Weirdness
by
Ngaio

OK, my life is officially getting too weird even for me. And this is for a guy who is friends with the Slayer (of vampires, demons and other assorted oogies), and whose best friend is a budding Wicca who's just broken up with her boyfriend, the werewolf. Oh, and by the way, I may or may not be dating an ex-vengeance demon, depending on whether she catches me in a weak moment or not.

But despite all that, my life is definitely taking a turn for the even weirder. 'Cause I'm fairly certain that, despite the fact I'm a nineteen year old male and I have a beautiful woman who wants to be my girlfriend and have sex with me, I've actually got a crush on someone else, someone so unsuitable and unlikely and impossible and . . . just plain wrong on so many levels it's untrue. And this is from someone who dated Cordelia Chase.

My summer trip was a whole learning experience thing for me. And when I got back I told Buffy a little fib. Oh, yeah, I only did the one night's dance. Never again - while lots of women screaming for me sounds like a good thing in theory, it was all too like the love-spell-from-hell for me. Plus most of 'em were old enough to be my mom, and I have enough parental issues already without adding an Eatapuss (or whatever it's called) complex to the mix.

But while I did only wash the dishes, it wasn't exactly true that no-one really spoke to me or noticed me. Some of the dancers were quite happy to notice me, and once I was over my panic attack I actually didn't mind being noticed by them. Well, him. Steve. Road trips are meant to be voyages of discovery aren't they? Finding yourself and all that. Well I found Steve; or he found me, one of the two.

It wasn't exactly a hardship flirting with a 6'2" built black stripper. Like I said, once I'd got over the initial panic attack which lasted all of, (oooo - ooh) about a week.

Well, it was all too Larry for me to begin with. He was the school quarterback bully who made my life a living hell for a while, who then, it turned out, realised he'd been beating me up because he thought I was gay, and as he was suppressing the fact that he was gay it was a whole misdirected anger thing. Except as far as I was concerned I wasn't gay, hello Cordelia, Willow, Buffy (in my dreams), plus assorted demons etc. But when I talked to Larry during the whole Buffy-and-her-amazing-mind-reading-skills thing, he was so happy. He knew who and what he was, everyone accepted him, he was fine. But I wasn't fine, I was the Zeppo, if I was different I didn't think anyone'd accept me as easily. I'm still not convinced they would, it'd just be one more thing to separate me from the rest. But it's not as if they've shown any interest anyway, just, hey Xander you're back, here have a stake, we'll call you when we need to which will be pretty much no when.

Anyhoo, Steve, despite appearances, really a sweet guy, 29, been around a bit, done a lot, but now basically settled as a stripper in a Ladies Nightclub in Oxnard. Why Oxnard? I have absolutely no idea and he never explained. Some of the other guys were coming on to me a bit too hard for my peace of mind (OK, so looking at me was too much for my peace of mind in the beginning, but these guys were definitely into hands in places they hadn't been invited territory) and Steve told 'em to back off. Then he took me out for a burger and we chatted all night about everything really (well, not my amazing vamp killing skills obviously, but everything important, films, TV, junk food, the wonder that is Oxnard and my aim to get out of there as fast as possible), and after that it became a regular thing. We'd finish work and go out for fast food and friendship. Which sort of got to being flirting, and that's where the panic attack occurred. OK so it wasn't a week with Steve, the week long one was the other guys who just wouldn't agree that I didn't want to go clubbing with them. The Steve panic lasted for as long as it took for him to realise that I'd realised he was interested in more than my opinion on the role of Seven of Nine's jumpsuit as integral to the plot of Voyager. Then he was really, well, sweet, said he wanted me to want him too and he thought I did ('cause to be honest, the flirting hadn't been entirely one-sided) but if I didn't then it wouldn't stop our friendship, and if I did then he'd let me set the pace. Basically he said I was calling the shots all the way whichever decision I made. Me, make a decision? But I looked at him and just saw this guy I was friends with, and yes, he was beautiful, and no, if I'm being honest with myself, he wasn't the first male whose appearance I had noticed; but he was the first who had looked at me. And more than that I trusted him.

