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doyleXanderslashficathon entry. This turned out so much longer than I thought. Xander would not shut up. Err, what little research is in this was done at the last minute and is almost certainly flawed, so pretend that in a 'verse where there were nuns in the Virginia colony and 1750s Ireland looked like a Greek olive grove, this is accurate.
Title: The All Purpose Country and Western Song of Self Pity
Author: Doyle
Pairing: Xander/Lindsey
Rating: PG-13
Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
willshenillshe who wanted post-Chosen angst with a hopeful ending.
Africa, Giles said, spinning the fancy-schmancy globe in his new office around and pointing to the continent. No team in Africa, so they needed somebody to head up the Slayer-hunt there. He looked expectantly at Xander, who took a second to realize what he was saying and then another five or ten minutes to scrape his jaw off the floor. Him. A team leader. No Buffy or Willow or Giles giving the orders and him following.
And then Giles said it was just a suggestion and that he could stay in England, of course, and Xander knew that none of them ever meant to glance that way at his eye patch but he was always aware of it, even if they weren't.
He sat up straight in the chair. "When do I leave?"
Two days later, he was gently prising a sobbing Andrew away from his shoulder and walking to the gate at Heathrow. Maybe Giles waved. Andrew definitely would have. Xander didn't know for sure; he didn't look back.
**
Anybody who thought the world was small was full of crap. Xander had twenty of the new Watchers on his team, people who had survived the First's cull or had left the council and returned or the new recruits Giles had been gathering, and they were stretched across Africa like a soap bubble. And that was on just one continent, only - Xander tried to remember how many continents there were - only an eighth of the world. Or maybe a seventh. Or less (more?), depending on whether Antarctica counted.
Antarctica sounded good about now. Snow and ice, no sprawling under tiny ceiling fans that didn't cool the air so much as just move it in circles. During the day his apartment heated up like an oven, making him sweaty and sleepy and itchy as hell at the edges of his patch. Paperwork could be taken outside, not that it was any cooler, or he could sneak into the classy hotel a few streets away and abuse their air conditioning. The work that involved liasing with the rest of his group, though, had to be done in the apartment, because when your job was tracking down teenage girls to take halfway across the world it probably wasn't a great idea to take your conference calls in public. Willow had mojoed his cellphone so he could call anywhere in the world, free of charge, just like she had for everyone else. He spent a couple of lazy minutes watching the fan blades rotate and thinking how all their lives would be so much more complicated if they didn't have Willow to alakazam visas and phones and locator spells.
She'd even done him a wallchart so he didn't forget the timezone differences when he called the other Sunnydale ex-pats. There were pictures of all of them around the outside, snapshots of him and Will and Buffy back in the day. Other people, too; Cordelia looking regal and gorgeous, Anya in a prom dress. He'd spent a long time staring at that when she first sent it, almost able to feel Willow's hesitation over whether to include those pictures. He was glad she did, especially on the days when he woke up and thought he could smell pancakes in the kitchen and Anya's perfume on the pillow. Days like that, he didn't want to have to struggle to remember the exact color of her eyes, or the way she always looked slightly puzzled in photographs.
He shook his head. Had to get back to work, except the thought made him bleh. That AC-riffic hotel bar was sounding even better than usual. Anything vital came up, the Willow-ultra-juiced answer machine could page him.
As he gathered up his papers he thought again about Anya, because trying not to think about her was like forcing himself not to think about pink elephants. The more he tried to will his thoughts Anya-free the more he remembered her face or voice or just got to wondering what color her hair would be if she was here with him right now. If she would even have come with him. If he would have even taken the assignment and not decided he was done with the world saveage.
A couple of women had made the moves on him these past months, and not that he wasn't flattered - or even a little interested. But he told them all that it was too soon. That he wasn't looking to meet anyone.
Which, considering he hadn't been looking to kiss Cordelia or fluke with Willow or have sex with Faith or fall in love with Anya, should have clued him in that the anyone was right around the corner.
**
Vampire dust in the lungs. Like asbestos with the added fun of essence o' grave dirt. Seven years backup slaying (God, seven years, people did less time for cat burglary) plus the construction work should have taught him when not to breathe in, but he'd been taken by surprise. He'd been off and running as soon as he heard the scuffle behind the hotel, plunging the stake into the scrawny vampire's back more on instinct that any battle plan. Lucky the vamp didn't have friends, what with him hacking up his respiratory system and everything.
When his eye stopped watering he got a look at the intended victim, who hadn't moved from his frozen position against the hotel's whitewashed wall. He was white, late twenties to early thirties, light brown hair longer than was conventional but possibly right at the cutting edge of Kenyan fashion, and Xander stopped, realizing with chagrin that he was sounding like… well. A Watcher.
"You okay?"
The man blinked, shaking his head. "I, uh… yeah. What was that thing?" American. Twang to his accent that said the South, probably Texas. A tourist, or he wouldn't be wandering back alleys at night.
Xander shoved the stake safely out of sight and tried to stop his mind from going to the 'or are you just pleased to see me' punchline. "Lotta crime in this neighborhood," he said. Actually, the crime rate was one of the lowest in the country, because the vampires weren't picky about who to eat after dark, but he wasn't going to start explaining that. "Muggers. Uh, junkies too. Lots of gangs on," he cast around for anything remotely believable, and finished with a pretty lame, "PCP?"
"PCP," the guy said. "Right." But he didn't sound totally disbelieving; more like half uncertain, which meant that once he was back in his safe hotel room he could convince himself that he'd been attacked and a strange, benevolent one-eyed man had saved him. The would-be mugger had just disappeared into the night, and it was just the stress of the moment that had made it look like he crumpled to dust.
Sometimes Xander envied the people who got to lie to themselves.
"Come on," he said with what he hoped was confident reassurance. "Are you staying here? I'll walk you to the front entrance. Not that I'm saying you can't take care of yourself," he added quickly, because having his ass kicked by a regular human, even one smaller than he was, really wouldn't make his night. "Just, maybe you're in shock, or that guy could come back," yeah, a non-Dracula vampire coming back from dust, that was likely, "so maybe we should get out of here, okay?"
