Falling into Twilight

Lightning_Skies

Spoilers: Most of the bigger events in Twilight and BtVS, with alterations

Warnings: Slash, Het, NO Bella Bashing, Sexual situations, Some violence, Swearing

Pairings: Edward/Xander, Alice/Jasper, Emmett/Rosalie, Carlisle/Esme, Jacob/Bella?

Disclaimer: Neither Twilight nor Buffy is mine. However, my birthday is coming up in a few weeks and they're on my wish list, so I remain hopeful.

I CALL FIRST PAIRING. I find that Xander and Harry (Potter) are the perfect every-men. They can be successfully inserted into any other cannon universe and thrive. I often read Xander crossovers and imagine Harry in his place and vice versa, so it really surprises me that there aren't more BtVS/Twilight crosses written. Edward/Harry is all over FFN and I couldn't find a single E/X anywhere. I decided that the lack of material was a crime against fan-fiction and immediately sat down to write this.

=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Chapter 1 – It's Raining Men =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

It was a dark and stormy night; which meant it was perfect weather for a Cullen's family baseball game. Now, normally, this would be the perfect weather to avoid playing baseball but there were very few measuring systems that would label this particular family normal. In fact, if the average person was to find out that these seven young, beautiful beings were immortal, powerfully strong, incredibly fast and agile, near invulnerable and over a hundred years old, they might even go so far as to call them abnormal. Therefore, it was rather fortunate that the small gossip-prone population of Forks, Washington had no idea that vampires walked among them.

"Let's GO already!" A huge, bulky 20-ish young man hollered into the house as he hovered by the front door, making the windows rattle slightly in protest at the volume. He wore his hat with the brim hanging sideways over his left ear and a navy blue tracksuit as well as a look of enthusiastic anticipation.

"Relax, Emmett." A petite brunette girl with short flyaway hair bounced lightly down the stairs, not at all fazed by his impatience. "The storm is going to continue into tomorrow afternoon, we have plenty of time." Her cleats tapped lightly at the marble flooring as she shoved her unruly locks into an old Cubs cap. Her whole outfit went with the theme; knee high striped baseball socks and a sleeveless pitchers jersey over a tight black long sleeved tee.

"That's wonderful, Alice. It's been so long since we've had a good long game. It will be nice to spend some time together." A warm and motherly looking woman entered from the living room and met them in the front hall. She was followed by a man with platinum blonde hair who handed her a scarf as she spoke. He looked highly amused at the actions of his odd little family.

"Tonight is going to be important, Esme. I can't see exactly why but it will have a big impact on the whole family." She was totally mystified. Never before had her visions told her something was coming, but not what it was. Usually they told her everything or nothing at all, none of this teasingly cryptic halfway stuff. It was the first time she could remember in over a hundred years that she felt the anticipation of not knowing what the future would bring. She wasn't sure she liked it.

The older man frowned. "Should we cancel the game and stay in tonight?" He focused on his adopted daughter, as they both ignored Emmett's protests. "Alice, are we in any danger? What can you see?"

She shifted uncomfortably, staring off into space intently and fiddling lightly with the shirt she held. "It's nothing bad, I don't think. None of us get hurt anywhere in the foreseeable future, but something's going to change soon." She focused on his worried face. "Whatever it is, it's big, Carlisle. I'm not sure that staying in would avoid it. Stuff this big is usually tied in with fate and destiny. If it is unchangeable and we tried to run it might just follow us home."

Carlisle squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. "I'm sure we'll be fine." He smiled at Emmett's frustration, "Besides I'm not sure we'd survive Emmett if we tried to stay home tonight."

"Alice?" A curly blonde head poked over the second story banister, interrupting their laughter as a severe looking young man peered down at them. "Have you seen…?" He cut himself off as she held up a Texas Rangers jersey and arched a perfect eyebrow at him. He disappeared from view for a moment, then hopped over the railing to land gently beside her, adjusting his cap as he fell.

"I told you that if you put it away in the linen closet that you were going to forget about it. I see these things for a reason, Jasper." The chiding was gentle as she slid the shirt over his shoulders and buttoned up the front for him.

