Part XXXI

            "How many do you want, Xander?" Ken asked as his hands expertly formed rounds from the raw meat mixture and squashed them into uniformly sized patties.

            "Uh, none, thanks," he responded, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and leaning against the refrigerator.

            Ling looked up from her sudoku.  "Are you sure?" she asked, her eyebrows raised knowingly.  "Ken makes fantastic turkey burgers."

            "Yeah, these burgers are fucking awesome, if I do say so myself," Ken said.  "I usually eat two, they're so good."

            "Yeah...I ate earlier," Xander lied readily.  "When I went for a walk."

            "Couldn't wait, could you," Darshan muttered as he turned the page of the newspaper he was reading.  He jumped suddenly, and Xander suspected from the way his jaw clenched that Ling had kicked him under the table.

            Cee just picked at her nails.

            Xander really had gone for a walk earlier, with the hunters' permission and a check of his shields, of course.  He'd badly needed to get out of the house, for it seemed that Cee's smoky scent now filled every corner of the old Victorian, an inescapable reminder of the way things had changed.  He'd simply left out the fact that he had walked right past his favorite diner instead of going in and stuffing himself silly, as he'd normally have done in a situation like this.  He'd managed to not eat a single bite since lunch on Thursday before Cee had woken up, and it was now Saturday evening.  The tea was working incredibly well.  While his stomach felt empty and was starting to make some strange noises, he had no desire to consume food.  In fact, the smell of it was even starting to nauseate him, he realized as Ken placed several patties onto the hot griddle and the scent of cooking meat drifted over to him.  He took a gulp of his water to distract himself, and found his eyes falling upon Cee as he drank.

            She was looking better.  Her coloring was normal again, and she was moving about with her usual exuberance, which somehow made his heart hurt even more.  If the way things were now could have been explained by her injuries and exhaustion...  He stared into his glass, his round cheeks and double chin mocking him in his reflection on the water.

            "Excuse me."

            He started, seeing her there standing in front of him, her eyes focused not on his face but on the refrigerator behind him.  Blushing, he mumbled an apology and moved away to allow her access.  She opened the door and poured herself another glass of cranberry juice, and turned and sat back down at the table.

            Xander saw Ling glance at him, then Cee, then back to him, her eyes narrowing slightly before she returned her attention to her puzzle.  He felt the beginnings of constriction in his airways and, before his panic could betray him, said, "I'm pretty beat, I'm just going to go up and read for a while."

            Ling frowned.  "Are you sure?  We were going to take a break from all the doom and gloom around here and watch a movie after dinner.  Something funny.  Do you want to come back down then?  We'll probably start it around ten thirty."

            "No, I'm...I'm pretty tired.  So, uh...goodnight, everybody."  He exited the kitchen before she could reply and made his way up the stairs, having to stop halfway to administer a few drops of Ling's kava blend.

            Xander shut the guest room door behind him and leaned back against it gratefully, his chest heaving.  Finally.  He kicked off his shoes and, with a slight cringe at the noise he knew the bed frame would make, placed his bulk upon the mattress.  Even though he was alone, everywhere he looked in the dim room, all he could see was her peridot gaze, avoiding him.  Please go away, he thought, clenching his eyes shut tight.  He lay back on the bed and grabbed a pillow to put over his face, vaguely wondering if it would be possible to suffocate himself with it or if he'd pass out too soon to finish the job.  His stomach churned and grumbled strangely, but he was getting used to it.  It just meant that he was empty, and that was all he had to go on: the hope that not having eaten anything for the past two days was causing his body to begin to devour the stores of fat it already had and shrink itself down to a more normal size.  I wonder if I could convince them to let me go back to the dorm to get Adrian's scale, he thought.  No, not with that demon there.  Maybe they'd let me go buy one?  No, not to the mall by yourself, you obese dunce.  It was hard enough to convince them to let you take a walk.  Maybe Ling would go with me?  No, you can't ask her to do that, she'd know why you wanted it and then she'd find out what you've been doing and she'd make you stop drinking the tea and you'd lose the only option you have besides...  His thoughts trailed off as he looked at his powered-off cell phone sitting on the night stand.  He knew that there had to be countless messages on there from his parents, preaching the benefits of being normal.  He was so tired of being abnormal.  And unhappy.

