Xander

A/N This is my WWS rewrite of Conversations with dead people, yay! Because the Buffy, Dawn and Trio segments would be the same, I have decided to do a new Willow and Tara segment followed by three others, namely the original ideas for Xander and Anya, which weren't filmed due to cast restrictions and a separate story for Spike. I get that the original doesn't have a Spike segment probably because of his whole separate arc with the first in season 7 but who said I have to stick to the rules. So I'm doing what I want.

"Conversations with dead people"

Sunnydale, the world without shrimp, November 12, 2002 8:01 PM

Xander couldn't handle be alone in the apartment anymore, Spike was out for the night on a hunt for nothing he supposed. Guy couldn't hurt anyone. So waving a belated goodbye to his empty apartment he went out for a walk. It was dark, as Sunnydale always was at night, and the air had the year's first winter chill settling in. His jacket ruffled annoyingly against his chest, the wind picking up, his hair brushing across his face. Unconsciously he felt himself walking towards Anya's apartment, he hadn't intended to but he found his feet were dragging him closer and closer to her building.

Approaching the gate was the final straw, he stopped himself, don't be stupid Xander, she doesn't want to see you. You messed it up, you left her remember, you decided it wasn't going to work. Little did Xander know his pacing thoughts had begun to be audible. And there were silent footsteps behind approaching. Xander turned sharply the hairs on the back of his neck standing too far up and poking out of him like little jabs, daggers.

"Why you talkin' to yourself?" The guy said from a perch on one of the walls outside the building. Xander saw him smirk before folding his arms across his chest, his legs stretching out along the bricks as he leaned against the next layer up. Xander's body quipped to face the guy, all orange sweater and floppy '90s hair.

"Jesse?" Xander questioned, his brow furrowed as he stared hard against the shape of his former friend. Who was far too dead to really be sitting there. Jesse nodded uncrossing his arms and jumping down off the wall, he walked towards Xander almost making to place a friendly hand on his shoulder but then refraining at the last second.

"So what's up man? How's it been? You know being DEAD!" Xander said, pushing his neck forward in emphasis of his last word. He was freaked out to say the least, first off he'd had Spike creeping about his place for a week, now he had dead guys following him around, crazy Hellmouth life huh? Spike was the only annoying dead guy he expected to see but this was just another level.

"Oh you know how it is. Coffin here and there, the odd glimpse of hell every now and again." Jesse joked, his tongue flicking across his lips every couple of seconds, there was a bloody tear in his sweater, the ends of a long shirt poking out the bottom of the frayed hem. He looked hunted, pale, like the blood had been drained. Not dead just waiting.

"Last time I checked you were a vamp." Xander retorted finally turning his back on the fanged and rubbing his forehead with his fist. He was still thinking about Anya, he was outside her building after all. She was all he could concentrate on but this encounter with Jesse wasn't helping, distracted him from his misery. He felt like Angel for some reason, all brooding and mopey over some girl. But she was never some girl, she was Anya. Vengeance demon, blunt, afraid of bunnies. And he let her go.

"What's up man? Like really up with you." Jesse questioned, the part of him that was still Xander's friend came back in streaks. Somehow to Xander he'd been lost in a flurry of dead people, the many memories of those lost to him by this point was overreaching. Too many to count. It'd been six years. And yet now he could suddenly remember what Jesse'd had for lunch their first day of kindergarten.

"Don't act like you care, I've met plenty of vamps since you, and I know what they're like." He warned, he was treating him like Spike, which was sorta owed given Jesse had tried to kill him but maybe it was a little unfair. This was different, Xander'd known him like all his life well, up until he was sixteen. They'd been best buds through grade school then junior high, he was somehow a part of his childhood but not his life. In a weird way Xander could still tell him anything.

Jesse held his hands up in surrender, backing away a little to give Xander some space. "Ok ok, don't get all stakey on me." He said, his back hitting the wall again as he leaned against it. Watching as Xander gripped the gate with white knuckles, his anger showing through gritted teeth. But it was more than that, there was a sadness hidden behind his brown eyes, a longing for something he'd lost. "She must be some girl."

Xander scoffed at his 'friend' a sly sort of half smile grazing his lips, he looked down at his stupid feet, sneaker clad and muddy from walking through the park. "She's not just some girl. You wouldn't believe me." He replied, shaking his head and burying his guilt in his collar. Or maybe he would? He began kicking the bottom of the gate with his toes, it hurt but the cold stopped him from feeling it. He was lost and stranded but she was right up there. Just a few flights of stairs between him and her. His Anya. But she wasn't really his anymore was she, he'd lost that privilege when he left her.

