Title: The Observer
Author: Jane McCartney
Feedback: Don't make me beg for it. Oh hell, whatever: pleeeease? Pretty please? It'll just take a sec from ya! I really wanna know what you think about this particular fic.
Acknowledgments: Every beloved reviewer, and my beloved Theo. My fics are practically his work too. But probably not half as good as his own fics.
Author's note: This fic takes the movie "The Watcher", the one with James Spader and Keanu Reeves, as a reference - but you don't need to have watched the movie in order to follow this fic. It's probably better if you don't watch it after all, because you'll have more surprises that way.
Summary: As his health decreases and every trace of the man he used to be seems to be just a shade of an abandoned life, Xander finds out that he has to deal once again with the pain and quarrel of his past. Post S3 and S6, B/A crossover.
***
Xander was carrying a grocery bag in his hands and was climbing up the stairs of the old building, which had become his new address.
It had been almost two years now since the former carpenter had left his home town, and made the City of Angels his home.
It had been and was still a difficult period in his life; Xander used to receive on a daily basis phone calls from Sunnydale, from people who cared about him. But given how rarely he actually picked up, the calls were in fact gradually becoming more and more infrequent.
Buffy and Dawn had visited him here in Los Angeles four times since his departure, and Willow five; Spike had even been there with them, once or twice. Giles had also come once, from England.
But during all the visits, Xander hadn't exactly been a friendly or gracious host at all.
No one blamed him - but still the visits, as well as the phone calls, were becoming more and more uncommon. Xander's friends didn't know if the best option was, in fact, to give the man the time and space he wanted; nevertheless, they weren't given any other alternatives.
The fact was, to Xander Harris, their presence was obviously harder to bear than their absence.
~ Flashback ~
"Are you here to say you're sorry for what's happened, and that you wish I'd talk to someone about it? 'Cause I've been receiving a lot of that lately," Xander said bitterly, not looking at the eyes of the girl standing on the other side of the room.
The brunette stayed in silence for no longer than a couple of seconds. "No, I'm not, actually," she answered quietly, her hazel eyes directed at his brown ones, still reluctant to admit anything more.
The young woman waited for Xander to say something; but due to his apathetic silence, she realized she'd not be receiving any kind of cooperation from his side.
So the brunette started to unpack one of the two grocery bags onto the kitchen's counter, and eyed him with a twitch of her nose.
"You do like tuna, right? 'Cause I brought you one divine tuna sandwich. Two layers of stuffing and, listen, 'cause this is the best part: they actually put a slice of bread soaked with milk in the middle, which makes it the best sandwich in town!" the girl finished up with a proud smile.
One that rapidly died on her lips, as Xander didn't react at all.
"Well, anyway, the best sandwich you can buy for two dollars that won't send you straight to the hospital with a case of food-poisoning," she chuckled a little forcedly, not willing to give up so soon. Not this soon.
Xander, inevitably startled by the unforeseen noise of the doorbell ringing, heard her when the girl said in a singsong tone, "Ah, that must be the pizza!"
A skinny youth with a uniform containing white and red vertical stripes, and a matching hat, stood in the hall of the apartment with a large box. A little clumsily, he announced, "Uh, that'll be $14.95, ma'am."
The brunette girl opened the box and cringed. "That's not the pizza I ordered; I'm allergic to pepperoni!" she sniffed in an exaggerated whiny voice.
"Oh, shoot," the slim boy cursed, scratching his head nervously. "Look, please, you've gotta take it, otherwise my boss will kill me!"
The young woman whined one more time before, and sent her best puppy-dog look to the uniformed kid. She then said, "OK, I think I can scrape the stuff off... but, I mean, it wouldn't be fair to pay the whole price for something I never even asked for, right?" in a suggesting voice.
"I, I'll give you a 50% discount!" the boy cried out suddenly.
"Done!" the brunette chimed in with a big grin, grabbing the box, giving the delivery boy the money and closing the door in his face.
"Allergic to pepperoni?" Xander cocked an eyebrow suspiciously with slight sarcasm, a thin grin appearing on his lips for the first time that night.
