The glass is cold against his skin. He leans his forehead against the window, hoping to cool the fever-heat in his cheeks. Vibrations from the bus hum through him, earthing in his feet, making his toes tingle. The engine noise thrums in his ears, a counter-rhythm to the whoosh of his own blood as it pulses in his temples.
Cold. Hum. Whoosh. Thrum. It's all he can feel.
She's gone. She's passed. She's a dozen other clichés that are supposed to sound reassuring but ultimately add up to the fact that Anya is dead.
Xander wants to know why it doesn't hurt.
There's just this big yawning cavern inside him: a holding place for the pain, and he knows that as soon as it comes it's going to swallow him whole, suck him down inside that cavern and envelope him in warm, comforting agony. He just has to ride through the frozen numbness of the moment until it comes to devour him.
He shivers, despite the California sun that heats the inside of the bus like a greenhouse.
Buffy and Dawn and Willow and Faith up front. Giles drives. Principal Wood beside him, watching the road. Potentials - Slayers - in back. Andrew two seats in front of them, visible only if he pulls away from the window. Here because she died.
Closed eyes to hide the ones still here, the ones who've filled up her space and left her out. She's still dead.
His head bumps against the window as the road surface becomes uneven. It hurts, sort of. He rubs his temple. She's still dead.
Rough desert road gives way to dusty towns, which blur into suburbs. She's still dead.
The last ripples of his nothing-love have fallen into the crater, along with his apartment and his parents and his car and his hard-hat. Space inside, colour with no meaning. Barren.
The roadside loses itself in the dark, the moon rising on L.A., and Xander snorts a vacant laugh because where else would they go? Nowhere else exists in his world: just Sunnydale and L.A. a smudge in the distance and England a blur around the edges.
They were going to travel. Go beyond Sunnydale and actually travel, visit places she had not seen through human eyes. Look honey, L.A., he tells her. Can you see the lights?
Genuine cold, blanket-less in the night and he's shivering, wondering why no one else is speaking anymore.
He lurches forward when the bus stops, catching himself on the seat in front. Then suddenly he's the last one on the bus, and Giles is urging him to get up, get out, come see. Xander drifts out on to the street, scudding along, little rain cloud in the breeze, inside to marble and wood and it's warm. Pulls his shirt tight around him anyway.
A couple of familiar faces that he's supposed to be happy to see, and there are others he doesn't know, but they make sense in this space so he lets himself be guided through, upwards, and look, there's a bed. It's big and warm, empty but comfortable and it's so easy to be wrapped up in the soft sheets. They catch around his shoes and he half knows he shouldn't be wearing shoes in bed. He'll take them off in a minute, as soon as he's warmed up enough to move without shivering, but now he's all cocooned and fuzzy, and shoes can wait, right? They'll still be there to take off when he's ready. When he's slept.
And she's still dead.
*****
Cold. Hum. Whoosh. Thrum. It's all he can feel.
She's gone. She's passed. She's a dozen other clichés that are supposed to sound reassuring but ultimately add up to the fact that Anya is dead.
Xander wants to know why it doesn't hurt.
There's just this big yawning cavern inside him: a holding place for the pain, and he knows that as soon as it comes it's going to swallow him whole, suck him down inside that cavern and envelope him in warm, comforting agony. He just has to ride through the frozen numbness of the moment until it comes to devour him.
He shivers, despite the California sun that heats the inside of the bus like a greenhouse.
Buffy and Dawn and Willow and Faith up front. Giles drives. Principal Wood beside him, watching the road. Potentials - Slayers - in back. Andrew two seats in front of them, visible only if he pulls away from the window. Here because she died.
Closed eyes to hide the ones still here, the ones who've filled up her space and left her out. She's still dead.
His head bumps against the window as the road surface becomes uneven. It hurts, sort of. He rubs his temple. She's still dead.
Rough desert road gives way to dusty towns, which blur into suburbs. She's still dead.
The last ripples of his nothing-love have fallen into the crater, along with his apartment and his parents and his car and his hard-hat. Space inside, colour with no meaning. Barren.
The roadside loses itself in the dark, the moon rising on L.A., and Xander snorts a vacant laugh because where else would they go? Nowhere else exists in his world: just Sunnydale and L.A. a smudge in the distance and England a blur around the edges.
They were going to travel. Go beyond Sunnydale and actually travel, visit places she had not seen through human eyes. Look honey, L.A., he tells her. Can you see the lights?
Genuine cold, blanket-less in the night and he's shivering, wondering why no one else is speaking anymore.
He lurches forward when the bus stops, catching himself on the seat in front. Then suddenly he's the last one on the bus, and Giles is urging him to get up, get out, come see. Xander drifts out on to the street, scudding along, little rain cloud in the breeze, inside to marble and wood and it's warm. Pulls his shirt tight around him anyway.
A couple of familiar faces that he's supposed to be happy to see, and there are others he doesn't know, but they make sense in this space so he lets himself be guided through, upwards, and look, there's a bed. It's big and warm, empty but comfortable and it's so easy to be wrapped up in the soft sheets. They catch around his shoes and he half knows he shouldn't be wearing shoes in bed. He'll take them off in a minute, as soon as he's warmed up enough to move without shivering, but now he's all cocooned and fuzzy, and shoes can wait, right? They'll still be there to take off when he's ready. When he's slept.
And she's still dead.
*****