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SLASH FIC: Through the Looking-Glass 5/? [BtVS/Stargate SG1]
Title: Through the Looking-Glass 5/?
Author: Feygan
Fandom: Buffy/Stargate SG-1
Pairing: Xander/Daniel
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Stargate: SG-1.
LiveJournal: http://feygan.livejournal.com
Home: http://www.darkgesture.com/fanfiction.htm
Summary: Xander jumps realities and ends up at Stargate Command.
.
Watching Xander in the gym had somehow become Daniel's guilty pleasure. There was just something so fascinating about a handsome young man flexing his muscles and being almost ridiculously healthy.
Daniel lay back on the bench and watched Xander's arm muscles bulge as he pulled the handles of the weight machine. "So, ah..." Daniel swallowed a little excess saliva, thinking that maybe the room was just a little too warm for comfort. "How long have you been studying magic?"
Xander kept up his breathing as he worked. "Around seven years."
"Um..." Daniel looked at his hands twisting in his lap. He really didn't know what he should say, since he wasn't a hundred percent sure that what he was feeling was the right kind of thing for the moment.
The breakup with Jack had been a hard one, not just because it was a confirmation that their love had meant next to nothing in the long run, but because it had tried to take their friendship with it. The minute the sex stopped, the conversations had dried up and it had finally gotten to the point where he and Jack couldn't be in the same room anymore without snapping at each other. So even though he *liked* Xander, he didn't know if he could go through that kind of pain again. It was just too much too soon after years of bad things happening.
Thinking about it, every lover he had had since joining the SGC had had something horrible happen to them, though at least Jack had managed to come back. So he was a little leery about starting something with Xander just to have to watch the younger man die or be taken over by a goa'uld.
It just didn't seem worth it.
"What?" Xander asked, looking at him.
Daniel shook his head, something that almost pretended to be a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "Nothing."
And really, what could he say about the horrible kind of luck he had with relationships? It was better just to pretend that what he was feeling for Xander didn't exist. If he tried hard enough, maybe the feelings would fade and they could just be friends without all the harder things dragging them down.
Yeah.
* * *
She could feel herself slipping out of her skin, melting away. Soon there would be nothing left but the pure, unadulterated power that drove her. Soon the walls between the worlds would crumble and the earth itself would shatter as she was shattering until there was nothing left. Soon...
Willow covered her face with her hands, drawing in a shuddery breath, trying to hold herself together. It was taking all of her energy just to keep the bulk of her magic in check, and she knew she wasn't doing a very good job of that. Her control was slipping badly.
"Xander. Xander. Xander."
Chanting his name gave her a tiny bit of strength. Just enough that she wasn't pacing around the room, gnawing her fingers to the bone. Just enough that only her eyes were black and she wasn't out eviscerating random strangers. Just enough that she wasn't completely flying off the handle, just a little bit.
"Xander. Xander. Xander."
He was her control, the ying to her yang. Without him, she was nothing, so lost and alone in a world that was too small to contain all the damage she could do.
It hadn't always been like this, she knew that. Once upon a time, when she was young, everything was different. *SHE* was different.
The fight with Glory, when she had absorbed all the power to take on a god, had done more to her than she had ever guessed it would. If she had known what the consequences of her actions would be, she probably still would have done the same thing, but she would have been more wary, understanding better the kind of sacrifice she was making.
.
IMAGE: "Come on bitch, is that all you got?" Glory taunted, blood streaming from her nose.
"No," Willow said. "That was only a taste. And now you're going to eat this."
Words flowed from her so fast that they were nearly a meaningless blur, shaped by the magic she was pouring out, transformed into something almost tangible. Pure power roared through her as she tapped into the very essence of the universe, warping it to her desires, bending it to her will.
Glory may have been a goddess, but not even she was able to withstand the lava-like cascade of distilled destruction Willow focused on her. Primal forces of the cosmic divide streaming through Willow and outward, wrapping Glory up so tightly that she couldn't even scream as it consumed her, burning through her physical flesh to the godly core within.
Willow could feel that power, as it passed through her, warping the channels of her magic, changing her in ways she couldn't comprehend yet. And she didn't care.
There was something oddly glorious about this, having the power of everything inside of her, knowing that in this place and time she was the focal point of the universe, the reason why everything existed. If she wanted, she could reach out her hand and crush worlds as easily as she used to crumble dirt-clods as a child. There was nothing that could stop her.
"This is where you say bye-bye," she said mock-sweetly.