"Rosalie. Honey. Are you almost ready? Is it really necessary to touch up your make-up to go play in the woods?" Esme called lightly up the stairs at her still missing daughter.

"That's what makes it so important. Maintenance now will prevent the need for a total reconstruction later." Sauntering down the stairs, still fluffing her honey blonde hair- Rosalie was breathtakingly beautiful, even standing among her above-average looking family. She managed to make her sleeveless down-stuffed vest and tight sweatpants look like the height of fashion.

"You're always gorgeous, babe." She smiled widely and tucked herself under Emmett's large arm, where she seemed to fit perfectly.

"Now we're just waiting for…" Even as Carlisle spoke, a breeze flowed through the room as bronze haired teen in a Chicago White Sox jersey and black jeans appeared and casually leaned on the doorway. "Edward."

Emmett glared at him impatiently. "What, did you have to fix your mascara too?"

Edward just smirked, "I heard Jasper trying to remember where his shirt was and Rosalie critiquing herself and planning for damage control. I knew it would take you all forever to get ready, so there was no reason to be here waiting before I had to be."

"Fine, whatever, can we just leave already." Stupid, smug, irritating…Just wanted to make me wait. Edward's smirk grew at his brother's grumbled thoughts. Emmett knew that they all enjoyed playing, even if none of them possessed his rabid enthusiasm.

-/-/-/-\-\-\-

The Cullen's family baseball diamond was deep enough in the mountains that only the most accomplished of hikers even had a chance of coming across it. With their superior strength the 'PING!' of their aluminum bat upgraded to an echoing crack that mighty Casey would be jealous of. It was why they needed the cover of one of Forks regular thunderstorms, to mask the sound.

They'd been playing for nearly an hour when Alice's eyes glazed over, and she stilled before breaking out into a brilliant smile. "That is so cool!" She clapped her hands delightedly before turning to look intently at a random point off in left field. Edward stared at her in shock as she shared her vision with him.

"Oh, no! I'm not falling for that again." Emmett had refused to let Alice replace his wardrobe at the end of the school year, claiming that it was just fine the way it was. In revenge, Alice had taken to faking visions and tricking Emmett into reacting to things that would never happen. After the first dozen or so times she'd had him staring off into space like an idiot, he stopped trying to spot whatever she was looking for. He was up to bat and there was no way he was going to turn away from the plate, just so that she could pitch the ball while he was distracted.

Unfortunately for his future paranoia, a moment later there was a horrendous tearing noise that seemed to echo around the clearing. They all turned to look as, impossibly, a gaping hole ripped itself into existence in mid-air where Alice was watching. It hung there, totally unsupported and glowing, just a foot or so over head height. Edward stood only yards away and backed off quickly into the infield to join his gathering family.

They all held unneeded breaths as the portal (because it really couldn't be anything else) flared and a body fell out, hitting the ground with a dull thud. Before they could react (shock tended to act against vampire speed) the body had jumped upright and revealed itself to be a human man with shaggy brown hair. He was dressed in dusty old cargo pants, worn carpenters boots and a grungy looking, formerly-white collared shirt. He was loaded down with an arsenal of various weapons, bearing several knife sheaths at his hip and thigh and an impressive battle axe slung across his back. They got a clear view of it and his strong shoulders as he faced away from them and looked up at the now shrinking portal.

"Oh, I don't think so!" In an impressive show of human strength he jumped up and grabbed the sides of the crackling hole in reality and started to pull himself upwards into it. Corded muscle stood out in his arms as he moved, but the portal was shrinking too quickly and he wasn't going to make it before it closed around his waist.

Evidently he'd realized this as he lunged forward into the portal, reaching for something out of sight. He fell backwards, pulling a squealing form with him. It was vaguely humanoid but had slate grey skin covered in glowing blue markings. It thrashed around, trying to dislodge the human's hands from around it's oddly shaped head, but with his full body weight hanging from it, pulling back was impossible. The struggling -thing's- head was dragged fully through the rift even as it snapped closed around the straining neck, severing it with a crunch and a squelch that made Alice wince and Rosalie shudder.

