Ame's Insanity (amejisuto) wrote in ames_weirdness, @ 2009-09-18 13:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | buffy tvs, crossover, highlander, xander/methos |
Breaking Free -- Xander/Methos Rated R 1/1
Wrote this in 2006. I need to write another fic in this series someday. If only I could find my Xander!muse. Damn it.
Title: A Kind of Magic ~ Breaking Free
Claim: Xander Harris
Author: amejisuto
Prompt: Death
Fandom: Buffy tVS/Highlander
Pairing: Xander/Methos Pre-slash.
Rating: R for language
Disclaimer:Not mine, never will be. No harm, no foul, no money made.
Warnings/Squicks: Mention of character deaths.
Summary: A Scooby and an Immortal walk into a bar...
Word Count: 8656
Written for crossovers100 and crossposed to highlander_fic and xander_slash.
Beta'd by the wonderful kitty_poker1. Thank you dearest!
Notes: Sigh. So I had this bunny for a crossover with Xander Harris from Buffy and Methos from Highlander and I couldn't give the thing away. So I had to write it becuase it haunted me all week. Many, many thanks to the wonderful eyezrthewindows for helping me with my Methos muse. I couldn't have done this fic without her. Also extra hugs to my lovely beta Kitty for putting up with yet another of my fandoms, and the wonderful suki_blue for letting me run plot ideas by her.
This takes place pretty much in the present. But, I am a proud member of Clan Denial. EVERYTHING after the Highlander episode The Modern Promethius did NOT happen. Ahriman, O'Rourke, Endgame, all of it. Richie is still around once I get around to it, and so is Connor. MacLeod may brood but he does not need extra-strength prozac. That is, once I get around to them. Right now, it's pretty much Xander and Methos. I really hope y'all enjoy.
Breaking Free
Xander looked bleary-eyed across the table at his drinking mate for the past three nights, the bottle of Jack Daniels he'd been drinking from more empty than full between them, the empty bottles of Mackeson XXX that Adam had been drinking surrounding it like an honor guard.
He'd come to Whitechapel for the express purpose of getting drunk where Giles and his Council of Gits, as Spike would have said, wouldn't be able to find him and to drink in honor of fallen comrades. He couldn't really say friends, though, could he? Because he'd never let himself be friends with Spike or Angel or half of the demons he'd known. All because the people he'd trusted most for the past ten years or so had lied to him. Over and over.
He'd met his drinking buddy three nights ago, when the pub had been so full of football fans that he'd had to share a table. Adam was...odd. On the surface he had that geeky bookworm thing that Giles had going on so long ago. But these days, Xander was doubting everything people told him. Up until now they'd mainly sat together and watched the terrible shows on the telly while making fun of the other patrons of the pub.
Xander took a few deep breaths and tried to sober up, if only a little. “Adam, are you human? I mean, you give off these really old vibes. You remind me a lot of Anya. She’d have liked you. You're all...blunt. Anya was always blunt.”
For some reason, the other man smirked. Xander knew it was a smirk because he'd seen the almost exact same look on Spike's face more than once. At the thought of the blond vampire, he filled his glass up with another shot of JD and took a drink.
“And what makes you think that I'm not?”
Xander leaned back into the booth and tried not to snort booze out his nose. That would hurt. “Yeah, right. Number one, you're older than you look. More dangerous too. Don't know, don't care really since you've had plenty of opportunities to make me a not-so virgin sacrifice or to eat my liver so that means if you are a demon you're an okay kind of guy. Besides, like I said, you remind me of Anya and she was, like...over a thousand years old. Still pretty, well, except when she went all veiny, but yeah. Old. And number...”
Xander paused for a moment. In his drunkenness he'd lost track. “Four! Yeah! Four. The final brick in the wall...I think you're kinda cute. And sexy, and the nose makes me wonder about other body parts and size. And as anyone who knows me will tell you, I attract weird people. Or am attracted to them, I'm not sure. So, I am warm for your form, so that means you are either not totally human or a serial killer just waiting for the right time to drag me back to his lair and chop me up to freeze my liver in zip lock bags.”
Adam had started chuckling around the not-so virgin sacrifice comment, and by the end of Xander's drunken summary he was nearly falling out of his chair laughing. Which just made Xander think he was right because a normal human would have called the men in the white coats out.
He then started wondering if they had men with white coats in England. Maybe they just used butterfly nets and would ask him politely to come along to the nut hatch for tea.
“You do realize that you missed three, don't you?”
Xander shrugged and poured himself another drink. “Does it matter?” He thought that maybe Adam had avoided the question but he wasn't sure. He was feeling fine, feeling buzzed, feeling comfortably numb. That made drunk!Xander a happy Xander since he'd worked hard these past few days to stay that way.
Once Adam stopped his laughing, he leaned back in his seat, sprawling like a lazy cat. A sexy, lazy cat. He just sort of melted into the booth like he was part of it. “So, why do you want to know?”