The look on Glory's face was amusing as the goddess was ripped apart to nothing, even her base elements utterly destroyed. There was no trace of her anywhere, no particle of being left behind for a chance evolution. There would be no future reformation for her. The goddess was more than dead; she was decimated.
And standing there in all her victory, the power still swirling around and through her, Willow knew it wasn't enough.
Over the years that she had helped Buffy fight evil, she had realized that each villain was exponentially more powerful than the last. From blood hungry vampires to reality-destroying goddesses, things had only been getting steadily worse, and somehow she knew it was only going to continue on that way, each situation worse than the last until finally they lost once and for all. And there was no way she was going to let that happen, not when she had this much power inside her right now.
"I can make it all better," she whispered, her voice hissing and cracking.
"What do you mean? Willow, you did it, it's all done. No more Glory. Witchy-Willow saves the world, yay team!"
She turned her head to look at Xander. Some past version might have been sad at the way he jerked back at the look of her, but right now she didn't care. "It's not over. It's never over. But I'm going to make it all different, you'll see. The world will be a much better place."
"What do you mean?" Xander asked nervously, sudden suspicion creeping into his eyes and voice.
She smiled and knew it wasn't a nice expression. "I am going to shape the world into a better place to be. And I'm going to start by wiping out all of the vampires."
Drawing on more energy, she began to form her power into a spear of light a cleansing balm that would vaporize everything that didn't belong in the world she saw in her mind. It was surprisingly easy to do and she had to wonder why she had never tried before.
Then Xander was standing next to her, his hands held out in front of him in a "hold" gesture. His own magical power surrounded him in a light golden glow as he tried to comprehend the vast working she was undertaking. "Willow, please, stop," he begged, his eyes burning to black at the last word.
She could feel his meager power fluttering against her, trying to hold her back. It was laughable. Pathetic. "Why?" she asked, her voice as cold as an arctic wind.
"This isn't right," Xander said. "Please, I need you to be my Willow again."
"I am your Willow," she said. "And right now, your Willow is about to make the world a better place. No more demons. No more evil in the human soul. It's so easy, so clear. All I have to do is think it, and the world will be perfect once again, a paradise, heaven as it was always meant to be."
Xander shook his head. "No it won't be. I know we fight vampires and avert apocalypses, and sure, people we know and love die everyday, but... If you make the world 'perfect,' then it won't be the world anymore, don't you see that? You'll take out of people the very thing that makes them human... free will. And Willow, you don't have that right, no one does."
She snorted. "And how are you going to stop me, huh? I love you Xander, but you can't do anything to stop me now."
Creating an image in her mind, she began focusing her consciousness to make it happen. More power flowed through her, filling her almost to the point of bursting, and she drew more, more, and more.
Peripherally she was aware of the tears Xander shed, but in this moment she really didn't care, she had a job to do. And she knew that when it was all over, Xander would be grateful for what she did. He might not understand right now, but he would. Even if she had to make him.
With the bulk of her concentration on controlling the raw power she was using and twisting it to her will, she didn't quite see what Xander did, but it made her scream.
Xander's arms were wrapped tight around her and she could feel his face pressed into her back, his forehead digging into her spine. His hands were burning through her flesh, ripping through her rib cage until her heart was cupped in the palms of his hands. The the pain really began.
That power she had been handling was suddenly being sucked out of her almost faster than she was drawing it in. Somewhere, she could feel the universe compressing, everything drawing tighter together as this reality prepared itself for the imminent implosion, the end of everything.
Then it was over.
She collapsed to the ground in a faint, dimly feeling Xander go down with her.
.
In the here and now, she knew that what Xander had done then was the right thing. He had stopped her from making a horrible mistake, because no matter how much power she wielded, she was not a god and never wanted to be one. It was not her right to force the world to change to fit her whims.
Xander had saved her then by what he had done and she had never held it against him, not really.
But now it was killing her. He was gone and she was alone, torn in half, her soul left to trail around in tatters and tangles. He had taken the best parts of her with him when he left the world. He had taken her Xander.
"Xander. Xander. Xander."
Curling up in a fetal ball on the couch, pressing her cheek tight against the upholstery, she used every ounce of her being to try and maintain her control. But she could feel it slipping around the edges, little things happening, tiny micro events that highlighted how long she didn't really have without her Xander.
Somewhere, a flower bloomed then withered in a second. Somewhere, a stopped heart began to beat again and a man that was supposed to be dead pounded his fists against the lid of his coffin until he suffocated and died again. Somewhere a little boy fell down the stairs and bounced at the bottom, rising unhurt. Somewhere a woman screamed for help as she suddenly burst into flame. Somewhere a vase shattered into a million pieces with no warning. Somewhere a tornado roared through a town killing dozens. Somewhere a baby drew a single breath before suddenly crumpling into ash on his mother's chest, aging in a moment from life to beyond death. Somewhere...
