Anarchy in the Brain
By: Aurorarose13
Xander plopped down on the end of his bed, leaning back onto the mattress with his arms spread to his sides and his face upturned to the ceiling. "Take me now," he whispered sarcastically to God but all the while thinking of the Slayer. He rolled onto his side, curling into a ball and nearly sucking on his thumb. "Wouldn't that be nice? Ha! 'Can't always get what you want, Xand,'" he quipped to himself, mocking what Willow had once told him. But he had always believed that if he wished for something long enough, waited patiently enough, dreamed and schemed hard enough, he would get whatever he wanted. "Dolt," Xander muttered skeptically. "You would have to be a fool to believe that!"
So here he was, nothing new, pining away on his bed for the Slayer that shunned his advances so coldly. "Geez, they bounce off of her like bullets off of Superman." He turned away from the door, still huddled in a protective ball, sighing pathetically every couple of minutes. "Man, Buffy, when are you gonna realize how much I need you?"
Xander closed his eyes and bit his lip in thought. He concentrated on every detail of Buffy's gorgeous visage, visualizing the tiniest flaws (which were few and far between) as well as the slivers of varied colors in her eyes. It was surprisingly easy to do. He watched the muscles in her jaw tighten and draw back, the corners of her lips quivering as they gently curled up into a delicate smile. Slowly, almost robotically, her lips separated. He watched her tongue click against the roof of her mouth. No sound came out at first, but as the movement repeated and completed, a word echoed through Xander's mind. "Xander… Xander..." That soft voice resonated in his ears, a pleasant tingle in his head. His body shook with joy at the mere thought of being that close to Buffy. Those subtlety red lips formed his name again, the actual sound following like a trail of bells tinkling on a summer breeze. Suddenly, his name became more urgent, louder too. "Xander!" With a shudder and a gasp, the Scooby awoke, his eyelids flying open.
Rolling over in a panic, he came face to face with the vision of his dream. The fantastically blonde woman frowned at him, the sound of her foot tapping impatiently on the floor accompanying that glare. He tried to feign off her anger with a smile, but it was an effete attempt. "Would you get up, for Heaven's sake? You promised me we'd watch Run Lola Run before I went out on patrol tonight." The Slayer folded her arms across her chest and deepened her scowl. Even through his sleepy haze, Xander trembled a little in fear.
"I did?" he questioned groggily.
She growled in the back of her throat, a sound that excited Xander as much as it jostled him. "Of course you did, you numbskull!" Buffy moved fluidly over to his television and popped the tape into the VCR. She approached the bed, jabbed three fingers into Xander's ribs and ordered, "Move your ass over."
"Yes, mum." As he obliged, Xander attempted to sound put-out, but sharing the bed with his guardian angel was what he had always enjoyed: those brief moments of skin against skin. Sure, they'd done this a thousand some odd times, but tonight felt special—right—for some reason.
Buffy dragged a pillow down to the foot of the bed, and the two of them leaned on it, Buffy watching the opening sequence of the film and Xander watching her in turn. "Hey, Buffster?"
"Hmm?" she replied, eyes and mind focused on the screen.
"Nuthin'," the Scooby said mysteriously after a momentary silence. Actually, he just chickened out. Xander bordered on telling her how he felt, but every time he started to speak, his resolve crumbled when he glanced her slender form over; he forgot everything.
The beautiful blonde rolled onto her side, those piercing, captivating eyes boring into his skull, imploring, ensnaring and disrobing. Xander felt exposed, and foolishly, he reached down to check if his fly was open. "No, tell me, Xand. What's up? Don't back out like you always do." Her hand came to rest on his, and the room constricted to a box around them, freezing in that intimate position. His breath halted and there was no chance to look away. Their eyes met, and the gaze intensified. Buffy's pupils became twisting black holes, sucking Xander into their abysmal depths.
"It's just that… I have…" Her head cocked slightly to the left side, her flaxen hair trailing down her neck like a lover's finger. Those beckoning eyes stared on confusedly at him. "I have always believed—"
"XANDER!"
The boy rocketed out of bed, nearly severing his backbone in half. With several distressed puffs of breath, Xander calmed himself, taking in the room around him. Ahead of him, the TV sat silent, its electronic voice hushed and its glassy face blackened. Next, Xander looked down to his left and found Buffy no longer laying there, much to his dismay. "Still alone, I see," he mumbled, his head bent down in sadness.
"Xander LaVelle! I thought I asked you three times to get out of this house!" his father's voice trumpeted up the stairs. "You know you're mother and I want to watch Run Lola Run without your stench filling up the house! Get out!"
"Ah, Dad. Come on. I'm just layin' up here, not doing anything."
"You're existing, ain'tcha?" Xander winced, turning his face from the door. No matter how many times his dad said that, it always felt like a crack across the cheek. It wasn't jocular; it wasn't sarcastic; it was cold, cold like a sweeping wind across the Yukon tundra. "Now, get on outta here before I have to bodily move you out!"