Xander shrugged. “I figure you need to talk to someone. That's why people go to bars. But if it was normal stuff, you'd be talking to the bartender. That's why I'm here, at least. That and to drink to fallen enemies.” Xander poured yet another shot and slammed it back. Angel would have been amused to know that the mortal who’d hated him most was thinking of him with regret. “I just get the feeling that if I mention vampires, werewolves and witches--oh my-- that you won't run away screaming. And if you wanna talk about whatever got a bug up your ass, well, I'm not exactly ignorant about things that go bump in the night. Well, not so much anymore.”
The last part was said under his breath. No, he'd finally gotten the truth from Giles. Damn the man.
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re rather perceptive?”
Xander chuckled and gestured at his eye patch. “Yeah. One person. Right before he did this. If it wasn't for a friend...well, I'd have a nice dog and a white cane right now.” Xander thought about pouring another drink in honor of Spike coming through and saving his ass--again-- but the bottle was leaning slightly to the left. He just couldn't seem to grab a hold of it.
“You, my young friend, are drunk.”
“Duh. I've been drunk all this time, where have you been? I'm thinking of staying drunk. My dad did it for fifteen years, and still it was the Hellmouth that got him. He didn't believe me when I told him to leave. Neither did Mom.” Two more of his dead left at the Hellmouth. He wasn't sure Anya would be too happy with that. Maybe if he tipped his glass the bottle would be straight and he could get another drink.
“Ah. A child of one of the Hellmouths, then. The one in California, I take it?”
“No, the one in Japan.” Xander finally gave up pouring and snatched up the bottle. It only took him two tries. “Spike died closing it, you know. Burned himself alive. It was his second death, if you count when Dru killed him. He came back, though. He won't be coming back this time. Three strikes and you're out. Or is it three wickets and you're out? I still don't know cricket. Do you think Bo knows cricket?”
Adam put down his bottle of stout and shook his head. “Why is it I seem to attract boy heroes? Do you think it's my aftershave?”
Xander took a long pull off the bottle, his throat and stomach having been desensitized to the burn a day or two ago. “Not a hero. I'm not even the sidekick anymore. Got retired to errand boy because they're afraid I'll run with a sword and put my other eye out. I'm back to being the errand boy and the Zeppo. I hate being the Zeppo.”
“You know, after Zeppo left the Marx Brothers, it just wasn't the same. Even Groucho admitted that Zeppo was funnier than he was.”
Xander took another drink from the bottle and wondered if there had been an earthquake. Why else would his booth be tipping to the left? Maybe the whole pub was sliding into yet another sinkhole and that was why the bottle had been leaning earlier. That would be good, because then he'd be in the ground like Anya and Spike.
Well, not that Spike was in the ground. He was dust. Maybe he was like that old Kansas song, Dust In The Wind. In a way, Xander hoped not, because eventually dust got onto people's windshields in LA and then homeless people would be washing Spike off some matron's SUV for quarters at some street corner.
“Come on, lad, let’s get you home before you want to go to a greenhouse and talk to the top soil.”
A warm hand grabbed him by the arm and the small, sober part of Xander's brain was relieved that he didn't have to worry about being vamped. The rest of him puzzled over Adam's statement. “Ooops. Did I say that part about dust out loud? Or are you psychic?”
“Out loud. Now, come along, Xander, let's get you home.” Adam got them both standing, the other man strangely steady despite the amount of beer he'd drank. Drunk. That was it, they should both have been drunk.
Xander watched as Adam propped him against the wall and then picked up his backpack from under the booth. He reached for it and Adam handed it over. “This is my home now. I ran away from the other one. They lied. I didn't have to do it. There was other stuff I could have done.”
“Right, so that's your home? Not much room for a bed in there, eh? Guess you'll have to come to my hotel room with me then, lad. There we go.” Xander nearly tripped going out of the door and Adam steadied him. He had nice hands. They had callouses that Xander had long ago learned came from using a sword. Adam continued talking to him as they made their way down Whitechapel Road. “And just what was it that you didn't have to do?”
Without conscious thought, large tears welled up in Xander's eyes. “Jesse. I didn't have to kill Jesse. He was my best friend, my brother. Even though he was a vampire, he wasn't trying to kill me. But I killed him. It was an accident but, still, it was my hand that held the stake that killed him. I killed my brother and they said it was okay because he was evil. It wasn't.”
*****
Something shook wherever Xander was and he groaned at the feeling of his gray matter being treated like jello. He tried to sit up, only to find his brain really was jello, but not the jiggly kind. Oh no, his brain was at the not quite set stage and currently trying to leak out of his ears.
“Here. Drink this, it'll make you feel better.”
“Mmmrpf. Coffee?”
“Sorry, but no. Banana.”
Xander opened up his eye and peered at the blurry face in front of him. “Banana?”
“Yes, a banana milkshake. Between the milk and the B vitamins, that should take care of most of your hangover. What it doesn't, I have tea and toast for.”
Xander wearily sat up. “Urgh. Thanks.”
He sipped slowly at the milkshake that his companion had given him. He pretty much remembered everything from the night before up until the booth had started tilting. He did know that Adam hadn't said much about just what exactly he was, but evidently he'd decided to take Xander back to his hotel rather than kill and/or eat him.
