To Love Somebody
By Vanilla Tiger
AN: Emony didn't think I could do it. Evette read a draft, and demanded a finished
product. This is dedicated to them. AU in that S7 never happened.
Feedback to fitchers_bird@yahoo.co.uk.
Riley had found the kid in some trashed out Mexican hellhole. Alone, friendless, he couldn't just leave him like that.
All he thought he'd do was give him a meal, help get the kid back on his feet and maybe on his way back to the States.
He told himself it was the mention of Sunnydale that did it. That's why he let Andrew tag along with him. Survivors of that place had to stick together. It messed you up inside. Riley would have been surprised if anyone there got to have a truly healthy relationship. Perhaps it was the Hellmouth's influence that withered everything good down there, his career, his mentor, Buffy… even his marriage had broken up shortly after his return visit. It might not have been fair to blame it all on one small town, but when you're on your own it's hard to be fair.
Riley may have said it was the Sunnydale connection that drew him to Andrew, but in reality it was the look that haunted the boy's eyes, one that Riley found all too familiar. It had taken a while for him to stop seeing it everyday in the mirror. The look was one of someone who had given everything for love and received jackshit in return. The type of look that signified someone who was slowly destroying himself.
Riley had been a romantic. It wasn't something he liked to let the other guys know about, but he never lied about it either. He truly believed that each person could find their perfect partner, their soulmate so to speak. The idea of truly loving, without it spontaneously causing love in the recipient, was anathema to him. If love wasn't mutual, it couldn't be true.
"Why?" Andrew's hesitant voice surprised Riley. He didn't talk much nowadays, but something in his demeanour suggested that it hadn't always been so. "That's not what I think."
The soldier gestured for the boy to continue.
"I loved Warren. You may not believe me but it was true, it was real. There was nothing I wouldn't have done for him." Andrew turned his head away. "He never loved me though. I get that now."
Riley felt like there was something he should say, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what. He awkwardly shuffled closer, hoping to express through proximity what he couldn't in words.
It was too late now anyway, for Andrew was continuing. "But no matter what was or wasn't between us, it couldn't make my love for him any less. And I can't regret it. I felt something pure and powerful. Even if Warren abused it, it was still there."
Outside their cheap motel room the sun was setting. Riley should have got up to close the curtains, he should have reported in to his superiors, he should have been doing a thousand and one different things; but instead he just sat on the lumpy mattress, receiving lessons on love from a skinny fugitive barely out of his teens.
"When Jonathon left, it forced me to face up to reality. I had a lot of time to work things out. What I realised is that love isn't about the other person. It's something inside of you shining through. And if you give it to someone else and they just throw it away, that isn't your fault. The important thing is that you loved them, no matter what."
Without seeming to realise it, Riley drew nearer to Andrew, until their bodies were a hair's breadth away from touching.
The younger boy looked up into Riley's eyes. "I don't know. Am I making any sense? Do you, do you..."
Riley placed his hand on Andrew's shoulder and squeezed gently. Softly smiling, he said, "Yeah, I understand."