"Evening Falls"
by Niklarus
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all characters and places from it belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and the WB Network. Collinsport, Maine and the members of the Collins family belong to Dan Curtis, Dan Curtis Productions and MPI Video. No copyright infringement is intended. Hannah Harris belongs to me.
Note: Thoughts are enclosed in {}.
Xander Harris breezed through his entrance to his home, leaving the main door open while the screen door slammed shut behind him. In one fluid motion, he flung his bookbag into the corner of the foyer and brushed back his unkempt black hair with the same hand.
With a quickness born from years of dodging bullies he'd annoyed with his comments, he made his way past the steps and towards the kitchen, yelling "Mom! Dad! Do we have any chocolate left?"
The sound of husky, feminine laughter coming from behind him stopped him in his tracks and made his blood run suddenly cold. {Okay, it can't be vampires. Still daylight. If it's Marcie, I'm in real trouble.}
"Some things never do change," the voice said. "Do they, Baby Brother?"
His fear dissolving instantly, Xander whirled around too fast and stumbled, nearly toppling to the floor before he regained his balance. "Hannah!" he exclaimed, a broad grin exploding across his face at the sight of his older sister standing just six feet in front of him. "How? What? When?"
"Toss in 'Who, where and why?' and you'll have all six of the basic questions, Double-B."
"Actually, I don't even THINK those three questions about family. It's just this real 'ick' factor."
Hannah Harris threw back her head and laughed. Her bright blue eyes twinkled and her shoulder-length black hair flew wildly as she shook her head in amusement. Using her right hand, she brushed some wayward strands back over her pale yellow blouse.
"C'mere, you. Give Big Sister a hug." They each took a step forward, meeting in the middle and embracing fiercely. When they let go, Hannah took a step back and looked at her little brother appraisingly. "Looking good, Baby Brother. How many girls have you been beating off with sticks lately?"
"Does it count if they're vampires and the stick is a stake?" he tossed out too quickly, the joking tone of his words not quite covering his underlying disappointment and hurt.
"It can't be that bad," Hannah replied, trying to reassure him.
"You really HAVEN'T been home in a while," Xander shot back. "You know how everyone has this one really hot teacher that they go completely brain-dead for? Mine turned out to be a psycho-killer. And Buffy.... Well Buffy said she likes me because I'm 'one of the girls.' You're right, Hann. It's not that bad. It's worse." His shoulders slumped as the sudden rush of anger and frustration left him as quickly as it had entered.
"That...couldn't have been good for the ego," she said sympathetically. Then she stiffened as she realized what he'd said before that. "An actual killer? Did she --?"
"I'm fine, Hann. Really. She never laid a finger on me." {Those serrated claws, on the other hand...} "It's only my love life that's DOA"
"Look, don't worry. Just keep being your cute, witty, fun-loving self and this Buffy won't be able to help falling for you."
Xander rolled his eyes. "You've been hitting the diet soda again, haven't you? You know what Nutrasweet does to you, Hann," he said, wagging his finger in mock-chastisement.
"I've NEVER needed Nutrasweet to believe in you, little brother. Now, before your cheeks turn red enough to knock Rudolph off Santa's sleigh team this year, what did you need the chocolate for?"
"I'm meeting Will at Buffy's for a pizza, chocolate and movie marathon. Don't tell me Mom and Dad ate it all."
"Actually, 'eating' really wouldn't be the right word to use."
"Well, if they didn't eat it.... I don't want to know this, do I?"
"Considering that we're talking about our parents who went to your fifth grade Christmas pageant dressed as Borg, what do you think?"
Xander groaned. "When you go back to Collinsport, can I go too?"
"Sorry, Double-B, I don't think the courts will take 'Our parents embarrass him' as a reason to give me custody."
"How about 'Sunnydale is infested with demons, vampires and witches'?"
"We've got politicians in Sunnydale? When did this happen?"
"Right after your last visit," Xander quipped. "There was this huge battle with lots of flaming swords and crosses and holy water. And then there was the peace treaty. And now one of them is our principal. And now that I've mentioned visits"
"What am I doing here seven months before my Christmas vacation? It's a good thing I'm here. Your segues are getting weak. But we can fix that," Hannah teased, completing her brother's thought.
"I'm not complaining. I mean, I'm thrilled. Are you going to be here a while?"
"Only a week. Collins Enterprises is getting into the direct-order computer market and I'm here to help finalize our purchase of the old CRD building. It's gonna be the manufacturing plant. When you see Willow, tell her I'd like to talk to her. Mister Collins – Barnabas, not Roger – promised me she could have a summer internship next year when I told him about her. But don't tell her that. I want to spring that surprise myself."
"That's great, Hann! Will'll love it. I'll tell her when I meet her at Buffy's later. Are Mom and Dad bringing back any chocolate from wherever they are this time? I need something to take over."
"Try a small nation first," she quipped, waggling her eyebrows at him.
"Only if it has a chocolate factory."
"Damn it!" Hannah swore, a look of dismay dropping suddenly over her face. "I completely forgot! Mom and Dad want the four of us to go have a family dinner at Bartolino's tonight."
