Tuesday :
You have to take certain things for granted when you're not handsome or smart or really all that interesting, and when nothing seems to work out when you open your mouth to try. Andrew developed a thicker skin simply because everything he was going to say to anyone was bound to annoy them, every time. He learned to let it roll off, or did his best to forget when it didn't.
Andrew knows he's supposed to be dead, but he's not, and the thought is with him all the time now. He has no idea what to do with it, but unlike most other things, it won't go away when he stops thinking about it.
It's a break, what they're doing now. A rest. The Scooby gang couldn't really be separated, not if you hacked them into pieces and sent them to the furthest parts of the globe - Xander got the expected death glares for daring to say so out loud. Even with the Hellmouth gone they are still the Scoobies and trouble has them permanently on its GPS. Still, they're just taking some time off, apart but keeping in touch. The girls all go back home, Willow goes with Kennedy, he waves goodbye to Dawn and Buffy and Giles at the airport.
Nothing unusual for a while, now that there are Slayers and Slayers and Slayers. Hopefully. Andrew thinks he's already seen a couple of them around, and the Crater Formerly Known As Sunnydale seems to have made some impact even on the egotistical demon set. There hasn't been a big fuss raised about anything strange, no sudden phone calls from England, nothing.
All his summoning stuff is amidst the ruin of the town, or the ruin of the ruin of the town. Andrew doesn't buy anymore, not even candles for emergencies. It's probably stupid, even Willow's doing magic again. But Willow sort of redeemed herself, somehow and he doesn't think he has.
If he's still alive then maybe that means he never will.
"So."
He's standing at the door of Xander's new truck. Everyone's been dragging him along because he's been quiet until now, and no one's exactly sure what to do with him. He could turn and walk away, just walk, and he knows the other man wouldn't stop him. He's being wrong, being here, intruding into Xander's business and Xander's life, but he's had enough practice that it rolls off like everything else.
"Can I stay with you?"
Xander's got a new apartment, in a town where actual building will actually be taking place, unlike Sunnydale Canyon, which might not even be paved over for parking. No one asked what would happen to it, not Giles or Buffy or any of the girls. No one cared just yet, if ever.
"What?"
Xander is not staring at him, but at a space just to the side of him. Silently asking some invisible person if this is a joke. It's not so easy to go on.
"I just don't want to go home yet."
Andrew has no idea why Xander says yes. He thinks the other man might tell him, there is a long pause between question and answer, but he doesn't bother to ask when nothing is said, sure he won't be told.
He does call family, from Xander's new apartment. Everyone's fine, everyone got out early. He promises to visit, as soon as things are 'settled'. Vagueness is nice, distance is nice. He gets a job without being asked and he picks things up and makes dinner and Xander doesn't ask him to leave.
Andrew always thought he was pretty easy to live with, all things considered. He's a guy and Xander's a guy so they don't really talk all that much and Xander doesn't care if he doesn't ever buy a hamper and neither of them own a vacuum or an iron but do manage to buy a cheap outdoor grill and enough charcoal to launch a small, self-starting space shuttle.
Xander's the one who grills, and he always hums while he does. The sunlight is really warm and the breeze pushes through the door, bringing in that somehow clean smell of summer smoke. Andrew set the table a couple of times but Xander gave him a look, so he doesn't do it anymore, just tosses a stack of paper plates, cheese and buns on the counter. Grabs a couple of beers from the fridge. Andrew actually hates the taste, but this is one thing he can do and be normal and quiet about and that's really, really important. The quiet. He learned that with Warren, if not even earlier.
If he's real, real quiet, Andrew wonders just how long he can stay.
******
Sunday:
He doesn't dream of Warren, which Andrew thinks is good, because the Warren dreams aren't ones he thinks he should be having anymore or maybe doesn't deserve to be having anymore. No one ever talks about villains in the comics once they're gone. How it's supposed to be like they were never there, and you're supposed to forget everything that they ever were or might have been. Not just the bad stuff but the time they shared a sandwich or laughed for real at something you said, that first time - even for just a moment - when they really were your friend, and you knew it.
Warren really didn't go wrong until he thought he was stuck with them forever, Andrew thinks, then he tries not to think about it anymore.
He doesn't dream about Jonathan either, which is really weird because that's what's supposed to happen when you kill someone. You have these violent dreams and you get to see buckets of blood - no matter how little there really was - and that instant when they realize you've betrayed them and the way they slump over dead after all those times you've done little mundane things together. Taking turns in the bathroom, getting panicked when that one guy said things in Spanish neither of you could understand and eventually you just ran for it.