A thousand different things happening all over the world as she tried to hold herself in check, tried to contain herself even though she had no real kind of control. It had been burned out of her when Xander had done what needed to be done back on that day six years ago.
Because with the merging of their souls, they had split themselves into pieces, each of them holding half of the whole.
Xander was control. Willow was power. Xander was heart and soul. Willow was mind and spirit. Together they were one single being that existed in two shells but on one cosmic wavelength.
Willow was a primal entity, she knew that. Elemental in a way no human was ever meant to be. But as long as she had Xander, everything was all right. He was her control, and without him she had no way to really stop her instinct to destroy.
Male and female. They were one, wrapped tightly together, the Soul Binding spell Xander had performed to bring her back to herself doing so much more than anyone had ever thought it would.
And without Xander she felt raw inside, burnt and crumbling around the edges of the wound where her other half had been torn from her.
"Xander. Xander. Xander."
* * *
"So this is the place, huh? I'm real impressed... not."
Willow rolled her eyes. "Come on, Buffy. This is a top secret military base. Do you really think they would just leave the goodies at the front door for people to wander by and ogle? Every thing's under the mountain."
"Still," Buffy crossed her arms, "they could have done better."
"I'm sorry folks, but this is private property. You are going to have to turn around and leave right now," the soldier standing gate duty said. His hand had drifted down to his holstered gun and he was looking at them with an almost paranoid level of suspicion that put the Scooby Gang on alert.
Years of patrolling on an active Hellmouth fighting the forces of evil had given them a well-tuned danger meter. And there was definitely something hinky going on here.
"Look, we need to talk to someone in charge," Buffy said.
"I'm afraid you're going to have to leave," the soldier said.
"Can you please just call someone, corporal?" Xander said.
"That's not going to happen. Now, turn your vehicle around and leave the premises immediately."
Faith sighed heavily. "The mini-mes need some chow. Can we pick up the pace here already and just call someone in charge without an argument."
The corporal made some kind of gesture at his partner still in the booth and Willow had a sinking suspicion that some kind of panic button had been pressed. Things were about to get a bit messier than she liked.
Great.
TBC...
Author: Feygan
Fandom: Buffy/Stargate SG-1
Pairing: Xander/Daniel
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Stargate: SG-1.
LiveJournal: http://feygan.livejournal.com
Home: http://www.darkgesture.com/fanfiction.htm
Summary: Xander jumps realities and ends up at Stargate Command.
.
Watching Xander in the gym had somehow become Daniel's guilty pleasure. There was just something so fascinating about a handsome young man flexing his muscles and being almost ridiculously healthy.
Daniel lay back on the bench and watched Xander's arm muscles bulge as he pulled the handles of the weight machine. "So, ah..." Daniel swallowed a little excess saliva, thinking that maybe the room was just a little too warm for comfort. "How long have you been studying magic?"
Xander kept up his breathing as he worked. "Around seven years."
"Um..." Daniel looked at his hands twisting in his lap. He really didn't know what he should say, since he wasn't a hundred percent sure that what he was feeling was the right kind of thing for the moment.
The breakup with Jack had been a hard one, not just because it was a confirmation that their love had meant next to nothing in the long run, but because it had tried to take their friendship with it. The minute the sex stopped, the conversations had dried up and it had finally gotten to the point where he and Jack couldn't be in the same room anymore without snapping at each other. So even though he *liked* Xander, he didn't know if he could go through that kind of pain again. It was just too much too soon after years of bad things happening.
Thinking about it, every lover he had had since joining the SGC had had something horrible happen to them, though at least Jack had managed to come back. So he was a little leery about starting something with Xander just to have to watch the younger man die or be taken over by a goa'uld.
It just didn't seem worth it.
"What?" Xander asked, looking at him.
Daniel shook his head, something that almost pretended to be a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "Nothing."
And really, what could he say about the horrible kind of luck he had with relationships? It was better just to pretend that what he was feeling for Xander didn't exist. If he tried hard enough, maybe the feelings would fade and they could just be friends without all the harder things dragging them down.
Yeah.
She could feel herself slipping out of her skin, melting away. Soon there would be nothing left but the pure, unadulterated power that drove her. Soon the walls between the worlds would crumble and the earth itself would shatter as she was shattering until there was nothing left. Soon...