            Cee hadn't made eye contact with him once since waking up, and that "excuse me" in the kitchen had been the first words she'd spoken to him since before she'd been attacked.  He supposed that a near-death experience was enough to make her realize that she'd be better off the farther away she could get from him.

            Ling had noticed, he knew.  She'd taken care to praise him thoroughly every time they sat down for energy lessons, and he saw her calm, calculating gaze move from him to Cee and back again whenever they were in the same room together.  Xander put a stop to that as often as he could.  Once it had become clear to him Thursday afternoon that Cee seemed to be attempting to erase his existence from her experience, he'd decided to help her out and just go hide in the guest bedroom whenever possible.  It was easier that way anyway, not having to have her physically present when the memory of her kiss decided to assault him every other moment.

            It was becoming more and more obvious to him that she'd only kissed him for reasons similar to August's.  He was simply there, and she had wanted to be kissed.  Or maybe she had thought that it would make him more likely to want to help them out with whatever special skills they thought he had.  He almost laughed.  Special skills?  The only special skills he possessed were gaining weight and being a spectacular failure at life.  Sure, he could conjure energy like they'd shown him, but the glowing orbs that manifested in his hands were still puny and white.  He knew that, if it was confidence required to infuse the energy with his own essence, it would never happen.   After all, both of the women who'd kissed him, seemingly out of nothing more than boredom, had found him so despicable that they'd immediately regretted it and had gone to such extreme lengths to negate the experiences.  How could he gain confidence in himself when he had nothing but experiences like that to base it on?

            You are such a fat, worthless piece of shit, he told himself.  There is no point to your pathetic existence.  You're never going to do a goddamn thing.  Even if you do get the surgery, you'll probably find a way to fuck it all up and gain everything back plus more.  You're just going to be a useless, super-obese slob for the rest of your miserable life.  Here it is, ten forty-two on New Year's Eve, and you're staring down another goddamn year of this shit.  This is what it's going to be, forever.  Your parents don't even want you.  No one will ever want you.  He felt a tear tickle the side of his face as it rolled out of his eye and into his hair.  And all you can do is lie here feeling sorry for yourself.  You can't even do anything about it.  You should just -

            An urgent knock sounded on the outside of his door.  He lurched upright, rubbing his eyes, and said, "Come in."

            Ling stuck her head in.  "Xander, we have an emergency, we need you to come downstairs, please," she said, and was gone again.

            After a few moments, he had prepared himself as well as he was able, so he plodded down to the living room, where the electric scent of tension was so palpable it tickled his nostrils.  The four hunters were standing in a circle, and the volume of their conversation was rapidly increasing to shouting levels.  He stopped awkwardly a few feet away from them, shoving his hands in his tight pockets and trying to wish himself invisible as he listened.

            "Absolutely not, Cee - you aren't strong enough yet," Ling stated.

            "I'm completely fine!  Look, I can -"  Xander felt her energy begin to stir before Ling swatted her hand down.

            "Cee.  No."

            "We can't be worrying about you," Darshan said.  "Even if you are fully recovered, we all feel that it's too soon for you to be back out there, and that will distract us.  We cannot afford to be distracted right now."

            "But you need me!  Two of the trips went off!  Two!  There are only three of you!" she insisted.

            Darshan shook his head.  "We've already accounted for that.  We're going together to check each one."

            Cee gave a disgusted sigh and threw herself onto the couch, arms crossed.

            "Um...what's going on?" Xander spoke up.

            Ken answered him.  "Two of our trips went off in town - they're like demon motion detectors - and we need to check them out.  Cee isn't well enough to come with us, and you're not experienced enough."

            Xander's gut clenched with alarm.  "So, what are...we have to...stay here?  Together?  Alone?"

            "You'll be fine," Ling reassured him.  "While Cee isn't at full strength yet, she is still very strong.  And you are getting stronger every day.  You remember the things we've been working on?  How to expel them from the area, and then the house shields and your own shields?"

            "Yeah, but..."

            "Then you will be fine, I promise.  We will know immediately if something breaches the perimeter here - not that anything should even have a chance, our defenses are very strong - and will be rushing back.  So you two just...hang out and relax, okay?"

            "Yeah," Cee piped up.  "It'll be like old times.  We'll watch a movie, right, Xander?"  And then she looked at him, and he felt his heart slam against his ribcage, sending a shiver through his whole skeleton.  Her newly-smoky scent filled his head.  What had changed?

