Title: Heavenly
Author: Flannery Shaw
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Xander/Andrew
Spoilers: Season seven, particularly "Conversations With Dead People"
Disclaimers: All bow before Lord Whedon.
Feedback: I'm such a needy person. Please feedback me!
Notes: None of this is based on spoilers for the rest of the season. The CWDP quote is deliberately paraphrased, as it's unlikely Andrew would remember word-for-word what was said at the time. Also, I abuse the asterisk.
* * *
You said "nobody loves me"
And I said "wanna bet?"
The night you can't remember
The night I can't forget
-- Stephin Merritt
* * *
"Hang on, Xander!" He's looking up at me, teeth clenched, his hand limp in mine. No, not looking up at me -- looking up at where my face is, but his eyes are only half-open and unfocused and one is all bloody, but I don't think it's from a, a cut on the eye, but just from blood dripping into it.
He can't see me, so I squeeze his hand and say, "Xander, don't leave me!" loudly, my mouth nearly on his ear.
It's funny -- well, not really funny, I guess strange would be the better word -- the stuff you think about when you're terrified and bad things are going on all around you. Like then I remembered that Xander likes having his ear kissed. Not that I'd know from personal experience, I mean. It's just one of the many things one picks up from a casual conversation with Anya.
It's been for-*ever* and still no paramedics. There isn't anything I can do to distract myself, to pass the stupid slow minutes I sit here. There's nowhere else to look, except at Xander, 'cause the rest of the house is in even worse shape than he is. It's all in ruins with furniture and stuff tossed around and there's some burnt, uh, beams just sticking out all jagged and smoldering, and over there somewhere I know there's a girl with... uh.. with a huge gaping hole... she looks like Chamber from Generation X. Except, not living.
My eyes are fixed on Xander's face. I know he's alive, because every time he breathes he exhales a bloody mist and it makes his lips all spattery. I know that can't be good, but I'm thankful for it, since it saves me having to get too close to his mouth. And there's a little muscle by his eye that twitches every now and then, like -- like he's wincing. With pain.
"Oh Xander." My voice cracks like I'm sixteen again.
In the distance I can hear sirens. They sound close but not close enough, and everything's so *dead* -- SILENT, I mean silent, everything's so silent that I can't be sure they're anywhere near the house. I wanna run outside waving my arms so they know where to go, but I'm not gonna leave Xander, and the house is partly collapsed with big charred areas and probably some, uh... other indicators out in the yard. Not like they could miss it.
"Help is coming, and they're gonna make you all better," I tell Xander, and I try to believe it myself.
I stroke his hair, but when I do, my fingers get stuck in tangles stiffened with dried blood, and I think I accidentally reopen a wound on his scalp.
Suddenly paramedics are swarming around us like sharks, only not sharks that eat people but sharks that know how to stop all the bleeding. My ears are ringing and I didn't hear the ambulance arrive, or anyone enter through the, the crack in the front wall...
"We've got four victims!"
"He needs help!" I shriek, which is kinda redundant at this point.
"Two dead." It's sort of echoey, the woman's voice, and sounds far away. I think she's talking into a radio. "One critical!" I can't look at her. I'm looking at Xander.
They pull me away from him, and I don't resist. When you love someone you know when to let them go... or something. And I do love him. I wish I'd told him, and I try to shout it to him but my voice catches in my throat and I can't say it. My eyes won't move from the spot he was laying, even after Xander has been carried off on a stretcher.
There's a terrifying feeling that it'll be the last time I ever see him. No one will let me go with him, and it's no use to plead otherwise.
So there's, um, there's just the bloody pool where he was laying, and that's what I keep staring at. I stare so long that I start seeing images and patterns in the fluid, like when you look at clouds or Jell-O.
Then the blood makes me think of all the blood that leaked out of Jonathan.
The last thing Jonathan ever heard was, uh, it was "No one cares about you". That's the last thing I said to him and the last thing he heard.
I imagine I hear Jonathan talking, all about how all the cruelty and pain just fades away. It doesn't hurt. It's just... comforting.
I realize I'm like, completely worn out. Like I've been up for more than a day and have just been through a huge fight to the death against a really tough and fiery evil to save my life and the life of the man I love.
Xander's safe now, on the way to the hospital. I let my eyes close.