Xander wasn't too worried about being taken advantage of either, since his head hurt a hell of a lot more than his ass did at the moment. And he really doubted anyone would have found a drunken one-eyed man attractive in the very least, so he really didn't worry about what had happened on that end.
Sipping the thick milkshake through the straw was almost too much. For the past few days he'd not bothered with getting sober. He'd just gotten another bottle of booze to take back to his cheap motel room with him and started drinking again the next day. It was an art, to get just drunk enough to be able to make the hangover go away but be sober enough to get cleaned up and walk down the street back to the pub once it opened up.
“Feeling better?” The voice was amused, with an odd accent. Mostly British but there was something else Xander couldn't put his finger on. Maybe it was because his finger was throbbing along with his head.
“Nothing that cutting off my head can't cure, thanks.”
For some reason, that seemed to make Adam amused. His eyes got all crinkly in the corners and it looked like he was laughing on the inside. From what he could remember about the past few days, Adam did that a lot. Thanks to the wonder of Harris genes, he usually remembered most of his binges. Which was bad, in a way, since he knew exactly what he had to be embarrassed about up to a certain point. Adam's voice still had that sense of amusement when he pointed out where the bathroom was.
Xander put down the milkshake and excused himself and did all the necessary things. Took a leak, and tried to clean up as well as he could without a comb, toothbrush or deodorant. He tried to remember everything he'd said last night, and had a sneaking suspicion that he'd started babbling before becoming unconscious. It couldn't have been too bad, though; if he’d started talking about all the demons he had loved before, no doubt Adam would have locked him up.
Xander adjusted the patch and left the bathroom to stand nervously in the room. “So...can we skip the awkward part of today's festivities? Thanks for, well, not letting me lie in a puddle of puke in the middle of Whitechapel.” He fidgeted. “You can forget everything I asked you last night. If you want.”
“Oh, for god's sake, will you please sit down? I don't bite, you know.” Again there was that feeling of amusement, almost as if Adam knew more than he was willing to tell and found everything funny in a been there done that sort of way.
Xander sat and waited for Adam to say something. Anything. Adam was sort of odd looking in a way. His nose was his most prominent feature, followed by his eyes. His eyes shifted colors, not the way Spike's had when the vampire had been angry but more like agate. They were green and brown and a beautiful kind of golden. They seemed both alien and all too human, all at once.
Privately, Xander thought that in bits Adam's face was too much. The nose too big, the cheekbones too pronounced, the eyes too odd. But when you mixed them together, the older man really was pretty sexy. In a mysterious James Bond villain kind of way.
“Aren't you going to say anything?”
Xander knew he was blushing. “Kinda thought I said too much last night.”
Adam smiled and Xander had to stop the flutter in his stomach that had nothing to do with a week of doing shots. This was why he had a feeling that Adam was more than he seemed to be. With the exception of Cordelia, he had never been attracted to a normal, everyday, accountant/banker, totally boring type human. Faith, Anya...
Spike.
He hadn't admitted his attraction to the blond vampire until it was way too late. In fact, it had only come to him on the first anniversary of the closing of the Hellmouth. He'd been somewhere in Africa at the time and had gotten drunk on some sort of local brew that he was deathly afraid had a bit too much to do with the local plant life than was healthy.
Adam's clearing of his throat brought him back to the present. “Well, how's this then? You offered to listen. Now, normally I'd never admit to any of this, but I feel the certain need to even things out, if you will.”
Adam played with his tea cup for a moment. “I'm heading back for the States. Let's just say that I divide my time between France and the Pacific Northwest. A certain friend of mine called about a week ago to remind me of something I must admit I'd rather not think about. A mutual friend of ours has a birthday coming up in May, and Mac reminded me that Joe is getting older. I haven't been spending enough time with him and, well....his time is short.”
Adam paused for a moment and then really looked at Xander. “You will find as the time goes by that, no matter how long you've had with your friends, it's never long enough.”
Xander flinched. “Hey! Been there, bought the tee-shirt and had it burned alive.”
“No, you don't understand. You mentioned something about being upset because “they” had lied to you. I don't know about what or why, but you would be surprised at how quickly things change.”
Xander stood up, suddenly angry. “Right. I'll tell you exactly what happened and you can judge for yourself if you want!”
“Sit down and listen, boy! I've known Joe Dawson for twenty-two years now. He's taken more of my attitude than any mortal has in over a hundred years!” At Xander's look of astonishment, Adam nodded. “Yes, boy, I said years. He's forgiven me for lying to him, for leaving him in the lurch and for being a general smart mouthed bastard. One day he will die. Hopefully not for another twenty or so years but, with mortals, you never know. He's fifty-eight; he could have a heart attack following MacLeod around or just damn well keel over behind his bar!”
Adam broke off and sat back for a moment, his throat bobbing when he swallowed. Xander got the feeling that this is what had been bothering his drinking companion. In a way, it was the exact opposite of what he'd dealt with Anya about. After a thousand years or so, suddenly being mortal had bothered her, and nearly every day she'd look in the mirror for new wrinkles or gray hair.