            "We need to go," Darshan said, interrupting his shock.  Xander watched, bewildered, as the three hunters quickly finished lacing boots and zipping jackets and gathering assorted weapons from the coat closet next to the kitchen.  Before he knew it, they were filing out the front door, and he and Cee were left alone.

            He dropped his gaze to the floor, afraid to see her looking at him again and have his heart's pounding crack his sternum.  Or worse, to see her not looking at him.  A few moments of tense silence passed, and then he heard her stand up and say, "Let's go down the basement and watch something."

            Cautiously, he glanced up at her.  She was standing in front of the couch on the other side of the room, clad in baggy black sweatpants and a fitted grey tee, nonchalantly examining her fingernails.  She looked at him.  "Okay?"

            Once again his head filled with smoke - charcoal, tinged with...red.  He'd thought it would have been green.  Wait, so you're seeing smells in your head now?  Yeah, that's normal.  Freak.  He shook his head slightly, and replied, "Um, okay."

            "All the movies are already downstairs," she told him as she walked past him and into the kitchen.  He followed her cautiously down the steep, narrow staircase next to the back door, feeling his breath quicken as he became very aware of the way all his soft bulges brushed against the walls.  This is a bad idea, he thought suddenly, his hip slamming into the last bit of wall before the wooden steps ended in brown carpet.  She doesn't want to talk to you...or maybe she does, but not the way you want her to.  She probably just wants to tell you to stop running such pathetic shit through your mind and forget about her already...

            "So what are you in the mood for?" she said.  She was already across the dimly lit room, standing before a glass and wood cabinet that spanned the entire wall and held a huge tv, all sorts of electronics, and an impressive collection of dvds and blu-rays.  "I think I feel like something scary.  What do you think?"

            He stared at her fingers trailing languidly across the spines of the movie cases.  Her nails looked...sharp.  I thought she kept them short?  Maybe I was wrong.  But they really look kinda wicked.  What if she were to...

            "Xander?"

            "What?"  Why are you being so paranoid?      

            "How about 'The Room Under the Stairs'?"  Looking at him expectantly, she waved the movie case back and forth.  "Have you seen it yet?"

            "Uh, no.  That's fine."

            "Okay.  Have a seat."

            The espresso leather couch appeared to be sturdier than any of the furniture in the living room upstairs, but also looked smaller than the green couch.  Which you take up most of by yourself, lardass.  But the matching recliners placed on either side of it were completely out of the question.  They were newer designs that looked like a cross between leather executive chairs and eighties-style kitchen chairs with ring bases, not to mention made for human beings about a third of his size.  If he somehow managed to cram his huge ass into one of them, it would either fall apart or fall over immediately.  He swallowed hard and stuttered, "I guess I...I'd b-b-better sit on the c-couch.  S-sorry.  I m-mean if you...w-wanted to.  Sorry."

            Cee slid the disc into the player, and shrugged as she closed the glass door.  "That's where I figured you'd need to sit.  I didn't expect those chairs to be able to hold you.  I mean, you're probably over four hundred now.  Go ahead."  She turned around, her face devoid of expression.

            Blood rushed to his cheeks and he tore his eyes away before they could meet hers, feeling the hole in his chest gape open just a bit wider.  He slowly lowered his mass into the couch, cringing as the leather creaked and the soft cushions sank beneath his weight.  But as low as he sank into the piece of furniture, the seat itself was simply not deep enough for him, and he felt the bottom softness of his belly hanging over the edge of the cushion between his widely spread legs.  Panicked, he grasped at the bottom of his t-shirt to cover his exposed blubber and tried to bring his legs closer together, but only succeeded in squeezing his gut between his thick thighs.

            "Need to adjust?"

            His eyes burning, feeling her gaze raking over every fleshy inch of him, he slid his hands beneath his belly and lifted it.  He brought his legs together and released his fat so it plopped down heavily in his lap. Even empty, his stomach released an irritated grumble in protest of being so compressed, and he leaned back a bit farther in an attempt to give it some more space.

            "Better?" she asked.

            "Fine," he muttered, wriggling uncomfortably.  You've gotten so massive that you didn't even realize you literally need to adjust your gut in order to sit like a normal person, you fucking slob, his inner voice spat.  Wait, what is she doing?