"Bartolino's is actually letting them back in?!?" Xander exclaimed, clearly stunned.
"They must be under new management."
"That apparently doesn't know Mom and Dad were banned for life three years ago."
"Tell you what, Double-B, to make up for having to let them embarrass you tonight, I'll take you Bronzing after we get back. We can tear the place up Harris-style."
"Didn't they pass a law against the use of phasers on a crowded dance floor?" he asked, barely suppressing a smirk.
"Resistance IS futile, Baby Brother," she tossed back.
He grinned goofily at her. "Whatever you say, Locutus." He paused, grinning again. "God, I missed this."
"I missed you too, Alexander. Now you just call Willow, then get ready. By the time you're done, I'll have your nomination for sainthood all filled out and ready to be mailed. God knows, the fact that you're still living here says you've earned it."
A wicked smile spread quickly across his face. "Hannah, I think I just had an idea."
** ** **
Three Hours Later
Xander popped open his garish, bright orange and yellow clip-on tie and stuffed it in the left-hand pocket of his lime green, short-sleeved, button-down shirt. In contrast to the unintentionally bad combinations he often wore to school, the bad fashion sense of THIS outfit was quite deliberate. The white suitcoat and fluorescent blue pants completed the horrific ensemble. His parents' antics had embarrassed him one time too many over the sixteen years of his life. Now it was payback time. Absently, he rubbed the outside of his jacket in the area over the inside pocket, reassuring himself that the stake, cross and holy water he'd put there when he was dressing hadn't fallen out somewhere during the evening. Living on the Hellmouth, it never hurt to be prepared.
Walking next to her brother as they stepped out of the restaurant and into the parking lot just a step ahead of their parents, Hannah was shaking from constantly fighting the laughter that had been building up inside of her all night. "Talk about revenge of the fashion-deprived."
"Don't you mean fashion-depraved', Hann?" he responded, smiling back at her.
"That too. My god, Xander, this just screams clown suit designed by committee!'"
"I am not a committee, Hann," he squealed in mock indignation. "My teachers think I should be committed, but that's SO not the same thing."
"I've worked with committees at CEI, Xand. There's not as much difference between being on one and being committed as you think."
Xander's laugh died in his throat as he saw the two men approaching him and his family from across the street. {Vampires} he thought, recognizing the younger looking, scruffier one with the torn red shirt, black leather jacket and blue jeans as the one who'd fled from Buffy a couple nights before after she'd dusted his three companions. The other one was slightly taller, heavier and reminded Xander of nothing so much as a biker. {There's no way Mom, Dad and Hannah can get to the car before the fang patrol gets here. Not unless I draw them off.} Reaching into the interior pocket of his suitcoat, he pulled out the bottle of holy water and unscrewed the top.
"What's wrong?" Hannah asked, seeing a wall of fear and resolve successively drop over Xander's face.
"These guys are trouble, Hann. Big time. Get Mom and Dad to the car while I try to make them go away," he whispered. Saying that, he crossed to his left, cutting in front of her at a light jogging speed, hoping that the holy water wouldn't spill.
Hannah turned in the direction Xander had run off in just in time to see the men's faces go from human to fanged and demonic. {Vampires? In Sunnydale?}
Gina Harris watched as her son headed off towards the two strange men who were coming their way. She didn't like the looks of them and from Xander's reaction, she could tell that neither did he. "Hannah, what's going on?"
Hannah spun around to face her parents, mentally tossing off a prayer that the four of them would survive the night. "These guys tried to mug one of Xander's friends and it looks like they're after us now. Get to the car while we put them down. Now!"
"Are you crazy? You could be hurt or killed," Gina said.
"If I don't, then Xander WILL be hurt or killed. Besides, I live in Collinsport. You learn how to deal with these things out there. Now get to the car! I don't have time to argue." Much to her surprise, they listened, running to their car. She opened her purse and quickly rummaged through it, pulling out the stake and cross she always carried with her these days.
Xander reached the vampires first and swung the open holy water bottle out in front of him. The liquid struck the bloodsuckers squarely in the face. The biker vamp, who'd taken the brunt of the splash, covered his face with his arms and staggered about, screaming.
Tossing aside the empty bottle, Xander reached into his pocket and pulled out the stake. Gripping it tightly, he grabbed Biker Vamp by the back of the jacket with his other hand and yanked down with all the force he could muster even as he drove the stake upward. Biker Vamp exploded into dust as the stake found its target.
With a roar, Red Shirt Vamp lurched forward and backhanded Xander, knocking him to the ground. Vampiric blood oozed from the angry, red burns where drops of the holy water had struck the undead's face. He hauled Xander to his feet and delivered two heavy headbutts that stunned the teenager. Attempting to headbutt him yet again, Red Shirt's face instead smacked right into a handheld crucifix that had found its way between them. Smoke billowed off the vampire's demonically animated flesh for a full two before he realized why he was burning.
He stumbled backwards, howling in agony. His hands clutched at his face where the five inch by three inch, cross-shaped burn was still smoking. {That didn't happen when Sheriff Patterson's men found Daphne Collins in that barn. It just forced her to back off.} Hannah thought. She advanced on the vamp and lashed out with a kick to the groin. He fell to his knees in such pain that he was unable even to scream. Backhanding him with the cross, she knocked him to the ground.