But to stay the same age for the next hundred or so years? Or more? And to actually be friends with humans, not considering them as a lower life form or a food source, and then to watch your friend grow old? That would suck.
“Last year, after his birthday Joe joked about retiring. And I looked at him and realized that he had turned into an old man almost overnight. I left the next day and, though we've talked over the phone and Internet, I haven't seen him for over six months now. Because at heart I am a bloody coward.” This time it was Adam who got up to pace and eventually ended up looking out the window in the motel room. “Christ. I need a drink.”
Xander just sat there. He got the feeling that he was getting more information than the other man had meant to disclose. “Okay, yeah. That would suck. Anya, my ex, she said that humans had the lifespan of mayflies. That you couldn't waste your chances. But I guess, looking at it from the other side, it would be hard. I'm sorry.”
Adam chuckled, but he didn't seem amused this time. “You're sorry? Oh, don't pity me, young Xander. Save your pity for someone who needs it. It could be worse, and I have seen many interesting things." Adam gave him a strange look. "You didn't ask how old I was."
Xander just shrugged. "Who cares? Anything before the invention of the TV and Swanson dinners goes over my head. Besides, my ex was a former thousand year old vengeance demon. Age matters very little, sometimes. Especially when you see a woman well over ten times your age pout and throw a tantrum because you didn't buy the right chocolate."
Adam snorted. And Xander took a good look at him. He really was kinda sexy in a totally odd way. Adam didn't act like he knew he was sexy, or anything like that. But he was. Or it could have been his—otherness—that Xander sensed. Xander's track record pretty much sucked in that regard.
Then again, while Adam wasn't the first male he'd been attracted to, for the first time he admitted his attraction to himself before the recipient was dead. Xander groaned and threw himself back down on the unmade bed.
Adam looked at him, his eyebrow raised. "What?"
For a moment Xander considered putting the pillow over his face and smothering himself with it. "Nothing! Just...I remembered telling you that I was...that, I...gods! I remembered saying I was "warm for your form". Feel free to kill me to put me out of my misery."
He could hear Adam as came and sat on the bed beside him, the mattress dipping when the other man's weight hit it.. "Oh no! I can't do that. That's blackmail material, at the very least. It's been a long time since I've heard that phrase. Oh, and you're kind of cute when you’re drunk, like a cat that's been neutered and is just coming out of anesthesia."
"Gee. Thanks ever so much."
"Are you just going to lie there?"
"Yes. My head still hurts too much to suffocate myself and you're not being helpful."
Xander could hear the amusement in Adam's tone. "Sorry. Wrong Immortal. But if you still consider it a favor when you meet my friend MacLeod, I'm sure he'll help you out. He's always helping people out. Bloody idiot should go into social services, stick his nose into the business of people that really need it."
Suddenly there was a sharp smack on Xander's leg. "I told you mine, so you must tell me yours. But first, is it a long story?"
Xander groaned again. "Try ten or so years long. Nearly half of my life long. I mean, I'm gonna be 25 this year and it's like...everything I thought about how the world works is wrong. And my friends just don't get why I'm so pissed. That's why I ran out on them. I ended up in Whitechapel because a friend of mine made a name for himself here." Under the pillow, Xander laughed ruefully. "At least he said he did. God only knows, Spike could have been lying when he said he was Jack the Ripper. He was a name dropper, said he's partied with Jim Morrison, too."
The thought of Spike made his heart twist. What might have beens sucked, big time. To find out that he might have had the chance to talk to the vampire had been exciting. To hear Andrew explain how Spike had died in a back alley had nearly crushed him again.
"Gods. If I had a penny for every time someone claimed to be Jack the Bloody Ripper I'd be able to buy North America! And do stop brooding under there. If there’s anything I can't abide, it's a grown man pouting in the dark. Besides, we don't have time to brood, or for you to tell your story. You can do that once we're at Heathrow and we have little more than four hours to make our plane."
Adam moved away from the bed as Xander took the pillow off his face and sat up suddenly. "What? Excuse me? Did we have more of a conversation while I was drunk than I know about? Because I don't remember a plane. Getting too blitzed to walk straight, yeah, but planes? Nope."
Adam shoved a few things into a bag that had been sitting on the dresser and then zipped it up. "Well, it is your fault I'm two days late getting back to Seacouver. You'll just have to tag along and apologize to Joe for that. Besides, you’re annoyed with your friends here and, if I'm guessing right, missing the States. Why, I'll never understand. Worst beer on the planet in any century and, believe me, I'd know. So this way, you can keep me from getting in trouble and you can avoid whoever it is that set you to drinking."
Adam came and stood at the end of the bed, looking down at him with a smirk on his face. It was definitely a smirk; Xander had seen too many variants to mistake that. "Now get up and go wash or something. You smell like a deceased pig."
Xander flipped Adam off, using the American style. "Get knotted. Besides, why they hell do you want some kid tagging along to the States with you? And what makes you think I'll come with you anyhow?"
Adam picked up his backpack from the floor and threw it on Xander, knocking the breath out of him for a moment. "I get bored easily and I find you entertaining. What else do you have to do? Get drunk in a few more dives until you end up in the Thames? That river was disgusting 500 years ago; I'd hate to know what the modern era has done to it."
