Willow hands Xander a cup of punch and settles back against the arm of one of the grodier couches in the Bronze. "So what's up with you? Spill."
"Trying. You keep interrupting."
"Not interrupting," Willow says. "I mean, right now, yes, I am, but that's just a protest to say, no, I'm not, because I *am* lis--"
"Will--"
"Quiet." She zips her lip and tosses the invisible key over her shoulder.
He traces the key's arc with his eyes.
He doesn't think he can tell her; it's not like he knows himself.
Spring Fling is pretty subdued -- about all you can expect when a fifth of the football team is dead as of this morning. Cordy's doing her damnedest to circulate and get people dancing, but she's even more strained, shriller, than usual. No one listens.
Over Willow's shoulder, Giles and Ms. Calendar are deep in conversation at a rickety table. On the dance floor, Buffy is wrapped in Angel's arms. Slip of gold and white against ivory and shadows.
Angel raises his head. In the shifting lights, it's hard to tell where his eyes are looking.
Xander straightens up, just in case.
Times like these, not even as long as moments, he catches Angel looking at him. As if he knows Xander, knows more about what's going on than he'd ever let on.
It could also be true that Angel does in fact hate him. Xander's never been that great at interpreting body language and looks, both of which seem to be Angel's preferred methods of communication.
Angel looks right through him.
He can't pretend this doesn't hurt.
In the past three months, everything has gone upside down, backwards, inside-out. Buffy's here, but Jesse's gone. Nightmares are real. He keeps noticing how hot a dead guy is.
He's got a right to feel confused, upset, worse than lost.
Lying on his back, listening to Patsy on infinite-repeat: He doesn't just do it for its inherent coolness. Sometimes a guy needs to think. Patsy's gravestone claims that death cannot kill what never dies. That's one of the things -- or maybe the *only* thing, except under different names -- that he keeps thinking about.
He's constantly off-balance; the rules keep on changing. Don't go out at night. Why? Just don't. Oh, there are vampires. We kill them. Except not all of them. Some are -- one is -- good.
He can't keep up.
He keeps noticing just how many funeral parlors always have full parking lots. The face that he keeps seeing before he goes to sleep isn't Buffy's or Tiffani-Amber Thiessen's anymore but one shadowy *male* face. Heavy brows and pale, pale skin.
He keeps looking at Angel. Keeps hoping he'll look back.
There are things he needs to understand, things he wants to do.
Angel creeps around town, hovers in the shadows. He knows things. He's done things. Knowledge is soaked into his flawless skin and ancient brain. He could help, if he wanted to. He could offer more than a look; hold out a hand, cup a cheek, pull him into that embrace. Lay Xander out flat, show him how it's done.
Angel's looking at him now. Xander feels it and looks back, has to tug his shirt-hem down over his thighs.
Being this jazzed, constantly, with equal amounts horniness and terror has got to be wrong. They don't even take turns; swinging back and forth would be bad enough. Instead, it's simultaneous, all the time, misery and fear and this burning ache that drives him to the nearest bathroom to jerk off til he's raw.
Angel's eyes are cavernous and dark. Xander doesn't want to be imagining this. He wants something to be true; he wants one thing, at least one certainty.
So he's fastened onto the only -- not person -- only *thing* more fucked-up than he is. Sex and death. Dead man walking with a hard-on. When Angel looks at him, there is a neon sign over his head: Dark Despair, Come On In. Flickering, the second D blown out but still legible.
He's probably imagining it, all of it, every time.
Angel bends over Buffy, his hand moving across her back gently, lovingly.
If he *is* imagining it, then that's even worse, because what's that say about him? That he wants an undead sadist to look at him? Understand him? Touch him like that?
Back in Angel's apartment -- probably not even two hours ago -- he wasn't imagining anything. He knows that much. Angel's eyes burned into Xander, held him stock-still, even though Xander was the one standing for once, looming over Angel sprawled on the couch. As if he knew me, Xander thought then.
Thinks again as he meets Angel's eyes.
No, he's just looking through Xander. He doesn't see anyone but Buffy, and that's right, that's good, that's the way things should be.
Xander swallows hard and fights the urge to shift his dick.
"Xander?" Willow touches his arm.
He shakes his head. He tries to grin but his face feels too tight. "Sorry?"
"You were going to tell me what's going on."
Xander stretches and pops his neck a couple times. Forces himself to focus on his best friend's face. "Nothing. Everything. Guess I just need a vacation, huh?"
He can't tell her. Willow can't know. She's taken to this like a fish finally finding water; she's always approached the world by looking it up in a book. It's just icing that these books are older, thicker, *prettier* than any she's ever seen.
Xander knows he doesn't need book-learning for this.
"Summer's coming." She smiles, her eyebrows going high and happy.
"Yeah."He looks back.
The dance floor's empty. Buffy is leaning against Giles, stealing a sip of his beer.
Angel is heading this way. His gaze flickers off towards the bathroom, one brow rising until Xander nods.
He passes, inscrutable, in a sweep of shadows.
Xander follows. Now or never.