The guy just looked at him for a second, then smiled. At least, it looked like a smile. His mouth curved and there was a certain smiliness about the eyes, but there was something else behind it too, a thoughtfulness that made Xander swallow, suddenly. Mr. Harris, is that a stake in your pocket?…
"Probably right," he said, peeling away from the wall as if to say he'd just been casually leaning there, not pressed against it in fear for his life. "That guy could have more friends after my wallet."
"Right," Xander said. "Wallet. What with the attempted mugging and the snatching of male purse-equivalents."
"I'm Lindsey, by the way."
Xander gripped the offered hand, noting on autopilot the pale skin that said he was probably new to the country and the thin scar around the wrist. "Xander."
"Well," he said, in a drawl that did unexpected things to the base of Xander's spine, "you may've saved my life. Least I can do is buy you a drink."
**
By the time the girl behind the bar politely asked them to drink up so she could close, Xander was prepared to admit that Lindsey was interesting and smart. Intriguing, even, what with the secrecy about what he was doing in a smallish town on Lake Victoria, beyond that he was a writer and this was research for some new project. After a few days of these casual drinking sessions he was even prepared to admit, just between him and his four apartment walls, that maybe in a certain light his new buddy wasn't unattractive. Having a friend outside the slaying circle was nice, like being back on the construction site with Tito and the guys. It meant talking about things unrelated to vampires or magic or girls chosen to save the world.
"Sure, there's lots to do in town," he said, when Lindsey asked. "Have you seen the museum? Stuffed liony goodness. I mean, I hear they have real live lions somewhere, but you'd have to go to someplace big like Nairobi for that."
Lindsey sipped his drink. "Nairobi. You been there?"
"Been all over," he evaded. Questions about that he was doing in a smallish town on Lake Victoria were best avoided.
"Drifter," Lindsey said, smiling in a way that made Xander's internal organs take up synchronised swimming. "I can relate."
See? Just healthy male friendship. Perfectly normal. Not like he found himself thinking about Lindsey during the day when he was working on his field reports, or that ever since he'd found out the other man could play the guitar he'd been wondering where he could find one, just to hear him sing.
It was when he woke up gasping to sticky sheets that he admitted he had a problem.
And independence-man or not, when he had a problem he still needed the big guns.
**
Sleepy Willow sounded like six-year-old Willow, and that would have segued into a serious nostalgia fest if he hadn't had something pressing on his mind. Pressing. Flesh pressing against…
"Hello?"
"Yeah!" he said, too loudly. "Yeah. I'm still here. Sorry, zoned for a sec."
"Xander, it's early. Did you lose the chart?" Her voice turned anxious, making her sound even younger. Maybe that nostalgia session was on the cards after all. "You didn't lose the chart, did you?"
"The chart's great, Will, it's right here. I just…" He sighed, feeling the distance and the whole wide ocean between them. "I just needed my best friend."
He heard a woman speaking quietly in the background, then movement and the click of a door. "Okay," Willow said. "I'm in the bathroom. Kennedy says hi."
"Kennedy says for me to get the hell off the phone and let her girlfriend get back to bed."
"I'm sworn to secrecy," she said blithely. Then, serious again: "Xander, what's wrong? Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you? Or homesick? Because I felt like that for a while too, it gets better, I swear."
Yeah, he thought, big with the missing of the crater that ate Sunnydale. Too bad about that gasworks explosion. "It's not that," he said. "I like it here, it's okay." That much was true. If you got past the heat then it was a good place, and he was doing work that mattered, that might save the world, but he had to admit he'd been liking it a whole lot more since Lindsey arrived.
Which got him right back to the point of this phone call.
"Willow," he said, wishing he'd practised this question because it was bound to hurt her, "how did you know? When you met Tara, I mean, how did you know she was the one for you?" Except when he heard it said like that he might as well be broadcasting "I'm interested in a guy" in Morse code, so he added, "Or Kennedy. How did you tell?"
"I guess I just knew," she said. "And it wasn't anything I was looking for - either time - it was just poof, there it was, like magic. Without the candles and the wacky unanticipated side effects and just recently the hair turning white and have you met someone?"
"No," he said quickly.
"Xander, that's great!" she said. "I didn't want to be all 'you need to start dating again', because after Tara," her voice still caught just a little before her name, he noticed, "I'd have hated you guys pushing me. But if you've met somebody you like, that's terrific. Where'd you meet her?"
"There's somebody at the door," he lied. "Gotta go, sorry for calling so early, tell Kennedy hi, bye." He ended the call and turned off the phone. Willow could probably turn it on all the way from Brazil, but he didn't think she would. Not after getting the international signal of Don't Want to Discuss It. He pictured her puzzled little frown as she got back into bed with Kennedy, and once upon a time just the thought of two hot ladies sharing body personal space would have made for a happy Xander. Now all that flashed across his mind was Lindsey, and that alone probably qualified him for his Hello, Gay Now t-shirt.
He had other things to think about. Important things. One of his people hadn't checked in, another had found a new Slayer Willow and the rest of the coven hadn't picked up, and there was a mountain of work to catch up on. He should call Giles, too, see what the sitch was back in Merry Olde and whether Andrew had convinced him to call the council the New Republic yet.
He actually got as far as picking up a pen and opening one of his reports before he gave up and headed for Lindsey's hotel.
**
"Xander." Lindsey's voice was warm, but roughened by sleep. He was really making a habit of waking people up today.
On the way over he'd thought about what he could say about this impulsive daytime visit. He'd gotten as far as 'hi' before his stupid treacherous legs had brought him to the door and he'd found himself knocking. Now that he was here in front of a woken up, shirtless Lindsey, and his gaze kept drifting chestwards, and his single word escaped him.
"Xander?" Lindsey prompted. "You okay?"
"Sure!" he said. "Great. I couldn't remember if we were supposed to be meeting up tonight and I don't have your cellphone number, so I asked for your room number at the desk." Hey, that was even mostly true.