Then Adam gave him an honest to god leer. "Besides, I thought you were "warm for my form".”
"God, you're never letting me forget that, are you?"
"Not in the next hundred years or so."
Xander just shook his head and got up. It was true he didn't have any reason to be in England anymore, not since walking away from the Council. And while he'd learned a lot about real life in Africa and the few countries in Asia he'd made it to, he did miss the States. Honest to god hamburgers, and pizza delivered to your door, piping hot. Africa had taught him a lot but it lacked a lot of amenities. And his passport was all fixed up.
"All right, since you asked so nicely. But we need to stop and get some chocolate to take with us." Adam gave him a look and shook his head but Xander grinned.
He’d followed his dick into worse situations. And Adam seemed less homicidal than Spike, at the very least. "Hey, you are buying my plane ticket, right? Since you probably were King Solomon or have pirate treasure hidden away somewhere. Right? Adam?"
*****
Xander sat down wearily in one of the chairs in the lounge area where they were waiting for their flight. The past hour and a half had been weird. Then again, the past two-three weeks had been weird with a extra topping of crappy. His head hurt, both from the leftover hangover and from his eye socket. Well, and getting his bigger duffle and ax checked through security. That was never fun. He dreaded getting on the plane; the change in air pressure made his eye socket ache. It had been fun seeing the look on Adam's face when Xander had come out of his cheap motel and climbed into the waiting taxi with a three foot old fashioned ax.
Adam came to sit beside him, carry-on in one hand and a glass of beer in the other. Xander groaned. "God. How can you even...I mean, didn't you drink enough last night?"
"Please. There is no such thing as drinking enough good beer, especially since I'm about to board an hours long flight to the land of bottled dishwater. Besides, that's why I paid extra for first class, so I can sit and drink beer instead of being forced to sit in the annoyingly narrow plastic chairs and make polite chit-chat with some tourist on his way back home who is offering to show me pictures of the Tower." Adam shuddered. "Why people are facinated with torture, I'll never know."
Xander shrugged. "Probably because it's not real to most people. It's something funny out of Black Adder or Monty Python. They don't get the whole torture and death thing."
Adam shot him a look and shook his head. "Out of the mouths of babes..." He shook his head and then took a long drink. Xander had to grin. If the man enjoyed everything like he did beer... His mind wandered for a moment. Xander's impulsiveness had gotten him into worse situations and, if Adam did turn out to be some sort of weirdo, he'd at least gotten an interesting traveling companion back to the US.
Or Adam could offer him airplane sex in the bathroom and stuff him down the toilet somewhere over Iceland. With his luck, Xander never knew. For some reason, though, he trusted Adam. There was just a feeling of connection, somehow. Well, and lusties. Xander couldn't forget the lusties.
"Are you going to tell me now or what?"
"Do we have time?"
"Of course. Nowadays, the officials require you to be two hours early for any trans-Atlantic flight. As the current vernacular goes, spill."
Xander sighed. "Okay, but warn me before you call the cops in the funny hats or something." He closed his eye. Maybe it would be easier to say it all without getting mad if Xander didn't actually look at anyone.
"Once upon a time..." Adam snorted but Xander didn't even open his eye. "Shut up. Once upon a time there were three friends, two boys and a little girl. And while they boys loved the little girl like a little sister, they had a special bond. One the little girl didn't even know about. They shared things about their home life that I'm not going into because that story is longer than two hours. Besides, there were other things. The little girl didn't watch G. I. Joe or Thundercats, and when she played doctor actual thermometers were involved. Still, the three were great friends. And stayed that way for years and years."
"Then one day everything changed. A new girl came to town, and later on one of the boys found out she was the Slayer. Up until then, the three friends knew the town was odd but no one talked about it." Xander snorted. "It was like the military's stance on gays. 'Don't ask, don't tell.' They went to the local hang-out one night, with their new friend in tow. Long story short, for once the three actually had some luck dancing with people and went outside."
Xander stopped for a minute. It always hurt to remember how he'd lived and Jesse hadn't. "Problem was, their dance partners were vampires. With the help of the Slayer, one boy and the girl got away. The other boy, Jesse, didn't. Long story shorter, he was vamped. The boy and girl worked with the Slayer and her Watcher to keep the Hellmouth from opening. And the Watcher told the boy that Jesse was dead. That there was nothing left of Jesse, it was just the thing that killed him. That there was nothing left of the boy he considered his brother."
Xander had to stop. He hadn't allowed himself to think about that night for so many years; he'd always just pushed it away and refused to deal with it. Now it was like he was picking at a ten year old wound that had festered. "So later that night, when the boy killed his best friend, his brother, he didn't let himself be upset. Didn't let himsef mourn. He just went on as if nothing had happened, and so did the girl. They never talked about it again."
