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Hellfire Tales: Could Have Been Worse-- adult 30stm/BtVS/MCR Xander/Matt 5/7
full header & part 1 || part 2 || part 3 || part 4





“Shh, shh,” Xander murmured groggily at Matt's movement. He'd ended up having to call and have Tara come back over, and call Wes as well. Matt had managed to dig cut deep enough on his palms with grabbing the chain that none of them could quite figure out if he'd managed to cut tendon partially or not. Andrew had followed over, because he'd been working on a new batch of some salve or another. Andrew suggested summoning Doc Bidlow's spirit since they probably needed a doctor. He'd seen Rose walking and solid and she'd declared she was pregnant the best her or Aggie could figure out. Andrew had wanted to know where the ghost named Aggie was hiding and had gaped when it was pointed out Miss Vine's name was Agatha. Xander kind of thought Andrew was right that Miss Vine having any kind of nickname, even Aggie was kind of bizarre but Miss Vine and Rose had known each other well over a century.

Hellfire's corporeally challenged population increased by one. Doc Bidlow was a pension age looking half bracchen and liked the idea of patients. He was a benign sort, his partner in the medical practice, Dr. Klein had treated the ones Doc Bidlow refused to. Dr. Klein didn't care to treat hunters or slaves so it evened out well enough. The two had bickered their beliefs peacefully enough, having had the sense to make sure they had heavily warded sanctuary peace spells on their offices and the attached hospital, and their apartments above. Philosophical disagreements stayed merely philosophical, not blood matches. Though he was relieved Klein had moved or passed on, which ever it might be.

Doc Bidlow giving the instructions, they managed a second salve/oil combination that he declared would have Matt's hands and wrists in perfect shape inside three days, the drawback was the oil was soaked in gauze wrapped around Matt's hands into something resembling boxing gloves and couldn't come off.

“Timizzitjay?” was mumbled into Xander's neck.

Xander turned his head to look at the clock on the nightstand. The glowing numbers said 3:25. He felt blindly for the remote which as usual was tangled in the covers by his hip. Infomercials “About Three thirty in the morning. Your hands were pretty screwed up. We spent most of the day yesterday on them. Should be all better and back to one hundred percent by Tuesday but, got to keep them wrapped like they are, can't even change the bandage.”

“Fuck-” Matt jolted.

“I ended up calling Tara back, and then Wes, then Andrew and we ended up summoning Doc Bidlow.” Xander said quietly. “I had you tucked in and covered up. No one looked at anything but your hands and your wrists, sheets and blanket were up to your armpits wasn't nothing to see but your hands. Who's Jay?”

“I-fuck. Ex.”

“Ex because of this?”

“No. We split about four months ago. I-“ Matt kinda sounded like he'd rather take a beating than talk about it.

“Don't want to talk about it?”

“I fucked up. I think I really fucked up. Shit was-all screwed up but...fuck. Don't suppose it matters-it was over, I ended it four months ago.”

Xander nodded tiredly. “Doc doesn't want Rose feeding again like she did to get you sane. Isn't all that sure about Devon feeding again soon either. Not even ciphoning. Rose-is definitely pregnant. She didn't want to find out what the sex was with the spell but Doc told me in case you wanted to know...” Xander said tiredly. “Gonna have to get the curse settled...”

“I can't even fuckin' piss standing up without help with these..” Matt muttered. “Hell I don't think I can get pants up and down even sweats, or fuckin' feed myself.”

Xander sighed. “Yeah. But look at it this way, slept through one day. It's Sunday, only have to go til ten Tuesday night. Just over two days. Not like months of it or something.”

“How-fuck”

“Mmm. Pretty much have to stretch myself and ride you. They're working out on sorting what specifically is going on with what was put on the stone for spellwork and how the hell it's going to misfire with two men. Oz called-about nine, last night when we were wrapping your hands up. Took a bit to brew the stuff for them. Harry thinks she knows someone.”

“Harry and she?”

“Dr. Harriet Doyle. She's one hundred percent boring normal human without any magic and an ethno-demonologist. She's staying at the Whisky Rose until she can get her stuff moved here. Her plans for a visit kinda did a one eighty when she found out Doyle was resurrected by Willow.”

“Doyle?”