Lindsey blinked. "Okay," he said. "I think we were gonna meet at ten. That all right?"
"Great," he said again. He could feel himself grinning like an idiot, as if a time portal had opened up and replaced him with his sixteen-year-old self. "See you at ten." And he turned around and left, forcing himself not to peek behind him.
**
Karma meant that when he decided to miss the worst heat of the afternoon by grabbing some sleep himself, he'd barely stripped off his shirt and gotten comfortable when somebody hammered on the door.
"Didn't feel like waiting till ten," Lindsey said.
Maybe he'd fallen asleep.
Lindsey said, "Can I come in?"
Yeah, that was it. He was asleep and dreaming this.
Lindsey said, "Look, maybe I'm out of line and you're going to go crazy but… I like you, Xander."
This was a pretty good dream. It'd be the best dream ever if he could think of something cool and suave to say next.
"Yeah," Xander said. "Uh. Yeah, I like you. Too."
Lindsey smiled, and stepped inside.
**
This was the point where he should be having the biggest freakout of his life. His brain should be doing screaming hysterics of ohdeargodwhatdidIdowithanotherman and not lazily wondering whether to force his body into the shower or just lie here for a while longer. The sun was down now, that strange near-instant transition from day to night, and Lindsey's face was shadows and angles. Xander's hand was curled around the wrist that was resting on his chest, and he stroked lightly along the scar. It went all the way around, faded to a thin line that was barely perceptible under his fingers.
The Sex - deserving of the capital letter firstly because, guy, and secondly, guy who was probably out of his league - had been surprisingly non-terrifying. Not the smoothest or most natural experience of his life, but once they got going, a lot easier than some of the stuff he'd done with Anya.
He thought her name again, an experimental prod at a healing wound. It was okay. He missed her, but not with the kind of pain that would stop him from ever finding someone. And if she could talk to him now, she'd complain about him sleeping with someone else less than six months after her noble death, and then she'd ask if he remembered to videotape it.
Lindsey mumbled something, his hand opening and closing. It tickled.
Yeah, Xander was willing to give the gay thing a try.
**
For the next four weeks, life was good. They still met up mostly nights, though it was in Xander's apartment now and not in murky bars or Lindsey's hotel lobby. There were days, too. Xander started to fit his work around his sex life, something that gave him twinges of guilt now and then. The Slayer he'd come to town to find had been an easy assignment, her parents not exactly happy to be giving her away but willing to accept she had a destiny. She was back at Slayer Central in England now, and he was making excuses to Giles as to why he wasn't right this second on a plane to Senegal.
He rationalised to himself that the Council already had people down there, and that he could do the leading stuff anywhere so long as he had the phone, and it wasn't like he was the only one with a love-life, anyway. Willow had Kennedy, and Faith had Robin, and it was so wrong that his brain had chimed in with Giles and Andrew.
He regretted the lying, though. Everyone he'd ever been with had known right from the start about demons and vampires and assorted night scaries. Lindsey was just some guy from Oklahoma who'd quit a fancy law job in favor of drifting around. What was Xander supposed to say about his own past? 'So then we created an army of teenage girls and turned our town into a giant crater slash tourist trap because we had to stop the ultimate evil and its legion of ubervampires overrunning the world?' Talk about your conversational passion killer.
But when he was in bed with Lindsey, inside Lindsey, he could forget Sunnydale and mystical callings and even the more mundane fact that, hey, there was another cock pressing against him and wasn't that a little weird?
With Lindsey, he felt normal. And it was good.
**
"Xander, it's Willow. Hi! Nothing's wrong, but you haven't called in a while, so when you get this…"
"Checking in from Zimbabwe, boss. The girl's willing to come with us but the family's going to be trouble. They've turned down the money and…"
"Buenos Dias! Um, I guess they speak African or something there, but that means good morning in Mexico. Anyway, I got the fish, she kicks ass, I'm calling her Uhura. Y'know, a mysterious beauty from the dark continent - though actually Uhura was from America so I guess that doesn't work. Okay, Mr. Giles, I'm telling him… Listen, Rupert's sources say there's some new force around, avec beaucoup de magicness, so be careful, okay? We can't get a exact location but it's in your city. Probably a new shaman. So, I'm going to go now, 'so long, and thanks for all the fish.' "
He needed to listen to those messages again. He'd been distracted by Lindsey sucking on his neck, and his panic about what his lover might overhear was trampled by desire for more sucking.
"That your boyfriend?" Lindsey murmured, teeth lightly closing on his earlobe.
"Emphatically no. Just somebody I work with."
"What do you do, anyway?" That was tricky. It was easier to lie to Lindsey's face than lie to that 'what are you wearing?' tone of question.
When in a tight spot, revert to fourth grade. "What do you do?"
Lindsey laughed, a soft tickle of hot breath on his neck. "My publishers think I write. Mostly I distract this handsome guy I'm seeing from doing his top secret job." His hands slid around Xander's waist to his belt buckle.
Xander dropped the phone onto the table and let himself be distracted.
**
It couldn't last. That couldn't have been more obvious if there had been airplanes going past the window every hour trailing banners saying "Xander, It Can't Last". He knew from the start that Lindsey wasn't in the country for long, and back when they'd just been drinking buddies he'd mentioned some girlfriend who Xander tried to pretend didn't exist, and they'd never said anything about this being serious, anyway.
So he was prepared for the inevitable see ya, but the way it happened was a nasty little surprise. Thirsty after an unexpected nooner at his place (he'd catch up on work tomorrow, he promised, and they were slower than slow right now anyway) he'd found he was out of bottled water, and left Lindsey asleep while he ran to the market on the corner. That was the plan, except that he got twenty feet from his door and remembered the all important money that needed to be exchanged for goods and services.
He walked in on Lindsey going through his files.
