stillrose | Breaking Free (29/many?)

Title: Breaking Free (29/many?)
Fandom: BTVS; Spike/Xander
Warnings: Slash, AU, Sci-fi, mild-Violence, bit of Dom kink
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Lt. “Xander” Harris and Captain William the Bloody have both suffered and lost in the on going war between the Biogens and Council. Now, Xander finds himself a prisoner of Captain William the Bloody (aka Spike). What will be Xander’s fate?

Sorry this took sooooooo long. I meant to write every day of my vacation but my muse refused to cooperate. I finally wrestled and wrangled her to the ground today. Hope all my fellow yanks had a happy Turkey Day. :) To the Brits ( I know it's late) Happy Guy Fawkes day...and to everyone else...hope all is going well.

Previous parts here.

As always: Feedback make my heart go pitter-patter.

“Sometimes we can’t control what happens to us but…”

“..it’s about the choices you make when it happens,” Xander finished.

Angel nodded. Xander sat back down on the cot and stared at Angel.

“Tell me about the changes,” Xander finally said. “Tell me about being a Biogen.”

Spike once again paced his way across the bridge.

“By my count that makes you’re twenty-forth circuit,” Wesley said as he checked their course. On their current heading, they were only two ship rotations out from the Wash colony.

“Who asked ya?” growled Spike.

“Just making conversation,” Wes replied.

“If I wanted to have a bleedin’ chat I’d start one.”

“Well perhaps I do. Perhaps I find it distracting to have my captain glowering and pacing incessantly.”

“Sod off,” snapped Spike as he flung himself into the captain’s chair.

“You could at least have the decency to get drunk and lock yourself away if you are going to be an…,” Wes started as he turned away from his console to face his friend and captain.

“Can’t. On a mission,” Spike interrupted.

“Never stopped you before,” Wesley observed.

Spike looked up and met his nav officer’s gaze. Wes returned the gaze.

“Don’t have the heart for it,” Spike finally confessed. “Drunk or sober I miss him, Wes. Drunk or sober I’m worried about wot’s happenin’ to ‘im and wot he’s thinkin’….”

Spike looked away. He curled his hands into fists and took deep breaths.

“I could give you platitudes and the rote ‘It’ll be ok….,’”

“Please don’t.”

“I could,” Wes continued, “but I won’t. What I will say is that Alexander LaVelle Harris is one of the most remarkably loyal individuals I have ever met. When all is said and done, I just do not believe it is in him not to at least give you a chance to explain your decisions.”

“Including leaving him?”

“Including leaving him,” Wesley assured. “Besides, given what I also know of Angel, I am sure it will not take Xander long to figure out how high-handed your mentor can be.”

Spike snapped his gaze back to Wes and quipped, “You have no idea, Wesley. You have no idea.”

***

Angel sighed. How to begin? He wondered. Well…, Angelus started to whisper an answer and Angel ignored it as he walked over to the other side of the room, grabbed a small chair and placed in a corner of Xander’s cell. Angel sat down and looked at Xander.

“’Once upon a time’ is always a good start,” Xander said. “Surprisingly less cliché then ‘It was a dark a stormy night.’”

“Fred’s best at all the science and the technical details,” Angel began. “She’ll be able to tell you exactly in what ways your body is changing. I can tell you the ‘generals.’ The stuff you haven’t already figured out. The nanites are reproducing inside of you and regenerating you. They are following their programming…”

“To make me bigger, meaner and maybe just a tad blood thirstier?” Xander interrupted.

“That’s all up to you, Xander,” Angel replied. “How ‘blood thirsty’ you want to be.”

“You must have been parched then.”

“Once,” Angel sadly acknowledged. “You have to understand, Xander, Biogens didn’t have parents. We had investors, inventors and owners. We were brought up with a mental program designed to make us obedient, easy to control and to keep our emotions in check. We had collars placed on us to reinforce that programming.”

“Spike told me a little about it,” Xander admitted. “But I don’t see how….”

“How it applies to you? Don’t you, Xander? The nanites enhance everything about you. Don’t you think they’d enhance your emotional responses too?”

Xander frowned.

“Right now you are a raw power house. You get angry; you react. Your body and the nanites will react even faster than your conscious control can keep up with…”

“I don’t understand…”

“Think Xander,” Angel said looking earnestly at Xander. “Think about how you felt when arguing with Spike. Think about how you felt just before you took a part my office upstairs.”

