thismaz | Bewitched

Title: Bewitched
Pairing: S/X in future.
Rating: G for this chapter. Touches of NC-17 later.
Summary: When Valentine's Day arrives, Dru dips her finger in the brew and gives it a stir.
Note: This was supposed to be a simple, four chapter story. I have nine chapters drafted out, so far. I'm thinking there won't be too many more than that, but I've been wrong before.
Word Count: 2,200
Betaed by

sparrow2000 and DJ, with many thanks. Thanks also to Sparrow for her help with conflabbing on plot twists and forms.
Comments: Are greatly appreciated, loved and cherished.
Disclaimer: here.

Chapter 1

Xander was still feeling depressed when he got to school, on the morning after the disaster of his Valentine's Day surprise for Cordy. The sniggers directed at him in the corridor did nothing to help lift his mood. Plus, Buffy was even more obsessed than usual with her evil ex-boyfriend and Willow was nowhere to be seen. The final straw was Harmony, with her snide but accurately placed barb: "Gee, Xander, maybe you should learn a second language so that even more girls can reject you," which was swell, coming from someone who hadn't even managed to master her first. He knew that Harmony was dumping on him because she'd lost her position, when the others let Cordy back into their clique, but the fact that they were in the main corridor when she vented her spite, with most of their class within earshot, meant that it hurt.

That was why he ambushed Amy after last period. He explained what he wanted, as he bundled her into an empty classroom.

"A true love spell?" she gasped. "That kind of thing is the hardest! I mean... to make someone love you for all eternity?"

Xander shook his head and waved his hands in front of himself in a gesture of denial. "Whoa! Whoa, back up," he said, suiting his actions to his words. "Cordy's not my true love." He paused when he hit the wall behind him and tried to explain in words that she would understand. "I just want her to want me," he said, "desperately. So I can break up with her and subject her to the same hell she's been putting me through."

Amy didn't look convinced. "Oh, I don't know, Xander." She paced around the room, before coming back to stand in front of him. "Intent has to be pure with love spells."

"Right," he agreed. "I intend revenge. Pure as the driven snow." He allowed a hard smile to form, which he hoped would convince her of his determination. "Now, are you gonna play, or do we need to have another chat about invisible homework?"

It worked; her eyes widened and she crumpled. "There's one spell I saw in one of my mom's books," she admitted. "I think she cast it for a guy when she was at school. I'll need to check it out." She hefted her book bag onto her shoulder and gave a casual shrug, her voice turning airy. "And I'll need something to fix it, something of Cordelia's. My mom used the guy's jacket, but anything personal will do."

Xander nodded. "I know just the thing."

He left, with a promise from Amy that she'd have everything else ready by the next night, and went home to enjoy an anticipatory gloat.

Hanging around Cordy's locker the next morning, he was convinced half the school was waiting for her to appear, so they could watch him beg her to take him back. It was lucky that Wayne Balinski had fallen down the front steps, chasing after Kylie Williams, so the more obvious sniggers in the corridor were now directed at him, rather than at Xander. Thanking god for small mercies, Xander crossed his arms over his chest and tried to lean against the wall in an inconspicuous manner.

Getting the pendant back proved easy enough and Cordy's casual dismissal of it confirmed Xander in his belief that she'd been playing him, all along. It had cost him every cent he owned, but it obviously wasn't expensive enough for Miss Chase. Still burning from that realisation, it was with a renewed sense of determination that he joined Amy in the science lab at eleven that night.

Xander watched silently as Amy unpacked a bunch of candles, a book and various ordinary looking glass jars full of powders and liquids, from her bag. Following her instructions, he set up the Bunsen burner on the bench, lit it with the matches she'd brought and placed a beaker of distilled water on a stand above the flame. Then he stood back to give her room to work.

She began to add the contents of the jars, one by one, to the beaker. The first was a clear liquid, but the bottle it came in was too fancy for it to be simple water. This was followed by a red, treacle-like substance that she extracted from its jar with a large spoon, then pinches of different powders, which she sprinkled into the beaker from above. Some were obviously ground herbs, others looked like sand, but coloured like no sand Xander had ever seen. Finally, she picked up a small silver vial. "What's that?" He asked.

"It's the binder," she replied. "The ingredient that makes the whole spell work properly. Without it, the spell can go wrong." Looking up, she hesitated. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Xander smiled. "Oh yeah, I want the Hellmouth working for me, for once." He leaned forward to get a better view, as she poured the entire contents into the mix and stirred it with a glass rod. "It looks like blood," he observed.

"It's not." There was more than a trace of irritation in her voice. "I just got it a few days ago and I'm wasting it all on you. But the spell won't work without it." She glanced down at the book that she'd opened and laid out on the bench. Xander couldn't read it from where he was standing, but he could see that it was printed in double columns of text, with hand scribbled notes in the margins. "I need some of your blood to add to the binding," Amy said. "Here." She picked up an Exacto knife and held it out to him. "Four drops. Prick your thumb just below the base of the nail. Then hold it over the beaker."

Carefully Xander took the knife and did as she bade him, squeezing his thumb to force out the last drop. It fell into the red liquid, already simmering gently over the heat, hardly making a ripple in the surface.

"Perfect." Amy took a deep breath and let it out again. "Now the personal object," she said, holding out her hand.