Xander could hear Adam shifting in his seat and he took a deep breath. He wanted this story over and done with. "Years went by and the boy continued to help the Slayer. The Watcher became a mentor and then an almost father-figure to the three kids. Together they faced vampires and demons and the Scourge of Europe. People died around them but they saved lives more often than not. Shit happened. A vampire who had had his ability to bite taken away from him joined the group, as did a vengeance demon turned human, and a few others. The girl actually grew up to be a powerful witch that nearly destroyed the entire world in her grief once. The Slayer even died and came back, thanks to magic. Through it all, though, the boy stayed the same. Always the back up, always the comedian, the normal guy. The Zeppo."
Adam snorted in amusement and Xander's mouth twisted in a bitter grin. "What? My ex-girlfriend tagged me with that nickname, because I was the useless one. No powers, no special abilities other than being able to whittle a mean stake and fix broken doors and windows. The Amazing Carpenter-man wouldn't sell a hell of a lot of comic books."
"I don't know. Tights, spandex, tool belt. I'm sure it would sell well if it was marketed right."
"And a cape. I would have wanted a cape." Xander grinned at the mental image and bumped Adam's leg with his own in a silent thanks for keeping him from brooding. He opened his eye too; the hard part wasn't over, but it was nice to know he still had one eye, at least. "Then the First Evil decided to get involved and started killing all the girls who have the potential to become slayers. There was a big fight brewing and most of the Watchers were killed. Still, the Watcher that the boy had looked up to was still around, still fighting the good fight. Funnily enough, so was the Biteless Wonder, the vampire. He'd fallen in love with the Slayer at one point, and had gone off to Africa to get a soul."
Xander snorted. "Spike came back more than halfway crazy, and then the First started using him. But he wasn't in control of his actions totally and through his Big Bad attitude you could tell he was scared. Several times through the years the boy and the vampire had nearly become friends, but always the boy remembered the Watcher's words. There was nothing human in the vampire, he'd turn on everyone give the chance. Even with the soul."
Xander laughed. "Giles even tried to kill Spike once, after the soul thing. I don't think Spike knew that, though. Still, I started wondering the night I lost my eye. After all, if there was nothing human in Spike, why did he save my other eye? And feel guilty he didn't stop it from happening in the first place? Hell, if there was nothing at all of the human he was before his death, why did he visit me in the hospital and read old science fiction to me to keep me from sinking into self pity? After the eye thing, he was one of the few people who'd look at me straight in the face. Everyone usually just tries to look at the side with the eye. It’s unnerving."
Xander took a deep breath. Sometime during his story he'd slipped from third person. He kind of wished he could go back so that he could distance himself even more, but it hadn't really been working all that well. He still felt like he was ripping himself apart. Then again, maybe he needed to be ripped apart. Like an old house that needed remodeling, you had to pull out all the old wires and fixtures first to replace them with new ones.
That was how he was going to treat it, at least. Thanks to Adam, he had a chance to share his problems with someone who understood, or at least Xander thought he would. Not only that, but he wasn't connected to Sunnydale in any way. It helped, talking to someone who didn't know Buffy or Giles or Willow.
"And then, Spike died. Allowed himself to be burned alive to close the Hellmouth. Saved the whole damn world. Oh, we all helped. Willow used her magic to make every potential a slayer, and even a few of the baby slayers died. But Spike, well, it was just different. That was when I started really doubting what Giles had told me all those years before. Of course, once we all lived through the Hellmouth our little family just seemed to...break up. Willow and Kennedy went to South America, Buffy took her sister Dawn to tour the shoe stores of Europe. And Giles started rebuilding the Watcher's Council. I offered to help him find new slayers to train, thinking I'd finally get to see America and a few of the sights that I'd wanted to after I graduated high school."
Adam made a noncommital noise and for a moment Xander thought about getting up and getting them both a drink. He didn't, though. He wanted this over with.
"Have you been to Africa? Recently, I mean?"
"Not recently, no. It's not the most healthy place for anyone." He looked over at Adam, and there were lines around his eyes. He looked really angry. Somehow it made Xander feel good to know that this man was angry for him, if only a little bit.
"Yeah, well, it wasn't. Healthy, that is. I swear to god, I had to have more shots than most people's poodle." He chuckled for a moment. "You know what it's like, right? I mean..."
"The starving people? People killing their wives for no greater sin than speaking up or trying to learn to read? The disease? Yes, it's nothing new, unfortunately."
Adam's face was curiously blank. Xander just nodded. "Africa was nothing like I thought it would be. Eventually I found all the slayers I could, and moved on. I refused to go to the Middle East. Giles hadn't said anything but I didn't want to take that chance. One of Giles's old friends had retired to New South Wales maybe a year before the Council blew up and she was covering Australia. I was really hoping I'd get to come back to the States, or kick around England for a while. No, first I got sent to Japan. A little town south of Asuka, called Fukumaden.”
Adam chuckled and Xander grinned. “Yeah, I went from one Hellmouth to another. Fukumaden, the “abode of demons”. Hey, at least that Hellmouth believed in truth in advertising. I started worrying. I mean, here's this Hellmouth with no trained Slayer and the Watcher's Council hadn't even known about it.”
Adam snorted. “All-knowing secret organizations rarely, if ever, actually know everything.”