For a long time his mind was a blank slate. They stared at each other, Lindsey so plainly caught that he didn't even say anything in his defence, till Xander said, "Those are encrypted. I mean, I'm guessing you knew that, since you were able to break the see-no-evil spell my friend put on them. Just thought I'd tell you. You were, what, going to take them away to decrypt them?"
Slow nod. He wondered if Lindsey played poker. He'd be good at it. "Something like that."
"There's another spell," he said. "Anybody except me touches those, they turn blank." He nodded at the sheets of paper, where the dense writing had already faded to white.
"Fuck," Lindsey said.
Xander came all the way into the apartment, walking with slow, deliberate steps that kept his back to the wall and Lindsey as far from his blind spot as possible. He saw the man glance at the open, unguarded door, and the poker face slipped into surprise.
"You're letting walk out of here?"
"What were you looking for?"
He shook his head. "I don't want to lie to you, Xander."
"But you're so good at it."
Direct hit, from the look on his face. Battleship sunk. "Looking for a shaman," he said. "There's a protection spell. Involves mystical tattoos. Saw some people in Nepal, they sent me here."
"Nepal. That for your book?"
The sarcasm got a small smile that made him even more angry. "You know I'm not a writer."
"Yeah," Xander said. "So I guess you know what I do. That I'm with the Council. You set it up, right? The first night we met? You set up a vamp attack so I could save you and God I'm an idiot."
"You're not an idiot."
"Yeah, thanks. That makes me feel better what with the track record of truthfulness." Something else struck him. "You're after the guy. You're looking for the new super-dark magic guy and…"
He hated pity. He saw it too much when people looked at his single eye, and he'd never wanted to see it on Lindsey.
He really was an idiot. "Except for the part where you are the super-dark magic guy," he sighed. "What are you, a warlock?"
"Picked up some things in Nepal, that's all." He was looking doorward again. "I'm not a villain here, Xander. I swear."
"You know I can't let you go," he said. Futilely, because they both knew Lindsey was walking out the door and he wasn't going to stop him. He held up his hands in defeat. "I'm going to shower. Don't be here when I get back. I can have a council team here in half a day so if you've got a plane ticket, this'd be a good time."
He spent a long time in the tiny shower room, leaning against the wall as the shower trickled cool water on his head. When he finally emerged, the blank papers were scattered across his desk and Lindsey was gone. He'd closed the door behind him.
**
He lifted the phone eight times to call Giles, and six to call Willow. He even dialled three digits of Andrew's number before he hung up.
Then he started to research shamans and mystical tattoos.
**
He didn't knock this time. The door wasn't locked. He hadn't seen inside Lindsey's hotel room before. It was cramped as his apartment, with nicer nets on the windows. Lindsey stopped in place when he saw him, midway between the closet and the bed, arms full of clothes.
"Runes," Xander said. "Not saying tattoos can't be sexy, but it has to be runes? You sure you can't go for a dragon, maybe 'Mom'?"
He tossed the shirts onto the bed. "Told you. They're for protection. Keep me off radar."
"You want to tell me whose?"
Shake of the head. He didn't think so.
"I checked some stuff out. These tattoos - when you say protection, you mean the makes you invisible to all magic and technology type of protection."
"Right." He sat on the edge of the bed. "I meant what I said. About not wanting to lie to you." He looked sincere, but then he always had. Even when lying right to his face.
"What's your plan? Going Ocean's Eleven on a casino and you need past the cameras?"
There was a hesitation. Trying to think of the best lie, he guessed.
"I'm not going to hurt anybody," Lindsey finally said. "Not anybody human. But this is a thing that has to be settled, and if I can't have the protection I'll do without. Get me killed quicker, but there it is."
"And I'm supposed to what? Feel sorry for you?"
"Can't help what you feel," he said quietly. "Never did have any sway over that."
"You should get out of the country," Xander said for the second time that day, turning to go. But he couldn't make himself walk, and he stood in the doorway for a long moment, feeling the piece of paper in his pocket, sure that this was a mistake of world ending magnitude. Then he took a deep breath, turned, and held out the folded page.
Lindsey looked blankly at him.
"It's directions," he said. "How to find the shaman. And since going on historical evidence anyone who shows interest in me is a demon you're probably going to bring the world to fiery oblivion and a certain Slayer will kick my ass all the way around the afterlife, but you need to take this before my sanity gets back from the dry cleaners."
Lindsey stood and took the paper cautiously, their fingers not touching. Xander didn't blame him. He'd be looking for the trap too.
"Why?"
Xander thought of Anya, dead before he could reach her, even for one last goodbye. Of Cordelia, asleep in LA, maybe forever. "I'm sick of losing people," he said. "Like you said. Whatever the hell you're planning you'll do whether I help or not. All I can do is help you not get killed. Don't," he added, harshly, as Lindsey took a step towards him. "Don't do that. Just go find your magic guy. Forty-eight hours, my friend does a locator spell and if you're still in Africa I call in the asskicking squad." There was a slight flaw in that. "Okay, if your tats work you'll be invisible to locator spells anyway, so forget I said that, but I'll know you're around. So go."
"I'll be gone," he said. Only promise they'd ever exchanged, and Xander didn't know whether he wanted to keep it or not.
Time for an exit.
He made it all the way to the lobby this time before turning back.
"Hey," he said, "if this magic doesn't work…"
"Then I'm dead," Lindsey said flatly.
"Still. Best case scenario, maybe you only get maimed, you should really come back for a refund."
His head shot up at that, his face disbelieving. And his smile, when it came, was devastating. "Could do. You still be here?"
"Could be," he said.
This time he let Lindsey kiss him. He drew it out, memorizing the taste of him, the hint of salt on his skin.
"I have to go." His eye was closed, so he felt Lindsey's nod as long hair brushed his cheek.
"Be seein' you."
**
And later, more than two days later when (he trusted) Lindsey was out of the country and gone to wherever, he compulsively replayed that last meeting like the movie of the week.
Be seein' you.
He'd trusted. Maybe stupidly, but he'd trusted someone. Now he just had to wait and see how good Lindsey's word was.
