Cosmic Castaway

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Summary: Going through folders of old fic is interesting 'cause you never know what you're going to find.
I have literally no idea what's going on in this one.  I was going back through past files and don't even remember writing it.  I don't dislike it.  Mostly I'm just confused.
But for a slightly better summary: there's a character I don't remember dimension hopping.  Jae/Nick. He's looking for Alex boyfriend, only it's a darker Alex|Xan multiple personality he finds (Willow Tapes like, only not quite as friendly).  It's from December 2014.  I'd gotten to Volume III of Shadowed Suspicion at that point.  I'm including everything I have, and I don't even have notes on who anyone is or what's going on, so....this will remain a very confusing mystery for probably all time.  Name is from document title because it's a title.  Pretty sure Lilah actually is W&H Lilah.  I suspect this is one of the versions that has Abby as a sister.  This also might have been the beginning idea for the Self-Made Hero: The Infinity Mirror but.  I'm glad it ended up where it did, rather than here, because there's a lot that doesn't make sense (that being said, December during school probably means sleep-deprived nonsensical me, which might explain a thing or two).
Word Count: 2291
Rating: Teen (Xander is naked for no reason?  nothing even happens?  i don't know why that detail's there?  (though I'm pretty sure he gets dressed after talking to Lilah?)  someone gets thrown into prison for a bit? main characters are dead in this universe before it even starts? but may not have gotten the memo to stay that way?  dark universe? )

 

            Jump after jump, born in desperation, the flight of a refugee with nothing to look back to and a fervent, feverish wish for a happier, brighter future, clutching only on an icon of protection and attack.
            The last time Jae stumbled slightly, breathing in a stream of water and beginning to cough.  He was exhausted, but still clutched onto the dragon necklace like the lifeline it was.  He quickly wiped the water out of his eyes.  Had he arrived during the middle of a heavy downpour?  Where had he arrived, anyway?  It had been London, the past couple times, and that would certainly explain the rain, but…
            And then he made out the naked body in front of him.  He wanted to hug it to him tight, but of course it wasn’t actually his Xander.  Not the one he’d known.
            Xander turned around, blinked, and began screaming.  It probably was an indication of his exhausted mind that the first thought that ran through Jae’s head was ‘so he really does scream like a girl’.
            “W-wait!  Does this look familiar?”  He keeps his gaze from wandering—he doesn’t have the same permissions, here, that he did back home, back in a place that no longer exists.  Instead he holds the necklace before him like the talisman it is.  Maybe it’ll bring him back.
            “Give that back, thief!” Xander hisses, and it’s Xan.  Not Alex.  For most that would be a relief, but not for Jae.  If nothing else, Alex would be a little more willing to go along with things, just out of curiosity.  Xan tears the necklace from his hands, and instantly his eyes unfocus, and he falls to his knees, moaning.
            “Xander!”  He’d grab the man he loved, hold him, protect him, but that isn’t his place here.  Instead he drops, ready should he be needed.  Neither are concerned with the enthusiastic knocking somewhere in the distance.
            “What are you—” Xander gasps through the moans, attempting to drop the necklace through a death grip.  “What did you do?” he screams.  The way he’s clutching his head with the free hand resembles what happens when the two are having a headache, or a difficult transition.  “I’m not…”  He’s crying now.  Nick’s ready to cry himself.  The last thing he wants to do is cause Xander pain, but he’s following his love’s last wishes, finding another version of the man using the necklace, finding a place where he can belong, making up for the fact that their world is gone.
            “This is going to sound crazy…” a statement that is met by a strange groan that could, possibly, be a laugh, “…but you sent me to find you.  A different version of you, from a parallel dimension.  It was destroyed.”
            He’s met with broken, hysterical laughter that resembles that of a hyena more than a human being.  He stands, clothes drenched, uncertain.  The knocking has grown louder, but he ignores it.  “Please.  I’ve gone through so much to get here…”
            He’s not paying attention, so he only notices the shadow behind him seconds before it swings.  He catches the faintest smell of perfume before something hard hits him over the head, and he’s falling.