I felt hurt, Xander thought. I felt betrayed. I felt scared.

Xander’s breathing grew heavier.

“Think, Xander!” Angel ordered. “Don’t feel.”

Xander looked at Angel and concentrated on remembering the events without bringing his emotions into it; but he couldn’t. I’m a Biogen! Xander thought. I am the enemy! I have “things” inside of me; changing me! Spike, did this to me! Spike did this and he lef….

Xander’s heart began racing and his breathing grew faster. Once again he could feel the strange sensation of his face shifting and changing.

“Xander!” Angel growled, “Learn to control what is happening to you or these emotions and reactions will control you!”

Xander took a couple of deep breaths. I am Alexander LaVelle Harris. Xander thought to himself. I’m Lieutenant Xander LaVelle Harris. I’m Spike’s pet! Slowly Xander began to feel the changes recede.

“That’s it, Xander,” Angel soothed. “That’s it.”

Xander focused his gaze back on Angel and took a few more deep breaths. Xander felt calmer and the changes rushing through him cease.

“That’s part of what being a Biogen is, Xander,” Angel finally said as Xander was back to normal. “You have to keep the enhanced side of yourself in check unless you really need it.”

“So what? Walk around never feeling anything?” Xander asked half afraid the answer would be “yes.”

“No,” Angel replied only half wondering if it was true in his particular case. “You just have to learn a new level of control you didn’t have to worry about before. Your body is enhanced and all the hormonal spikes and valleys bring with it an entire new set of reactions then it used to have. You need to learn what those are and master them…,”

“Is that what the war was all about?” Xander asked as he pinned his gaze on Angel’s face. “Was it all just a big Biogen temper tantrum?”

Angel wiped his face with his hand and sighed. “Xander, it was a little more complic…”

“Explain it to me,” Xander demanded.

“Xander….”

“I’m a Biogen now, right? Don’t I have a right in knowing about this war? About why you started it? How it got started?”

Angel finally returned Xander’s gaze. “I’m not sure this will help with your control.”

“Risk it.”

“How much did Spike tell you?”

Xander took a deep breathe. Xan-man, practice the control, he thought as he anger surged through him thinking of what Spike had suffered while being a Biogen controlled by the Council: controlled by Quentin Travers.

“Quite a bit,” Angel answered his own question as he watched Xander’s struggle for control play across the young man’s face. Xander finally nodded.
“Did he talk about me?” Angel asked.

“Not so much,” Xander replied.

Angel stood up and began to pace. “I was Quentin’s enforcer.”

“Enforcer?”

“His top Biogen. I was in charge of security and all the Biogens Quentin…owned.” Angel almost spat as he said the last word.

“Ok.”

“I was good at what I did, Xander. I was the best. I was designed not to be just muscle for Quentin but to have brains enough to keep his ‘house’ in order. While Travers could present the civilized and polite face to the world and the rest of the Council I could do and arrange for all his dirty work and with Quentin there was a lot of dirty work.”

“That still doesn’t…”

“It was my idea that Quentin buy Spike,” Angel ignored Xander’s interruption. “I was too well known and too closely associated with Travers to be an assassin. I saw Spike and knew he had the potential. I was the one that suggested the sale to Quentin.”

Xander clenched his fists. If I didn’t have reason to hate you before, Xander thought while he struggled to breathe deeply and keep calm, I do now.

“Spike was every bit as brilliant as I could have imagined. He moved flawlessly. He was quick and efficient. I must confess, sometimes I hated his efficiency. See, I enjoyed it when one of Quentin’s enemies died; not because they were his enemies but because they were human and if I couldn’t kill Quentin I could kill them.”

“What?” Xander asked. “I thought you were under their control.”

A stunningly beautiful and cold smile passed over Angel’s face as he paused his pacing. “That’s what they thought too. The truth was, Xander, I was different from the very beginning. I was never the perfect Biogen Travers thought I was. I seethed and I hated. The mental programming had always been just ‘noise.’”

“I don’t un...”