END
Title: The All Purpose Country and Western Song of Self Pity
Author: Doyle
Pairing: Xander/Lindsey
Rating: PG-13
Notes: For
willshenillshe who wanted post-Chosen angst with a hopeful ending.Africa, Giles said, spinning the fancy-schmancy globe in his new office around and pointing to the continent. No team in Africa, so they needed somebody to head up the Slayer-hunt there. He looked expectantly at Xander, who took a second to realize what he was saying and then another five or ten minutes to scrape his jaw off the floor. Him. A team leader. No Buffy or Willow or Giles giving the orders and him following.
And then Giles said it was just a suggestion and that he could stay in England, of course, and Xander knew that none of them ever meant to glance that way at his eye patch but he was always aware of it, even if they weren't.
He sat up straight in the chair. "When do I leave?"
Two days later, he was gently prising a sobbing Andrew away from his shoulder and walking to the gate at Heathrow. Maybe Giles waved. Andrew definitely would have. Xander didn't know for sure; he didn't look back.
**
Anybody who thought the world was small was full of crap. Xander had twenty of the new Watchers on his team, people who had survived the First's cull or had left the council and returned or the new recruits Giles had been gathering, and they were stretched across Africa like a soap bubble. And that was on just one continent, only - Xander tried to remember how many continents there were - only an eighth of the world. Or maybe a seventh. Or less (more?), depending on whether Antarctica counted.
Antarctica sounded good about now. Snow and ice, no sprawling under tiny ceiling fans that didn't cool the air so much as just move it in circles. During the day his apartment heated up like an oven, making him sweaty and sleepy and itchy as hell at the edges of his patch. Paperwork could be taken outside, not that it was any cooler, or he could sneak into the classy hotel a few streets away and abuse their air conditioning. The work that involved liasing with the rest of his group, though, had to be done in the apartment, because when your job was tracking down teenage girls to take halfway across the world it probably wasn't a great idea to take your conference calls in public. Willow had mojoed his cellphone so he could call anywhere in the world, free of charge, just like she had for everyone else. He spent a couple of lazy minutes watching the fan blades rotate and thinking how all their lives would be so much more complicated if they didn't have Willow to alakazam visas and phones and locator spells.
She'd even done him a wallchart so he didn't forget the timezone differences when he called the other Sunnydale ex-pats. There were pictures of all of them around the outside, snapshots of him and Will and Buffy back in the day. Other people, too; Cordelia looking regal and gorgeous, Anya in a prom dress. He'd spent a long time staring at that when she first sent it, almost able to feel Willow's hesitation over whether to include those pictures. He was glad she did, especially on the days when he woke up and thought he could smell pancakes in the kitchen and Anya's perfume on the pillow. Days like that, he didn't want to have to struggle to remember the exact color of her eyes, or the way she always looked slightly puzzled in photographs.
He shook his head. Had to get back to work, except the thought made him bleh. That AC-riffic hotel bar was sounding even better than usual. Anything vital came up, the Willow-ultra-juiced answer machine could page him.
As he gathered up his papers he thought again about Anya, because trying not to think about her was like forcing himself not to think about pink elephants. The more he tried to will his thoughts Anya-free the more he remembered her face or voice or just got to wondering what color her hair would be if she was here with him right now. If she would even have come with him. If he would have even taken the assignment and not decided he was done with the world saveage.
A couple of women had made the moves on him these past months, and not that he wasn't flattered - or even a little interested. But he told them all that it was too soon. That he wasn't looking to meet anyone.
Which, considering he hadn't been looking to kiss Cordelia or fluke with Willow or have sex with Faith or fall in love with Anya, should have clued him in that the anyone was right around the corner.
**
Vampire dust in the lungs. Like asbestos with the added fun of essence o' grave dirt. Seven years backup slaying (God, seven years, people did less time for cat burglary) plus the construction work should have taught him when not to breathe in, but he'd been taken by surprise. He'd been off and running as soon as he heard the scuffle behind the hotel, plunging the stake into the scrawny vampire's back more on instinct that any battle plan. Lucky the vamp didn't have friends, what with him hacking up his respiratory system and everything.
When his eye stopped watering he got a look at the intended victim, who hadn't moved from his frozen position against the hotel's whitewashed wall. He was white, late twenties to early thirties, light brown hair longer than was conventional but possibly right at the cutting edge of Kenyan fashion, and Xander stopped, realizing with chagrin that he was sounding like… well. A Watcher.
"You okay?"
The man blinked, shaking his head. "I, uh… yeah. What was that thing?" American. Twang to his accent that said the South, probably Texas. A tourist, or he wouldn't be wandering back alleys at night.
Xander shoved the stake safely out of sight and tried to stop his mind from going to the 'or are you just pleased to see me' punchline. "Lotta crime in this neighborhood," he said. Actually, the crime rate was one of the lowest in the country, because the vampires weren't picky about who to eat after dark, but he wasn't going to start explaining that. "Muggers. Uh, junkies too. Lots of gangs on," he cast around for anything remotely believable, and finished with a pretty lame, "PCP?"
"PCP," the guy said. "Right." But he didn't sound totally disbelieving; more like half uncertain, which meant that once he was back in his safe hotel room he could convince himself that he'd been attacked and a strange, benevolent one-eyed man had saved him. The would-be mugger had just disappeared into the night, and it was just the stress of the moment that had made it look like he crumpled to dust.
Sometimes Xander envied the people who got to lie to themselves.
"Come on," he said with what he hoped was confident reassurance. "Are you staying here? I'll walk you to the front entrance. Not that I'm saying you can't take care of yourself," he added quickly, because having his ass kicked by a regular human, even one smaller than he was, really wouldn't make his night. "Just, maybe you're in shock, or that guy could come back," yeah, a non-Dracula vampire coming back from dust, that was likely, "so maybe we should get out of here, okay?"