The brunette grinned enigmatically. "It works like a charm, every time."
"Ah, right, who cares about integrity if you can extort discounts from a hard-working, innocent kid with a big fat lie?" the dark-haired guy teased his female companion.
"Hey! In my defense, the last fry cook at that place was an icky monster who tried to eat my brain last month," the girl rationalized her actions matter-of-factly. "And, besides, he sneezed on my pizza once!"
"Well, then I guess it's fair," the guy agreed with a slight mumble.
The tall girl smiled inwardly at seeing Xander's face light up with a small grin, but soon his smile faded away and the former construction worker went back to his zombie-like state.
"You do like pepperoni pizza, right?" she forced out conversation, crouching to search for plates, knives and forks to serve themselves the pizza. Momentarily astounded to find out there was only a single item of each utensil, the brunette decided to just shrug it off.
"Ah, actually, I'm not really hungry, Cordy," Xander said in a rather absent-minded manner, all energy seeming to have left him.
"Oh c'mon! You're Xander Harris, you're always hungry," Cordelia Chase tried to joke, but it just didn't sound natural.
Because, deep inside, the girl felt a deep pang of sorrow slowly forming in her belly; and unshed tears were threatening to stain her soft skin.
"I think it's better if you leave now," the dark-haired guy said suddenly, his voice a monotone and his eyes seemingly devoid of any trace of life.
Cordelia, eyes blurry with tears, tensely smiled an almost imperceptible smile - but to an outsider, she could've looked just about at the edge of a breakdown.
"I'm not gonna stand by and watch while a friend tries to starve himself," the brunette chuckled in a farfetched manner, between soft sobs. "Kate Moss' diets are really not that manly, ya know?"
The woman absent-mindedly reached for his shoulder with a gentle touch of her hand, but Xander quickly and slightly aggressively retreated into the living room.
A little more desperate now, Cordelia followed him. The former cheerleader insisted, firmly but somehow seeming very close to losing it, "Please, Xander! You can't keep on going like this; oh, hell, you don't have to go through this alone! Please, let me in - let someone in..."
The former Slayerette's glance remained downcast, and his reaction was totally unresponsive; Xander just repeated, in a low voice this time, words accented with an uncontrolled throb of despair. "I think it'd better if you just leave. Please Cordelia, just go."
"I won't," she whispered firmly, tears freely rolling down her face now. "I won't just watch while you kill yourself slowly, Xander Harris; no can do here. You're not well, you're not frickin' fine or whatever bull you try to make everyone believe. Because quite honestly, you look like crap."
The dark-haired guy moved his spiritless, tearless brown eyes to her blurry, troubled hazel ones. "Tact Girl now and forever, huh?" Xander joked bitterly.
"You don't understand," the dark-haired guy followed up in a whisper, almost coyly.
"What? What don't I understand, Xander? Please, tell me," Cordelia replied desperately.
After some prolonged seconds of silence, the guy muttered the words, "It's harder. To be with you, all of you, it just makes everything harder..."
Cordelia stared at him, shocked, hurt, conflicted. But, in the middle of the whirlwind of feelings blasting inside her full-force, standing out above all others, there was also the painful comprehension of his words' meaning.
Xander stood there, a haunted and blank expression on his face; his glance, once again, was diverted from Cordelia's. "Mostly, the memories are just a random selection of things, y'know? Like if I'm with Willow, I remember the stupid fights they used to have in the past. And God, they were so irritating," he remembered with a nostalgic shake of his head.
"If it's Dawn, I remember the days she'd sit with her and try to help with the homework - did you know the kid's teacher didn't accept Dawn's controversial ideas of Santa Claus's true origins? Yeah, she got really pissed off with Sunnydale High's academic staff..." the young man chuckled, his words now seeming slightly disoriented.
"Xander," Cordelia didn't even notice the soft and pained whisper leaving her lips.
"It's just too much, ya know? I, I just can't. Please, you have to leave me alone. All of you," Xander muttered at last, staring deeply into her eyes just for a second - and for that moment, the brunette girl saw a spark of desperation in that usually blank look.
~ End of Flashback ~
***
Please, review!