            Cee was walking towards him.  She picked up the remote control from the coffee table and eyed the scant few inches of space between Xander's right hip and the arm of the couch, her head tilted thoughtfully.  With a few graceful steps, she circled the table and moved to sit down next to him.

            "Wait, what -" Xander squeaked, instinct forcing him to try to shove himself farther into the corner of the couch, even though his brain knew there was nowhere else for all of him to go.  "What are you - why..."

            "I'm sitting down," she stated, her slim hips somehow sliding into the space next to him.  He could feel the sharp edge of her pelvis pressing into the thick love handle flesh that popped over the waistband of his pants and rested heavily on the couch, and his stomach groaned loudly, half in embarrassment and half in emptiness.  "You sound hungry," she said as she pressed buttons on the remote to navigate the DVD menu, and then turned her face to his.  "You're not going to do anything about it, though, are you."

            Her words held no hint of challenge or reproach.  He just stared at her, not knowing how to respond, or even if she expected him to.

            "How is that tea working, by the way?  I mean, you sound hungry, but you're obviously not eating."

            The muscles in his throat worked involuntarily, but still he looked at her.

            "Well, Xander?"

            He felt a little twinge somewhere deep in his belly.  You're seriously missing her calling you Pudge?  Seriously?  "I don't...know what you want me to say."

            She shrugged, turning back to the television and pressing play.  "Just making conversation.  You know that you don't have to do that for me."

            "I...what?"  The mournful strains of a violin began to shimmer through the air around them as the opening credits started on the screen.

            "You don't have to starve yourself.  I think you're hot as hell, Xander."

            His eyes widened as he sucked in a sharp breath.

            Cee turned back to him, her green-gold eyes almost iridescent in the dim light as she whispered.  "Those pretty, pretty blue eyes of yours...that deep, dark, wavy hair..."  She reached up and started weaving her fingers through his locks, then brushed his cheek.  "Your perfect pale skin...that little blush you get..."  He swallowed hard as her hand kept traveling down his front.  "Your enormously round, fat body..."

            He grabbed her wrist to stop her fingers from squeezing his belly.  "Please," he choked, "please...stop."  Her smoky scent was so strong it clouded his vision almost as much as the tears in his eyes.  "I know...I know it was stupid to ever...ever think that...maybe....you...  I know.  So please, just...don't.  I'm sorry.  Please, don't make it worse."  He tried to stand up, but his belly resting on top of his thighs instead of dipping between them threw him off and he ended up just scooting forward with a frustrated grunt.  He tried again, to no avail.

            "Where are you going?" she asked, her voice still quiet.  "Let me show you just what I think of you, Xander.  Let me show you just what I think...of all of you."

            Xander stopped struggling to lift himself off the couch as a sudden smoky blast of fireworks burst in his head.  He turned his head and looked directly in her eyes.  "Where is she?" he breathed.

            "What are you talking about?" she said coyly as she leaned towards him, her fingers tracing familiar patterns on his middle.

            "Where is she?"

            "Why, Xander, I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about.  She's right here, sitting next to you.  And let me tell you, she'd love for me to continue with where things are going.  Quite the dirty, fucked-up mind this little hunter's got."  Cee's grin widened unnaturally as both her hands grabbed the flesh of Xander's belly and shook it.  "Oh, she is going crazy in here!  What a freak, thinking a fat slug like you-"

            The back of his right fist connected with her face almost before he realized he'd clenched it.  He somehow managed to heft himself off the couch and back away across the room, his eyes searching for some sort of weapon.  But the only things in the room were the chairs, the couch, the coffee table, and the electronics.  There weren't even any lamps.  There was no sword-stocked closet in this part of the basement, and the thing that looked like Cee was now on its feet, half-crouched over like an animal and blocking the only exit.

            "What did you do with her?"

            "I told you," the Cee-thing said, still almost whispering, "she's right here."  It lunged at him, slicing him with sharp nails as he raised his arm defensively.  It tried to latch onto his neck, but he got a good grip on its hair and yanked it off.  He threw it back across the room, but it rolled to its feet and attacked again.

            "Where is she?" Xander demanded, frantic tears straining his words.

