Xander and Graham had played a couple of games of pool and then headed out. There had been an awkward moment when they parted, and Xander wondered whether they should hug. No, he had decided: They were too manly.
On the walk back to his home and basement, feeling some of the effects of the alcohol, Xander felt some stuff that he hadn't felt in a long time. It had been somehow easy to talk about it with Graham. Maybe it was just talking about it with another guy who knew all about hell-mouthy stuff, and had lost buddies along the way. Or maybe, just the way Graham looked at him.
He hadn't even mentioned Jesse in years. To anyone. Jesse had been his best bud. Had been for years. Until the vampires. And yet, with Graham, it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to mention Jesse?even if it hurt. Big time.
Xander started to get a little choked up thinking about Jesse. With Graham he had covered up with a jokey description of how Buffy had kicked some serious vampire ass, but he had left out the part about how he staked his best bud -- ok, Jesse had turned vampire, and Xander hadn't really meant to?
Everybody had different ways of dealing with stuff, thought Xander. When Buffy had to kill her vampire lover, she lost it and blew town and went walkabout for months, and everyone felt really sorry for her -- Except maybe Xander. Maybe because nobody cut him any slack when *he* had to stake his vampire lov?.
Fuck! what am I saying! OK, he and Jesse had sort of fooled around, kid stuff. It wasn't like they were boyfriends or anything. Just sometimes when they were hanging around, they sort of ?
OK, Xander thought, clearly for the first time: before Faith, I had had sex with exactly one person: Jesse. Ok, it wasn't great sex. It was mainly fooling around, and a couple of times when Xander had gotten a hold of a bottle of his Uncle Rory's peppermint schnapps, it had gone a little farther. But Xander was definitely still a virgin, in both senses, when he got captured by the she-mantis in grade 10. It just kind of happened when Xander had 'borrowed' porn tapes from his Uncle Rory's hidden collection and the two horny teenagers had turned off the lights and watched and well stuff happened -- the first four or five times, they hadn't even touched each other. Then they discovered that they didn't really need the porno tapes.
They never talked about it. Ever. And Xander certainly never brought it up with his other best friend, Willow: it was a guy thing, he'd told himself.
Xander was pretty much fighting back tears as he walked back home. It was late enough that his dad would be passed out. If he got caught coming home late by dad, there would be a scene. Like there always was. Ever since?
Ever since his dad, in a fairly drunken rage had started banging on the door to the basement, screaming to be let in, demanding to know what the fuck the two of them were doing in the basement. He and Jesse, pants around their ankles, were sitting next to each other on the couch in the basement, porno playing on the TV.
The two guys had freaked. Xander had pulled up his pants fast and turned off the TV, Jesse had yanked his clothes back on and started for the stairs. "That's not the way out!" Xander had yelled. And panicked Jesse had let Xander open the window above the washing machine for him and he had climbed out that way.
Xander had sat alone in the basement for what seemed like forever, listening to his dad beat on the door, turning the door knob violently, and demanding to know what they hell the two of them were doing, demanding to be let in. Telling Xander that he was making his mother cry. Xander could hear his mom's sobs whenever his dad stopped screaming to catch his breath.
Xander just sat, shivering, holding back tears. When his dad had finally relented and gone to bed, or passed out, or both, Xander had curled up on the basement couch and cried. He had cried himself to sleep. And that was the last time he had ever cried.
Xander had been wracked with guilt. He couldn?t look his dad in the eye, nor could his dad look him in the eye -- unless his dad was drunk, which was often enough, and then Xander would be on the receiving end of a pretty abusive tirade. And the lock on the basement door was removed a few days later while he was at school. He never asked why, and his dad never said anything to him.
And then, Jesse was dead. At Xander's hand, sort of, but close enough so that Xander's nightmares had been filled with the sight of Jesse turning to dust in front of him for months. When Jesse died, it was like something was all over. Almost like Jesse and Xander were being punished for the fooling around they'd done.
