Author: Kay Tee
Website: Head Rush http://www.oocities.org/maybeshedoes//front.html
Disclaimer: Yeah, Joss's paying me a salary to write what he *really* wants on the show... except I'm lying and I'm poor. Don't sue me.
Feedback: Much appreciated, send to maybeshedoes@yahoo.com
Distribution: Take it, but tell me where so I can visit.
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Xander/Angel
Summary: Xander's got a secret, and only Angel knows the truth.
Spoilers: The Zeppo, Chosen, Home.
Author's Notes: Sort of AU. Everything happened after The Zeppo pretty much how we know it happened. There's just one tiny change: Jack and his friends succeeded in killing and bringing back Xander.
Author's Notes Too: A writer's block fic. Something to write, something to read, hopefully something enjoyable.
Dedication: Everybody who challenged me. I came up with my own thing, but you guys all had really cool ideas, and they definitely got my brain working again.
Xander lifted the eye patch and stared into the mirror. His eye was growing back nicely-- he'd been afraid it wouldn't. He didn't want to say anything to others, but now they were sure to find out. He sighed.
Angel was the only one who knew Xander's secret, and he'd promised not to tell. *Promised*, his eyes gleaming, clearly loving the idea of having something, anything to hold over Xander. But he'd never told; it only would have hurt Buffy anyway.
Xander made his way downstairs and through the Hyperion's lobby. It was crowded with slayers in various stages of being ready to go out into the world. Faith and Wood had already claimed the American north east and taken off. Buffy had laid claim to southern California, and was looking for a job and a place where she and Dawn could live. Many of the other slayers had chosen their homelands to defend and left. There was a small band-- led by Kennedy and Willow-- who were planning to travel the world to look for and train new slayers. Giles and Lizbeth had left for London the night before. Everybody was scattering, much to the relief of the rather put-upon original inhabitants of the Hyperion.
Xander brushed past Angel, indicating the vampire's office with the tilt of his head. Angel followed the dark-haired man and shut the office door. He stood silently, wearing a sort of stoic curiosity. Xander started, "My eye's growing back."
Angel smirked. "If that's your biggest problem-"
"I never told them," Xander hissed, interrupting.
Angel sank gracefully into his desk chair. "So tell them," he said simply.
Xander shook his head. "I can't. Do you know how much it would traumatize them?"
Angel was about to snap out one of his new, shiny, 'clever' (according to Gunn) retorts. But the guilty misery on Xander's face stopped him. Angel stood, walking around his desk and crouching in front of Xander. "You have to be honest with them and trust that they'll care about you enough to understand," Angel advised.
Staring at his lap, Xander sighed. "I know. I *know*. But... How are they gonna deal with it when they find out I'm a *zombie*?"
"You're not a zombie, Xander," Angel barely hid a smirk. "I've seen zombies, and you're..." Angel took in the younger man's hunched shoulders, downward eyes, fidgeting hands. "You're much..." Angel covered the youth's hands with his own, stilling the restless fingers gently. Xander's hands were warm. "You're very much alive." Xander snorted, pulling his hands away slowly. Angel shrugged. "Okay, undead. But more alive than me."
Xander watched as Angel stood stiffly and crossed the room to look out his office window at the commotion in the lobby. Xander frowned; he'd never understood Angel-- his mood swings were less predictable than Anya's and Cordelia's combined. Xander allowed that thought to eat itself-- no brooding in front of the broodmaster. "What am I, Angel?" Xander asked after the silence began to get annoying.
Angel shrugged, but when he turned to Xander, he was grinning. "Lucky?" He suggested.
"Oh yes," was the sarcastic reply, "and I felt so lucky when Jack stuck that knife in my gut." He crossed all eight fingers, thrusting them into the air. "I'm the luckiest!"
"You were dead for what? A minute?"
Xander rolled his eyes. "Yeah. But it took me half an hour to bleed out on the sidewalk."
Angel was pouring himself a healthy blood-lunch, so his back was turned, his face hidden. He didn't reply until he started the microwave. "The important thing is that they brought you back-"
"And they let me into the gang, don't forget that," Xander snapped bitterly.
Angel sighed, turning to face the disturbed young man. "And you saved us. You saved all our lives."
Xander dragged fingers through his hair. "Yup, and the high school survived to get blown up another day. Yay me!"