            The demon cackled, contorting Cee's pretty features into something nightmarish.  "Ooh, look at the big tough Chosen One, so scary!  Ha!  They really thought an obese fuck like you was going to bring down all of Hell?  All these hunters have given us is a pig, fattened for slaughter.  And we will relish feasting upon your abundant flesh and that pathetic soul of yours, absolutely dripping with so much misery, so much guilt, so much shame..."  It bared its teeth and flew at him again.

            Xander grabbed for the coffee table and batted the demon into the wall with it, where the creature hit with a thud and fell to the ground.  He stood over it, the coffee table held above his head, ready to strike, when he realized it was laughing again.

            "Oh, yes.  Yes!  Do it!" it urged him, Cee's voice no longer even recognizable in the guttural snarls.  "Do it!  Crush her skull, smash her brains, tear out her wretched little heart and squash it into the carpet with your shoe!  Kill her!"

            "You're not her!"

            The demon was laughing so hard he could see tears streaming down the sides of its face as it lay beneath him.  "I may not be her," it told him, "but this is not my body.  My companion ripped her open so that I could crawl inside her, and she is still in here with me.  You kill this body, you kill her."

            His grip on the coffee table loosened involuntarily, and he heard it drop behind him with a thud.

            The Cee-thing crawled to its feet as Xander backed slowly away from it.  "So what will you do now, Chosen One?  Will you bludgeon your love to death to save your pathetic life for a short time, until we make way for our Mother to ascend so she can feast upon your liver as you watch?  I think not.  You don't have it in you.  You're weak.  I think you would rather allow me to take you, to deliver you to Mother in Hell as she has asked, so she can send bits and pieces of you to all the hunters of this world to show what the Mother of All Demons thinks of your ridiculous prophecies and your piteous power!"

            The demon was on him again, its hands closing around his neck, fingernails slicing ribbons into his soft flesh, but he couldn't fight it.  She's still in there.  I can't...I can't kill her.  He stared into its eyes - into Cee's eyes - but instead of seeing the seething, wild-haired monster gnashing its teeth in front of him, he saw her as she'd been the night they'd gone for ice cream.

            Cee, skipping ahead of him on the street, cheerfully chattering at him and laughing as they walked.

            Cee, eyes flashing as she sank her boot knife into the demon from across the ice cream shop, scarlet hair flying as she slammed her energy into the thing's face to destroy it.

            Cee, her faintly freckle-dusted face crumpling when she'd asked him if he really thought she was annoying.

            Cee, the sweet light of her tiny smile dawning across the entire street when she'd reassured him that she didn't think he was disgusting.

            And Cee, her eyes shyly meeting his when she'd returned to his room that night, clad in his gigantic t-shirt.

            Splotches of indigo light were beginning to dance across his field of vision, mingling with the green of Cee's gaze and patches of blackness as his air ran out.  He closed his eyes but the patterns remained, now illuminating the scenes of her in his mind.  He had never known someone so fierce and so gentle at the same time, someone so perfectly, unapologetically...herself.  What would happen to her after the demon finished with her?  Would she be left alive, physically unharmed but mentally shattered?  Would she be broken, crippled, unable to hunt down the things that had left her that way?  Would it kill her?  Worse yet, would it never leave her, walking around in her body for the rest of her life, leaving her a prisoner inside it to witness every atrocity it committed in her skin?

            No.

            Xander opened his eyes.  The tingling came quickly and he felt the spheres of energy swirling into being in his palms, and a deep part of him pushed with everything he had.  He smelled the sea as his hands burst into ultraviolet flame, illuminating the dark basement and Cee's wretched form in front of him with a blinding brightness.  The demon ripped Cee's hands from around his neck and clapped them over her eyes, a horrifying scream issuing forth from her mouth.  Xander grabbed her head and poured his energy into her, feeling it rush through her body like a tide, sweeping away the smoky darkness.

            The screaming stopped.

            Cee's body collapsed limply to the floor amidst a cloud of ash.  Xander dropped down beside her and gathered her up in his arms.  "Cee?  Cee, can you hear me?  Please, wake up...  Please," he croaked desperately.

            She took a shuddering breath and opened her eyes, tears immediately pouring out of them.  "Pudge," she murmured, reaching up to touch the wetness on his own cheek.  But her hand fell before her fingers could brush his skin, and her eyes closed again.  Upstairs, the clock chimed midnight.