Part VI: Xander

Full Speed Ahead

Maybe growing up on the Hellmouth does something to you, takes away something fundamental, takes away your sense of reality. When you're a kid it dosen't occur to you. You're happy go lucky; just moving through your life at the speeds on kids can manage. Then BLAM! Out of nowhere some says something, or looks at you funny, and you get all self-conscious and awkward. And angry. Because you were happy before, because you were happy.

I'm so screwed up. My mother was radiating pain, shame, hunger, need, and love. In my head I could practically touch the midnight blue, mud brown, plum, and canary yellow swirls. They weren't real. I knew that. But. At the same time I halfway believed they were. It was like the games Willow, Jesse, and I used to play when we were kids. We knew it was all our imagination but at the same time it was so fun that... that we believed just so it wouldn't go away. Like with Tinkerbell. I was a champion clapper. Just call me Clapper Xander, able to bring fairies back to life in thirty seconds or less or your money back.

The colors though- they'd been there my whole life. They were just something I ignored. I took a deep breath. They were a figment of my Hellmouthy demented mind. I knew that. I figure I just got off light as far a psychosises went. It'd sure explained why people would voluntarily stay in this burg. The thing was I wanted to believe them. They felt real.

Of course lunatics believe they're sane too.

My mother had the most delicate hands, thin, long, and porcelain white. I looked at those hands and couldn't remember them ever striking me.

There were others ways to hurt someone.

Like she said I remember nights hiding in my room praying for those hands to stop someone else's'. They never did. It would be oh, so easy to hate her. To give into emotions I'd been denying my whole life. There was a good reason that I sank so deep into my clownish-ness.

Oh, yeah there was. I didn't want to turn into evil. Not just the evil I learned about when I played eavesdropper and lost one of the best people to ever walk into my life, but the evil that looked at me with dead eyes and whose touch could burn. The last few days had seen me with more sobriety than I'd indulged since I realized at the age of five that a smile no matter how small made the pain and the hate retreat if even just a little.

That part of me, the part who remembered all those years and still remained despite all my laughter, wanted to hurt her, make her bleed a little the way she'd left me to bleed. Nasty and full of righteousness it was. It wanted to scream and beat my fists against the pavement till they were bloody, until I couldn't feel anything anymore. It was rage and hate and fear. Lessons learned at the hands of men who knew exactly how to twist to break. It was that part of me I firmly squashed and ground down before I looked up into my mother's face.

She really was a pretty lady. Heart shaped face and rich dark brown hair topped off with a petite figure. Right now she didn't look so hot. Her face was splotchy with red spots and -her eyes were puffy from the tears streaming down her face that she no longer even tried to wipe away. For a long moment I just stared at her. Drinking in the knowledge that she really did care. That it wasn't just wishful naiveté from a kid who believed what his delusions told him because he desperately wanted his Mommy.

I took a deep breath. This was going to be hard and I knew it. The truth was I didn't have a clue to what exactly I was going to say. I just wasn't that much of a planner, but I knew this: I loved her. Despite all the bad years and despite all the rough road ahead. Just go with the truth.

I opened mouth and just let out the first thing that rolled of the edge of my brain spill out. "I know what you've done Mom. Surprisingly enough I lived through most of it." She winced at my brutal honesty. I pressed on. "Perhaps I'm not the brightest crayon in the box but I still love you. I just don't know where to go from here. I stopped trying. I was calling and you weren't listening. Now suddenly you want those baseball games," I noticed her jerk slightly at those words but I wasn't sure what the significance of baseball was, "and ice cream cones we never shared. You want me to let you in- and I'm not sure if I can trust you."

Discomfited I stumbled to a halt. It was the truth. Truth I'd acknowledged long before this. Unlike Anthony I didn't fear and loathe this woman. She'd made plenty of mistakes. I couldn't forget that. Forgive, yes, but not forget. That was what held me back. Could I trust a recovering drug addict with the secrets of my life? I wasn't sure. Regular parents couldn't handle it, how could I trust her to?

For a moment we stood frozen like statues amongst a forest of cars. My eyes widened. I swept the area. All around me were the Pintos, Volvos, and- yep over there as far away from the masses of the peons' pitiful attempts at freedom as possible- a small sea of expensive Cadillacs, BMWs, and a cherry red Mustang convertible. I groaned inwardly.

In the middle of the school parking lot! In midday! Fuck, I'm an idiot! This is not the place to hold family feud! Christ. Snyder's office is twenty feet from here! He can see us!

"I understand."

Whah? My attention snapped back on my Mom. Mentally I backed up. We were having a dramatic heart wrenching moment here. I almost snorted. Somehow in my panic over my letting our asses flap out in the wind the showdown had lost it's all consuming importance. Tension gone I suddenly just wanted to get out of the open and back home.

But my Mom looked grim, sort of determined, oddly relieved, and we still weren't moving.

Hoping to close the issue I found myself saying. "The Dog's asleep. Let's leave it lie. Its got an nasty bite." It's the fangs.

Her eyes latched onto mine with an intensity I didn't like. "I'm not sure I can. Vampires? Possessions? Sounds like I'll be holding your head the morning after or helping you hide the bodies. I know too much to ignore this. I understand you don't really trust me, frankly it reassures me that drugs don't do damage by association, but my natural curiosity isn't going to let this lie."

Groaning I covered my face with my hands. Now I know how Giles felt when I butted in on his 'Slayer's Destiny' deal.

Flinging my hands down I glared at Mom not really angry now just frustrated. I wanted out of here. I wanted to go back to ignoring this. I was very good at denial. She wasn't going to let me put that well learned skill to use though. I could see it in every line of her body. Already she'd pursed this through brick walls and enough pain to drop an elephant. My Mom, the pit bull.

"Fine. You want to know. Just fine. My life, it's screams and games of cat and mouse. Only I'm the mouse and I'm chasing the cat with a pointy stick." Swallowing I finished. "Vampires, demons," I snorted, "the boogeyman. They're all real and I fight them every night. You want in. Well, that's what you got. A dirty, scared, vampire hunting kid."

Mom froze for a second. "Wh-hoa." She swallowed and raised an equally shaky hand to pull on her hair. Then focusing back on my face she asked plaintively, "Really?"

I nodded quickly trying to contain my anxiousness. She hadn't run screaming, laughed, or called for the men in white coats like I'd half expected she would despite what she'd heard before as well as said. Hey, I already acknowledged I don't trust her. Why do I feel guilty?

"Well shit."