"Xander-"
"Angel, all they're gonna know is that I've been keeping this a secret for the last four and a half years. They're gonna hate me." Xander slumped further into his chair, wiping agitatedly at his face.
Angel almost reached out to comfort his sometime-friend, but held back. "Xander, they love you. They'll just be happy you're alive."
"But I'm not."
"Your heart is beating, you don't have to eat blood to live-"
"I don't have to eat *anything* to live."
Angel rolled his eyes. "There's not really any evidence that you were ever dead-"
Xander immediately pulled the edge of his shirt up, revealing the wicked looking wound Jack and his gang had left, the last scar Xander would ever bear. Angel's eyes flicked down and then up again. Ever since the night of the near-apocalypse all those years ago, Xander had smelled pleasantly of blood and death.
Time for a change of subject. Shift of subject, anyway. "Didn't you ever tell anyone else?" Angel asked, startled and a little pleased by the idea that he knew something about Xander Harris nobody else knew.
"Anya. The first time we slept together. It was sort of like, 'Eww, you're already sticky,' and then much babbling from me. I don't think she really cared. And she never told anyone." Xander's look went wistful, and Angel felt bad for bringing forth the memory of a fallen lover. "Oh, and Spike," Xander added.
Angel frowned. "Spike." If the thought wasn't completely absurd, he would say he was jealous. But really, the bleached vampire had somehow managed to squirrel his way into *Angel's place* and... well, die. So that wasn't really so bad, then.
Not noticing the black look that flashed over Angel's features, Xander shrugged. "Yeah, Spike. He smelled it when he was staying with me." A dark head shook in what Angel interpreted as fond remembrance. "You will not *believe* what I had to do to get him to keep that secret. And they always wondered why I hated him so much..." Xander trailed of at the look Angel was giving him. "Hey, you all right?"
Angel hmmed uncertainly.
"Your breakfast's ready." Xander pointed to the microwave.
Distractedly, Angel pulled the mug of steaming fresh and utterly repulsive blood out of the microwave. "What'd he make you do?"
Xander had risen to look out the office window. The girls had organized themselves into groups and were sparring. "Hmm? Oh, same as you."
"He fed off you?" Angel was feeling slightly dangerous, slightly livid.
Xander shrugged, not taking his eyes off the ladies in the main room. "Yeah, and..."
"And?" Angel asked incredulously.
When Xander turned to look at the vampire, he was flushed with embarrassment. "Umm... nothing. Important." He bit his lip, seeing Angel wasn't accepting his reticence. "Oh, look! Um. The time. Is up- over! Uh, I mean, I have to go..." he gestured nervously to the window, "uh, get beat up. You know how it is." He dashed through the door, ready and willing to offer himself up as a punching bag.
Angel watched Xander go and sighed, sipping his blood thoughtfully.
***
Sore and happy, Xander undressed in the room he'd been given. He knew they didn't need him to help them train, and yet they trussed him up in that fat suit and all took a stab at him-- or a kick or a punch or whatever.
He was grinning as he made his way into the bathroom and started his shower. He flipped the eye patch into the sink, stepped into the old-fashioned tub-- it had *feet*-- and let the warm water flow over him.
Moving on automatic pilot, Xander thought about telling his friends about the night he'd died. The night they'd thought to protect him by shutting him out. The night he and Angel had made their peace.
Xander grinned into the falling water. He didn't choke-- he had eventually figured out that breathing was a fully optional activity. And hadn't he put that knowledge to good use...
Xander let his hand fall to his rapidly hardening cock as he thought about Devon. Oz had introduced them. He'd known about Xander's new 'special thing' and thought the human had gone and gotten himself killed on purpose. He'd decided to help Xander mellow down and stop trying to be so cool... by introducing his fellow scooby to his dealer, the single hottest living man Xander had ever met.
And Devon had introduced Xander to some pretty radical new concepts...
Xander let his hands remember-- recalling the sensation of the singer's touch against his skin, the near scrape of nails over responsive nipples... And Oz had been there, tongue mapping out the path of Xander's spine.
Hands and tongue had almost simultaneously strayed to gently explore Xander's last wound, front and back. Then both men had fallen to their knees, leaving Xander panting and blushing and feeling worshipped and worshipful.
In the shower, the memories were fresh, and Xander's left hand slid soapily over his crease, making tiny circles around his opening, doing a poor imitation of Oz's lapping tongue.