Then he killed Jonathan and it doesn't seem right, doesn't fit with what happened before or after, doesn't fit with itself, if that's possible. Andrew expects that when he does come - he has to come, right? - he will be helpless, and Jonathan will hurt him. Badly.
But Jonathan never comes.
******
Wednesday:
He catches a glimpse of Xander as he's stepping out of the shower, cooling down after a long day at work, water still gleaming like beads of oil in his hair. The eye patch is gone, eyelid down on his injured eye and still a few traces of red and darkness, bruising. It's doesn't change anything, doesn't change the value of looking. Andrew can always close his eyes and see Xander there, like a photograph. He's had a lot of practice with it.
Xander smells good enough that Andrew closes his eyes if he hits the shower fast enough after he's done, closes his eyes like people do in the movies in really meaningful moments. He smells that good. Sometimes he even buries his face in Xander's damp towel, hung up on the rack, though in his own mind he looks stupid doing it, and he feels stupid doing it.
The towel is still in use now, is around Xander's waist already, white and fluffy and there's nothing for him to see but Andrew still goes hard, instantly, so unexpected that it's all he can do not to fall over, squeezing his legs together and praying that his baggy pants are indeed baggy enough.
He's really, really bad at this sort of thing and in lieu of anything that would make things worse he just turns around and does his best not to hobble off too obviously.
The thought that Xander will kick him out comes and goes, as if Xander would ever worry enough to even be disgusted, to care. Andrew takes a quickie in his own room, surprised by his own silence and the grim efficiency of it. He washes his hands twice, and once more in the kitchen, and then bakes a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Two layers, though he manages to get crumbs everywhere when he cuts it in half.
******
Friday:
Xander's got a girl on the couch in the living room. Andrew's on his computer and has the door shut and can't hear anything and doesn't look. For the first time since the Hellmouth collapsed, he thinks about conjuring something, just to give his brain and hands and whatever people have these days in place of morals something to do besides sit there.
He's electrified, nervous energy scraping like nails beneath his skin. If the girl is a demon - and this is Xander, so it's always decent odds - he might need to try and do something. It won't work, but Andrew believes in the attempt. You sort of have to take pride where you can, when you're a stick boy.
In the morning, she's gone, no sign that she'd even stayed the night. Andrew's sort of sure they must have done, you know, it, but Xander doesn't say anything and he never sees the girl again. Every once in a while there's a new girl, and another night he ends up spending in his room with the door closed trying not to hear what he's trying to hear. Even if Xander's become some sort of playboy, though, it doesn't seem to mean much. He never sees the same girl for more than a little while.
Xander calls Andrew Anya, just once or twice when he's not thinking at all and sees him from the corner of his eye. Xander turns red and gets either angry or sad or, likely, both. Andrew knows he shouldn't be hurt, how much Xander wants him to be someone else. He's a murderer, after all, and doesn't have much right to be hurt about anything ever again. No doubt Jonathan would love the chance to be called by any name at all.
If he lets it go on like that for too long, he can't ever get to sleep.
******
Thursday:
When Andrew does dream, those sorts of dreams that he knows mean more than random thoughts all stuck together or that he's really got it for Xander - well, duh, shades of Spider-Man with the endless pining -
He really did think they were going to be all right. It wasn't enough, wasn't right with just him and Jonathan but if he killed Jonathan it was wrong but then it was going to be okay again. Warren would come back, and Jonathan would forgive him and understand because it had made everything all right.
But he knew it was wrong too, and he did it anyway. Both things were true.
When Andrew dreams, he dreams about cans. It's easily the worst dream he's ever had, and when he wakes up from it he sits in the kitchen, light on, and drinks whatever is in the fridge, maybe reads a magazine or watches some TV with the sound down until it goes away or he has to at least try to sleep, to get up for work in the morning.
It was really easier when he thought he was going to die. The thought was so big, it didn't leave much room for anything else.
He dreams that he's got a huge pantry, full of all sorts of cans, beets and corn and asparagus and even this weird bread he didn't think could come in cans, and little jars of olives and bigger jars and he's working as fast as he is able, putting it all together and making sure it fits and balances. It looks good, solid, but somewhere along the way everything starts to go wrong. Nothing changes shape or anything like that but still, it's all falling, sliding off and out of his hands and he can't get it together, eventually he's got both hands pushing as hard as he can and Andrew knows it isn't going to hold together. He can hear the rumble and roar and everything is falling, everything is crashing down on him and there's nothing he can do.