So that was it really, the meals became dates, the flirting took on more meaning. And it was really, well, corny, we'd hold hands, we'd make out on his sofa while watching movies. And the making out turned to touching and the touching became oh-boy, and then there was rubbing and nakedness and mouths and tongues and . . . . .

OK, time out taken, clean up done, and we're back thinking about the craziness of my life. Basically Steve and I did everything. I loved exploring his body, finding all the places that made him crazy, and he loved doing the same to me. I sneaked a look at a book in Oxnard's bookstore and, excepting things involving medical equipment and way too much urgh for my liking, we'd covered all the bases. And I loved it. I didn't love him though. And he knew it and was OK with it, he didn't love me either. Well, to be precise, yes I did love him and him me but weren't in love with each other and that was of the good. He knew I was headed out of Oxnard as fast as possible so there was no permanence to this. And I realised, even if I had fallen in love with him, what would happen? He didn't want to leave Oxnard; I didn't want to stay. Much as I would love never to see Sunnydale again I knew I was going back, there was a fight there that needed fighting, even if I wasn't exactly the best fighter in the world, even though I was pretty sure that the place would kill me one day, I was going to end up back there to do what I could as long as I had people there who needed me to fight alongside of them. So, even if he had wanted to leave, which he didn't, I wouldn't ask anyone to live in Sunnydale, in fact I'm a one man crusade against anyone coming near the place. And that was another thing, I couldn't be completely honest with him. Talking about Jesse late one night, I told Steve he died in a car accident; well I couldn't say he was turned into a vampire and staked could I?

So Oxnard taught me a lot. I liked men as well as women; I could strip decently, just not in front of screaming women (well, Steve taught me a few things and seemed to enjoy the results! That's how it was the dish washer who ended up substituting rather than one of the barmen); there is such a thing as a relationship which doesn't involve bitching and closets (so there's those gay stereotypes squashed); and, whether I fall in love with a man or a woman, it has to be someone who knows about the things that go bump in the night. How else can I explain the bumps and bruises and occasional concussions I get when fighting, the being out all night, the precautions needed just to live relatively safely in Sunnydale, and the simple fact of why my graduating class had so few people in it compared to how many started there.

So now I've come back to good old Sunnydale an older and wiser (well, is that hard?!) and considerably more experienced man. Having experienced a man. I don't know what I thought was going to happen when I got back; life wasn't going to go back to how it was, that I knew, High School being all blowed up and everything. But somehow I didn't see it as me living in my parent's basement doing the job of the week and spending most of my spare time with Anya, or Giles of all people. But Buffy and Willow are so into the whole college experience and their love-life disasters that they haven't any time or attention for anything that's not on campus. Unless it's planning on destroying the world, and even those seem to be concentrated at good ol' UC SunnyD. So that leaves me and Giles twiddling our thumbs and wishing for an apocalypse. OK, not really the apocalypse thing but still . . . I'll be really *pissed* if these commando guys turn out to based there too.

Oh, yeah, commando guys, new and original evil being human based (as far as we can tell) is a twist, and one I'm not at all sure about. I mean if they're fighting the good fight why are we worried about them? But they seem less fighty and more experimenty which gives me the wiggins. Apart from anything else it means that somehow Giles now has Spike chained in his bathtub. Surreal doesn't even begin to describe it and it means that visiting Giles calls for more bladder control than normal. *So* not wanting to take a piss in front of the vampire who's tried to kill us all on more than one occasion. I like my private parts to remain private, except for selected individuals, and I don't care how compact and well-muscled Spike is (not that I've been looking, really), he's not been selected. Especially not for seeing me piss, golden showers definitely not one of my kinks.

And we're back to the undeniable fact that I seem to be thinking about Steve and men in general and one man in particular more than I was expecting. It would help if I'd actually managed to fall for someone attainable (although why break the habit of a lifetime now, just because I've changed the sex of who I'm falling for, twice the choice, twice the opportunities for rejection and frustration and general heartache). I mean I was quite prepared to end up with a man *or* a woman when I came back home (assuming I ended up with anyone but my own right hand). I may not have come out to the Scoobies yet but that doesn't mean I'm not prepared to if the right man came along. In fact, if any of them had shown the slightest bit of interest in my summer after discovering I spent it in Oxnard doing dishes I might have told them about Steve. OK so there would have been stuttering and babbling and blushing, and I expect I would have been just as bad (!) but I think they'd have been OK with it. After the shock wore off. Eventually. Probably. Maybe. But like the military, no-one asked so I didn't tell. Ooooh military; commando guys; now there's a fantasy waiting to happen.