* * *
Someone's moved me into a chair, and that's where I wake up. The room's sunny and first I think all that stuff earlier was just a dream. Then I realize I have no idea where I'm at, but then I notice Xander's sitting on a white wicker bench nearby, reading, and looking kinda pale but otherwise completely not dead.
I'm so ecstatic that he's okay, and I want to run over and hug him, but my neck is killing me from sleeping in the chair. Instead I just say, "Hi Xander!" and smile at him.
I'm still sleepy and hear myself saying "H'zan" rather than what I'd intended.
His eyes shift over to me. (Later, I find out that he'd become proficient at spotting even the smallest twitches I'd make.) "Hey," he says softly. "Welcome back, you."
A sharp pain from my mouth keeps me from responding. Xander's quick with a piece of cotton, dabbing at the blood leaking from my cracked lip.
"Don't say anything," he tells me, focused on the cut. "Your lips are all dry and the skin's contracted. Not used to moving as much as they used to." He chuckles weakly at his own joke.
"Here. They gave me some balm." He mumbles as he rummages in the pockets of his coat. "Don't worry." He unscrews the top and brushes a finger across it. "My hands are clean."
My skin tingles under his touch as he smoothes his finger over my lips. The feeling is so intense, I whimper a little.
His smile is sympathetic. "It's medicated, so you might feel some tingling. Or an intense burning sensation. I forget which."
Watching him put the balm away, something finally sinks through. My lightbulb-over-the-head moment was this: No one wears a coat in Sunnydale in May.
Now, I know exactly where I am. One time, Tucker was attacked by one of his demon dogs. While he was recuperating, I'd wheel him out here to the bright hospital patio and help him catch up on homework he'd been missing.
My stomach turns and I ask, "What happened?"
He looked like he'd been dreading that question. "It's a good thing you can't stand up, 'cause otherwise I'd have to make you sit down to hear this."
* * *
Xander wouldn't tell me much, that day. It took months to get the full story.
Since he was still nursing a previous injury, and I was useless to the Slayer group, the two of us stayed home while the others left to deal with the threat of the First. Two of the Potentials stayed behind too, to keep an eye on me and Xander.
We were attacked at our most vulnerable. One girl ran screaming from the house and was torn apart before she reached the street. The other suffered an equally swift fate.
There was fighting, and a fire-spitting L'Rwc demon, and even Xander's not sure what happened because everything was so chaotic.
One of the attacking *Things* bit me. Giles speculated that it was some weird form of Malkacy demon with "venom of a rather pitiful potency". I said that it wasn't so pitiful to me, since it was my taco that got Tabascoed. Then Giles made me clarify what I'd said.
Xander, it turned out, survived with a broken leg and some cracked ribs and a few punctured organs, and looked like a patchwork quilt by the time he was stitched up.
I came out worse. My skull was cracked and I'd been impaled by something dull and wooden, and I'd lost a lot of blood. Xander still gets teary when he tries talking about my injuries, so I don't make him. I have a feeling that to this day, he's still keeping details from me.
The paramedics told him they had to carry me from his side, as there was no other way I'd leave. I really hope that's true, 'cause it makes me sound all neat and heroic.
Xander spent two days in bed. After that, he visited me at every opportunity. He told me a story about hiding out in my room past visiting hours, then spending the night sleeping next to me on the bed. They were gonna slap him with a fine and a ban, but Xander managed to talk his way out of it. He's so charming.
He said he talked to me all the time, and he would turn the TV up real loud when Enterprise and Alias were on, and tried to get the hospital to release me for a day so he could wheel my sleeping carcass to the theater to see the new X-Men movie. Since that didn't work, he had Willow download all the movies I missed: the Matrix sequel, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and something labeled as the Hulk that turned out to be gay porn. It actually came highly recommended by Xander. He watched it with me when I was all patched up and unable to be broken by, um, vigorous activity.
Xander moved me into his apartment. He kept me in bed all day -- for healing purposes, I mean -- and waited on me, cooked for me, helped me bathe... and, and so on. You get the idea. He's always telling me he loves me. I always say it back to him.
It's really funny -- no, not funny, *strange* -- how things end up. And this nags at me, sometimes, when Xander's holding me but sleep won't come: Everything seemed like it would conclude in such an awful way, with enough tragedy to go around, and it just seems illogical that there's such a gloriously happy ending for us.
Part of me is always going to wonder if this is really heaven.