“Tell me about it. Anyway, I got there, and, lo and behold, instead of a high death rate and vamps in every shadow I find a nice little town. An actual nice little town, not one of the Stephen King ones where people were going nutso and killing their kids behind locked doors. Well, not that I could find...”
Adam chuckled and leaned back in his seat a bit more. “That's the problem with things like monsters. Death could be hiding anywhere.”
Xander thought about saying something, or maybe raising an eyebrow, but he didn't want to push Adam away while he was being nice about listening. Besides, he'd always looked stupid when he'd tried the eyebrow thing and the patch would only make it worse.
“Right. “ Xander decided just to leave it, for now. “Well, anyway, I stumbled around town like the stupid gaijin I am. Finally I met three slayers working together and started to tell them about the Council, how they could get training and help to go back and protect their homes and villages. Surprise, surprise; they were already being trained. Imagine my shock when they took me to their Sensei, and it was a two hundred year old vampire.”
Xander shook his head. “I couldn't believe it. Long story short, though, when she was alive Amika had been a Slayer. She was killed in the line of duty. When she crawled out of her grave her Sire was waiting for her. Didn't expect her to still be more slayer than vampire, though. Guess he was as surprised that some vampires retain their humanity as I was.” He closed his eye again. “I spent a month on that Hellmouth without saying much to the Council. It was....look, my entire world view had been changing since leaving the States but it had been slow and then all of a sudden! BAM! Everything that I believed in, everything that I had built my life on for ten years was wrong!! I mean, Amika still did the human blood bit, it wasn't like she was a saint or anything, but she protected the village and the villagers gave her blood of their own free will!”
Xander was ashamed to notice there were tears pricking at the corners of his eye. “Do you know how many times Spike was hurt protecting us? Helping us? He stood up to a Hell God, was dropped from a tower trying to save Dawn and Buffy; he took beating after beating. Buffy treated him terribly but I stood up for her since demons were totally irredeemable. I did terrible things...”
Adam's hand was warm on his shoulder. It made Xander feel grounded, somehow. He took a deep breath. “We could have been friends. Maybe more. I never let myself think about it.”
Xander just sat for a moment, and Adam's hand started moving down his back. He wondered if maybe the older man would try to hug him if they were alone or somewhere other than the first class lounge in the middle of the airport. It seemed so long, since he'd been hugged. He still hadn't made it to see Buffy or Dawn in Italy, and Willow was living La Vida Loca in Brazil.
“You were a child and you believed someone you trusted. You can't blame yourself for that.”
“I know, but...I had chances to change my mind and I just followed like a sheep. Totally blind. There were a lot of times I disagreed with the others’ opinions but I'd get voted down, or reminded I was the human one without any college education. I didn't want to, I don't know, rock the boat. So I was the go-along guy. I should have started thinking for myself but I didn't.”
There were so many times he did speak up, but more often than not he just went with the flow. He had proposed to Anya because it was expected. He had forgotten her past but not Spike's because the others said she was different, even if she still talked of torture. He had followed Willow's lead to bring back Buffy. And time and time again he had fallen into the role of Zeppo because it was easier than changing.
Every time he'd tried to step out of the goofball role, the others looked at him like he was speaking in tongues, or was possessed again. They'd make a few jokes that were well meant, he was sure, but would sort of cut him, inside. After a while, it was easier not to try.
“Is that why you're here?”
Xander shrugged. “I guess. I mean, I'm not a real good judge of character all the time, but, I don't know, there's just something about you...”
“It's my boyish good looks. My innocent gaze.”
“Your ability to bullshit.” Xander grinned and Adam chuckled.
“It's as if you know me. So, what did you do after Japan?”
“Got on the first flight back here. Went to talk to Giles. Ended up running into his toady and, god, I can't believe that Giles has a toady but he does. We started catching up on old times. Andrew is the kind of geek that makes other geeks looks bad but he's okay. I kind of feel sorry for him, in a way. Then again, he's able to act like some suave guy and started dating all these models or something for a while.” Xander gave an undignified snort. “They probably feel safe around him; he comes off gayer than the chorus line of Mama Mia”
“Good gods. Spare me from stereotypes!”
“Heh.” Xander's laughter tapered off. “Andrew is just a font of knowledge. Problem is, he doesn't give you any useful stuff when you need it. Like the fact that Spike came back from being burned alive, soul and all. Was helping Angel fight the good fight in LA. Even asked Giles for help once. He sent Andrew and a team of slayers. Told them, basically, don't call us, we'll call you. And they didn't call Giles when they faced down a hoard of demons, a band of ogres, a dragon and an honest to god giant. They didn't have anyone to call for backup. Just two humans, two souled vampires and some sort of god that had been trapped in a dead girl's body.”
Xander stopped for a minute before he continued. “It's funny. Andrew tells me I had a chance to...I don't know, ask forgiveness of two of the people I had most wronged by my actions. To apologize to them. And then, with hardly a pause he tells me how they're all dead in some stand off to destroy the most evil organization in the States, and nearly succeeded.” Xander shrugged. “Part of me would like to think if I had been there I could have helped but I really doubt it.”