Don't get me wrong, I still like women, ho boy do I like women. If it wasn't for this stupid crush I'd be quite happy with Anya. OK, embarrassed on a regular basis and knowing way to much about torturing unfaithful men for true peace of mind, but happy. And she knows all about the darker side of life in Sunnydale, in fact she *was* the darker side of life for men all over the world for over 1000 years. But she doesn't make me hot. Well, she does, I'm a teenage guy, press the buttons and up I pop, but I mean, the buttons have to be pressed, I don't look at her and think 'oh yes'. I have tried to, well, hint her off (stupid syphilis induced brain-blurbs about her being my girlfriend notwithstanding) but she's pretty much not able to hear anything that isn't said right out and . . . to be honest, I sorta like the fact she likes me. It's not something that's happened that much to me in the past. Plus the fact I do like her, just not like that, or at least, not *enough* like that. I like being her friend but with her that only seems to come in a girlfriend type package.

It'd help if I had someone to talk to. I mean, I always talked to Wills, unless it was *about* Wills, and then I'd talk to Buffy. And I suppose talking to them about men wouldn't be totally pointless, they've both been there and done that in terms of liking men. Buffy was good to talk to about Cordy, gave me a real in on the female point of view, and once Wills and I had got past the whole clothes fluke thing I was basically back being, well, one of the girls as Buffy once put it. But this is definitely a need for a guy friend, someone who understands that some things are just out of my brain's control and firmly under the control of my hormones. What I need is a male friend, one who I'm not attracted to, who isn't freaked by the whole me-liking-guys-as-well-as-women thing, and who knows what it's like to be 19 and male. I need Jesse. Jesse was my male bud and Wills was my female bud. And then that went wrong. So I'm left with what? Well, I did think about talking to Oz since pretty much nothing shocked him, but he's left. Which leaves me two choices in male companions as of Thanksgiving, Spike and Giles. And that just ain't gonna happen. I suppose I could always give Deadboy a call, give him something other than Buffy to brood about. . . . Somehow, I think I'd rather talk to Spike, the undead-evil-guy-who's-dating-Harmony (well, pre-chained in the bathtub) than good ol' Angel big 'n' buff no matter how souled he is right now.

Maybe I should call Steve; after all, he was my last life epiphany and I talked to him throughout it. OK, babbled incoherently would put it better (he called it stream of consciousness) but he actually said he'd rather I talked to him than panicked silently (me?!) somewhere with no idea what he was thinking. He basically sat me down and said, 'Here I am, Steve your friend. Now talk to me as a friend about what you're thinking about and worrying about and I won't tell Steve the potential lover about it.' Sort of how to make schizophrenia work for you. But it worked. He was a good friend beyond the sex, so maybe I should call him. I have talked to him a couple of times since coming back home. But then we're right back at, how do I explain Sunnydale and vampires and Watchers and everything to him, and how do I talk to him about what I'm feeling if I can't talk about that? Urgh, thinking hurts my brain. Maybe I should become schizophrenic. Then I'd have someone to talk to. OK, it'd be me talking to me which is pretty much what I'm doing right now, but still . . .

Or maybe I should just be nice and repressed and date Anya (not that repressed is exactly the right word for that particular prospect, she makes Cordy look like the queen of tact). But that wouldn't be fair to her, I don't want to be with her just 'cause it's the only option available, and while I was thinking about someone else. And I'm not really sure she actually wants to be with me really. It's just we went to the prom together so all the crappy teenage rules say we should be a couple (girly teen flicks have a lot to answer for). Plus whatever it is vengeance demons do for pleasure (and can I say how very much I *don't* want to know) human sex is new (or at least a thousand years distant) to her. And if I say so myself, the Xandman isn't bad in bed. OK my sexual experience is basically one male, but if I can find the prostate then I can sure as hell find the clitoris. However, off topic. . .