It was also the last time Xander let himself get close to another guy. He started hanging out with the girls, with Willow and Buffy and later Cordelia. He became a charter member of the she-woman man-haters club. Or at least the man-avoiders club. And as for the girls, he only went after the ones he knew he couldn't get: Buffy -- who he knew was only interested in dead-boy, and then a teacher (who turned out to be, well, not really human), and then a mummy girl, then Cordelia, who as the alpha cheerleader, would definitely have no interest in a loser like Xander Harris.
Except that she did. It clicked with Xander, finally, why it never really bothered him that he and Cordelia had never even gone as far as he had with Jesse. And Xander had managed to end things just when Cordelia was getting interested in getting serious. Because maybe subconsciously he wanted it over. And it was over, just in time. He thought. Just. in. time. It had still hurt like hell to get dumped like that: rejection is still rejection.
And then Faith, second shot at a slayer. They'd actually *had* sex, before she had rejected him. Xander figured that someone trying to choke you to death counted as rejection. And Anya. Well, you just don't say no to a vengeance demon. And yeah the sex had been fun. Big fun. But, Anya was not exactly like a real girlfriend. Close, but the girl was only interested in her orgasms? Ok, his too, which was?nice. Having an orgasm friend had been really pleasant, in a purely physically kind of way. But, you couldn't really talk to her about stuff. You couldn't goof around with her like you could with?Jesse.
Xander shook his head to clear it. OK, the being punished part made no sense now that he said it to himself. Jesse got vamped because the vamps got him. No other reason. Not because of fooling around with Xander, not to punish Xander. Just because the vamps dragged Jesse away before Buffy caught up with them.
He had been positive that he was never gonna have a bud like Jesse again. A guy who laughed at all his jokes, and ok, kidded him a bit, but someone Xander knew would always be there for him. Yeah, and maybe someone to fool around with.
Xander always kinda felt that the fooling around part meant more to him that it did to Jesse. He didn?t really know that, cause they never talked about it. And he always let Jesse make the moves. Always let Jesse be in control. Xander never took charge, afraid that if he pushed it, Jesse would bolt. Maybe it had been a mistake not to tell Jesse how he felt, or show Jesse how he felt, take charge once in a while. And now it was too late. Way too late.
And Xander didn't understand why hanging out with Graham was bringing this all out. Why was having a beer or two with Graham making him think about Jesse? Xander reached the porch of his house. Nothing made sense. Nothing. Except that one thing was *starting* to make sense. For the first time. Jesse. Xander didn't know if he had loved Jesse, or been in love with Jesse, or had a crush on Jesse, or just been really close buds with Jesse, or what. He did know that he missed Jesse. And he really missed what he'd had with Jesse.
Xander opened the door to the house slowly. He heaved a sigh of relief as he heard his dad snoring loud enough to wake the dead. Well, not quite *that* loud, he hoped. He walked very quietly to the basement stairs, gently closed the door behind him, and tip-toed down the creaky stairs. He switched on the light and looked around, the room was in as big a mess as his life was.
He was pretty sure he wasn't gonna be able to fall asleep. He picked up his walkman and walked over to the shelf where all his cassettes were. He heaved a sigh that sounded pathetic even to him. There was only one tape to put on. He pulled it out and slipped it in the walkman. And that song that he never finished listening to would be there, half way through. He just stripped off his clothes and fell into the unmade bed in his boxers. He put the headphones on. He pressed 'play'. He lay staring at the ceiling. Patsy Cline sang:
you want me to act like we've never kissed
you want me to forget,
pretend we've never?
Xander let out a sniff. A bigger one than he would have liked. He rolled on his side. He tried really hard not to think about Jesse.
I fall to pieces
each time someone speaks your name
I fall to pieces
time only adds to the flame.
He hugged the pillow tightly against his face and chest. He closed his eyes. Xander began to shudder, then convulse, then sob. "Jesse!" he moaned softly. And for the first time since that night when his dad had almost caught the two of them, Xander cried.
*****