The human landed solidly on his feet and hurriedly dropped the severed head in disgust. He looked around curiously, panting lightly and wiping his hands on his already dirt and ichor covered pants. He seemed to be deep in thought and in no hurry to turn fully around and notice them.

"What the hell was that?" Emmett was totally incredulous and just a bit upset that with humans falling out of the sky the baseball game was probably done for the night. On the other hand humans falling out of the sky had the potential to be much more interesting than their rare games. Not to mention the fact that he'd just witnessed the breaking of dozens of biology and physics laws. He'd been bored all week and looking forward to this game, why couldn't this have happened earlier, dammit!

They all watched as the human startled and turned to peek over his shoulder at them. He then whipped himself around, looked down at the gore and shuffled over a few steps to stand in front of the bodiless head. As if that really hid it. He was relatively young, late twenties at the most and stood at just under 6 feet or so, it was hard to tell exactly with his wildly mussed brown hair flying in every direction. His right eye was a rich chocolate brown, but his left had been replaced with a black eye patch, making his open, friendly face seem a bit sinister. He'd adopted a falsely innocent you-caught-me-but-I'll-never-admit-it look that none of them believed for a moment, especially since they could hear the panicked beating of his heart. His whole body was tense and he appeared to be barely containing the desire to raise his hands into the air as if they'd trained guns on him.

"That was, um..." He gave them a fake placating smile. "That was a hallucination brought on by inhaling natural gasses." At their skeptical looks he tried again. "I mean that was ah..." He faltered, trying not to make eye contact. "Experimental aircraft?" Still no reaction, "No? This is why I'm not in PR." He ran a harried hand through his hair making it stick up even more violently, "Stop me if anything sounds convincing... Downed weather balloon? Classified governmental project? Communist plot?"

He was getting a little desperate now, "Drugs in the water supply? Mass hypnotic event? Shared lucid dreaming?" Thinking hard he tried again with a quirky little smile at what had to be an inside joke, "Gangs on PCP?" When there was still no response, outside of blank stares, his shoulders sagged a little and he appeared to give up. "God, I wish I had a neuralizer." Jasper and Edward snorted at the movie reference.

He winced and almost whispered, "Alternate reality and dimension traveling demons?" He lifted his head from where he'd been studying his feet intently to meet the eyes of his impromptu audience. A mismatched big liquid brown eye had a wounded don't-hit-me look on it that wouldn't have been out of place on a puppy.

Jasper was the first to break the silence. "I'd say you can stop there. No matter how unbelievable it may be, it's better to tell the truth."

Rosalie turned on him in disbelief, "You believe him?"

"I can feel that he's telling the truth, Rose. You saw the same thing as the rest of us. Is there another explanation that makes more sense to you?"

"No, but.." she sputtered, "Alternate dimensions? DEMONS?"

"Is it really so hard to believe, especially considering what we are?" Carlisle spoke too softly for the human to hear, but clearly enough for his family to catch. In a louder voice he continued, "Scientifically speaking there is a high probability of other habitable planets, I imagine various human, and possibly demon filled dimensions wouldn't be impossible."

Rose looked for support among her siblings, but Emmett looked insatiably curious, Alice was ecstatic and bouncing lightly, Edward was impossible to read as always, inscrutable gold eyes trained on the human betraying no emotion, even Esme only looked concerned, as if she wanted to hug the displaced human. The other two had already turned traitor on her. Huffing heavily she crossed her arms and turned away slightly, not willing to believe, but curious enough to stay and hear what happened next.

The two legged puppy's eye flitted from one pair of bronze eyes to the next cautiously and with a bit of surprise. He really hadn't expected them to be so casually accepting about his 'origin story'. "Right then. Sorry for interrupting your," he took in their gear and clothing before his gaze flickered to the sky, "stormy... dark... night baseball playing." He paused for moment before deciding to ignore it and continuing, "I'm Xander. Well, really Alexander Harris, but only my birth certificate calls me that. Everyone else just uses Xander."