Adam snorted. “That anxious to die a messy death, are we? I prefer survival myself.”
“Well, no, not to die. I'll admit that I'm the first one to run when it comes to facing down something about to eat me; I guess it's just my big fat head making me think I could make the difference. If I had gone Spike would have probably sent my “flabby mortal arse” packing. Still, it had to suck to know there was no back up.”
“Did your other friends know he was alive?”
“You know, I really don't know. I mean, Buffy may not have been in love with him but they were friends and she stood up for Spike against Giles more than once. And Willow, well, Willow's Willow. As long as she's sane she's remarkably forgiving and all...fuzzy.”
“As long as she's sane??” Adam's voice had an edge to it and Xander just shrugged.
“Yeah, well, the love of her life was killed right in front of her eyes. She'd been having problems with dark magic and it sort of tipped her over the edge.” Xander shuddered. “She flayed the guy alive, the one who did it. I can't say I blame her. Tara was special. Still, I hated it for her, that she had blood on her hands, you know?”
Adam nodded. “That does tend to leave a stain that other people can't look past.”
“Yeah, well, it was the whole attempting to destroy the entire world that really bothered me.”
Adam had been drinking the last of his beer and nearly sputtered. “What?”
“Yeah. Ancient evil temple, witch lost to grief, yadda yadda yadda. She came out of it, though, I just had to kinda talk to her a bit. She would have stopped.”
To Xander it really hadn't been much -- he’d just talked Willow through her anger until she came back to herself -- but Adam gave him an odd look so he ducked his head.
“You have been cursed by the Chinese, haven't you? Still, don't you think they have a right to know?”
Xander thought about it. “I don't know, really. I mean, they have a right but it will only hurt them. At least I think it will. Dawn, Buffy's sister, would really be hurt, I think. She was Spike's favorite. They had a special relationship for a time and then crap got in the way. Bad mistake, thinking that you'll always have time. Even with someone with a long life expectancy like Spike, well, shit happens.” Xander stopped and peered at his new friend.
“Then again, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?”
At Adam's mock innocent look Xander laughed, and then he just let the subject go. He'd talked enough. “Well, I may tell them yet. I think I just need time to adjust to my new world view myself.” He took a deep breath.
“Maybe that's why I'm here with you, why I'm following someone I don't even know across an ocean and a continent. This is…this is my chance to figure out who I am. Besides, we have fun drinking beer together, at least.”
“And mocking people. Don't forget the mocking people.”
“God no. Beer and mocking are a time honored Xander Harris tradition. And I’ll have you know I play a mean game of pool. Well, as long as the table is a little wobbly.” He sagged in his seat. “Of course, by the time I've been missing for a week, Willow will have tracked me down to drag me back to the Council and Giles. I just...I just wish I could start over.”
“Do you really mean that?”
There was something in Adam's eyes that made Xander really stop and think. “Yeah. I mean, if I hadn't told you anything, you wouldn't know. I could have lied and said I was anyone. Well, except for the whole sucking at lying part.” He gave Adam a look. “I'm sure you know what I mean.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“Right. And “Adam” is your real name.” Xander sighed and stood up and stretched. “But Willow will come looking for me if I just drop off the planet. Is there one of those shops where you can send postcards before you get on the plane?”
“I'm sure there's a Post box along the concourse. And we still have half an hour before they're scheduled to board our flight; that is, if the bloody thing is on time.” Adam stood up and grabbed both their carry-ons, handing Xander his. “I'll walk with you. I have a phone call to make and I always like to bring something terribly tacky back from my travels. I think I saw a place where you can find postcards and stamps and I can buy a mouse pad with the Queen on it.”
“Gads. And I thought American tourist shops were bad.”
“They are. We British just sell those things to Americans, you know. No one else would buy them.”
They were walking through the crowd by then and Xander purposely let himself bump into Adam. The other man quirked his eyebrow again but bumped back. It was good, it was more than good. It was nice being with someone who had very little expectations of how he would act. While Adam had listened, it had been talking, an actual conversation. It hadn't been meaningless Xander-babble with the other person's mind wandering.
Maybe he would take this chance to change. It would be nice, seeing what else he could be besides former construction worker and Scooby. There were things he'd always wanted to do but hadn't quite dared. Now, he could try them.
At the shop he picked up a postcard with Big Ben on it and then another. He'd let Willow and Dawn know that he was okay. Then he'd figure out who he could be.
******
Hey Wills,
By the time you've gotten this, Giles or someone else will have probably told you I disappeared after a lost weekend. Lost week actually, but who's counting? And I have. But I meant to. No vampires, no curse, no possessed Xander, just a Xander who needs to find himself.
I wrote and told the same thing to Dawnie. She'll tell Buffy, I know, but call her and talk, okay?
Don't worry, I'm not dying or have any mysterious disease or anything like that. I think that I'm just growing up kinda late. You've always said I was a big kid. Guess I'm having growing pains. I just need to get away from everything for a while. So don't worry, okay? And please, don't cook up some spell to look for me. I'm alright, really.
Love you always,
Xander