Heartbroken by rejection, Andrew makes a wish - and finds himself carried
away to
a dimension where his dreams
of Xander can come true. But is that what he really wants, after all?
* * * * * *
* * * *
Dark.
Night. Dark.
Wet.
Wet? Just a little. How'd he get wet?
And cold. Very, very cold.
That was weird The last thing he remembered was fire - a lot of fire,
enough fire that you wouldn't forget it any time fast. Wasn't he burned?
Shouldn't he feel - he didn't know - extra-crispy, maybe?
He slotted his eyelids open, just a little, just enough to catch the faintest
glimpse of starlight.
Plain old ordinary starlight. He could see the Big Dipper if he squinted.
If that didn't just take the banana! If he had the strength, he decided
he'd curse himself seven ways from the two suns of Tatooine for acting like
a prime-time slice of jackass. He just had to make the big dramatic
gesture, burning everything and severing his links with his past, didn't
he?
As if it would have worked, anyway.
He guessed he'd known, even in the midst of his hurt and anger, that it wouldn't
work. And it hadn't. It just left him cold and wet and feeling
stupid, and he still felt the sharp ache for Xander, the need for the comfort
of the carpenter's strong arms holding him tight against all the slams and
slanders of the world. He felt the exact same loneliness of knowing
his dumb daydreams would have to pack themselves away in the mental memory
box of fallen wishes. Exactly the way it had been before he struck
the first match to his funereal pyre for a love that could-have-been.
And now he didn't even have anything to cling to in secret.
/"Really bright, Skinny,"/ he could almost hear Warren sneer - and it was
Warren as he had been, before the first decided to wear him like a Carnivale
mask. /"That has got to go up on the Top 40 countdown of your really
big screwups. And I'm talking 'not remembering you're standing under
an overhang when you set off your jet-pack' kind of big screwup."/
Eyes closing again against the near-sight/memory of Warren squatting on his
haunches beside Andrew, smug smirk painted on his lips. /"You were
dumb enough to think he'd ever see you as anything besides a whiny little
crybaby in the first place. What do you think he'll think of you when
he sees you out here next to a pile of burned pictures and tapes? He'll
be so embarassed he'll never even look you in the face again."/
"Shut up," Andrew whispered, helpless-sounding, because he knew he couldn't
win an argument with Warren. Not real-Warren, not dream-Warren, not
First-Warren.
Not over anything.
That was why his first tentative forays into sexuality, something he'd only
ever fantasized about before - vaguely, not really focusing on what parts
went where - had been on his knees in front of the older boy. On a
dare. A bet. No, an order. Because Warren was bored and
he was - lonely - after - after Katrina. Oh, god. So he'd told
Andrew to do it to prove he was still part of the group.
He could remember every bit of it. Could still taste the bittersalt
in his cheeks.
Trying to take that blunt, glistening *thing* into his mouth, and oh, god,
it seemed obscenely large from that angle (although he learned later it was
just average). Careful not to graze it with his teeth. Listening
to orders grated out from between clenched teeth and hurrying to catch up,
to try and understand as Warren began to lose coherency --
His first taste of sperm, thinking that it wasn't so bad - then, almost immediately
after, the shock of joy that came from knowing that it was him, his mouth,
his tongue, that had brought that much pleasure to someone he nearly worshipped.
He'd swallowed every drop and even laved Warren's cock for the leftovers,
nearly crying at the words of praise and encouragement.
He'd gotten good at it after a while. Warren said so. He knew
how to use his tongue to stroke up and down the shaft, circle the mushroom
head, stab into the slit; how to use his small hands - ladyfingers, Warren
had called them - to roll and squeeze the pendulous sac underneath.
If he was really, really good, Warren would get it back up a second time
(he had some sort of potion he'd stolen from the Magic Box's cellar) and
reward him with...
Andrew squeezed his eyes shut hard. God, he was sad. The saddest
part of it all, he'd thought for a long time, was how much he loved it.
You can't rape the willing, and apart from his first-time fear and the squiggly
nerves Warren inspired in everyone, he'd thrived on his diet of cock-sucking.
Gotten some confidence.
He tried to push the memories away-and-back, to the dark corner of his mind
where they belonged. So it had been Warren, who hadn't ever really
loved him, who showed him what he'd thought back then 'making love' was.
He knew now that with Warren it had just been fucking, but he'd looked -
he'd learned - and he thought he could figure out now how to make love.
And he'd wanted to make love to Xander.
So much.
To taste and savor, stroke and caress, lave and suck...
And he'd been rejected.
So completely.
Which led him back to his current position, flat on his back - where?
Oh, yeah, flat on his back on the back lawn of the bungalow he shared with
way too many other people. Fighting away memories.
He concentrated, hard, on everything else, to block them out. Smell.
He could smell the wet stench of burning plastic doused with water, uncomfortably
close to his nose.
Taste. Like something small and furry had died on his tongue.
If that was what drinking whiskey left you with, he'd stick with his flavorful
malt beverages, thank you.
Sound. Quiet night-time, grasshoppers chirping sleepily just out of
squishing reach. He hated bugs. Always had. Funny that
he'd spent a lot of time learning to summon demons that looked awfully insectoid,
but there you had it; a lot of stuff he'd done before didn't make much sense.
Touch. He was lying on something strangely soft and comforting, a little
like a sleeping bag. When he turned his head slightly to the side,
he felt a softprickle, softprickle, and realized that it was the freshly
cut grass making his bed.
Memory. A better sense-memory. Xander always cut their grass.
It was one of his self-appointed "jobs" around the house. And since
he'd gotten home a little earlier than usual that day, he'd dragged out the
ancient push-mower. He'd stripped off his shirt, working hard, glistening
with sweat in the warm afternoon sun.
