A/N: So, hi! This is my first story on , so I would love it if you reviewed, it would make my day :) It's probably really bad and too short, but it's my first try so I'll hopefully get better. This is just an introduction to the story, the actual plot will start in the next couple of chapters.
Warning: Yes, this story will be slash so if you don't like, don't read.
Disclaimer (for the whole story): I do not own any of the characters or world, they belong to Joss Stirling (I do, however, own my OC's, so yaay, I own Anton hehe)
Enjoy ;)
Discovering Anton
Jealousy is an odd thing. It only graces some people with it's presence. Some people never feel jealousy, or if they do, it's never in jealousy's worst form.
Envy.
Xavier Benedict was not one of the lucky people to be unaffected by jealousy or envy. In fact he had received a horrible dose of jealousy when his younger brother Zed broke the news.
She's mine. My soulfinder.
Up until this moment, Xav had never really thought about his soulfinder. Well, he had, but it was more in passing, just a thought that there was someone out there who perfect for him. He had six brothers four of whom were older than him and none of them had found their soulfinders yet, so it didn't seem so bad that he had yet to find his. He was still young, and had his whole life ahead of him. His main worries were not of a phantom who he had yet to discover, but of the more immediate future, like getting his medical career started.
But when Zed, the youngest of the seven, the least likely suspect, dropped this bombshell, Xav found that his thoughts had taken a dark turn down the road of envy.
He wanted so desperately to be happy for his brother, and in a way he was. He really liked Sky, she was lovely and perfect for Zed, although broken too. She desperately needed fixing, and there was no better person for the job than Zed, but it was only after Sky had been found that Xav thought about his soulfinder properly.
Why should Zed have found his soulfinder? He's the youngest, still just a kid. He doesn't have to face the real world knowing that there's someone out there who may need saving like Sky did. He already has her. These were the kind of thoughts that began to plague Xav after Zed had broken the news. It took him awhile to figure out what this horrible feeling that was building up inside of him against his brother meant. But when he did, the answer was as unwelcome as it was scary.
Envy.
But Xav had been forced to grit his teeth and smile when his brother and Sky kissed in front of him, when they held hands or when they even said each other's names with a sort of passion that Xav wanted to hear his name being spoken with. It was like a desperate need, a desire that he hadn't experienced before. He had to find his soulfinder.
And soon.
He wondered if any of his other brothers were feeling this intense sort of jealousy. He looked at them and saw a blanket of happiness for Zed, but also noticed odd details like Trace's pinched smile. Of course, Trace had a reason to be truly jealous. He was the eldest, the one who had lived the longest without a soulfinder, and now his baby brother had found his. Against Trace, Xav didn't have any right to be properly jealous, but you can't control your emotions and jealousy was a fickle beast, it seemed to affect Xav more than anyone else.
Jealousy hurt.
Matters got a whole lot worse in London. A holiday with Yves and Vick, maybe check out some of the work experiences on offer there. It sounded fun, not to mention he could get away from his family, from Zed and Sky, who seemed to be suffocating him, not realising how far he was falling. Maybe he was just expert at hiding it, but what Xav wanted more than anything else was someone, his mother perhaps, to turn around and say, "You're not okay, Xav." Because he wasn't. He was fighting a losing battle against envy and it was slowly consuming him.
On the plane, on the way to London, Xav took his first breath of seemingly fresh air for a while. He may have had Yves and Victors with him, but he could deal with two brothers who had not yet found their soulfinders, and besides, he could easily hide behind his mask of humour with them, especially Yves. He was just too fun to tease. Usually Zed and Xav would unite and make fun of Yves together, but Xav couldn't help but feel that until he had what Zed had, they could never return to that same sense of easy trust. Victor would be working most of the time, so an added bonus.
To take his mind off Zed and Sky, when he met a pretty guide at the Globe theatre, Xav flirted with her to see where it would get him. Not very far, it turned out, as there was some sort of innate wrongness about flirting with her when he had a soulfinder somewhere else. And there was also something else, something he could not quite put his finger on. So when Yves called asking to meet back at the apartment an odd sense of relief drifted through. He couldn't let that show, so he jokingly told Yves off for interrupting him, but that was all a show to hide his true messed up feelings on the entire subject of romantic emotions. At the apartment, however, jealousy struck Xav again, even harder.