Xander, having finally shaken off the effects of the headbutts, ran over to the thrashing vampire. Showboating for his sister, he leapt into the air and drove the point of his elbow down into its throat. He then grabbed it around its shoulders and held it down.
"Stake him! Quick!" he yelled. Hannah nodded, switched the stake into her right hand and the cross into her left, then knelt down on the ground and drove the point of the stake through Red Shirt's heart. Xander found himself pitching forward as the shoulders he was holding down turned into dust beneath him. "Ow!" he yelped as his palms scraped the blacktop of the parking lot. He shook his head and looked over at Hannah. "See. I told you watching pro wrestling would help me live longer."
"You're sick, Xander. You need help."
"Xander, Hannah, what's going on here?" their mother asked, running up to them. "Are you all right? What were those things?"
A fleeting thought flashed through Xander's mind. {Buffy is SO not going to like this. Neither is Giles.}
"I thought Hannah told you to get to the car! You could've been killed. If there was more than two of them here, you would've been." He sighed deeply. "I'll – I'll explain everything when we get home."
** ** **
Ninety Minutes Later
Xander lay back on his bed in his usual sleeptime attire, a loose T-shirt and gym shorts, his eyes closed and his hands clasped behind his head. As the soft musical strains flowed from his CD player, he tried to relax. Country music may have been his first and only choice when he was hurting, but when his heart was pounding and his nerves were stretched too thin, it was this one artist that always calmed him down. This he kept secret even from Willow. {Ah, Enya. The music of peace.}
"You decent, Baby Brother?" came Hannah's voice from his doorway.
"C'mon, Hann. Even the completely sarcasm-impaired could pull a comment off that. At least give me a challenge."
"Ha," she laughed, stepping into the room. "You mean explaining to Mom and Dad how you got involved with a Vampire Slayer wasn't enough of a challenge for you?"
"I am not involved with Buffy. I just dream about it. Nightly. Which I REALLY shouldn't be talking to my sister about so I'm not going to be talking about it so I'll just be not saying anything. At all. Completely. I mean it." He shook his head. "I really thought they were gonna get me a one-way to go live with you. Not that I would've minded. Except for missing Willow. And Buffy. And the whole Slayerette' thing. Not to mention making nasty comments about Cordelia."
"Admit it, Double-B," Hannah interrupted. "You know you love it here."
"Here? The Hellmouth? Where every strange thing in every fairy tale Mom ever read to us actually comes calling like the Avon Lady from Hell?" He shrugged. "Maybe. You know, Hann, I thought they were gonna faint when you told them about Collinsport and your boss' family. Did that vampire lady really take that long to die? All the ones I've seen just turn to dust like that," he said, snapping his fingers.
"Maybe there's more than one kind of vampire. Why don't you ask that librarian tomorrow?"
"Yeah," he whispered softly, his mood shifting without warning.
"What's wrong, Xander?" she asked, sitting next to him on the edge of the bed.
"I miss him, Hann. Sometimes I'll be helping Giles research and I forget for a second and I'll think I gotta show this to Jesse.' Then I remember. I held the stake that killed him, Hann. He was my best friend and I killed him."
"Oh, Xander," she sighed, pulling him up into a sitting position and turning his head to face her. "It wasn't him." Xander tried to turn away, but she caught his head and turned it back to her. "It wasn't him, Xander. It was a demon using his body and it was going to kill you and Cordy Chase. You did the right thing, Xand."
"He never tried to kill me, Hann. Not really. Not that last time. I got him off her and held the stake on him and he never attacked me." His voice dropped even lower. "What if he was still in there, Hann? What if the demon couldn't kick him all the way out and he was in there when I – when I killed him?"
"If he was, Xander, I know he wouldn't have wanted to stick around with that demon running the show, never able to break free of it. And what if he wasn't in there?" she asked soothingly. "What if the soul of everyone who becomes a vampire is just out there somewhere, never able to rest until the demon in its body is destroyed? What if that's where Jesse was, suffering because he couldn't move on. Either way, Baby Brother, you set him free to go on to Heaven. And I just know he's been looking down on you and going Nice job, bud.'"
"Really?" Xander asked, blinking away the tears in his eyes that were threatening to flow.
"I knew him as long as you did. You're putting it on the line every night you go out there with Buffy. I know Jesse'd be proud of you." She hugged Xander tightly, letting him rest his head on her shoulder until he was ready to let go. Standing up, she looked tenderly down on her brother. "Get some sleep. You'll need it when you introduce me to Buffy tomorrow."
"Good night, Hannah."
"Good night, Xander."
"Hannah, I – I know I don't tell you much, but I – I love you, sis."
"I love you too, Alexander. And don't worry about it. You're not alone. None of our family is good at saying that."
"Good night again, Hann."
"Good night yourself, John Boy."
Xander chuckled softly as his sister walked out of the room and flipped down the light switch, bathing the room in darkness. Minutes later, he peacefully fell asleep to the sound of Caribbean Blue.'
THE END