Xander's right hand squeezed and massaged his balls, dipping down towards his perineum with some difficulty. Xander put his left leg up on the edge of the tub, opening himself to his hands as he had opened himself to Devon and Oz before.
It had only been one time, *comfort* according to Oz, drugs according to Dev, but whatever reason... Unable to wait longer, Xander began stroking his cock-- slow, leisurely strokes that could last all night.
For whatever reason, the two prettiest members of Dingoes Ate My Baby had seduced Xander and shown him what he had so desperately been trying not to see before-- that sexually speaking, Xander was a little... bent.
Xander let his left index finger slip inside his body. Just to the first knuckle, wriggling and pushing, second knuckle now, and didn't Xander wish that was Oz behind him, wish Oz had taken that last step, had taken *him*, impaling him on something larger and harder than that clever tongue. And at the same time, Xander was grateful there hadn't been more, was grateful he still had his virginity-- however technical-- to offer to the man he loved. Might love.
At that sappy thought, Xander slid his finger out, then roughly pushed two all the way in, pumping and searching, and though the angle was awkward, he was soon massaging his prostate, imagining...
Imagining something he still wasn't certain he was comfortable thinking about. But the closeness-- and it was more than lust, had to be, but... It was cool hands, gripping his arms tightly as he bent his head to the side, strong arms holding him tightly as sharp teeth sank *in*. Inside him, somehow more intimate than Oz's tongue, because Xander had suggested, had practically requested... And when Angel's arms had pulled Xander close against the vampire, Xander had felt Angel's erection digging into his hip, had pushed into the straining flesh, rubbing until the vampire was shuddering, and Xander's arms were holding Angel just as tightly.
The hot water of the shower beat down on Xander, trying and not succeeding in forcing away the memory of cool lips against his neck, cool arms clutching at him, cool dampness against his hip. At the time, Xander had been confused by his reaction, stuttering and practically running away, but now he understood better. Now he imagined staying, imagined offering Angel *more*, more and... The pictures and sensations that flashed through Xander's mind were enormous and world-altering, and he couldn't help tightening his grip on his flesh until it was almost painful, soap suds lubricating his cock as he pumped into his fist.
Xander came, shaking bodily with the force of his orgasm, pulse pounding in his ear, Angel's name falling, dripping, *pulsing* from his lips. Xander always came in shuddering gasps when he thought of Angel, but it was never satisfying. Never sufficient. There weren't enough good memories between them to fuel this sort of passion, and Xander gathered himself together stiffly, scrubbing and rinsing his hair perfunctorily before shutting the water off and stepping out of the bath.
He dried himself off roughly, angry as always for wanting something so badly that he just couldn't-- wouldn't have.
Emotionally and physically exhausted, Xander let himself fall on top of the sheets and pass out, a frown marring his sated features.
***
Willow didn't want to leave without hugging Xander one last time. Perhaps two last times. She and Kennedy had planned on leaving the night before, but had gotten distracted by the realization that this would be their last evening on their own bed for a while. Or in a private bed. Or... anyway.
Seeing that Xander wasn't in the lobby, Willow jogged up to his room. She opened the door at the same time she knocked, and smiled at the sight of Xander sprawled out naked as a child on the bed. Then she noticed... She frowned, stepping up to Xander and staring at the wound on his back. Touching it, she realized it wasn't open; it was old and yet unhealed. She frowned, crouching down in front of her best friend and running her hands through his damp hair to wake him.
Xander batted her hand away sleepily, and Willow bit her lip. She watched his eyelids flutter for a moment before she realized she hadn't seen Xander's left eye since Caleb... But the eye looked all right; the lid wasn't sunken in at all. Willow frowned, standing as quietly as possible and backing out of the room.
She and Kennedy would just have to put their trip off for a little bit longer.
***
Xander's dreams were muddled.
Jesse was there, flipping him off and grinning.
Oz and Devon appeared to be having a sweet little sixty-nine in the corner.
Heidi, Tor, Kyle and Rhonda were snuggling in his bed, leaving no room for Xander.
That was okay, 'cause Larry was making room on the couch.
Riley and a couple of his buddies were all over the place, playing some kind of football game Xander couldn't really follow, and breaking a lot of the furniture.
Cordelia and Anya whispered conspiratorially in a doorway, glancing up at Xander from time to time.
Caleb stood behind them, an enormous grin on his face. Every once in a while, he'd wink at Xander.