Just a Savant friend. That's what Yves had told Xav Phee was when he had initially asked who she was. He wondered briefly when Yves had gotten such pretty Savant friends when he wasn't the worlds best at talking to girls, but had examined her burnt hand all the same. She had seemed broken and hurt in a way Xav couldn't comprehend. And then Yves had ruined it by saying "Oh yes, and she's my soulfinder."
He dropped it into the conversation so casually that momentarily, Xav was stunned. His two younger brothers, his only two younger brothers had found their soulfinders before him. Before long his façade was up and he was joking with Phee and Yves about it, but inside he felt hollow. Numb even. Inside the jealousy was tearing him apart.
As he helped Yves with the whole situation, he really did grow to like Phee. She was vulnerable and scared and needed Yves so much, but she also had a strange sense of humour and laughed at Xav's jokes. She was definitely suited for Yves, even if it didn't seem like it at first, but his jealousy, his envy was constantly haunting him, making him cold and bitter on the inside. He managed to keep up the mask, agreeing to be best man at the wedding, smiling and joking around in the pictures, but inside his thoughts were raging and he could no longer control of them.
Now, they had all returned to the USA, he had two happy soulfinder couples to contend with. It was not going well. He could feel himself slipping at a more rapid pace than ever before.
Xav was currently sitting on the navy blue couch in his family's sitting room, his laptop balanced precariously on his lap. Yves was sitting across from him, his soulfinder perched precariously on his lap. The difference did not calm Xav's emotions.
The newly-weds were radiant, their smiles glowing, their tones of voice sickly sweet. Xav was pretty sure he would punch one of them if he heard the words "honey-bear" coming from either of their mouths again.
"What are you doing?" asked Phee, leaving her perch and coming to sit next to him. It sounded as though she was just making small talk, since Xav had been silent for the past half an hour.
Xav wanted to be sick.
"Oh, nothing, just contemplating going to London on this work experience that has just popped up." said Xav light-heartedly.
"London? But we just got back." She was clearly puzzled.
Xav smiled, hiding his true feeling. He had become quite an expert at that. "Well, I like the accents."
Phee laughed loudly at this.
"So the only reason you're going back is because of the accents?" asked Yves, who had come to sit next to Xav, so now he was wedged in the middle of a soulfinder sandwich. He sounded slightly annoyed, but surely Yves shouldn't be annoyed that Xav had made his wife laugh.
"Well, that is definitely an important factor, but this job is in a really good hospital and will look really good for future reference," stated Xav.
"Oh, I see," said Phoenix, her giggling fit having subsided by a stern glare from Yves.
"Well good look with that," said Yves with a neutral tone. "Come on, Phee. We have that...thing we need to attend to."
"What thing?" asked Phee, but she was already being dragged off by Yves, leaving Xav sitting alone with just his laptop for company.
Great, even my own brothers don't want me for company, he thought, before clicking 'yes' on his laptop.
"What do you mean you're going back to London?" Karla demanded.
"I mean there's a very good work opportunity there, so I'm going back to London." said Xav for about the tenth time. All of his brothers were still here, it being only a couple of days after the wedding, so they were watching the discussion with amusement. He could see Will's sniggering from behind their mother. Xav shot him daggers and he shut up, but he could see the edges of a smile lingering on his face. His mother was fretting, unable to comprehend her baby going off to London again on his own this time. Xav was getting increasingly exasperated with her. It wasn't as though he had aid he as going off to war or something that was actually dangerous. Besides, he was nineteen, no longer a child. He could handle himself.
"Mom, look, I really need to do something with my life right now other than sit around waiting for opportunities to crop up. One already has, and it's a fantastic one too. So I'm going to take it and see where it gets me. I promise I'll keep in touch and all..."
"Okay, okay," relented Karla. "I suppose your right."
Xav grinned. "Of course I am. Aren't I always?"
Zed butted in and answered the rhetorical question anyway. "No. In fact most of the time you are catastrophically wrong," he teased.
"Shut up," growled Xav, but it was playful. He had briefly forgotten about soulfinders and worry, as Zed's tone had been so light it was like none of it had ever happened.
Then Sky laughed at the two brothers and it all came crashing down on him again, almost painfully, but he kept on a forced smile. After all that was what he was good at.