Every time he wakes up, he looks for bruises that aren't there, touches his hands and his chest carefully, all the places soaked with sweat, amazed when he doesn't find them.
************
Monday:
Xander is standing in the kitchen with the overhead light off, and he looks like he's probably drunk. Maybe he met a girl and they went to her place and now he's back, even though it's not really late enough and he doesn't look that rumpled. Andrew wonders if its all right to stand here and watch, even though Xander's not doing much.
Andrew actually kissed Warren once, when he was really drunk and angry about Katrina, and he didn't seem to care one way or the other, or remember it, so it's probably all right to stay where he is.
Buffy was wrong about things not being like stories, or if she was right, she wasn't right to get angry about it. It wasn't her complaint to make, because she was the Slayer and everything she did or didn't do was important, just because of that. Even if she died, even if it wasn't in any important way, it would always be important. He wondered if she ever understood how comforting that must be, or if she just took it for granted, didn't even know.
Warren was the evil one, the most evil, because he'd killed Katrina and Tara and tried to kill Buffy and even if Andrew had killed Jonathan it wasn't really the same thing, not really. It didn't make him feel better to think about it like that, so he assumed it was true enough.
Andrew knew he hadn't mean it, when he'd said it was cool, that Katrina was dead and Buffy hadn't come to get them for it. He didn't mean it at all but the words just sort of came out and there wasn't a way to take them back - and when would he stop apologizing for things only he was left to remember?
"You're still up?"
"Yeah. There was this chat online and they had one of the guys from this new graphic novel - I mean, it wasn't very good and everything but-" It was always an effort to shut up, even when he knew he should and even when he had known before he started talking. "Yeah, I'm still... um, up."
Xander nods. His jaw is tight, his look as grim as it had ever been in those last few days. Here he is, wondering why he hasn't died yet, and the thought of a new danger still makes him cold.
"What is it? Is it a demon?"
Xander's hands clench against the counter. Strong hands, all rough from his work. Not good to go into construction worker fantasies when this is obviously a serious moment, but he does just a little. Xander doesn't really need anything like help from him anyway. Anything he says is just going to get in the way.
"I could have made her happy. If she was just going to die anyway. I thought I'd have too much time to screw it up, not this."
The really hard things you can't say all at once, it's like chewing, but in reverse, letting the words out slow enough so that you don't choke on them. Andrew waits, but not very long.
"It's like that one movie, you know. 'You'll have to love, honor and cherish me for the next twenty seconds.'"
"Joe Versus the Volcano."
Score by Georges Delerue, later of 'Curly Sue' fame. He had a few MP3 cuts on his hard drive, from people even more obsessively geeky than he. He drew more comfort in that idea than he thought he should.
"Yeah."
If only there were a way movie trivia could be helpful for these sorts of things.
"You didn't know that she was going to die, though."
Xander has that look, how can anyone feel that much and not fall apart. The one eye gleams only that much brighter for the loss of its partner. He wonders what Anya thought of him, in moments like these.
"I made the biggest mistake of my life, and I can't ever take it back. I can't even say I wouldn't make it again. What the fuck does that mean?"
Andrew opens his mouth, closes it, shifts his hands into his side pockets and then his back, arms out like wobbly chicken wings. There's something he's supposed to be doing here, besides trying not to walk over, hug Xander in a very manly, supportive way and then stick his tongue down his throat. Andrew's not even sure he could do that on tiptoe. Before he can do anything, Xander surprises him.
"It's okay that you're here. You know that, right?"
He's looking at Andrew like he's another human being. Like he's Dawn or Giles or... no, probably not Buffy. He's not even sure Xander looked at Anya the way he looked at Buffy.
But Warren never looked at him like that. At times, Warren tried not to look at him at all. And then thought he didn't notice. Every time.
"Yeah. I know."
*******************
Saturday:
He blinks twice, and it's been six months, and Dawn and Amanda and Buffy and maybe just about everyone is coming over for dinner. It's weird how he can see it, in the strangest places, supermarkets and bus stops and playgrounds, all those girls with Slayer eyes. He hopes they all don't show up, there won't be near enough beans, even if he buys out the store. Andrew worries about how many place settings - he'll have to go buy even cheap placemats, they have none - but Xander drags a picnic table into the kitchen and drops another one outside and has three kegs. Eating in bulk, there are vats of potato salad and vats of ribs and vats of coleslaw. Big, bulky flavorless food. The all-American dream, Xander says.