* * *
Author: Flannery Shaw
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Xander/Andrew
Spoilers: Season seven, particularly "Conversations With Dead People"
Disclaimers: All bow before Lord Whedon.
Feedback: I'm such a needy person. Please feedback me!
Notes: None of this is based on spoilers for the rest of the season. The CWDP quote is deliberately paraphrased, as it's unlikely Andrew would remember word-for-word what was said at the time. Also, I abuse the asterisk.
* * *
You said "nobody loves me"
And I said "wanna bet?"
The night you can't remember
The night I can't forget
-- Stephin Merritt
* * *
"Hang on, Xander!" He's looking up at me, teeth clenched, his hand limp in mine. No, not looking up at me -- looking up at where my face is, but his eyes are only half-open and unfocused and one is all bloody, but I don't think it's from a, a cut on the eye, but just from blood dripping into it.
He can't see me, so I squeeze his hand and say, "Xander, don't leave me!" loudly, my mouth nearly on his ear.
It's funny -- well, not really funny, I guess strange would be the better word -- the stuff you think about when you're terrified and bad things are going on all around you. Like then I remembered that Xander likes having his ear kissed. Not that I'd know from personal experience, I mean. It's just one of the many things one picks up from a casual conversation with Anya.
It's been for-*ever* and still no paramedics. There isn't anything I can do to distract myself, to pass the stupid slow minutes I sit here. There's nowhere else to look, except at Xander, 'cause the rest of the house is in even worse shape than he is. It's all in ruins with furniture and stuff tossed around and there's some burnt, uh, beams just sticking out all jagged and smoldering, and over there somewhere I know there's a girl with... uh.. with a huge gaping hole... she looks like Chamber from Generation X. Except, not living.
My eyes are fixed on Xander's face. I know he's alive, because every time he breathes he exhales a bloody mist and it makes his lips all spattery. I know that can't be good, but I'm thankful for it, since it saves me having to get too close to his mouth. And there's a little muscle by his eye that twitches every now and then, like -- like he's wincing. With pain.
"Oh Xander." My voice cracks like I'm sixteen again.
In the distance I can hear sirens. They sound close but not close enough, and everything's so *dead* -- SILENT, I mean silent, everything's so silent that I can't be sure they're anywhere near the house. I wanna run outside waving my arms so they know where to go, but I'm not gonna leave Xander, and the house is partly collapsed with big charred areas and probably some, uh... other indicators out in the yard. Not like they could miss it.
"Help is coming, and they're gonna make you all better," I tell Xander, and I try to believe it myself.
I stroke his hair, but when I do, my fingers get stuck in tangles stiffened with dried blood, and I think I accidentally reopen a wound on his scalp.
Suddenly paramedics are swarming around us like sharks, only not sharks that eat people but sharks that know how to stop all the bleeding. My ears are ringing and I didn't hear the ambulance arrive, or anyone enter through the, the crack in the front wall...
"We've got four victims!"
"He needs help!" I shriek, which is kinda redundant at this point.
"Two dead." It's sort of echoey, the woman's voice, and sounds far away. I think she's talking into a radio. "One critical!" I can't look at her. I'm looking at Xander.
They pull me away from him, and I don't resist. When you love someone you know when to let them go... or something. And I do love him. I wish I'd told him, and I try to shout it to him but my voice catches in my throat and I can't say it. My eyes won't move from the spot he was laying, even after Xander has been carried off on a stretcher.
There's a terrifying feeling that it'll be the last time I ever see him. No one will let me go with him, and it's no use to plead otherwise.
So there's, um, there's just the bloody pool where he was laying, and that's what I keep staring at. I stare so long that I start seeing images and patterns in the fluid, like when you look at clouds or Jell-O.
Then the blood makes me think of all the blood that leaked out of Jonathan.
The last thing Jonathan ever heard was, uh, it was "No one cares about you". That's the last thing I said to him and the last thing he heard.
I imagine I hear Jonathan talking, all about how all the cruelty and pain just fades away. It doesn't hurt. It's just... comforting.
I realize I'm like, completely worn out. Like I've been up for more than a day and have just been through a huge fight to the death against a really tough and fiery evil to save my life and the life of the man I love.
Xander's safe now, on the way to the hospital. I let my eyes close.