He had no room to question them; it wasn't like playing baseball in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a storm was weirder than literally popping into existence randomly and killing a demon. It was close… and a bit hellmouthy, but it wasn't –actually- weirder.

"It's nice to meet you, Xander." Alice chirped, "We're the Cullens. I'm Alice, your knight in shining Rangers jersey is my husband Jasper, the non-believer is Rosalie, her husband being the hulking giant Emmett and then there's the lovely Esme wife of the wanna-be astrophysicist Dr. Carlisle and last-but-not-least Mr. Dark-and-Broody is Edward." She pointed to each of her family members in turn.

Edward, wondering why she'd told the truth, rather than using their cover story of being siblings, tried to read her mind but couldn't get beyond her mental rendition of It's Raining Men. He growled at her lightly but she ignored him.

Xander considered each of the Cullens as they were introduced. Alice was nice, in that don't feed it after midnight kinda way. She seemed the type that might transform into something terrifying if the need arose or if some masochistic idiot decided to suicide by giving her sugar or caffeine. Jasper looked like someone had whacked him upside the head with a board, and then stuck it down the back of his shirt. He stood stiffly and was obviously uncomfortable about something, probably the lightshow and 'magical appearing man' trick. Oddly the two of them fit well together.

Rosalie reminded him far too much of Cordy, pre- and post-broom closet period. He shivered a little, if possible he was going to try and stay on her good side. Score so far Xander -1, always the underdog. If Emmett was her husband, then Operation: Ice Queen Diplomatic Immunity (O: IQDI) was definitely a high priority. He was HUGE. He seemed friendly enough, but a woman like Rosalie didn't date without having full control of the every move of her male slave.

His heart contracted painfully when he met Esme's warm gaze. She reminded him of Joyce. It wasn't in her appearance or anything, especially since she couldn't be older than 25, but she was just exuding a feeling of comfort and home. He imagined, if he could smell her, she'd have a scent of vanilla or cinnamon, something bake-able. He'd never had a decent mother figure growing up and had missed it sorely since Mrs. Summer's death. Apparently, Esme was just one of those born mothers; he could already see her plotting to feed him as her eyes considered him. Reluctantly, he turned to Carlisle. He was the oldest of the Cullens, but still younger than Xander by a few years. They considered each other for long moments. Obviously the good Doctor was in charge and his opinion of Xander mattered the most. He seemed to pass some sort of test as he met Carlisle's eyes squarely and with confidence.

Edward was just as dark and broody as Alice had claimed. His face was shuttered and closed, letting not even a glimpse of what he was thinking and feeling escape. Even so, he was probably the singular most attractive person Xander had ever seen. His hair was a gravity defying semi-tamed tangle with copper highlights that matched flecks of color in his amber eyes. He had a well built form, not as whipcord and lithe as Jasper, and not as built and impressive as Emmett, but somewhere in the middle, athletic and flexible. He seemed built for speed and maneuverability. Xander almost scowled when he realized that even though Edward was shorter than the other males in his family, he still trumped Xander's measly 5'11" by a good two inches. He was used to towering over his girls back home; Slayers, wiccans and dimensional keys were not built tall. Even Oz and Spike were shorter. It was rather uncomfortable to suddenly be taller than ONLY the girls. He felt a complex coming on. His eye met and held Edward's in much the same way he had with Carlisle. Only, now that he felt inferior, Xander's gaze held more than a hint of confrontation, as if he could challenge Edward for the honor of being second shortest.

As they glared at one another, something niggled at the edge of Xander's perceptions. His hellmouth detector was on high alert as he pieced things together. The Cullens were all incredibly attractive, deathly pale, held themselves too still, spoke like they were from another era and didn't seem at all threatened by him. They were cautious, yes, but they didn't seem worried that he might hurt them, even though he'd just killed right in front of them. Then there were the eyes. They all had various shades of gold in their eyes - though Jasper's were tinted red. Gold had never been his favorite eye color, reminding him too much of the burning sulfur color of vampires.