Andrew knew all this in perfect detail. He had been in the kitchen,
fixing a dinner that the Slayers would later complain about, but his eyes
had been firmly glued on Xander in the yard. Probably why there really
was too much salt in the beef stew he'd been making - hard to measure accurately
while you're ogling.
He hoped no one had looked out those kitchen windows and seen him there,
spread-eagled for all the world and god to see, next to his ridiculous ex-bonfire.
The last thing he wanted was to be teased over breakfast - the breakfast
he would make - about his girly tendencies. How come girls could get
away with calling a man effeminate, anyway? Didn't that go against
all of their woman power objectives?
Better get all of this cleaned up, before anyone did see, or more saw, either
way. He struggled to lift his head, and -
~Oh, stars, look at all the pretty stars~
Okay, so maybe getting up wasn't the best idea just yet. He wrinkled
his forehead, trying to figure it out. No searing pain, so it didn't
seem like the fireball had toasted him. None of the meaty slurping
agony that came with dislocating limbs, or the awful rasping grate of broken
bones. He could feel all his toes, bare for some reason, and his fingers,
wriggling in the wet grass. So why couldn't he get up?
Hangover? No, he'd seen Giles and Xander and the Slayers on mornings
after a bender or one too many after dinner. They seemed pretty mobile,
all systems go, especially with screaming and punching the bathroom door
down if it was occupied.
It couldn't be that.
He tried again to move, and failed just as spectacularly. The strangest
lassitude, a lazy languor, warm and boneless as if he was fresh from a massage,
spread through each and every one of his muscles. Contradicting his
mind, which was starting to panic, his body argued that it would be happy
to stay there forever, soaking up the cool night air and the soft, wet grass.
Wet? Yeah, now he remembered. It wasn't just the grass, he himself
was wet.
Wet. Water. Fireball. Water.
Oh. Oh, crud.
Someone had seen him, hadn't they? Dumped a bucket of water on him
and now they knew, they knew --
"Just kill me now," he murmured, the sound of his own voice strange to him.
"You hear me out there, whoever you are? Just get it done with, would
you?"
Sound. Scuff-scuff, scuff-scuff-scuff.
Unable to turn his head more than a smidgeon in the direction of the noise,
Andrew cracked his eyelids open again - and found them focusing on ten toes,
nicely shaped toes, most probably human, five each attached to a long, masculine
foot.
"Andrew?"
The voice was incredulous, for which Andrew couldn't blame it. But
- and this was what made him crumple even further in on himself - it was
Xander's voice. No other voice like it in the world - warm, smooth
tenor, sounding the way spicy sandalwood smelled.
He shut his eyes tightly and shook his head, just a little. ~Go away.
Don't notice me. Forget you saw this, Padawan.~
"Andrew, what the hell are you doing out here, like this?"
Damn malfunctioning Jedi powers. His midichlorians were weakened.
Or something. He wasn't even making sense to himself any more, and
it was starting to flash light and dark behind his eyelids. Could you
really die of embarrassment? Was he about to find out?
"Andrew..." The voice hesitated.
And then, the world stopped, or at least Andrew's breathing did, because
then Xander was crouching down beside him, the soft cedar musk of his skin
wafting over them. One warm, callused hand slid under his head.
"Where have you been?"
~I've been to London, to see the queen.
Andrew giggled at himself. He must have giggled out loud, too, sounding
a little crazy, because the other Xander-hand was gliding over his head,
sifting strands of his hair between gentle fingers, searching for knocks
to the noggin.
"Where did you come from?" Xander sounded bewildered.
~Doesn't matter.~
"How about this - you tell me when you're really awake, and not just free-floating
in La-La Land, K?"
And then, wonder of wonders, Xander's heated arms were sliding under him
at shoulder and knee and he was being lifted - oh, oh, it felt like he was
flying - and then he was being held tight, snuggled against that work-hardened
chest just like he'd always dreamed.
He had to be dreaming, he decided. No way could reality be this good.
And oh, yeah, he didn't ever want to wake up.
But it felt real. Was real. How could it possibly - ?
"Back to the house you go," Xander was murmuring against his scalp, where
it nestled close to the older man's chin. "Willow and Tara are going
to be chewing and slobbering on their fingers, they get so worked up when
I'm away this long. You know how crazy that drives their Auntie Buffy.
I don't even want to know what Giles has gotten into. He can't just
be a Watcher, he has to play around with alchemy. Five minutes is too
long to leave him alone with any kind of household chemicals. And yeah,
I'm just chattering to make sure you're awake and listening."
The softest, sweetest kiss was brushed against his forehead. Andrew
wanted to wake fully, to cry out, do that again and again and again and could
you aim a little lower this time --
"I never thought I'd see you again, sunshine," Xander whispered against his
skin. "You don't know how happy I am to have found you here.
At last."
Andrew nearly purred like a cat, bewildered and amazed but hey, not about
to look a gift horse in the mouth, but then -
Willow - and Tara? Tara was dead.
Slobbering on fingers?
Auntie Buffy?
Alchemist Giles?
The hell?
*Sunshine*?
The double hell?!?
He struggled and fought in Xander's arms, just as fiercely as a half-drowned
kitten, and found himself being petted and soothed down like one. "It's
OK," Xander crooned. "The fire brought you back to me. And I'm
never letting you go again."
Oh.
That was cool.
Andrew could deal with that.
Er... no.
No, actually, he couldn't.
Andrew's eyes rolled back into his head, and for the second time in as many
hours, the darkness rose up and swallowed him whole.
~TBC~
B A C K
