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Other Notes: If you want to know more about matryoshka, the Russian nesting dolls, click here. All mistakes are mine. I love feedback.
Matryoshka Meld
When Xander comes out of the trance, Willow says, "Wow," and there's a split second when he feels like he'll never stop looking at her. Some demon breaks into the lab and distracts him. Then Spike kills the demon, Giles starts talking, and Xander's gaze temporarily locks on Giles. They pick on Spike -- the bastard sure as hell deserves it this time -- but decide he isn't worth killing just now. Even with Adam presumably taken care of, they have other, bigger bads to send screaming back to their Hellmouthy wombs.
Plus, even while he's standing up and greeting Buffy, some part of Xander's mind keeps echoing that Wow. He can still feel -- everything. Everyone. Xander in Willow in Buffy in Xander in Giles in Buffy in Willow in Xander, on and on. Kind of like a Vulcan Mind Meld, and he's always wished he could try that in real life. The spell rolled up the four of them all into a single person like one of those Russian nesting dolls with the long name he never remembers. But it's not as if they had separate bodies inside Buffy, trying to crowd together in her little (slender and sexy, not that he should be able to think of her that way anymore) body.
He felt like he had the same thoughts as they did, like they were sharing every single hope-worry-feeling-breath-exertion, which should be scaring him a lot more than it does, especially when he remembers Buffy's face during her mind-reading phase. He hates to use the word "soul" considering all it's meant in the past, but he doesn't know how else to describe it. All their souls were in Buffy's body (remember your girlfriend, Anya, girlfriendgirlfriendgirlfriend), and their movements were so precise, so perfectly attuned to each other and to the fight -- to that moment.
A lot like really good sex, Xander thinks, and he actually does know from experience by now. There's still a current running through his body, a live wire that hums every few seconds at times that he has to assume Giles or Willow or Buffy is fighting the good fight. A surge hit him when Buffy put the smackdown on that demon on the way out of 314.
He swats one demon away, shoots another, and tries to decide whether or not firing a taser blast at the control panel for his locked door would be monumentally stupid or just classic Xander. A double-dosed hum snaps through him, making his trigger finger jerk before he can debate any further. The door abruptly slides open while sparks flash brightly and fly out of the panel. A couple sparks land on his sleeve and sting his arm, but that voltage is nothing compared to what's inside him now. He has three other people nested in there, and they are all just as alive in this moment as he is. Xander herds a couple soldiers out the open door, into the tunnels beyond, and whoops in delight when the current buzzes in triplicate. We are forever. Wow.
- end -