Even as the thought formed, he felt an uncomfortable pressure in his head. He'd gotten headaches frequently since the loss of his eye, but this was something different. It wasn't a stabbing pain, but felt more like someone was poking at and squeezing his brain. He turned away from Edward's piercing eyes and shook his head, trying to clear it. He felt something deep inside of him uncurl and cursed internally as he realized what it was.

Edward stared intently at the human as he tried to read his mind. Xander had a very open manner and seeing all of his emotions and thoughts displayed on his face almost distracted the mind reader from the fact that he couldn't actually hear them. He noticed the small bit of antagonism in the human's gaze and took it as a personal challenge, no matter how it was intended. So, he focused his mind on Xander and tried to listen carefully, when he still got nothing he started pushing, looking for a reaction. Unfortunately, the reaction he got wasn't anything like what he wanted.

A blast of power hit him squarely in the chest and forced him backwards a few yards, making him wobble uncertainly before he caught himself. Xander's head shot up instantly and Edward was skewered with an acid green eye full of anger. For the first time since he'd been changed, Edward was afraid.

The supposed human's voice was low and full of menace as he spoke, biting out words through a distinctly inhuman growl. "Stay out of my head. It's not a safe place to be, Edward. She's rather protective of me, and I've had bad experiences with thrall." Xander took a deliberate step back to show that he didn't mean any harm, even as the family facing him took defensive poses against him.

His growling subsided slowly as did the preternatural glow of his eye, even as they retained a green sheen. Xander sighed and took another step back, forcefully relaxing all of his muscles and holding his hands away from his body in a gesture of peace.

"Let's start this from the beginning again. I'm Xander, possessed human… more or less. And you are?"

Alice seemed the only one willing to take the lead. "Well, we're still the Cullens, and we're vampires." She was totally unconcerned as she gleefully blurted out the singular biggest secret the Cullens had. Jasper looked uncertain but when she patted his arm, sending comforting emotions to him, he relaxed a little. He pulled her tight against his chest to lend support against the anger and shock of the rest of the family.

"ALICE!" Rosalie was horrified. How could Alice just give away their secret like that? She'd betrayed them all. They'd have to kill the human and leave Forks now. If he even could be killed.

"Well that's just great." Emmett couldn't believe that she'd outted the whole family to the... whatever the hell he is.

Edward was in shock. He'd just been attacked and Alice trusted his assailant with information that could destroy their whole family. He opened his mouth to yell at her, but was silenced when she met his eyes and sent the pointed thought that he had been the one to attack first and Xander hadn't done anything but protect himself. He hadn't even followed through once he had Edward off guard.

"Alice…" Carlisle started, disappointed. "You know how dangerous it is for us to reveal ourselves. You've not only put yourself in danger, but you've endangered all of us as well."

"But, Carlisle," She protested, "He's not going to hurt any of us. I saw him living with us and we're all going to learn to care for him." She glared at Rosalie. "All of us."

"I would never care for a human." Rosalie spat, even as Emmett restrained her physically.

Esme shook her head, "Even if that's true, Alice. You should have thought about our feelings before you said anything. Important decisions like this should be made as a family."

Xander who had been standing quietly during the uproar, waited until it had simmered down a bit before clarifying. "Undead, immortal, blood drinking, vampire-type vampires?" He dutifully resisted the urge to raise his hand to be noticed amidst the family argument. That and the near irresistible urge to try and be elsewhere, he'd had enough fights at home, thank you very much. He wasn't about to go borrowing angst from other people.

"What other type is there?" Rosalie snarled angrily, not bothering to look away from Alice. (O: IQDI Score Xander = -100 This wasn't looking good, he wished Alice would stop helping)

"Right." Xander shifted slightly away from them and turned his face up to the sky, ironically looking at the same spot the portal had been. "You really hate me don't you?" He started swearing at the dark, wet sky in several dozen different languages and dialects, surprising the vampires out of their argument. They all watched in shock as the bedeviled and slightly crazy human gestured wildly along with his vehement threats and disparagements. Jasper thought, "FUBAR. SNAFU." and "BOHICA!" sounded like they were probably military acronyms. Edward caught the distinctly British, "Bloody buggering FUCK!" Carlisle smiled a bit at a few choice Latin phrases. Alice thought the intonation of a few of the presumably derogatory comments sounded familiar from a National Geographic show she'd seen the night before on coming of age rituals in South African nations. Rosalie just stared at the human's strange reaction, attempting to ignore Emmett, who had enveloped her in a hug to try and calm her.