Willow covered her face with her hands, drawing in a shuddery breath, trying to hold herself together. It was taking all of her energy just to keep the bulk of her magic in check, and she knew she wasn't doing a very good job of that. Her control was slipping badly.
"Xander. Xander. Xander."
Chanting his name gave her a tiny bit of strength. Just enough that she wasn't pacing around the room, gnawing her fingers to the bone. Just enough that only her eyes were black and she wasn't out eviscerating random strangers. Just enough that she wasn't completely flying off the handle, just a little bit.
"Xander. Xander. Xander."
He was her control, the ying to her yang. Without him, she was nothing, so lost and alone in a world that was too small to contain all the damage she could do.
It hadn't always been like this, she knew that. Once upon a time, when she was young, everything was different. *SHE* was different.
The fight with Glory, when she had absorbed all the power to take on a god, had done more to her than she had ever guessed it would. If she had known what the consequences of her actions would be, she probably still would have done the same thing, but she would have been more wary, understanding better the kind of sacrifice she was making.
.
IMAGE: "Come on bitch, is that all you got?" Glory taunted, blood streaming from her nose.
"No," Willow said. "That was only a taste. And now you're going to eat this."
Words flowed from her so fast that they were nearly a meaningless blur, shaped by the magic she was pouring out, transformed into something almost tangible. Pure power roared through her as she tapped into the very essence of the universe, warping it to her desires, bending it to her will.
Glory may have been a goddess, but not even she was able to withstand the lava-like cascade of distilled destruction Willow focused on her. Primal forces of the cosmic divide streaming through Willow and outward, wrapping Glory up so tightly that she couldn't even scream as it consumed her, burning through her physical flesh to the godly core within.
Willow could feel that power, as it passed through her, warping the channels of her magic, changing her in ways she couldn't comprehend yet. And she didn't care.
There was something oddly glorious about this, having the power of everything inside of her, knowing that in this place and time she was the focal point of the universe, the reason why everything existed. If she wanted, she could reach out her hand and crush worlds as easily as she used to crumble dirt-clods as a child. There was nothing that could stop her.
"This is where you say bye-bye," she said mock-sweetly.
The look on Glory's face was amusing as the goddess was ripped apart to nothing, even her base elements utterly destroyed. There was no trace of her anywhere, no particle of being left behind for a chance evolution. There would be no future reformation for her. The goddess was more than dead; she was decimated.
And standing there in all her victory, the power still swirling around and through her, Willow knew it wasn't enough.
Over the years that she had helped Buffy fight evil, she had realized that each villain was exponentially more powerful than the last. From blood hungry vampires to reality-destroying goddesses, things had only been getting steadily worse, and somehow she knew it was only going to continue on that way, each situation worse than the last until finally they lost once and for all. And there was no way she was going to let that happen, not when she had this much power inside her right now.
"I can make it all better," she whispered, her voice hissing and cracking.
"What do you mean? Willow, you did it, it's all done. No more Glory. Witchy-Willow saves the world, yay team!"
She turned her head to look at Xander. Some past version might have been sad at the way he jerked back at the look of her, but right now she didn't care. "It's not over. It's never over. But I'm going to make it all different, you'll see. The world will be a much better place."
"What do you mean?" Xander asked nervously, sudden suspicion creeping into his eyes and voice.
She smiled and knew it wasn't a nice expression. "I am going to shape the world into a better place to be. And I'm going to start by wiping out all of the vampires."
Drawing on more energy, she began to form her power into a spear of light a cleansing balm that would vaporize everything that didn't belong in the world she saw in her mind. It was surprisingly easy to do and she had to wonder why she had never tried before.
Then Xander was standing next to her, his hands held out in front of him in a "hold" gesture. His own magical power surrounded him in a light golden glow as he tried to comprehend the vast working she was undertaking. "Willow, please, stop," he begged, his eyes burning to black at the last word.
She could feel his meager power fluttering against her, trying to hold her back. It was laughable. Pathetic. "Why?" she asked, her voice as cold as an arctic wind.
"This isn't right," Xander said. "Please, I need you to be my Willow again."
"I am your Willow," she said. "And right now, your Willow is about to make the world a better place. No more demons. No more evil in the human soul. It's so easy, so clear. All I have to do is think it, and the world will be perfect once again, a paradise, heaven as it was always meant to be."
Xander shook his head. "No it won't be. I know we fight vampires and avert apocalypses, and sure, people we know and love die everyday, but... If you make the world 'perfect,' then it won't be the world anymore, don't you see that? You'll take out of people the very thing that makes them human... free will. And Willow, you don't have that right, no one does."