There was nothing Xander could do but heft his sorry ass off the bed and head out onto the streets of Sunnydale. He pulled a windbreaker over his head and trudged wearily down the stairs. He hadn't even gotten a decent nap!
Outside a sweet breeze laced with the aroma of barbequed ribs encircled him, the early spring temperature he liked so much massaging his head. It felt like the gentle hand of a mother running through his hair, and Xander leaned into the wind to listen to its whispering of encouragements, which he had never heard before. The gentle sound drifted far behind him, a delicious memory to be savored by the next twilight stroller.
Every house along his street offered Xander a glimpse of the perfect family he could never have. Lawns were neatly mowed, fence posts painted white and hedges precisely trimmed. All the lights were on in the houses, summoning glows like lighthouse beacons. In the diminishing sunlight, Xander felt a part of those families, but even then, like the rest of his life, he was on the outside. He sighed dispiritedly as one child's room went dark. He could almost hear the dad say, "Early to bed, early to wise makes the man healthy, wealthy and wise." Too bad his father never had anything intelligent to say, just drunken, belligerent ramblings as always. Why break the Harris family tradition anyway?
For a while, Xander's brain went numb, nothing stirring in within his skull. It was just his shell of a body, marching down the sidewalk with its own destination inherent to its bones. Finally, the target was in sight, so the Scooby steered his legs toward the Bronze.
He hadn't planned on going inside; what was the point if none of the gang was even there? But tonight he wasn't much in the mood for partying unless it was the pity kind. After all, he'd walk in, be greeted curtly by his friends, their conversations ensuing while he continued stewing. That's the way it had always been. Why break the Scooby group tradition?
He'd ask, "Hey, guys, what's up? What kinda trouble's going down? Need me to break some heads?"
Buff would turn to Xander and faintly smile, weakening his knees, and say, "Not tonight, He-man, but we sure could use some detective food."
His reply: "Gotcha! Xandman away! Jelly doughnuts coming right up." And just as soon as the outsider had waltzed in, he was on his way back out.
And Wills would yell after him, "Bring one glazed for me!"
"Sheesh!" Xander groaned, leaning up against the brown brick wall in the alleyway behind the dance club. "You're just the pack mule of the gang, Harris. What mark did you ever leave? Would they even miss you if you died?" Silly question. Of course they would. Who else would get them doughnuts?
The Slayerette put his hands over his ears, as though it would make the venomous thoughts stop. But instead it seemed to keep them caged in. A recent memory floated to the front of his brain. It was just last night, in the cemetery. Xander had gone to help Buffy do a little slaying when he stumbled across the pair of them. Through the veil of darkness, it was easy to see the couple. A moonbeam struck their private pose, a sinister spotlight to Xander. Lip to lip, cheek to cheek, body to body they stood. The eternal couple: Buffy and Angel. The sight had sickened him, and the Scooby calmly walked home, not glancing back.
He could never have what he wanted, ever. He was destined to this miserable existence. Love evaded him; popularity evaded him; money evaded him; even a normal family was out of his reach. His parents didn't want him, his friends didn't want his help, and Buffy had never wanted his love. All she wanted were her damn jelly doughnuts to share in her little love feast with the vampire who couldn't fucking taste!
With a roar that reverberated for several minutes in the alley, Xander picked up a glass bottle at his feet and heaved it at the opposing wall. One, two, three bottles later and his rage was spent. The young man stepped away from his wall, the only thing that had ever supported him, and walked over to the graveyard of bottles. Bits of Budweiser labels dotted the ground. He stared at the mess he had created and saw, reflected up at him, his face. In every hunk of glass on that ground, a Xander glared back at Xander. "I always wreck everything, don't I?" His gaze fixed on the pile of rubble his life had become. "How did I let it come this far? And I'm such a happy guy! The optimist, no?
"Yeah right. That's just what everyone else sees. They don't notice the broken pieces until they're on the ground beneath their feet, sticking in their skin, cutting, shredding." Another fit of rage, and the glass was scattered under his boots.
Bending down for a moment, Xander lifted one large shard from the pile. He held it before his eyes to examine its vicious beauty. A simple yet effective weapon. It could do the deed. The Slayerette touched the most jagged end to the meat of his thumb and sliced. Xander winced; he never was very good with pain. Blood welled from the cut down onto his wrist, and he got an idea.
Hesitantly, Xander brought the weapon to the veins. He could see the pulsing of the blood in those blue lines beneath his wrist. He knew he could cut deep enough, but the question was did he have the guts? "To slay myself, how quaint."
A pause hung in the thickening air, and the Vampire Slayer materialized behind Xander's eyelids. She waved her stake at him as a warning. "You do this, Harris, and you forfeit any chance you may someday have with Buffy." The second his own voice slipped past his lips, the shard slipped through his fingers, clattering with the sound of a thousand knives.
Now that was a risk Xander was simply not willing to take.
THE END