“The only thing that kept me under control, Xander,” Angel whispered almost seductively, “was the collar. Before Biogens were sold we were each given a ‘taste’ of the pain the collar could inflict. It was the final lesson to ensure we were obedient. In my case it worked. I behaved, endured Quentin and bided my time…”

“Endured?” Xander interrupted before he could stop himself. Oh ghods! Xander thought Travers didn’t!

“I worked for Quentin a long time before Spike, Xander,” Angel said simply. “Travers enjoyed the power trip. He really loved the ‘Thank you, sir’ at the end.”

Xander gripped the edged of the cot and focused on his breathing to keep from losing control as hate, revulsion and nausea swept through him.

“You know, that was the one flaw I saw in Spike,” Angel confessed.
“What?” Xander wheezed as he kept working on controlling the emotions raging in him.

“Spike, actually believed all the programming. He actually meant it when he ‘thanked’ Travers.”

“Shut up,” Xander whispered not wanting Angel to speak about Spike like that.

“Spike was a true believer,” Angel continued, “and I couldn’t let that be.”

“You couldn’t?” snapped Xander.

“No, I couldn’t. I didn’t. I…” Angel paused, looked at Xander and then resumed pacing again. “I…changed his thinking.”

“How?” Xander asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Angel replied.

“It doe…”

“Do you want to hear how the war got started or not?” Angel growled.

Xander narrowed his eyes and studied Angel. What other secrets between you and Spike are you hiding? Xander thought. He then nodded his head.

“One day Travers sent me on a mission. I was supposed to be buying some information on a rival member of the Council. Information Spike and Dru would use on their next mission for Travers.”

“Dru?” Xander asked. Were they together even then? Xander wondered. Surely that wouldn’t have been allowed.

Angel stopped pacing again and stared at Xander. “Anything you have to ask about Dru, you ask Spike. You have a right to know about her but their story isn’t mine to tell.”

Once again Xander silently nodded.

“Anyway,” Angel resumed his story and pacing, “the mission was a setup. Instead of being a buy it was a trap.”

“A trap? For what purpose?”

“To give Quentin a bit of his own,” Angel replied. “The assassination feelings were mutual. Quentin Travers wanted Darla Masters dead and Darla wanted Quentin dead. Darla set up a trap for me and I fell right into her hands.”

Xander’s stomach lurched when Angel mentioned Darla Masters. Darla Masters, she was the Council woman who rallied the troops at the beginning of the war! She kept the Council from falling apart.

“And what did she hope to gain by that?” Xander finally asked.

“Access,” Angel replied.

“Access?”

“Access to Quentin. I was his enforcer, after all.”

“But how would that hel…”

“Darla, had this idea. Tamper with Travers most trusted Biogen and let him kill Travers.”

“Tamper with?” Xander just stared at Angel. “How?”

Angel once again paused his pacing and stared at Xander. “She disabled my collar.”

Xander paled. She couldn’t! She… Xander felt his face slip.

“Control, Xander,” Angel gently said. Xander fixed golden eyes on Angel.

“What happened next?” Xander growled.

“Darla didn’t just remove my collar. She ‘tempered’ me as she put it. ‘Temper’ is a much more lady like word then torture. Still, her idea was to train me in a very short time to bend to her will, then she would disable my collar, send me to kill Travers and then I’d wait quietly until she came back and enabled my collar again or killed me.”

Xander’s head reeled. Darla the early hero was the mother of this carnage!

“There was only one small flaw in her plan. One tiny, pygmy sized problem,” Angel continued. “The collar was the only thing keeping me in check no matter the mental conditioning inflicted on me.”

Angel paced back to his chair and casually sat down. “’Twas given a man everythin’ he wished for in disablin’ my collar,”

Xander focused back on Angel.

“I gladly went back to Travers and I happily killed ‘im. Happily killed his family and every single human in service to ‘im,” Angel recited with a smile. “That is after I disabled the collars on the other Biogens in service to Travers. As much as I’d loved to do all the killin’ myself, it wasn’t practical. Besides, would have been selfish. Don’t ya think?”

Xander felt a chill go down his spine. Angel’s voice was thick and heavy with an unfamiliar accent.

“Angel?” Xander asked.

“Now,” Angel replied with another stunningly beautiful but frightening smile. “But then I was Angelus and I reveled in bein’ free of my leash. When we were done with Travers I was hopin’ ta go back and thank the lovely Darla fer her graciousness; but it seems she’d become averse ta my company.”