She snorted. "And how are you going to stop me, huh? I love you Xander, but you can't do anything to stop me now."
Creating an image in her mind, she began focusing her consciousness to make it happen. More power flowed through her, filling her almost to the point of bursting, and she drew more, more, and more.
Peripherally she was aware of the tears Xander shed, but in this moment she really didn't care, she had a job to do. And she knew that when it was all over, Xander would be grateful for what she did. He might not understand right now, but he would. Even if she had to make him.
With the bulk of her concentration on controlling the raw power she was using and twisting it to her will, she didn't quite see what Xander did, but it made her scream.
Xander's arms were wrapped tight around her and she could feel his face pressed into her back, his forehead digging into her spine. His hands were burning through her flesh, ripping through her rib cage until her heart was cupped in the palms of his hands. The the pain really began.
That power she had been handling was suddenly being sucked out of her almost faster than she was drawing it in. Somewhere, she could feel the universe compressing, everything drawing tighter together as this reality prepared itself for the imminent implosion, the end of everything.
Then it was over.
She collapsed to the ground in a faint, dimly feeling Xander go down with her.
.
In the here and now, she knew that what Xander had done then was the right thing. He had stopped her from making a horrible mistake, because no matter how much power she wielded, she was not a god and never wanted to be one. It was not her right to force the world to change to fit her whims.
Xander had saved her then by what he had done and she had never held it against him, not really.
But now it was killing her. He was gone and she was alone, torn in half, her soul left to trail around in tatters and tangles. He had taken the best parts of her with him when he left the world. He had taken her Xander.
"Xander. Xander. Xander."
Curling up in a fetal ball on the couch, pressing her cheek tight against the upholstery, she used every ounce of her being to try and maintain her control. But she could feel it slipping around the edges, little things happening, tiny micro events that highlighted how long she didn't really have without her Xander.
Somewhere, a flower bloomed then withered in a second. Somewhere, a stopped heart began to beat again and a man that was supposed to be dead pounded his fists against the lid of his coffin until he suffocated and died again. Somewhere a little boy fell down the stairs and bounced at the bottom, rising unhurt. Somewhere a woman screamed for help as she suddenly burst into flame. Somewhere a vase shattered into a million pieces with no warning. Somewhere a tornado roared through a town killing dozens. Somewhere a baby drew a single breath before suddenly crumpling into ash on his mother's chest, aging in a moment from life to beyond death. Somewhere...
A thousand different things happening all over the world as she tried to hold herself in check, tried to contain herself even though she had no real kind of control. It had been burned out of her when Xander had done what needed to be done back on that day six years ago.
Because with the merging of their souls, they had split themselves into pieces, each of them holding half of the whole.
Xander was control. Willow was power. Xander was heart and soul. Willow was mind and spirit. Together they were one single being that existed in two shells but on one cosmic wavelength.
Willow was a primal entity, she knew that. Elemental in a way no human was ever meant to be. But as long as she had Xander, everything was all right. He was her control, and without him she had no way to really stop her instinct to destroy.
Male and female. They were one, wrapped tightly together, the Soul Binding spell Xander had performed to bring her back to herself doing so much more than anyone had ever thought it would.
And without Xander she felt raw inside, burnt and crumbling around the edges of the wound where her other half had been torn from her.
"Xander. Xander. Xander."
"So this is the place, huh? I'm real impressed... not."
Willow rolled her eyes. "Come on, Buffy. This is a top secret military base. Do you really think they would just leave the goodies at the front door for people to wander by and ogle? Every thing's under the mountain."
"Still," Buffy crossed her arms, "they could have done better."
"I'm sorry folks, but this is private property. You are going to have to turn around and leave right now," the soldier standing gate duty said. His hand had drifted down to his holstered gun and he was looking at them with an almost paranoid level of suspicion that put the Scooby Gang on alert.
Years of patrolling on an active Hellmouth fighting the forces of evil had given them a well-tuned danger meter. And there was definitely something hinky going on here.
"Look, we need to talk to someone in charge," Buffy said.
"I'm afraid you're going to have to leave," the soldier said.
"Can you please just call someone, corporal?" Xander said.
"That's not going to happen. Now, turn your vehicle around and leave the premises immediately."
Faith sighed heavily. "The mini-mes need some chow. Can we pick up the pace here already and just call someone in charge without an argument."
The corporal made some kind of gesture at his partner still in the booth and Willow had a sinking suspicion that some kind of panic button had been pressed. Things were about to get a bit messier than she liked.
Great.
TBC...