* * *
Someone's moved me into a chair, and that's where I wake up. The room's sunny and first I think all that stuff earlier was just a dream. Then I realize I have no idea where I'm at, but then I notice Xander's sitting on a white wicker bench nearby, reading, and looking kinda pale but otherwise completely not dead.
I'm so ecstatic that he's okay, and I want to run over and hug him, but my neck is killing me from sleeping in the chair. Instead I just say, "Hi Xander!" and smile at him.
I'm still sleepy and hear myself saying "H'zan" rather than what I'd intended.
His eyes shift over to me. (Later, I find out that he'd become proficient at spotting even the smallest twitches I'd make.) "Hey," he says softly. "Welcome back, you."
A sharp pain from my mouth keeps me from responding. Xander's quick with a piece of cotton, dabbing at the blood leaking from my cracked lip.
"Don't say anything," he tells me, focused on the cut. "Your lips are all dry and the skin's contracted. Not used to moving as much as they used to." He chuckles weakly at his own joke.
"Here. They gave me some balm." He mumbles as he rummages in the pockets of his coat. "Don't worry." He unscrews the top and brushes a finger across it. "My hands are clean."
My skin tingles under his touch as he smoothes his finger over my lips. The feeling is so intense, I whimper a little.
His smile is sympathetic. "It's medicated, so you might feel some tingling. Or an intense burning sensation. I forget which."
Watching him put the balm away, something finally sinks through. My lightbulb-over-the-head moment was this: No one wears a coat in Sunnydale in May.
Now, I know exactly where I am. One time, Tucker was attacked by one of his demon dogs. While he was recuperating, I'd wheel him out here to the bright hospital patio and help him catch up on homework he'd been missing.
My stomach turns and I ask, "What happened?"
He looked like he'd been dreading that question. "It's a good thing you can't stand up, 'cause otherwise I'd have to make you sit down to hear this."
* * *
Xander wouldn't tell me much, that day. It took months to get the full story.
Since he was still nursing a previous injury, and I was useless to the Slayer group, the two of us stayed home while the others left to deal with the threat of the First. Two of the Potentials stayed behind too, to keep an eye on me and Xander.
We were attacked at our most vulnerable. One girl ran screaming from the house and was torn apart before she reached the street. The other suffered an equally swift fate.
There was fighting, and a fire-spitting L'Rwc demon, and even Xander's not sure what happened because everything was so chaotic.
One of the attacking *Things* bit me. Giles speculated that it was some weird form of Malkacy demon with "venom of a rather pitiful potency". I said that it wasn't so pitiful to me, since it was my taco that got Tabascoed. Then Giles made me clarify what I'd said.
Xander, it turned out, survived with a broken leg and some cracked ribs and a few punctured organs, and looked like a patchwork quilt by the time he was stitched up.
I came out worse. My skull was cracked and I'd been impaled by something dull and wooden, and I'd lost a lot of blood. Xander still gets teary when he tries talking about my injuries, so I don't make him. I have a feeling that to this day, he's still keeping details from me.
The paramedics told him they had to carry me from his side, as there was no other way I'd leave. I really hope that's true, 'cause it makes me sound all neat and heroic.
Xander spent two days in bed. After that, he visited me at every opportunity. He told me a story about hiding out in my room past visiting hours, then spending the night sleeping next to me on the bed. They were gonna slap him with a fine and a ban, but Xander managed to talk his way out of it. He's so charming.
He said he talked to me all the time, and he would turn the TV up real loud when Enterprise and Alias were on, and tried to get the hospital to release me for a day so he could wheel my sleeping carcass to the theater to see the new X-Men movie. Since that didn't work, he had Willow download all the movies I missed: the Matrix sequel, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and something labeled as the Hulk that turned out to be gay porn. It actually came highly recommended by Xander. He watched it with me when I was all patched up and unable to be broken by, um, vigorous activity.
Xander moved me into his apartment. He kept me in bed all day -- for healing purposes, I mean -- and waited on me, cooked for me, helped me bathe... and, and so on. You get the idea. He's always telling me he loves me. I always say it back to him.
It's really funny -- no, not funny, *strange* -- how things end up. And this nags at me, sometimes, when Xander's holding me but sleep won't come: Everything seemed like it would conclude in such an awful way, with enough tragedy to go around, and it just seems illogical that there's such a gloriously happy ending for us.
Part of me is always going to wonder if this is really heaven.
* * *