On the carpet, Spike and Dawn sat cross-legged, playing hearts. Buffy was playing too, from across the room where she was doing one-armed hand-stands and giggling. Xander knew he was supposed to be in that game, but he couldn't move.
Jack lounged against the far wall, holding Katie expertly, letting the light gleam off the edge of the knife. Bob lay on the floor, playing opossum, while Parker and Dickie sat on his chest eating cake with what was left of their mouths and playing drinking games.
Joyce was serving the drinks.
Next to Xander, Tara took in the commotion of the room, and leaned in to whisper in his ear. "What are you doing here?"
Xander shrugged. Looking down, he saw that his shirt had a large maroon stain on it. "Bleeding," he answered.
His uncle Rory wandered through, wearing just his bathrobe and a pair of Xander's silk boxers.
Tara laid her hand on Xander's arm and shook her head sadly.
Xander wanted to say something, wanted very badly to speak up, but found he couldn't. He just watched as Tara told him something that sounded terribly important. He was sure she was speaking English, but he didn't understand a word.
She grabbed him with cool hands and started to shake him, trying to make him comprehend. Xander tried to explain that he couldn't understand her, but he found himself fading away.
He woke up, a little startled, and glared blearily at Angel, who was shaking him impatiently. Xander started to smile, then realized two things-- one, his dream was over and this was real, not one of his pleasanter dreams; two, he was naked. He hopped away from Angel, pulling the sheets around him.
"Angel, man! What's going on? You couldn't knock?"
Angel tried very hard to keep his eyes on Xander's face while he answered. "Xander, something's happened. Willow... I think she knows."
***
Sometimes you just have to let a story take you where it wants to go. Sometimes you see it's not really going anywhere, and you let it die.
Xander is a dead man. When his friends find out, will they hate him, hurt him? I doubt it. More likely, they'll be hurt by the fact he never thought he could tell them. More likely, they'll be relieved by the knowledge that he's all right.
And Angel? Will he get over himself enough to sweep Xander into cold arms again? Will he finish what they started?
Sink into Xander while the boy trembles, find himself flush against warm, wanting skin?
Could they possibly live happily ever after, or would their mutual lust go unacknowledged for years, the two creeping, dancing around each other until the tension begins to fray their nerves. Until they spend every night dreaming of forgetting history and truth and the reality of life and just... taking. Falling into each other.
The dreams coming so regularly that neither notices or remembers that it's not real. They finally sink into each other as they've wanted to for so long, and then... what? Buffy finally grows up enough to come back to Angel and now it's the vampire's turn to make a choice.
The choice is easy, and Xander finds himself back in the cold, trying desperately to be happy for his friend.
And what about Spike? Xander offered him the same thing he offered Angel-- the same deal. And Spike's mouth drawing on a wound Xander made, was that just a reminder of Angel's cool body? A substitute? Or maybe the start of something that never came?
Alone in a motel room after Xander flees the Hyperion and Buffy's ignorant smiles, when Xander's hand creeps below the sheets to relive all the pleasure he'll never have again, will Xander picture Spike because the memory of Angel's touch is just too much? Will Xander go in search of some other vampiric solace?
And as the ages pass, as Buffy and Willow and Dawn and everyone grows old and dies, what happens then, when Xander and Angel are still standing, unchanged.
Can the Dead Man forgive the vampire for not loving him enough? Would they live side by side to thwart the loneliness, both longing to forgive and forget, neither able? Would they suffocate on the need, or give into it, romance abandoned as they tear at each other, both punishing and accepting punishment. Passion surging until they're both bloody and spent. Until they've both become bitter and immune to change, trapped in a never-ending cycle where love doesn't fit.
Xander would be the one to die first, to be so utterly destroyed in a fight that he finally rests, his body rotting and buried. Angel, left alone, would be relieved, or maybe he would finally have to admit, if only to himself, that Xander's constant presence has driven him for years. That without Xander, without Buffy, without anyone to care about, Angel's just the same old wandering corpse that used to haunt back-alleys. What happens then, when it's all over and the solitude starts to creep?
Then it's Angel's hand under the sheet, still punishing, and who is he thinking of?
So this story's over before it begins. It's helped me out of a slump, and that's always nice. It wasn't a very good story, though, never could be. Not with my inability to withstand the wait as two people succumb to the lust-- the possibility of love-- that inevitably will draw them together.