Esme frowned, distinctly unhappy about the flagrant use of profanities but felt that in the situation, using them to let off steam was acceptable. Besides he wasn't one of her children, so as much as she may want to, she really had no say in his actions. The second he gave her an opening though, she'd never let anything hurt him again. He was far too young to have such anger at the world.

Edward glanced at Esme, hearing her starting to formulate plans on how to get the stranger to accept her mothering. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. There was obviously something wrong with the human, he was as much of a monster as they were. How could he be trusted?

It took Xander several long minutes to exhaust his rather... extensive vocabulary of swears, curses, invectives, insults and castigations. It spoke volumes about the true level of his maturity that they were always the first thing he picked up when traveling to new places. But he finally fell silent. Rubbing a hand tiredly over his eye patch he breathed in deeply and turned back to the vampires, eyeing Emmett's intimidating form with far more caution now that it posed a threat and sincerely hoping that Edward wasn't the type to hold a grudge. "So. Do you try and kill me now or is there torture first?"

=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= TBC =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

A/N: (I promise they won't all be this long)

Neuralizer - Device used in Men in Black to remove the memories of anyone who witnessed alien activity that they shouldn't have

FUBAR – Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition

SNAFU – Situation Normal: All Fucked Up

BOHICA – Bend Over Here It Comes Again (A terrible situation is about to get worse)

"It was a dark and stormy night"– Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Casey at the Bat – Ernest Lawrence Thayer

Esme is 26 in canon and Carlisle is 23. In this fic Xander is 27. His estimations of their ages doesn't mean I didn't do my research, it just means he's not all that great at judging ages.

I never watched and/or read the book before initially writing this chapter. Everything I learned, I learned from Fan-fiction. Eventually, I got so paranoid about getting the Cullen's characters totally wrong that I broke down and watched the movie. It didn't help much considering how little they actually showed up. I think it's hilarious that I unknowingly set Alice up as the pitcher, just like in the movie. I'll probably end up reading the books before I send them back to school, because I don't have much information on the students of Forks High, but I have all summer to play with them first.

Despite my plans that this be Edward/Xander, the boys really aren't getting along. Hell, Edward doesn't even want to talk and has no opinions or thoughts to share with the class. My mental Alice is doing all the work. Jasper's backing her up, Rosalie's pissed I dumped a human on her and STILL plan to bring Bella into the story and Emmett is just being a big snuggly teddy-bear that I can and will steal from Rose if she doesn't calm down and play nice soon. I don't know why Edward and Carlisle are so damned hard to write… probably since they're so old. There's just too much of a generation gap there. That's not good, I can't write this fic if half of my main pairing never talks, never interacts with the others and sits in the corner alone, growing mushrooms. I had to force Edward to talk, and he wouldn't stop glaring at my Xander shaped writer's minion.

Goes back and counts: Edward - 2 Sentences, Xander - 36 Sentences, 1 Rant

-Lightning_Skies shoves Edward into Xander's arms-

LS: "Here. Practice so it'll be easier later. Xander never shuts up and you never say anything, so try and balance it out."

E: "…"

Xander: "You're pairing me with HIM?! He's like an ANGEL CLONE. What with the brooding and the angst and the 'Oh, woe is me.' He thinks of himself as a monster and hides away from the world, brooding and playing overly moody music. I won't do it and you can't make me. –Crosses arms- And another thing…"

-Edward knocks Xander over the head with the bat-

E: "…"

LS: "…Right. We'll work on it some more when he wakes up."

E: "…"

Distribution: FFN (Lightning_Skies), Twisting the Hellmouth (LightningSkies)

Author has given no other permissions.

4, 342 Words - 10 Pages - 05/04/09 [BETA - ForeversNobody 5/14/09]