Author: Jane McCartney
Feedback: Don't make me beg for it. Oh hell, whatever: pleeeease? Pretty please? It'll just take a sec from ya! I really wanna know what you think about this particular fic.
Acknowledgments: Every beloved reviewer, and my beloved Theo. My fics are practically his work too. But probably not half as good as his own fics.
Author's note: This fic takes the movie "The Watcher", the one with James Spader and Keanu Reeves, as a reference - but you don't need to have watched the movie in order to follow this fic. It's probably better if you don't watch it after all, because you'll have more surprises that way.
Summary: As his health decreases and every trace of the man he used to be seems to be just a shade of an abandoned life, Xander finds out that he has to deal once again with the pain and quarrel of his past. Post S3 and S6, B/A crossover.
***
Xander was carrying a grocery bag in his hands and was climbing up the stairs of the old building, which had become his new address.
It had been almost two years now since the former carpenter had left his home town, and made the City of Angels his home.
It had been and was still a difficult period in his life; Xander used to receive on a daily basis phone calls from Sunnydale, from people who cared about him. But given how rarely he actually picked up, the calls were in fact gradually becoming more and more infrequent.
Buffy and Dawn had visited him here in Los Angeles four times since his departure, and Willow five; Spike had even been there with them, once or twice. Giles had also come once, from England.
But during all the visits, Xander hadn't exactly been a friendly or gracious host at all.
No one blamed him - but still the visits, as well as the phone calls, were becoming more and more uncommon. Xander's friends didn't know if the best option was, in fact, to give the man the time and space he wanted; nevertheless, they weren't given any other alternatives.
The fact was, to Xander Harris, their presence was obviously harder to bear than their absence.
~ Flashback ~
"Are you here to say you're sorry for what's happened, and that you wish I'd talk to someone about it? 'Cause I've been receiving a lot of that lately," Xander said bitterly, not looking at the eyes of the girl standing on the other side of the room.
The brunette stayed in silence for no longer than a couple of seconds. "No, I'm not, actually," she answered quietly, her hazel eyes directed at his brown ones, still reluctant to admit anything more.
The young woman waited for Xander to say something; but due to his apathetic silence, she realized she'd not be receiving any kind of cooperation from his side.
So the brunette started to unpack one of the two grocery bags onto the kitchen's counter, and eyed him with a twitch of her nose.
"You do like tuna, right? 'Cause I brought you one divine tuna sandwich. Two layers of stuffing and, listen, 'cause this is the best part: they actually put a slice of bread soaked with milk in the middle, which makes it the best sandwich in town!" the girl finished up with a proud smile.
One that rapidly died on her lips, as Xander didn't react at all.
"Well, anyway, the best sandwich you can buy for two dollars that won't send you straight to the hospital with a case of food-poisoning," she chuckled a little forcedly, not willing to give up so soon. Not this soon.
Xander, inevitably startled by the unforeseen noise of the doorbell ringing, heard her when the girl said in a singsong tone, "Ah, that must be the pizza!"
A skinny youth with a uniform containing white and red vertical stripes, and a matching hat, stood in the hall of the apartment with a large box. A little clumsily, he announced, "Uh, that'll be $14.95, ma'am."
The brunette girl opened the box and cringed. "That's not the pizza I ordered; I'm allergic to pepperoni!" she sniffed in an exaggerated whiny voice.
"Oh, shoot," the slim boy cursed, scratching his head nervously. "Look, please, you've gotta take it, otherwise my boss will kill me!"
The young woman whined one more time before, and sent her best puppy-dog look to the uniformed kid. She then said, "OK, I think I can scrape the stuff off... but, I mean, it wouldn't be fair to pay the whole price for something I never even asked for, right?" in a suggesting voice.
"I, I'll give you a 50% discount!" the boy cried out suddenly.
"Done!" the brunette chimed in with a big grin, grabbing the box, giving the delivery boy the money and closing the door in his face.
"Allergic to pepperoni?" Xander cocked an eyebrow suspiciously with slight sarcasm, a thin grin appearing on his lips for the first time that night.