The guy just looked at him for a second, then smiled. At least, it looked like a smile. His mouth curved and there was a certain smiliness about the eyes, but there was something else behind it too, a thoughtfulness that made Xander swallow, suddenly. Mr. Harris, is that a stake in your pocket?…
"Probably right," he said, peeling away from the wall as if to say he'd just been casually leaning there, not pressed against it in fear for his life. "That guy could have more friends after my wallet."
"Right," Xander said. "Wallet. What with the attempted mugging and the snatching of male purse-equivalents."
"I'm Lindsey, by the way."
Xander gripped the offered hand, noting on autopilot the pale skin that said he was probably new to the country and the thin scar around the wrist. "Xander."
"Well," he said, in a drawl that did unexpected things to the base of Xander's spine, "you may've saved my life. Least I can do is buy you a drink."
**
By the time the girl behind the bar politely asked them to drink up so she could close, Xander was prepared to admit that Lindsey was interesting and smart. Intriguing, even, what with the secrecy about what he was doing in a smallish town on Lake Victoria, beyond that he was a writer and this was research for some new project. After a few days of these casual drinking sessions he was even prepared to admit, just between him and his four apartment walls, that maybe in a certain light his new buddy wasn't unattractive. Having a friend outside the slaying circle was nice, like being back on the construction site with Tito and the guys. It meant talking about things unrelated to vampires or magic or girls chosen to save the world.
"Sure, there's lots to do in town," he said, when Lindsey asked. "Have you seen the museum? Stuffed liony goodness. I mean, I hear they have real live lions somewhere, but you'd have to go to someplace big like Nairobi for that."
Lindsey sipped his drink. "Nairobi. You been there?"
"Been all over," he evaded. Questions about that he was doing in a smallish town on Lake Victoria were best avoided.
"Drifter," Lindsey said, smiling in a way that made Xander's internal organs take up synchronised swimming. "I can relate."
See? Just healthy male friendship. Perfectly normal. Not like he found himself thinking about Lindsey during the day when he was working on his field reports, or that ever since he'd found out the other man could play the guitar he'd been wondering where he could find one, just to hear him sing.
It was when he woke up gasping to sticky sheets that he admitted he had a problem.
And independence-man or not, when he had a problem he still needed the big guns.
**
Sleepy Willow sounded like six-year-old Willow, and that would have segued into a serious nostalgia fest if he hadn't had something pressing on his mind. Pressing. Flesh pressing against…
"Hello?"
"Yeah!" he said, too loudly. "Yeah. I'm still here. Sorry, zoned for a sec."
"Xander, it's early. Did you lose the chart?" Her voice turned anxious, making her sound even younger. Maybe that nostalgia session was on the cards after all. "You didn't lose the chart, did you?"
"The chart's great, Will, it's right here. I just…" He sighed, feeling the distance and the whole wide ocean between them. "I just needed my best friend."
He heard a woman speaking quietly in the background, then movement and the click of a door. "Okay," Willow said. "I'm in the bathroom. Kennedy says hi."
"Kennedy says for me to get the hell off the phone and let her girlfriend get back to bed."
"I'm sworn to secrecy," she said blithely. Then, serious again: "Xander, what's wrong? Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you? Or homesick? Because I felt like that for a while too, it gets better, I swear."
Yeah, he thought, big with the missing of the crater that ate Sunnydale. Too bad about that gasworks explosion. "It's not that," he said. "I like it here, it's okay." That much was true. If you got past the heat then it was a good place, and he was doing work that mattered, that might save the world, but he had to admit he'd been liking it a whole lot more since Lindsey arrived.
Which got him right back to the point of this phone call.
"Willow," he said, wishing he'd practised this question because it was bound to hurt her, "how did you know? When you met Tara, I mean, how did you know she was the one for you?" Except when he heard it said like that he might as well be broadcasting "I'm interested in a guy" in Morse code, so he added, "Or Kennedy. How did you tell?"
"I guess I just knew," she said. "And it wasn't anything I was looking for - either time - it was just poof, there it was, like magic. Without the candles and the wacky unanticipated side effects and just recently the hair turning white and have you met someone?"
"No," he said quickly.
"Xander, that's great!" she said. "I didn't want to be all 'you need to start dating again', because after Tara," her voice still caught just a little before her name, he noticed, "I'd have hated you guys pushing me. But if you've met somebody you like, that's terrific. Where'd you meet her?"
"There's somebody at the door," he lied. "Gotta go, sorry for calling so early, tell Kennedy hi, bye." He ended the call and turned off the phone. Willow could probably turn it on all the way from Brazil, but he didn't think she would. Not after getting the international signal of Don't Want to Discuss It. He pictured her puzzled little frown as she got back into bed with Kennedy, and once upon a time just the thought of two hot ladies sharing body personal space would have made for a happy Xander. Now all that flashed across his mind was Lindsey, and that alone probably qualified him for his Hello, Gay Now t-shirt.
He had other things to think about. Important things. One of his people hadn't checked in, another had found a new Slayer Willow and the rest of the coven hadn't picked up, and there was a mountain of work to catch up on. He should call Giles, too, see what the sitch was back in Merry Olde and whether Andrew had convinced him to call the council the New Republic yet.
He actually got as far as picking up a pen and opening one of his reports before he gave up and headed for Lindsey's hotel.
**
"Xander." Lindsey's voice was warm, but roughened by sleep. He was really making a habit of waking people up today.
On the way over he'd thought about what he could say about this impulsive daytime visit. He'd gotten as far as 'hi' before his stupid treacherous legs had brought him to the door and he'd found himself knocking. Now that he was here in front of a woken up, shirtless Lindsey, and his gaze kept drifting chestwards, and his single word escaped him.
"Xander?" Lindsey prompted. "You okay?"
"Sure!" he said. "Great. I couldn't remember if we were supposed to be meeting up tonight and I don't have your cellphone number, so I asked for your room number at the desk." Hey, that was even mostly true.
Lindsey blinked. "Okay," he said. "I think we were gonna meet at ten. That all right?"
"Great," he said again. He could feel himself grinning like an idiot, as if a time portal had opened up and replaced him with his sixteen-year-old self. "See you at ten." And he turned around and left, forcing himself not to peek behind him.
