Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer depicted within this fan fiction.
I've wanted to write a piece about Andrew for so long. This idea has been floating around in my mind for a few weeks. I thought it interesting, let's hope I can get that across on page.
Warnings: slash, language, darker themes. The rating is there for a reason.
Enjoy.
Seated by the Ear
It's been almost two years since the fall of Sunnydale and the world is finally starting to return to normal. As normal as the world could ever be that is. Well, actually, it's more that our world was finally returning to some semblance of order.
Walking into my office the first time you wouldn't think there was a window. There was, but it only looked out upon a shaded section of the south grounds, half the view cut off by the west wing of the main compound. The window is often covered with heavy drapes and overhung with book cases lining the wall. The furniture is all dark woods. Even the computer casing is black. My desk lamps have shades and the overhead light has a dimmer switch.
Not many people want to see me. They want to see me in my office even less after the first visit there. To quote the only person who has ever made a willing second visit to my neck of the woods: "You're weird, your office is creepier. You're lucky you make ambrosia disguised as coffee or you wouldn't even have this little of a social life." Honestly, I never had much of one before, and I really don't crave one now. I like my dark creepy office and my lack of visitors, so what if it gives people the impression I'm defecting back to the dark side?
At ten every morning she comes in to give me an update on everybody else. Personally, I find it more entertaining to live vicariously through what may be my only friend than to interact with these people myself. They've made it very clear I'm not to their liking and I've grown up enough to realise, they're not to mine.
Still, she tries continuously to get me more involved again. It works a couple of times, but never as often as she'd like. She's a sweetheart. She's sincere and not afraid to be honest when it counts. She's grown up a lot too and she sees how things really are. Maybe not like I do, but I'd be afraid if she did. And the best part is, she's not dead or evil or a figment of my imagination.
Unlike someone I could name.
"You know that whole debate about who was really cooler: Vader or Sidious? I'm completely siding with Vader right now, because the Sidious vibe I'm getting from you is way too frightening to be cool."
I stare down at the tiny south-west garden tucked away between the two wings three stories below and try not to wish how much I'd rather be there, frolicking in the moonlight – or non-moonlight as the new moon would have things – than here, in my stuffy black hole of an office.
I don't dare turn to the corner where I keep my research desk. I know what I'll see. He'll be bending over peering at the latest work I've been doing and soon enough he'll make a comment and look up. He'll be smiling with sad eyes, far too pale – even for him – and my gaze would be drawn down and I'll have to see again the vision of my ultimate sin.
Of course things never go as planned and I keep forgetting that he always knows what I'm thinking.
"They reserve the lowest level of hell for traitors, you know."
I can feel his breath on my neck. Feel him, his hand on my shoulder. Only I can't, because it's not real and he's not really there and if I don't look, I won't see him and his voice will go away and I'll stop shivering and I won't feel his fingers tracing my neck like he wants to snap it.
I wouldn't begrudge him the right. Everyone says they want to strangle me, even just to shut me up, but I'd never let it happen. My death's reserved for those already rotting.
His breath is so cold on my lips and even as it repulses me, I long for it. I long for part of this to be true even as I blubber in my mind to make it stop. My fingers itch to touch him, but I don't. I just let him caress feeling so much from nothing. I'm cold and hot and I can't take the torture much longer. I wish he'd just do something. I wish I'd let myself do something. I want to cry. I want to rip my skin off. I want to turn on every light and I want to break the sun for daring to shine.
He knows what this does to me. It's worse every time. I try to hold out longer and longer, but this time, like every other time, I break with a strangled sob and open my eyes.
Guileless eyes meet mine. Blue irises that hold only pain and darkness. His red lips are so close to mine, barely open, breath misting between us. I'm caught in the trap again and I try not to look, I scramble back, but my legs are locked and I fall to my knees and then it's right there in front of me.
My sin. My betrayal. Blood still pulsing from a never-closing wound. Droplets paint my lips the same dark shade as his before falling to the floor and staining the wood.
He bends down to lap the blood from my aching lips.
"You were never an angel – not even a tainted one."
He smirks and leans in close and I close my eyes again, fear and anticipation writhing through me. A gentle touch smothered by pain. It's always the same. And I wonder if I ever want it to change.
"Andrew?"
I open my eyes to the sun on my face. I'm in my overly large leather chair. Again. The weather outside is nice, but not fantastic. I sit up properly and stretch out the crick in my neck before swivelling around to face my visitor.
"Hey Dawn."
She's holding a plate of pastries in the doorway. She rolls her eyes at my dishevelled state and enters my sanctum. "Honestly, did you sleep in here again? There's nothing that important going on. You should save the sleepless nights for apocalypse time."
I smile at her concern, like I always do. "This way I'll be prepared."
She huffs, crossing her arms adorably. She looks her age again when she acts on her emotions. Dressed in a suit with her hair pulled back, her face is marred by a serious frown too often. At least when she gets angry, she acts nineteen, not thirty.
We distract each other and laugh and she tells me all the new gossip while I make us coffee to go with our brunch and I don't let her behind my desk.
Because I still don't know if the bloodstains are real or imaginary.