Title: What Can You Do?
Author: Drake Tepes
Rating: 13+ (Adult Concepts)
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own insanity, though credit to others for bringing it on. Characters to those who own, the brief lyrics (of which are legally allowed under fair-use laws) belong to the Eagles.
Summary: Xander reflects on a lifetime of dreams.
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There's a song that goes "What can you do when your dreams come true and it's not quite like you planned?" Whenever I hear that song I try to remember what my dreams were and I can never quite remember for sure. I don't even dream anymore, discounting nightmares.
As a boy my dreams were always so simple, sure of my future and that I'd be great and prove to my parents just how wrong they were. I'd be an astronaut or a superhero, something where everyone looked up to me. Where I was someone everyone knew. Just the usual kiddy fair of dreams.
Then in my teens my dreams progressed to what all good little teens should dream. The kind where you woke up with a smile, sticky sheets and a new appreciation for how flexible cheerleaders were. Those dreams lasted me for a few years, and even after my world shifted they'd still make an occasional appearance. Buffy was, after all, a cheerleader once.
Now, when my world shifted, new dreams entered the mix. Nightmares regularly held court, but those don't bear mentioning. Or, more to the point, I don't want to talk about them. No, my dreams became about me getting super powers and saving the day and getting the girl. Sometimes girls. Something would happen and I'd have these shiny new powers and I could save the day and I'd have the lust, love and respect of my friends.
I liked those dreams. They beat ones with clowns in them, hands down.
Another world shift and more nightmares came into focus, just now some were based in jungles with explosions. That didn't change my dreams of being a hero. The same dreams I'd had as a kid, just more grown up and thought out and with more cleavage and panting.
Again, I liked those dreams.
Time passed by and the nightmares began to overtake my dreams of sex and heroism. They'd pass back and forth depending on my life at the moment. For awhile my dreams centered on my former nemesis, and a possible future with her. That quickly took up space with the nightmares, the image of how it ended on a permanent rerun. Nothing good lasts.
More time and I began to dream anew about a future with a lovely woman. Even amongst the waking horror show, these pleasant dreams would slide in. Even when I lost one of those closest to me and I'd have nightmares of that event again and again, occasionally a ray of light would shine through with a view of an amazing future.
As I said, nothing good lasts. That relationship ended badly and a new image, not a nightmare in the horrifying sense but of the painful memory type, began it's run in my dreams. Eventually though, hope began to rebuild. Even among the waking traumas, things were sliding back to good.
For more than ten years I dreamt of her death, a new and more disturbing scenario each night. How much pain was she in? How did it finally end? Those and so many questions haunted my dreams. More than just nightmares. They haunted me in both my sleep and my daydreams. They nearly drove me to madness until a friend helped me, let me see into their mind and see what happened. The reality wasn't as scary as what my mind had created. But it was reality, it was real and in so many ways it hurt me more.
It was years before I recovered from that, the innocent dreams of my youth were gone. I lived my life, did my job and tried to help others. And my dreams went away. Nightmares ever-present, if I had one dream a month that wasn't a nightmare then it was a good month. I continued to live, putting dreams behind and living to help.
And I kept living when others didn't. And now comes a bit of irony. At least I think it's ironic. I'm the Senior Watcher. I'm the head guy. The last of the Scoobies, the last of the Sunnydale survivors. Warriors. I'm considered a hero by everyone in the organization. Everyone knows me. Everyone respects me. Everyone looks up to me.
So, what can you do when your dreams come true and it's not quite like you planned?
Hell if I know.