            “That guy didn’t hurt you, right?” Lilah asks Xander.  Despite the lack of interest he’s shown in her, he notices that she has no problem sneakily staring at his unclothed form.  She’d gone to the door to make sure the police carted off the intruder.
            “Nah.  Though I might have met him in the insane asylum,” he answers bluntly.  She flinches a little.  She always does when he mentions that time.  She’s told him time and time again that he’s paid his debts to society, that he doesn’t need to worry about it anymore, that maybe talking about it won’t be the best thing for his career, whatever he happens to choose. 
            In a rare fit of perverse stubbornness he’s pretty sure is lingering from Alex, he doesn’t hesitate to bring it up, when it arises.
            “Well, if so, the police will deal with it.”  She flashes pretty teeth, but actually goes outside the bathroom when he pushes her with not too much resistance—what she thinks is a playful amount of resistance, maybe, but.
            He runs a hand through his hair, breathing deeply again, and examines the necklace for a moment that stretched into the distance.  Here was a choice.  The ‘right choice’, supposedly, was pretty obvious.  But...
            “Goddess,” he exhales, long and slow.  He contemplates the necklace for another long moment.  Then he picks it up, bracing himself this time for the stream of images that even his brain can’t keep up with, and when it dies down a little, puts it on.  He walks to the sink, picks up the pill bottle and knocks one out.  He fills a glass of water, swirls it around, dumping the pill down the sink as he does so, then drains it in a few gulps.
            She’s waiting outside, impatient, and he manages a Xander-like grin.  “Sorry about that.  I had to take my meds.”
            Instantly, the impatience disappears.  “Right, of course you did!  I’m just worried about you.  After that creepy stalker.  Would you like to go bowling to work out your nerves?”
            He almost gives in.  Relaxing and forgetting sounds like just what the doctor ordered.  Of course, he’s kind of ignoring his doctor at the moment.  He made his choice, and he’s made it a personal goal to not go back on his choices.  Not after that day.  Otherwise, he probably couldn’t have continued to live with himself.
            “Sorry, today’s my shift.  I could call in sick, yeah.  But that’d be lying, taking the easy way out, and that’s of the bad.  I’ll get in touch with you later when I know what I can manage, okay?”  It’s not easy to get rid of her, but he does.