“Harry's ex husband. He's half Bracchen and a Champion's Seer. Died a hero nine or ten years ago. Willow struck again. The PTB are making noises about casting Cordelia down and gods only knows what she'll end up if she does. She went and had a royal hissy at them over a few things. I guess Harry said they could share a place here, if Cordelia comes back human, ghost or demon. We actually get Doyle away from Willow-poor bastard and get him here, he gets to put up with his ex wife and his ex girlfriend being roommates.”

Matt choked.

“Any rate Harry thinks she knows someone she can ask about the stone and what was put on it, what we're dealing with. But everyone that knows a damn thing or managed to reasearch anything since Friday night are all agreeing the sooner the better. You in your right mind when we do it might mitigate the out of control on the possessive a bit. Might not. At any rate, the more rational and deliberate the better they're agreeing, even for how the spellwork's cemented. It's not quite finished yet-not til we...consumate this. “

“No way to undo it?”

“Not for at least fifteen thousand years, which, does us no good.”

Xander hesitantly tightened his arms around Matt. He didn't know how that would be taken or accepted. Really knew absolutely shit about the guy except Tara really liked what she saw in his aura, and Xander himself thought Matt was a pretty decent guy, someone he'd've liked to get to know. Well, he would be now. They were pretty well stuck with each other.

He was having a hell of a time wrapping his mind around the universe's latest round of 'let's fuck with Xander' and he was used to being the universe's butt monkey and getting screwed over. He had been up to his eyeballs in the weird since high school. Despite having a hunter way back in his family tree and a however many greats uncle dumbass enough to make deals with demons and sell off his sisters to save his own ass, Matt hadn't known shit about anything until he'd landed right in the middle of this.

Xander sighed. “Should-get this over with while you're with it.” He winced now didn't that just sound so fucking wonderful. “Gotta get the Cleveland kids from Tahoe this afternoon. There's something feeding on kids in Cleveland. Little kids that have power-magic or baby slayers.”

“Slayers-“

“A slayer is a mystical warrior way back they were created by a bunch of shamans to fight demons. Wes actually coughed up there used to be some others along the lines of Slayers but Slayers were the only line they managed to keep track of and maybe the other lines died out. Used to be there was only one Slayer at a time. The one girl in all the world that had the extras to fight vampires-the Vampire Slayer actually is what Slayer is short for. One girl died, the next was chosen. Got the superpowers-strength, speed, able to sense vampires and demons, throw a weapon at them and they could use it. Training to actually master it yeah but toss anything at them and they could instinctively use it from a knife to a grenade launcher. Every once in a while a girl had prophetic dreams. I screwed it up way back. Buffy drowned and was revived with CPR, so Kendra was called. A vampire named Drusilla killed Kendra. Faith was called.”

“When Buffy died the second time, closing a portal to a hell dimension, Hellgod named Glorificus was behind that apocalypse. Willow kinda went nuts and the hellmouth was out of control so she resurrected Buffy, convinced us we had to.”

Xander frowned trying to remember. Willow had been so convinced Buffy was trapped in a hell dimension. He'd never given it much thought. Willow's arguments made sense and made him sick at the thought of Buff in a hell dimension, and he'd been so busy with work, that was about the time he'd been bumped up to foreman, then project manager and overseeing how many crews. At the time he-hadn't thought a damn thing of it. Hellmouth was going crazy, he was functioning on about six hours sleep a freaking week between patrols, work, watching out for Dawn and Anya's unrelenting sex drive. Nothing like looking back and wondering how much of that, how much of everything was Willow's doing. Willow's obsession with fixing and happy-making and knowing what was best for everyone around her.

“Bringing Buffy back set loose the First Evil. There's a thing called the Slayer's Scythe, what the original spell that created the Slayers was tied to. And Willow used that to activate all the potential Slayers. Whole balance of everything has been out of whack since then. Used to be the status quo. Keep the world from ending. Keep the demons contained to their places, they've got communities, they feed on humans, thrall humans. Losses on both sides but basically most of humanity happily oblivious and sucks holding the status quo it was better than the alternative. Every thing's still all screwed up. Instead of one or two apocalypses to stop a year-last year there were fifteen. What ended up on the ruby that's-kinda our marriage certificate and we've both got on our chest now-slayer's scythe is part of it. My half. The slayer's scythe and the sword. Wes figures it's probably from Adam, we did a joining spell that gave Buffy all our power to defeat a cyborg demon-yeah, cyborg demon, with a nuclear reactor power source in his chest. A nutjob bitch funded by the military figured out demons were real and was trying to play Frankenstein building super soldiers with demon parts. The first Slayer's spirit got pissed and woke up and tried killing us all in our dreams. Me, Willow, Buffy, and Giles. Somehow that stuck I guess, enough that the scythe is part of my half of the mark, the sword-best guess is Angelus naming me the Slayer's White Knight way back and it stuck in certain circles. Rose said your hunter grandpa way back had a tattoo like the snake, it's not Quetzalcoatl but something like him. Probably some story or tradition there. All she knew was what he actually said when he was drunk enough to let a little slip. That it was the guardian of his family and the ones that ended up hunting demons all had a tattoo like that for generations.”

