’s something there, but it’s vague and dreamlike enough he can’t even figure out if it hadn’t even happened in reality, just in his sleep. To be fair, his dreams have been a little weird lately, probably his brain trying to process the memories of a Zanpuktou as well as his own. Anya had decided so out of the blue that she wanted him. Maybe she’d decided that he wasn’t worth her time—fairly likely, since that’s the conclusion all the other romantic partners he’s had before now had come to.
Sure, Spike’s supposed to be there, now that he’s living in Xander’s basement, but there have been times where he’ll seemingly lose his memories there, too. Then again, he’s tired enough from the combination of work and patrol that he’ll sometimes just pass out when he gets home, so he tries to think it’s just that.
The whispers are a little disconcerting, particularly when they follow him into waking life (does it count as auditory hallucinations if he knows where they’re from?, he wonders, amused). They have to do with Hikari-san’s power—or maybe that’s just a Zanpuktou thing. They’re not human, after all. Who knows how a sword-spirit works? Aside from Giles-san, and he’s not going to ask about that and waste the man’s time.
“Earth to Xander!” Buffy waves from out on the water. He’d kind of hoped she’d wear a swimsuit, but no, she’d used one of her spare uniforms—she’d wrangled Tara into helping make something very like his own Shihakusho, only purple and flowery. It kind of reminded him—or Hikari-san—of someone, but this wasn’t the time to think about that further and space out when she was trying to get his attention.
It takes him a moment to realize she’s using flash-step on the water, that’s how she’s out there. At the moment, she’s just showing off.
“Look, you can’t keep pushing me like this. Not everyone recovers as fast as a Slayer,” he calls to her with a smile, but he runs to meet her, sinking slightly as he’s still in his body and using any powers while he’s in his body is a little problematic. He’d jump out, but he can’t afford to just abandon his body on a public beach. He’s still using it. Sometimes.
Out of the corner of his eyes, the surface of the water looks extremely shallow, like it’s right above a sand flat. But he blinks and that’s gone, so he ignores it. Just like everything else. Just like—