The brunette grinned enigmatically. "It works like a charm, every time."
"Ah, right, who cares about integrity if you can extort discounts from a hard-working, innocent kid with a big fat lie?" the dark-haired guy teased his female companion.
"Hey! In my defense, the last fry cook at that place was an icky monster who tried to eat my brain last month," the girl rationalized her actions matter-of-factly. "And, besides, he sneezed on my pizza once!"
"Well, then I guess it's fair," the guy agreed with a slight mumble.
The tall girl smiled inwardly at seeing Xander's face light up with a small grin, but soon his smile faded away and the former construction worker went back to his zombie-like state.
"You do like pepperoni pizza, right?" she forced out conversation, crouching to search for plates, knives and forks to serve themselves the pizza. Momentarily astounded to find out there was only a single item of each utensil, the brunette decided to just shrug it off.
"Ah, actually, I'm not really hungry, Cordy," Xander said in a rather absent-minded manner, all energy seeming to have left him.
"Oh c'mon! You're Xander Harris, you're always hungry," Cordelia Chase tried to joke, but it just didn't sound natural.
Because, deep inside, the girl felt a deep pang of sorrow slowly forming in her belly; and unshed tears were threatening to stain her soft skin.
"I think it's better if you leave now," the dark-haired guy said suddenly, his voice a monotone and his eyes seemingly devoid of any trace of life.
Cordelia, eyes blurry with tears, tensely smiled an almost imperceptible smile - but to an outsider, she could've looked just about at the edge of a breakdown.
"I'm not gonna stand by and watch while a friend tries to starve himself," the brunette chuckled in a farfetched manner, between soft sobs. "Kate Moss' diets are really not that manly, ya know?"
The woman absent-mindedly reached for his shoulder with a gentle touch of her hand, but Xander quickly and slightly aggressively retreated into the living room.
A little more desperate now, Cordelia followed him. The former cheerleader insisted, firmly but somehow seeming very close to losing it, "Please, Xander! You can't keep on going like this; oh, hell, you don't have to go through this alone! Please, let me in - let someone in..."
The former Slayerette's glance remained downcast, and his reaction was totally unresponsive; Xander just repeated, in a low voice this time, words accented with an uncontrolled throb of despair. "I think it'd better if you just leave. Please Cordelia, just go."
"I won't," she whispered firmly, tears freely rolling down her face now. "I won't just watch while you kill yourself slowly, Xander Harris; no can do here. You're not well, you're not frickin' fine or whatever bull you try to make everyone believe. Because quite honestly, you look like crap."
The dark-haired guy moved his spiritless, tearless brown eyes to her blurry, troubled hazel ones. "Tact Girl now and forever, huh?" Xander joked bitterly.
"You don't understand," the dark-haired guy followed up in a whisper, almost coyly.
"What? What don't I understand, Xander? Please, tell me," Cordelia replied desperately.
After some prolonged seconds of silence, the guy muttered the words, "It's harder. To be with you, all of you, it just makes everything harder..."
Cordelia stared at him, shocked, hurt, conflicted. But, in the middle of the whirlwind of feelings blasting inside her full-force, standing out above all others, there was also the painful comprehension of his words' meaning.
Xander stood there, a haunted and blank expression on his face; his glance, once again, was diverted from Cordelia's. "Mostly, the memories are just a random selection of things, y'know? Like if I'm with Willow, I remember the stupid fights they used to have in the past. And God, they were so irritating," he remembered with a nostalgic shake of his head.
"If it's Dawn, I remember the days she'd sit with her and try to help with the homework - did you know the kid's teacher didn't accept Dawn's controversial ideas of Santa Claus's true origins? Yeah, she got really pissed off with Sunnydale High's academic staff..." the young man chuckled, his words now seeming slightly disoriented.
"Xander," Cordelia didn't even notice the soft and pained whisper leaving her lips.
"It's just too much, ya know? I, I just can't. Please, you have to leave me alone. All of you," Xander muttered at last, staring deeply into her eyes just for a second - and for that moment, the brunette girl saw a spark of desperation in that usually blank look.
~ End of Flashback ~
***
Please, review!