            Jae doesn’t think he’s ever going to see Xander again.  That’s why he ignores his visitor at first, figuring it’s his lawyer.  Until the man says “No, it’s okay, I just want answers.  If I need help, I promise to call for it, okay?”
            It’s Xan.
            He glances up, in shock, and with a wary look at him with his clearly criminal tendencies the police officer leaves the cell area.
            “X-Xan?” he asks, and gets a wan smile in return.
            “I’m not sure how long we’ve got, so try to make your story quick.  Explain to me what I saw.”
            Jae doesn’t think he can go through this, relive the last 32 hours again, but he does.  The suddenness of the apocalypse, the world literally disappearing before their eyes, Alex holding open the gates so his boyfriend could escape, and the worlds he’s seen since then.  Too many of them.  Too unlike his own.
            He manages to even keep it down to under a few minutes, as Xan glances warily at the door.
            His boyfriend’s not staring at him when he finally reacts.  “Goddess,” he hisses, with the same anger that had nothing to do with Alex in Jae’s world, hitting out at the wall hard enough it must hurt.
            The police officer returns immediately, probably having listened for any noises indicating violence the entire time.  He’s waved off insistently by Xander, and even if it takes a lot of convincing, eventually the officer leaves.  It strikes Jae that he doesn’t have his job anymore, that he might never put on the uniform again.  It’s a sad feeling, but at least it’s something specific, something he can deal with.  If he thought about the whole, everything that he’d lost, all at once, he very well might lose it.
            “What’s wrong?” Jae asks.  He’s shared, now it’s Xan’s turn.  That’s always how it’s worked, not that this guy would know that.
            “Oh, it’s just…I was doing better.”  The bitterness, harsh and unfamiliar, is back.  It’s a bit painful.  “Did I…Did he ever mention a sister?”  There’s a touch of longing in that voice he knows so intimately.
            He shakes his head.  “No.”
            There’s almost disappointment in the chocolate brown eyes, but it’s quickly hidden.  “Of course, that doesn’t mean anything, does it.  It’s a parallel dimension.  He might not have had one.  I don’t know if that’s better or worse.”  He takes a deep breath, then leans in, dangling his hands between his knees.  “I messed up, with my magic.”  He laughs, but it’s empty of joy or happiness, full of pain and torment instead.  “I killed Willow.  With magic.”  He bites out the words, tense all over.  Jae gasps, trying to keep back the tears.  “My sister—she forgot me.  Again, magic’s fault.  Better for her, really.”  He stares at his hands for one long second, then breathes out.  Jae hasn’t ever heard a breath full of that much burden.  Then he glances up, and the traveler’s shocked at the slightly sad but very real grin there.  “I was put on trial, but because I didn’t stop babbling about magic, I ended up in the insane asylum instead.  I got out for good behavior, and because I bought into it.  There’s no magic, no supernatural.  I forgave myself.  Just an accident, right?  I blamed Alex, shut him away like the doctors and psychologists wanted.  I got together a new life.  I was doing well, I was happy for once.  But of course, it’s me.  It couldn’t last.”
            “I can move on,” Jae offers desperately, not wanting to see his boyfriend, even an alternate universe version, this unhappy.  “Just do the spell, get me to the next point.  I’ll keep looking.”
            “Nope, not happening.” Xan’s grin, if possible, grows even bigger.  It’s not fake.  Jae can’t get over that.  That’s a very real grin on his not-quite-boyfriend’s face.  How can he be happy with this?  “You know me.”  He states this with certainty, even though, technically, this is only the second time they’ve met.  “I’m not Alex.  I don’t have a survival instinct.  I can’t just walk away, say this isn’t my problem and move on.  I can’t.”
            He stands, calls to the police officer.  “I’m dropping the charges.  It was a misunderstanding.  Let this guy out.”
            The police officer glares at them both now, but with him dropping the charges there’s not a thing the official can do.  Soon, they’re out, Xander by his side, and it almost, almost feels normal.
            “So, where to now?” he asks.  It sounds like Xan is a man with a plan.
            “A little coffee shop, which just happens to be in the occult part of town.  I came there a couple of times after getting out.  Seemed to appease Alex, a little, before I decided—or, really, was pushed into—trying to get rid of him completely.  I didn’t take my pills today, so Alex can pop out.  Whenever he feels like it.  Which might get violent, or not happen for a while.  Blaming him for everything, calling him the evil one, locking him away might have ticked him off, just a little.  They don’t bother too much about disturbances, so we can deal with that without drawing too much att—”
            Xander stops, eyes clouding over, head drooping just a little.  Jae knows the signs.  He waits.
            “He’s bloody right I might have a few grudges here!  Like I’m a dog to come when I’m called, kicked when I’m in the way.  It’s a cold day in hell where I’ll follow him around like a loyal pooch.”  The glare is turned on Jae, but he’s not intimidated.  He never has been, after all.  “Not going to just do tricks for you, either.  I’ve got a good trick for you.  It’s called ‘playing dead’.”
            Jae gives his best unimpressed face.  He’s been threatened by Alex before, and it doesn’t phase him anymore.
            Upon a lack of reaction, Alex soon grows uncertain.  “I killed Wils!  Why aren’t you cowering?”
            “I’ve just lost everything.  My world, my job, my boyfriend.  I’ve been flung between universes in the past thirty-six hours like some sort of cosmic castaway.”  He throws open his arms.  “You want to kill me, go ahead.  I have nothing to lose.”
            Alex blinks a few times before smirking.  “Now I see why I like ya.”  They begin walking again.  There’s no need for the coffee shop now.  He’s not sure where they’re going now, whether the plan has even changed, but Jae would follow Xander anywhere.  “What d’I call ya?”
            “My name is Nicholas Jayce Knight.  I know about the power of a name, but I trust you, and even if that’s a horrible idea I don’t really care.  I’m exhausted, I’m in pain, and one way or another I want this over.”  Now that it’s started to come together, he’s realized exactly how tired he is.
            There’s a thoughtful silence.  Then a curious English accent turns over the name.  “Nicholas Jayce Knight.  Nicky boy.”
            He tries to correct the other.  “He called me Jae…”
            “He isn’t here.  I am.”  Ah, there it is.  The fear of rejection, of comparing badly to another self.  Previously, only a problem with regards to personality, but separate Alex or Xan entities just make things worse.
            “What’re we going to do?”  He’s a part of this team, whether or not Alex wants that.
            “We are going to try to fix the world—it’s what you want, innit?”  The smile is the one anticipating chaos, a chance to stretch his abilities.  “To do that, we’re going to need to break another person out of the madhouse.  The Slayer.”

 

“She’s not…” For once, Alex is speechless.  For but moments.  After which he shakes his head and manages a smile.  “Of course she’s not dead.  Of bloody course.”