“So you just started killing randomly?”

“Randomly! No! There was a precise art to it! First killed everyone who I ever knew had done business with Travers; which was easy considerin’ I had the password to all his personal accounts. Which also meant I had access to his wealth until the Council froze them. We went after other Council members; specifically those with access to ships and other means of interplanetary travel. It was glorious, Xander! Spike was at my side and together we were slaughterin’ every human in sight and freein’ every Biogen. For every lash, for ever r…wrong doin’ a human died. We’d never known such freedom! We were the doom of humanity and were celebratin’ it!”

“Stop it!” Xander shouted as he felt his face morph and stood up. “Stop rejoicing in the deaths! Yes, you were treated horribly and maybe Travers deserved everything he got but not everyone else! You killed thousands! Did they all do you wrong! Many humans didn’t even own Biogens!”

Angel laughed. “Didn’ matter, Xander! What does right or wrong mean when you have hatred surgin’ through your veins while you have the means and the ways to carry yer passions out, eh?”

“It does matter!” Xander found himself staring furiously down at Angel who still lolled in the chair.

“Does it?” Angel asked staring back up at Xander. “How do you feel right now, Xander? Angry?”

“Yes!” Xander clenched his fists.

“And why don’t you strike me?”

“Because…,” Xander struggled to think. “You aren’t the same person you were then and…Spike believes in you...”

“Because you don’t think it’s the right thing to do and you are trying to keep control,” Angel said cutting through Xander’s excuses. “You’ve been brought up to understand that just because you have feelings doesn’t mean you can act up on them. You were taught feelings are ok and natural but that they do not justify the natural actions you instinctively want to take with those emotions.”

“So what? You are trying to blame your actions on your lousy childhood? I’ve heard that one before, Angel. Biogens didn’t have parents so forgive them if they are psycho killers,” Xander snarled.

“Xander, we not only didn’t have the tools to deal with those emotions we had tools that enhanced those emotions! We were wind up dolls set in motion,” Angel tried explaining.

“And that excuses it?!” Xander yelled.

“You wanted to know how the war got started,” Angel simply said.

“I was right, “ Xander said as he began to calm down and backed away from Angel. “It was nothing more than a temper tantrum.”

“You still aren’t getting it,” Angel said.

“What is there to get, Angel? You were hurt, angry, wanted revenge and when you had the chance you went for it. You reveled in it and now for some reason you’ve had enough you want to stop it. However it just doesn’t work that way. Now there are consequences to the actions you took and whether or not you’ve had your fill of the war the humans haven’t.”

“Do you want to know how I did it?” Angel asked as he slowly stood up from the chair.

“Did what?” snapped Xander.

“Got through to Spike. Broke through his perfect mental conditioning,” Angel replied.

Xander’s eyes narrowed. There’s a trap here, Xander thought. “How?”

Angel took a step forward. “I took the same liberties Travers did.”

Xander’s world went yellow and he launched himself at Angel. He felt his fist connect with Angel’s face.

“Spike, fought me,” Angel continued as he blocked Xander’s next punch, “Seems, his master was allowed but not his master’s dog.”

Xander rushed Angel and slammed the larger man into the bars of the cell. Angel’s head bounced loudly off the metal.

“When Spike complained,” Angel huffed as he threw a punch into Xander’s left kidney, “Quentin had him punished for disturbing him over something so trivial and then made it quite clear that as Travers’s enforcer I could have Spike when I wanted.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Xander hissed as he grabbed Angel’s head and slammed it into the bars in three successive blows. Angel stumbled and fell to the floor.

“Spike finally understood,” Angel said as he curled in a ball as Xander kicked him. “Do you?”

“Do I what?” Xander roared as he picked up the downed man and flung him across the cell.

“The emotional override? The seduction of the power surging through you?” Angel wheezed.

“I only understand you’re a soulless fuckin’ Biogen and I’m going to kill you!” Xander screamed as he once again pounced on Angel. Xander picked Angel up and once again slammed him into the bars.

Angel grabbed Xander and reversed the throw painfully slamming the younger Biogen into the metal bars.

“Really, Xander?” Angel hissed into Xander’s face. “Then what? After you kill me what?”

“I’m going to destroy everything you ever touched! Xander yelled as he attempted to punch Angel who quickly blocked the punch.