Xander winced. “And I'll try to stop babbling now.”

Matt was so still against him Xander didn't know what to make of it. Maybe he'd finally broken the poor guy's mind.

“The little girls you bought?”

“One slayer, two with a little bit of mojo. The rest were just normal little girls. Giles was lucky he was in England and I was in Africa when he had a shit fit I wasted too much money, the only one I was supposed to get was the Slayer. The rest weren't our problem. We didn't have the money or resources to bother with mortal evil.” Xander grated out. Just the thought of that still made him see red. His team had recouped the 'utter waste' of the money though. Put every penny and more back in the Africa teams operating fund. “Sometimes you have to chose. Let innocents die to have the warriors in place to stop the worst...but that wasn't one of those times.”

“You've done that?”

“Hell, I've hand picked who was going to die. First time was stopping a demonic ascension at our high school graduation. Giant snake demon-when it first emerges it needs to feed a lot. Whole bunch of snacks all gathered to watch commencement ya know. We...I picked. Kids I'd known since kindergarten. Who would buy the most time. Last the longest against hell breaking loose to get all the grandmas and grandpas and little brothers and sisters the hell out of the way to get the demon into the trap-which was the school. Got it into the school and blew it and the school sky high. I picked who was going to die because they'd buy us an extra five seconds to get in place. Even worse, they fucking knew they were dead when I picked them. Saving the world makes for a fuck of a lot of nightmares and insomnia to avoid the nightmares.”

Xander waited out Matt's quiet trying to keep his own mind from chasing off after the slightly faded faces of those who had died at Graduation, and how many more since.

“Get this over with...is it gonna help? I mean?”

“Keep you sane as long as you speak up when the possessive starts getting wound up again. None of them seemed to think it was going to have a chance in hell of settling down until you're back at a hundred percent and can-er-well, own me properly is how Rose put it. But yeah, got to do something before you lose it and you permanently fuck up your hands and your wrists.”

“Sex part of this is going to be-permanent?”

“Probably, unless one of us gets a magical sex change and has a half dozen kids or more, it might settle down then. Or maybe if we each manage to father a good seven or eight kids apiece. Yeah, there's going to be a next generation fighting, but I'd rather not breed the army myself. Especially not with prophecies involved. Tara-if, when she ever asks, wants a kid I'd consider but...” Xander sighed. “This spell's managed to knock up a ghost so far. Pretty much a given that, sleeping with anything female is going to end up in another kid.”

“Kid...fuck. Is it going to be human?”

“Yeah, she's gonna be at least half.” Xander said softly. “She'll probably have to feed like Dev does-just absorb the energy, ciphon it off, not full-on feed and fuck til you're almost comatose like Rose did to get you back in your right mind. Bright side, succubus and incubus natures usually don't manifest completely that the need for feeding is there until somewhere between eighteen and twenty.”

“You probably coulda while I was out...” Matt said wryly.

“I wouldn't.”

“I get nuts enough to hurt you use that powder shit and do.” Matt swallowed. “Don't let me...”

Xander tightened his arms around Matt, nothing more than reflex at how fucking wrecked the guy sounded. He was holding it together better than anyone had any right to expect him to. “We'll figure it out.”

“How-I mean..just...too fucking weird.”

Xander rubbed Matt's back a little. “all that's really necessary is-well, penetration and you getting off from it.”

“NO” Matt snarled.

“Shh, shh,”

“No. Not-you well, get off too. Fuckin' doubt either of us enjoy this but...”

Xander's answer was to carefully roll them, which put Matt mostly under him. “We'll deal.”

“No it's going to be okay?”

“What fucking reality do you live in? In mine that's a guarantee of things going straight to hell. We'll deal.”

Matt nodded. Dark eyes scared and pained. Xander awkwardly leaned his head down for a kiss as bandaged hands slowly moved around him to rest on his back.

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