"She was my light, my way, someone to keep me from being consumed by all the demons, but I lost her, I betrayed her trust." Xander admitted guilty, poetically put so he wouldn't be reminded of her bluntness. He couldn't look up at the orange sweater, he couldn't face the guilt. It was too much, something that could make him falter into tears, not something he especially wanted to share.

"What'd you do? Cheat?" Jesse remarked, pushing Xander to feel the strain he'd put on their relationship. Xander looked up shocked that someone would even suggest that, he could never. Even though he had with Cordelia. Realisation creased his aging face, he'd ruined all of his relationships some way another. Cordy had turned and run from him because of him and Willow, she'd even tried to stop him but he couldn't resist. Then he had to go and bust up this thing he had with Anya.

"Might as well have. No I-" He realised how hard it was to say, the words wouldn't form in his mouth, his tongue coated in a dry film. He needed chapstick or something. The image of her played over and over in his mind, beautiful in a dress she'd never wear again, he thought she'd looked so perfect that day, when he saw her his tongue had dried too.

But he couldn't do it, go through with it when he knew it could go wrong. He couldn't face pushing her into a marriage that would break her into this resentful thing. Like his mother had always been, she drunk because his father did, she resented him because she should never have married him. He thought it would happen to them, that she would one day become that form, vengeful that he wasn't enough, that he was wrong for her, would regret. "What?" Jesse said out of the blue, pulling Xander from his recollection and into the present moment, he was outside her building looking down at his cold, hard feet, talking with a long dead vampire and friend, because he couldn't face going up those few flights of stairs.

"I left her Jesse. I stood her up at the altar, left her because I couldn't go through with it." He looked up then, scoured Jesse's poignant face for the answers. 'Oh' was all the reply he would receive though. But Xander wasn't done explaining, his guilt was toppling out, pushing him forward into oblivion because he couldn't bare to keep his secret anymore.

"That's not even the worst part, because I don't regret doing it. And it hurts that I can't even regret what I did to her. I messed up Jess, badly and I don't even wanna go back and change it. I can't end up like my parents, we can't be that. I couldn't have it then, I can't have it now. And I know she'll never accept that because who could." Xander spilled out, Jesse turned around slowly taking in the surroundings, realising where they were. Xander was staring at the space Jesse was spinning in, his feet contorting to fit the space, the marks of gum on the concrete his dance floor.

"This is her building isn't it?" He asked soulfully, Xander did nothing but nod, he didn't even turn around. Jesse pointed up the building, glancing through the dozens of bright windows, he didn't know which one was hers, heck he didn't even know her name. Then the last surge of memories fed through into him, a flash of Jesse's true life, all of school right up until his death. He used to be one of Xander's best friends, and even now he knew Xander regretted staking him. That he'd cursed himself for it.

"What can I even do?" Xander asked truthfully, he really didn't know how he could fix this, he didn't even blame her for sleeping with Spike. He had at the time, but now it was just a blip. He deserved the torture, then he thought she'd done it to hurt him, because he still saw her as his. He was stupid for it, the minute he'd abandoned her, that was when he stopped being hers. When their fantasy love had come screeching to a halt, and he was chucked from the ride.

"It sounds like you're done, there's nothing you can do to win her back. You screwed too much, go home Xander." Jesse said, pushing Xander further and further into regret, he'd thought Jesse would be supportive, tell him to go get the girl. Tell her he loved her and that he could try to make things better. But he didn't, he just put a lid on it. Pushed Xander to leave the scene. Break the couple further apart.

"Maybe I should just go." Xander turned to walk away but turned a final time to see if her window light was on. He saw it was off, but there was a silhouetted figure pressed to the glass, her head turned inwards not looking down at the world. Her hair was down, falling away from her face, resting against the dark glass. She looked like some kind of dark angel, some beautiful entity in the night. She was majestic. He couldn't leave her, not again. Not before he'd done anything to make it better.

"I'm sorry Jesse I can't just leave her to weep." He said, reaching for the stake in his belt, whether this version of Jesse was a ghost or a vampire, he needed rid of the past. To new futures. Sweeping his arms forward he pushed his hands straight through the body of the dead boy. He was cold, so cold, maybe a ghost. But non-corporeal whatever he was. Arms pushed straight through him and he was gone.

Xander swayed his arms at his sides as he paced outside her building, stake back in his jacket he stared up at her. His angel. Leaning on the gate for balance, he pushed through it.