Giles is not going to be happy, Andrew says, and goes to the store for stress relief and asparagus spears, until he remembers they're going to be eating coleslaw for the next week-and-a-half, and stocks up on the imperishables instead.
Really, he should have seen it coming, but Andrew's mind was already twisting between seeing Dawn again - he missed her smile, had she changed? Had she grown? - and that of frenetic hostess - he hadn't seen any cups, Xander knew you needed cups to drink beer, right? He could imagine someone like Faith preferring a keg stand, though - was Faith coming? The principal? Did they really have enough potato salad?
He's quickly putting things away - like on top of like or at least close, not an anal-retentive system but worth the extra effort and somewhere along the way his fingers go strangely numb, either before or after the first can slips off its perch. It shouldn't be happening like this, this isn't right, and the more he fumbles the worse it gets. Andrew panics, and his hand comes down and the entire shelf tips up, spilling everything.
The cans are tumbling down around his hands and he can't catch them or stop them and all of a sudden it's just the end of the world. His legs give out and he's on the floor, forehead pressed against the edge of the lowest shelf, the only one that didn't slide backward. All information about geeks is not true. He doesn't usually cry - a knife to his throat and a dangle over the Hellmouth as the exception to the rule - but he's sort of surprised the sounds he's making are coming from him, worse than crying even if he's shedding very few tears. It doesn't seem like he can do much to stop it either, the tense trembling that make the rest of his body shake seemingly unconnected to the hoarse, keening moans.
He's actually startled out of it, when a set of warm hands slide down around his shoulders. Andrew freezes, jumps along with his heart because it's Jonathan behind him, even if he's warm and not hurting him yet. This is it, now maybe he's finally going to get punished and maybe redeemed. It's not that he's any braver but the feeling he didn't understand at first is now just gnawing away at him, all the time, and anything would feel better than this.
"You're going to have to let it go."
It isn't Jonathan. It isn't even Warren, and before he knows it he's pulled against Xander's shoulder, half-held with the both of them mostly collapsed against the fridge. The hands he's been thinking about - obsessing over, let's be truthful - are both on him, one around his right arm and the other in his hair, just brushing his ear, but it isn't sexy at all, really. He doesn't feel anything but that low ache that rips out a little sob, choked out of any sound he's ever made before. Xander's hands tighten, and he breathes in and finds some balance, somehow.
"You can't keep doing this."
Punishing himself is no protection at all. If Jonathan still wants revenge he'll have it, and he'll keep making mistakes, and life will keep being painful and weird and awkward, Hellmouth or no Hellmouth. He's a murderer, and he'll always be one even if he's never punished ever. It's going to keep coming, life and memory and everything, and this is just a weight around his ankles and he can /feel/ it there, dragging.
"I don't know how to stop."
He's finally having an adult conversation but it still refuses to fit right. Sleeves too long, sags in all the wrong places.
"I don't think there is a how. I think you just have to."
The words are stuck in his chest and they hurt, real bad and Andrew doesn't want to let them go but it's just one more thing out of his control.
"Can you h-help me... figure it out?"
It hurts, he's still shaking so hard, but the hands are tugging at him and he sort of falls back, ends up half-curled against Xander's chest again and it feels wrong and stupid and shameful and - yeah. Yeah. He breathes in deep, and takes a few more moments to stop shaking.
It's a long time before anyone feels like talking.
"I broke the shelf."
"I can fix it."
A can of corn is resting in Andrew's peripheral vision, but it's just a can, and he can pick it up any time he wants to.
~ end
==================
Author's Notes -
1. Xander really grew on me along the seasons and I was most impressed with the way his character changed and grew and it was never really dependant upon supernatural elements as much as the other characters. He also eventually /did/ become the 'cool guy' he kept angsting that Oz got to be and he didn't. Loved that.
2. Andrew seemed like he would be a really hard character to write, which is why they never seemed to get him down right. He seemed to get used in a lot of throwaway joke moments and his character did hammer down his share of the moral clichés pretty hard, but he's a geek and I still gotta represent with my peoples. X D
3. I wish this fic was funnier but, of course, we all can't be Joss Whedon.
4. No, I don't think Xander is gay at all. I know for damn sure Andrew is, but I think they could have an interesting dynamic, whatever. Blah blah blah mansnuggles.
5. Hope my fact checking is all right, and the tenses are only bearably off, not painfully so. This was supposed to be one of those 100-word drabbles, but I always write more than I mean to. D'oh.