**
Karma meant that when he decided to miss the worst heat of the afternoon by grabbing some sleep himself, he'd barely stripped off his shirt and gotten comfortable when somebody hammered on the door.
"Didn't feel like waiting till ten," Lindsey said.
Maybe he'd fallen asleep.
Lindsey said, "Can I come in?"
Yeah, that was it. He was asleep and dreaming this.
Lindsey said, "Look, maybe I'm out of line and you're going to go crazy but… I like you, Xander."
This was a pretty good dream. It'd be the best dream ever if he could think of something cool and suave to say next.
"Yeah," Xander said. "Uh. Yeah, I like you. Too."
Lindsey smiled, and stepped inside.
**
This was the point where he should be having the biggest freakout of his life. His brain should be doing screaming hysterics of ohdeargodwhatdidIdowithanotherman and not lazily wondering whether to force his body into the shower or just lie here for a while longer. The sun was down now, that strange near-instant transition from day to night, and Lindsey's face was shadows and angles. Xander's hand was curled around the wrist that was resting on his chest, and he stroked lightly along the scar. It went all the way around, faded to a thin line that was barely perceptible under his fingers.
The Sex - deserving of the capital letter firstly because, guy, and secondly, guy who was probably out of his league - had been surprisingly non-terrifying. Not the smoothest or most natural experience of his life, but once they got going, a lot easier than some of the stuff he'd done with Anya.
He thought her name again, an experimental prod at a healing wound. It was okay. He missed her, but not with the kind of pain that would stop him from ever finding someone. And if she could talk to him now, she'd complain about him sleeping with someone else less than six months after her noble death, and then she'd ask if he remembered to videotape it.
Lindsey mumbled something, his hand opening and closing. It tickled.
Yeah, Xander was willing to give the gay thing a try.
**
For the next four weeks, life was good. They still met up mostly nights, though it was in Xander's apartment now and not in murky bars or Lindsey's hotel lobby. There were days, too. Xander started to fit his work around his sex life, something that gave him twinges of guilt now and then. The Slayer he'd come to town to find had been an easy assignment, her parents not exactly happy to be giving her away but willing to accept she had a destiny. She was back at Slayer Central in England now, and he was making excuses to Giles as to why he wasn't right this second on a plane to Senegal.
He rationalised to himself that the Council already had people down there, and that he could do the leading stuff anywhere so long as he had the phone, and it wasn't like he was the only one with a love-life, anyway. Willow had Kennedy, and Faith had Robin, and it was so wrong that his brain had chimed in with Giles and Andrew.
He regretted the lying, though. Everyone he'd ever been with had known right from the start about demons and vampires and assorted night scaries. Lindsey was just some guy from Oklahoma who'd quit a fancy law job in favor of drifting around. What was Xander supposed to say about his own past? 'So then we created an army of teenage girls and turned our town into a giant crater slash tourist trap because we had to stop the ultimate evil and its legion of ubervampires overrunning the world?' Talk about your conversational passion killer.
But when he was in bed with Lindsey, inside Lindsey, he could forget Sunnydale and mystical callings and even the more mundane fact that, hey, there was another cock pressing against him and wasn't that a little weird?
With Lindsey, he felt normal. And it was good.
**
"Xander, it's Willow. Hi! Nothing's wrong, but you haven't called in a while, so when you get this…"
"Checking in from Zimbabwe, boss. The girl's willing to come with us but the family's going to be trouble. They've turned down the money and…"
"Buenos Dias! Um, I guess they speak African or something there, but that means good morning in Mexico. Anyway, I got the fish, she kicks ass, I'm calling her Uhura. Y'know, a mysterious beauty from the dark continent - though actually Uhura was from America so I guess that doesn't work. Okay, Mr. Giles, I'm telling him… Listen, Rupert's sources say there's some new force around, avec beaucoup de magicness, so be careful, okay? We can't get a exact location but it's in your city. Probably a new shaman. So, I'm going to go now, 'so long, and thanks for all the fish.' "
He needed to listen to those messages again. He'd been distracted by Lindsey sucking on his neck, and his panic about what his lover might overhear was trampled by desire for more sucking.
"That your boyfriend?" Lindsey murmured, teeth lightly closing on his earlobe.
"Emphatically no. Just somebody I work with."
"What do you do, anyway?" That was tricky. It was easier to lie to Lindsey's face than lie to that 'what are you wearing?' tone of question.
When in a tight spot, revert to fourth grade. "What do you do?"
Lindsey laughed, a soft tickle of hot breath on his neck. "My publishers think I write. Mostly I distract this handsome guy I'm seeing from doing his top secret job." His hands slid around Xander's waist to his belt buckle.
Xander dropped the phone onto the table and let himself be distracted.
**
It couldn't last. That couldn't have been more obvious if there had been airplanes going past the window every hour trailing banners saying "Xander, It Can't Last". He knew from the start that Lindsey wasn't in the country for long, and back when they'd just been drinking buddies he'd mentioned some girlfriend who Xander tried to pretend didn't exist, and they'd never said anything about this being serious, anyway.
So he was prepared for the inevitable see ya, but the way it happened was a nasty little surprise. Thirsty after an unexpected nooner at his place (he'd catch up on work tomorrow, he promised, and they were slower than slow right now anyway) he'd found he was out of bottled water, and left Lindsey asleep while he ran to the market on the corner. That was the plan, except that he got twenty feet from his door and remembered the all important money that needed to be exchanged for goods and services.
He walked in on Lindsey going through his files.
For a long time his mind was a blank slate. They stared at each other, Lindsey so plainly caught that he didn't even say anything in his defence, till Xander said, "Those are encrypted. I mean, I'm guessing you knew that, since you were able to break the see-no-evil spell my friend put on them. Just thought I'd tell you. You were, what, going to take them away to decrypt them?"
Slow nod. He wondered if Lindsey played poker. He'd be good at it. "Something like that."