“Including Spike?” Angel asked.

“You never touched him!” Xander yelled as he kneed Angel.

“I did!” Angel wheezed and delivered an uppercut to Xander’s chin. “Oh I did! Not just in power or possession but as a lover.”

“Liar!” Xander screamed and slammed a fist into Angel’s kidney. “He’d never forgive you!”

“He did,” Angel said as he grabbed hold over Xander and pinned him. “Who do you think helped him find his humanity?”

“Dru!” snapped Xander as struggled free.

“He first learned about love from Dru,” Angel said, “but humanity?”

Xander screamed and charged once again slamming Angel into the bars. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you and I’ll KILL HI…!”

Xander went very still and stumbled away from Angel and then fell to his knees.

“Xander,” Angel softly whispered.

“No! Oh ghods! No!” Xander sobbed.

Angel knelt by Xander. “Xander, breathe and let it go.”

Xander looked at Angel. Slowly his face shifted and his eyes returned to watery and shimmery chocolate brown.

“It’s ok,” Angel said softly.

“It’s not!” Xander cried. “I wanted to…I felt…I….”

“But you didn’t and you wouldn’t,” Angel said. “Do you understand now?”

Xander nodded. I stopped because some part of me knew what I was saying…where I was headed was wrong…but if I hadn’t…If I didn’t know….Xander refused to finish that line of thought.

“How could he forgive you?” Xander finally asked.

Angel sighed and sat down next to Xander. “I don’t know.”

“I hate you,” Xander said with cool conviction.

“I know,” Angel said then sighed, “but now you know why Spike and I really never could have been…”

“Some part of him will never trust you,” Xander said.

Angel nodded and tried to hide his own shimmering brown eyes, “If it serves your sense of justice, losing Spike is its own punishment.”

“Do you honestly believe there’s punishment enough for what you’ve done?” Xander asked.

Angel turned and looked at Xander, “No. But hopefully there’s restitution enough and I plan on spending the rest of my life working toward that end.”

“By helping the colonies?”

“That and helping the Biogens find their humanity as well as end the war,” Angel answered. “And maybe by helping you.”

“Helping me?” Xander snorted.

“Xander, you’re beginning to learn about what you are now. You need to learn to control your Biogen side. You need to do that before Spike comes back.”

“Is he?” Xander asked softly.

“What?” Angel asked.

“Coming back?”

“Of course!” Angel said. “Xander, he only left because I didn’t give him a choice.”

“You…”

“Xander, what kind of scar do you think your relationship with Spike will carry if you lose control and you throw down with him like you’ve done with me?”

“I wouldn’t…”

“Wouldn’t you?” Angel’s piercing gaze demanded an answer.

Xander couldn’t meet Angel’s look.

“Xander, let me help you learn control then you and Spike can hash out what happened. Give yourselves a chance.”

“You had no right to interfere,” Xander said.

“I had every right,” Angel said.

“Why?” Xander asked.

“Because you’re both family and I’m not going to let you hurt each other.”

Xander met Angel’s gaze. He looked for deceit and found none.

“Biogens make their families, Xander. Spike became mine a long time ago and the moment he made you his; you became part of my family too,” Angel explained. “Whether we like it or not.”

“I already have a family,” Xander whispered. Willow! Buffy! Will I ever see you again? Will you want to see me?

“Isn’t there room for more?” Angel asked.

Spike, Xander thought. There’s room for Spike. Memories of The DeSoto crept into Xander’s mind and he realized there were others he could think of as family; Fred, Wesley, Faith and maybe even Gunn if Xander were under attack and short on ammo.

“Maybe,” Xander admitted.

Angel laughed.

“Anyone ever tell you were a stubborn whelp?” Angel asked.

Xander smiled and confessed, “Nope. Only a stubborn ‘git.’”

TBC in prt 30

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

lit-gal.livejournal.com

I love the emotional honesty here. Angel is the brooding tortured soul here, but seeing the pain he carries really makes me forgive him all the brooding. I think he cares more about hurting Spike than he does about all the humans put together. Now I'm all ready for the Spanderness to return. I have to say, though, that I'm with Xander about the whole reunion with Buffy and Willow. I suspect that's not going to be so pretty.

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...Beautiful "Boys"

Breaking Free (29/many?)

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