Reaching into his pocket, Xander pulled out the pendant and passed it to her. She placed it on the bench. "Take off your clothes and stay over there, by the door, while I draw the circle on the floor."

“Take off my clothes?” he asked nervously. “All of them?” His voice was a little squeakier than he’d like.

Amy, on the other hand, just sounded impatient. “Yes, of course, all of them." She looked at her watch. "Hurry up, we need to be ready by midnight and it's almost time. You have to be pure of appearance for the spell to work and I need to paint some symbols on your skin.”

“Uh, okay.” It wasn’t that he was deformed, or anything, but it was embarrassing, getting undressed in front of a girl. He pulled his shirt over his head and toed off his shoes and socks. One quick glance over his shoulder showed him that Amy was kneeling on the floor with her back to him. She looked like she was finger-painting. He quickly unfastened his jeans and stepped out of them, and then his boxers.

Turning back towards the room with his jeans clutched in front of his groin, Xander watched as Amy used the liquid in the beaker to finish marking out a circle, with a cross below it and an arrow coming out of the top right quadrant. Standing back, she surveyed the results and gave a small nod of satisfaction. "Sit there," she said, pointing at the centre of the symbol.

Cautiously Xander took up position on the spot she indicated, folded his legs and sat down. She knelt in front of him and dipping two fingers in the beaker, drew three lines vertically down his chest. Her touch was impersonal, but it left a trail of tingles in its wake, as if the liquid was made from Pixy Stix.

There was a brief tug of war over his jeans, which Amy won with the threat that if they stayed in the circle, they would evaporate and he’d have to walk home naked. She handed him a black candle in exchange, with the words, "Hold that in front of you, instead. It’ll actually help with the spell." Putting the beaker down, she dug in her pocket and retrieved a yearbook photograph of Cordelia which she placed on the floor in front of him, and the box of matches. "I don't think the photo's necessary," she added, "as long as you keep Cordelia firmly in your mind, but it can't hurt."

Striking a match, she lit the candle, picked up the beaker and returned to the bench, placing it back on the stand above the Bunsen burner. She picked up the pendant, allowing it to spin at the end of its chain. "It's pretty," she observed.

Xander nodded his agreement, but didn't say anything, being too busy worrying that someone would walk in on them, midnight or not. Amy shrugged. “Concentrate now,” she instructed.

Looking down at the spell book, she traced her finger across the page, her lips moving as if she was memorising what she read. She lowered the pendant into the brew as she spoke the words of the spell: "Diana... goddess of love and the hunt... I pray to thee. Heed my cries and bind the heart of Xander's love."

A burst of yellow sparks exploded out of the beaker and Amy took a step back. A ball of light rose into the air, darted towards Xander and circled him, like a crazy comet or an intelligent firework. It spun around his head, obscuring his view of the room. Silver sparks and gold stars flashed within it, teasing his eyes into trying to follow their dance. They shifted, forming patterns that mesmerised and enthralled him, taunting him with their promise. Placing the candle on the floor between his crossed legs, he lifted his arms, attempting to capture the light, certain it was both soft and warm, but it evaded his efforts. It began to stretch and the trail of glitter sank towards his lap, weaving its way around his chest and neck; it was as comforting as he had hoped. He threw his head back, his lips parted on a sigh as he groaned into the seductive touch. The light tickled him and caressed him and he swayed after as he felt it leave him, veering towards Amy, where half of it concentrating into a single ball of swirling flame, while the rest continued to dance around the room. She reached out and seemed to gather the ball of light between her hands. It began to pulse and her arms started to shake, as if it took an effort to keep it contained within her grasp.

Xander couldn't look away; the cloud of light swirled, gathering and fading, it formed shapes that he almost felt he recognised as a face, but they kept shifting. All he got were flashes of what looked like an arched eyebrow, a straight nose, fine, curved lips, but each was gone before he could be sure.

He continued to watch, hypnotised, and the patterns dragged him out of his body so he swirled as one with the flame. In the distance, he could hear a voice. It sounded panicked as it recited words he could only just make out, "...submits to your will only," it said. "Diana, bring about this love and bless it."

Xander felt like he was flying, his body elongated with the speed of his movement, the light transformed into a rainbow of colours, swirling around him, through him, in him, and he wasn’t alone. Another body spun in the whirlpool with him. He reached out his hand, feeling it taken in a cool, strong grip and he knew that it wasn’t Cordy who danced through the fire with him.

Then the flames and colours and swirls were gone, and his dancer partner with them. The fire drew back into the beaker and Xander was once again sitting on the floor of the science lab. He shivered and blinked, trying to remember who he was, until Amy's urgent voice brought him back to himself, "Blow out the candle now!" she cried.

Xander did as she said and in the sudden dark he felt a prickling tingle on his skin, along the stripes Amy had drawn down his chest, and his head swam with dizziness. When the fluorescents in the ceiling snapped on, revealing Amy leaning against the door jam, her hand still on the light switch, he looked down at his chest. The marks she had painted there were gone.

Amy followed his gaze. "Looks like it worked," she observed.

Taking a deep breath, Xander nodded. "Something did," he agreed.

Getting stiffly to his feet, he hurried to get dressed, feeling more like himself with each item of clothing and each passing minute. He helped Amy tidy up the mess, then he went home and slept the peaceful sleep of the vindicated.

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