Andrew's leg bounced distractingly.
Xander tried not to pay attention to the blond "guestage". The coffee table was shaking as a direct result of him, and Xander could feel the vibrations from the couch.
"Would you stop?"
"Sorry."
It was silent again, and awkward. Yeah, much with the awkward. Xander tried desperately to focus on the flickering television screen before him, but the sitcom didn't seem funny – since the world might end in a few days. He felt like a member of a big, secret organization, not like the Initiative though. No, that was a bad analogy. He felt isolated from the rest of the world, kind of like Sunnydale was allergic to everything and had to walk around in a big, nuclear looking suit, and couldn't kiss girls.
Not that he's ever watched The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, because manly construction men don't watch movies with romance in them. Except with Willow and Dawn, and only on weekends.
But back to the awkward. Andrew was now chancing looks at Xander, and then around the room. Part of Xander dearly wanted to wait until it was deadly silent, then whisper in Andrew's ear: "hello, Clarice" just to see him do something else other than fidget.
Andrew suddenly stopped, staring at the far wall.
"Are you gonna fix the wall?"
"I – what?" Xander asked incredulously.
"The wall. You know, 'cause Kennedy punched it."
Xander's eye drifted to said wall. The night before, Kennedy had gotten in an argument with Buffy over Andrew's sleeping arrangements.
"He's a criminal, he killed people. Why does he have to sleep near us?"
Andrew shifted uncomfortably under Kennedy's gaze, obviously not wanting to get so much negative attention.
"Look," Buffy had said, trying to keep calm. "I really don't have time for this, it's not like he's going to kill you in your sleep."
"Yeah!" Andrew jumped in, looking indignant. "Killing someone is there sleep is so passe. Besides, your girly screams would wake everyone up and then I'd get slaughtered like a pig in a...pig slaughtering place. And anyways, it would be so much easier to, like, cast some evil killing spell on you or slip cyanide into your hot cocoa."
Everyone stopped, and stared at Andrew.
"Not...that I would, you know, I'm all redemtion-y?"
More silence.
Andrew crossed his arms and came close to stomping his foot. "I'm just saying!"
Taking a moment to recover, Buffy continued. "Kennedy, it's either Andrew in the living room or you in the basement with Spike. Which would you prefer?"
Kennedy cast a quick glance at Spike, who took his cue perfectly, waggling his eyebrows and baring his fangs. She cast an angry glare at Andrew, who shrank back, then stormed into the kitchen.
Later that night, when the Potentials were asleep, Andrew had gone to the kitchen to get some warm milk. On the way, he tripped over Kennedy. When he leaned over to ask if she was okay, she woke up. Assuming that Andrew had a knife or poison or a spell book, she began screaming. Within literal seconds, the entire house was awake. Buffy fair flew down the stairs, but upon finding out that the source of the trouble was Andrew, she told Xander to deal with it and went back upstairs to sleep.
Andrew innocently explained that he couldn't sleep and thought some warm milk would make him tired. Kennedy's rebuttle was that she had awoken to Andrew holding a knife to her throat, which everyone knew was a flat out not-truth. When Andrew asked if maybe she had dreamed the knife part, she grinded her teeth. He continued, acknowledging that perhaps the girls were scared, and they were just hiding it by getting mad at Andrew. He had almost started to make a Geek Reference (as Xander called him – because he himself never made them) when Kennedy crossed the distance between them in two strides and swung her fist. The blood drained from Andrew's face, and he ducked, but not fast enough. Her knuckles collided with his jaw, and Andrew hit the wall, before sliding to the floor in shock.
Everyone stared for several seconds. No one liked Andrew, per say, but no one not-liked him enough that they resorted to physical violence. When Kennedy raised her arm again, Spike and Xander stepped forward – Spike grabbed her arm, and Xander pulled Andrew out of her line of fire.
"Listen, chit," Spike said, retaining his death grip on Kennedy's arm. "You may not like Andrew, but now is definitely not the time for any incongrueties in Camp Potential."
"Incon-whatsies?"
Andrew was silenced by a piercing glance from Spike. He paused, then rubbed his jaw with a frown. "Ow," he murmured, but no one was listening.
Spike released his hold on Kennedy's arm, and she dropped it reluctantly. A beat of quiet passed, then she punched the wall.
A low voice permeated the silence. "Kennedy. Kitchen. Now."
Willow rarely got angry – or, rarely showed it, except for one obvious instance. Now, she looked livid. Kennedy looked vaguely frightened, and followed Willow into a kitchen. A silence spell was obviously cast, because there was no sound from the kitchen until the next morning.
"So, are you gonna fix it?"
Xander was snapped back to reality by Andrew's words.
"Um, yeah," he responded slowly.
"So, you, like, plaster it and then paint it, right?"
Xander nodded dumbly. Something about this conversation seemed friendly banter-ish, almost to the point of being pointless.
"Can I help paint it? I've been all good and hostage-y and not got in people's way much."
Before Xander could respond, Andrew continued. "So how do you paint a wall? You just…slap some paint on and then you're done? Because we were gonna paint the lair all black once but we weren't sure if concrete was paintable."
Finally grateful that he knew the answer to one of Andrew's questions, Xander responded, "Well, you have to wash it with TSP first."
"TSP? Is that a drug?"
"No, it's trisodium phosphate. You clean walls with it. Then, you can paint."
"Can't you use water?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"It doesn't get rid of everything."
"Oh! Once, I was painting one of my collectable Star Trek figurines and it was all dusty and I was like, 'hey, there's dust' so I tried to wipe it off and I got paint all over me."
"…yeah," Xander replied.
Andrew mulled for a moment, then asked, "could you use ammonia?"
"No, Andrew, you couldn't use ammonia," Xander responded, feeling a twinge of annoyance.
"But, it cleans stuff, right? What about rubbing alcohol? When I was putting up my Star Wars posters, the directions on the back of the little sticky tab thingies said I had to wash the wall with rubbing alcohol first. I guess it makes the wall more sticky…or, able…to be stuck to," he finished lamely.
"You have to use TSP to clean walls Andrew. Not water, not ammonia, not rubbing alcohol. TSP."
Andrew looked hurt at Xander's blunt response, but quickly recovered. "Would you use TSP if you were gonna paint wood?"
Xander, who had turned back to the television, didn't even bother to face him. "No. It doesn't work, you'd sand it."
"Oh, so TSP only works on plaster and walls and stuff."
"Yes."
Andrew's leg began to bounce again. "Okay."
They sat quietly, blessed quiet. Occaisionaly, Andrew would rub at his jaw.
"Don't rub it, it'll just bruise more."
Andrew frowned. "It's all itchy and pokey and hurty."
Xander scoffed. "Worse things happen, don't get in a twist over it."
Andrew's frown deepened. "I don't think it's so much the punch as it was that she punched me." A pause. "I mean…it hurts on an emotional level too. I feel kinda betrayed, like, she's crossed to the Dark Side, or like how Picard felt when the Borg Queen started giving Data human parts and Data betrayed him."
"But Data went back to the good side," Xander reminded him.
"Yeah," Andrew reminisced, "but he did consider her offer for 0.68 seconds, and for an android, that is nearly an eternity."
Xander nodded. The television emitted a racous round of fake, tripled laughter from the studio audience. The joke wasn't even funny.
"I guess these next few days'll be our 0.68 seconds," Andrew said softly.
The television blinked as Xander turned it off. He turned to look at Andrew, who was still rubbed at his bruise pitifully. He was beginning to see the boy in the proverbial new light.
"Yeah," Xander said, equally as soft. "It will be."