"When do you go?" asked Saul. He had been smiling a lot more recently, ever since two of his sons had discovered their soulfinders. He had accepted them into the family seamlessly, especially Phoenix who had no father, except for that creepy Seer guy she had believed was her dad,. It had turned out that her father was some nice guy from Greece, but she had never known him. Saul had become an excellent substitute father for her, and Xav could see that he would do the same for any soulfinder of his sons, he would always step in and take the fatherly role no matter how broken they were. It was a nice thought that if he found his soulfinder, Saul would take care of them should they need it.
"Two days time, so I arrive two days before the job starts to settle in," said Xav. He had already booked the plane tickets.
"Good luck," said his mother, who enveloped him in a slightly embarrassing manner, especially as Xav was so tall and Karla so small, and yet she was the one who was commanding the hug. Xav pulled back the minute it seemed appropriate, his face beginning to go red.
"Jesus, mom, it's just London!"
"I know, I know, I'm being silly," said Karla, who seemed scarily close to tears. She snapped out of it, returning to her usual self in the blink of an eye, and spun on her heel to face the rest of her sons, who towered above her. "Right, boys, lets all help Xavier pack."
She was rewarded with a multitude of groans and a grin from Xav. Only Karla could make a bunch of fully grown men pack for someone other than themselves.
Two days later, and Xav was on a plane to England.
It felt strange, as he had been on a plane only a week or so before, but this time he was really leaving without anyone else. No more soulfinder surprises. Just Xav. As much as he felt bad for it, he couldn't help but be relieved to be away from Sky and Phoenix, as they were a constant reminder of the things he didn't have.
But now he was free. Free from the jealousy and the charades. He could be himself in a different city, a different world away from all that.
Besides, he hadn't been lying, he really did dig British accents.
When he got off the plane he got a cab to the apartment that he had only recently left. He had the keys, so went up in the lift and opened the door. He had the strange sensation of coming home, probably because he hadn't left very long ago. It seemed like America had been the holiday and now he was finally home again.
The apartment was just how they had left it, with signs of the Benedict families recent adventures involving the Community scattered everywhere, if you knew where to look. Xav contemplated tidying up, but tidying wasn't really Xav's sort of thing, so instead he dumped his suitcase in the bedroom he had been occupying (when it had just been Yves, Xav and Vick, Xav had claimed the master bedroom, and had been unwilling to give it up even to Victor, the sort-of owner of the apartment, so he had ended up sharing the queen bed with all his brothers when everyone else arrived.)
Now, however, it was completely his, in fact the entire apartment was completely his. He opened his suitcase, smiling at the memory of having his entire family packing for him whilst his mother issued orders like "Not that shirt, Trace! Xav wouldn't be caught dead in that!" and "Honestly Uriel, I would have thought you would have been able to fold a pair of pants!" His family had done a good job though, all the best parts of his wardrobe seemed to be intact as Xav unpacked his brother's hard work. He himself hadn't had much to do with the packing, mostly sitting back and smiling, with the occasional input, for example when Zed pulled out a ghastly T-shirt that he had left lying at the bottom of his closet, hoping to never wear.
"Oh my god, Xav, you have to wear this!" said Zed, his voice like an excited teenage girl.
He was bundling it into the suitcase when Xav had to literally prise it out of his hands and throw it into the trash with a shudder. "Never."
His mother was crestfallen. "Oh, Xav, that was our Christmas present for you three years ago."
She had made him feel momentarily guilty, but he had laughed it off. "Come on mom, it was hideous."
She smiled mischievously. "Oh you know I don't really mind, if you really hate it." So that's where Xav got his mischief from, everyone mused.
These happy memories of his family were running about in Xav's mind, and Xav allowed himself a smile. He finished unpacking, so now the apartment really felt like this was home now.
He sat down on the couch, a cream thing that had orange cushions strewn across it; not really Xav's style but he hadn't been the one to do the interior decorating and he hadn't had to pay a penny for this accommodation so he wasn't complaining.
Then Xav hesitated. What should I do? At home, there was always someone to talk to, but here he really was alone. No one to randomly come in and ask What's up? Then Xav noticed the silence. At home there was always a noise, so he wasn't used to the all-encompassing silence that he found here. He had insisted on coming two days early to settle in, but settling in had taken him about half an hour. Now he was left with nothing to do, no one to talk to. He even found himself missing Sky and Phee, the two girls he had been desperate to get away from.
No. I refuse to sit around and be bored. I'm in London! A whole new city, a whole new country and I will make the most of this.
Xav grabbed his jacket and headed out of the door, determined to explore the real London.