"There's another spell," he said. "Anybody except me touches those, they turn blank." He nodded at the sheets of paper, where the dense writing had already faded to white.
"Fuck," Lindsey said.
Xander came all the way into the apartment, walking with slow, deliberate steps that kept his back to the wall and Lindsey as far from his blind spot as possible. He saw the man glance at the open, unguarded door, and the poker face slipped into surprise.
"You're letting walk out of here?"
"What were you looking for?"
He shook his head. "I don't want to lie to you, Xander."
"But you're so good at it."
Direct hit, from the look on his face. Battleship sunk. "Looking for a shaman," he said. "There's a protection spell. Involves mystical tattoos. Saw some people in Nepal, they sent me here."
"Nepal. That for your book?"
The sarcasm got a small smile that made him even more angry. "You know I'm not a writer."
"Yeah," Xander said. "So I guess you know what I do. That I'm with the Council. You set it up, right? The first night we met? You set up a vamp attack so I could save you and God I'm an idiot."
"You're not an idiot."
"Yeah, thanks. That makes me feel better what with the track record of truthfulness." Something else struck him. "You're after the guy. You're looking for the new super-dark magic guy and…"
He hated pity. He saw it too much when people looked at his single eye, and he'd never wanted to see it on Lindsey.
He really was an idiot. "Except for the part where you are the super-dark magic guy," he sighed. "What are you, a warlock?"
"Picked up some things in Nepal, that's all." He was looking doorward again. "I'm not a villain here, Xander. I swear."
"You know I can't let you go," he said. Futilely, because they both knew Lindsey was walking out the door and he wasn't going to stop him. He held up his hands in defeat. "I'm going to shower. Don't be here when I get back. I can have a council team here in half a day so if you've got a plane ticket, this'd be a good time."
He spent a long time in the tiny shower room, leaning against the wall as the shower trickled cool water on his head. When he finally emerged, the blank papers were scattered across his desk and Lindsey was gone. He'd closed the door behind him.
**
He lifted the phone eight times to call Giles, and six to call Willow. He even dialled three digits of Andrew's number before he hung up.
Then he started to research shamans and mystical tattoos.
**
He didn't knock this time. The door wasn't locked. He hadn't seen inside Lindsey's hotel room before. It was cramped as his apartment, with nicer nets on the windows. Lindsey stopped in place when he saw him, midway between the closet and the bed, arms full of clothes.
"Runes," Xander said. "Not saying tattoos can't be sexy, but it has to be runes? You sure you can't go for a dragon, maybe 'Mom'?"
He tossed the shirts onto the bed. "Told you. They're for protection. Keep me off radar."
"You want to tell me whose?"
Shake of the head. He didn't think so.
"I checked some stuff out. These tattoos - when you say protection, you mean the makes you invisible to all magic and technology type of protection."
"Right." He sat on the edge of the bed. "I meant what I said. About not wanting to lie to you." He looked sincere, but then he always had. Even when lying right to his face.
"What's your plan? Going Ocean's Eleven on a casino and you need past the cameras?"
There was a hesitation. Trying to think of the best lie, he guessed.
"I'm not going to hurt anybody," Lindsey finally said. "Not anybody human. But this is a thing that has to be settled, and if I can't have the protection I'll do without. Get me killed quicker, but there it is."
"And I'm supposed to what? Feel sorry for you?"
"Can't help what you feel," he said quietly. "Never did have any sway over that."
"You should get out of the country," Xander said for the second time that day, turning to go. But he couldn't make himself walk, and he stood in the doorway for a long moment, feeling the piece of paper in his pocket, sure that this was a mistake of world ending magnitude. Then he took a deep breath, turned, and held out the folded page.
Lindsey looked blankly at him.
"It's directions," he said. "How to find the shaman. And since going on historical evidence anyone who shows interest in me is a demon you're probably going to bring the world to fiery oblivion and a certain Slayer will kick my ass all the way around the afterlife, but you need to take this before my sanity gets back from the dry cleaners."
Lindsey stood and took the paper cautiously, their fingers not touching. Xander didn't blame him. He'd be looking for the trap too.
"Why?"
Xander thought of Anya, dead before he could reach her, even for one last goodbye. Of Cordelia, asleep in LA, maybe forever. "I'm sick of losing people," he said. "Like you said. Whatever the hell you're planning you'll do whether I help or not. All I can do is help you not get killed. Don't," he added, harshly, as Lindsey took a step towards him. "Don't do that. Just go find your magic guy. Forty-eight hours, my friend does a locator spell and if you're still in Africa I call in the asskicking squad." There was a slight flaw in that. "Okay, if your tats work you'll be invisible to locator spells anyway, so forget I said that, but I'll know you're around. So go."
"I'll be gone," he said. Only promise they'd ever exchanged, and Xander didn't know whether he wanted to keep it or not.
Time for an exit.
He made it all the way to the lobby this time before turning back.
"Hey," he said, "if this magic doesn't work…"
"Then I'm dead," Lindsey said flatly.
"Still. Best case scenario, maybe you only get maimed, you should really come back for a refund."
His head shot up at that, his face disbelieving. And his smile, when it came, was devastating. "Could do. You still be here?"
"Could be," he said.
This time he let Lindsey kiss him. He drew it out, memorizing the taste of him, the hint of salt on his skin.
"I have to go." His eye was closed, so he felt Lindsey's nod as long hair brushed his cheek.
"Be seein' you."
**
And later, more than two days later when (he trusted) Lindsey was out of the country and gone to wherever, he compulsively replayed that last meeting like the movie of the week.
Be seein' you.
He'd trusted. Maybe stupidly, but he'd trusted someone. Now he just had to wait and see how good Lindsey's word was.
END
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Thank you, thank you, thank you
on 2004-02-14 02:48 am (UTC)You got it all. I could see, hear, taste the African heat, the sweat on Xander's skin, the sound of Lindsey's drawl. Rich and real and alive.
My God. This was just... perfect. So perfect. Going straight into the memories - and thank you.