WHO IS LESS AFRAID
A 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' story by P. J. Dickinson
TEN
Xander woke the next morning to find that he had slept in. He was already two hours late for school. Well, he thought, he might as well just take his time then. He gave his mother a call, poking his head around the door and gently calling her name until he got something that was more response than snore. She had to be at work soon at the 7-11 and he didn't want her to be late and get into trouble. His father was not in the room.
He fixed himself a bowl of multi-colored cereal and carried it into the bathroom munching as he walked. He ran some water into the sink polishing off his breakfast as he waited for the water to heat up. He set the empty bowl on the toilet then started. There was a body in the bath.
It took him a moment to recognize his father. He was still in the underwear and the enamel had robbed his flesh of its usual sanguine hue. He was so cold he was almost blue. He must have spent the night there. Xander stared at him. All sympathy he felt for him had dissipated years ago. He had been nothing more than a steady stream of drunken abuse and disappointment for so long that Xander could not remember a time when he had not hated him. It would be better if he just died. Then Xander and his mum could be alone.
He turned his back on his father and washed at the sink. As he dried his body with a large bath towel his attention returned to the man in the bath. For so many years Xander had been terrified of him. It was hard to believe now as he stared at the lump of inebriated tissue beneath him. Then, from the back of his mind something Sisposutas had said the night before came back to him in fragments. It had been something about his name. Why had he been given the shorter version of Alexander the Pluripotent had asked him? Alexander, protector of men. Xander, protector of a man.
Xander thought for a moment and then against his better judgment draped the towel over his fathers frigid form making a blanket for him. He left the room and after making sure that his mother was definitely moving grabbed his bag and skateboard and left the house.
He didn't feel like taking Uncle Rory's car this day. Today he just wanted to feel the wind in his hair and think. He took an unusual route to the school, skating down into the town where he cut through a few wide car parks. He was enjoying Sunnydale at a time of the day he rarely saw. People he didn't recognize were going about their normal daily routines and he was surprised at how busy the town was. It felt different being here on a day and at a time he would normally have been in class. It was somehow more alive and he felt a part of it.
Xander thought about Faith and what last night had meant to them. His mother's words on relationships went through his mind. Had he found what he needed to make his life better? Would he be able to hold on if he had?
He stopped at a set of lights and waited for the pedestrian crossing. Across the road Faith stepped out of a small bakery carrying her breakfast. She was dressed in bed-wrinkled shorts, a tight white vest and flip-flops. Her hair was tied back and she wore no make up.
Xander waved to her and stepped out into the road and was nearly run over by a passing SUV. The driver leaned on the horn and Xander hopped back onto the sidewalk, a blush creeping up his face. Faith turned at the sound of the horn and saw Xander looking sheepishly at her. She flashed a smile at him, then aimed two fingers in his direction, cocked her thumb and shot him with her imaginary gun. She slipped between two parked cars and disappeared down an alley. Xander mimed the bullet hitting him right in the heart and held on tight.
The End.