Author's note Part Two: The title for this story comes from a song on the High Fidelity soundtrack by the Beta Band. If you get a chance to listen to it, it's a great song.
This is how it goes. Your father beats the crap out of you for years, and you put up with it and your mother puts up with it, and you laugh it off because you're good at laughing things off. And then after a series of jobs that closely resemble slave labor, you get a job you're actually pretty good at that pays a good twenty-five bucks an hour, if you do it right. So you move out of your parents's house, because that's what big boys do. And you feel great about the fact that you don't have to see that shithead at any other family gathering aside from his funeral.
And then you get a demon.
Okay, you know what? Enough with the "you" crap. I. I got a demon. Sort of. It's hard to explain.
Then again, maybe it's not. I remember presents, and a fairly concrete chocolate cake Anya had slaved over, so we ate it, and my family. Giles, Buffy, Willow ... the whole bit. As far as I knew and cared, the sperm and egg donors were on the other side of town, making the Absolut company rich beyond their wildest dreams and throwing around the cheapest, most worthless garage sale chotchkies they could find.
Like I said. As far as I knew and cared. Remember that, kiddies. It'll get me in trouble in a few minutes.
What else do I remember? The hum.
I call it the hum. They ... the ones you'll meet later ... they call it the tuning. Doesn't matter, one way or another. It's all the same. It starts in your head, tingling like a headache, but missing the pain part. It sings along your skin and toasts up your insides until you feel like a blanket someone warmed up for you on a cold winter night.
It had started for me the night before. Right before bed, actually. Not to be the barbarian here, but it definitely made sex with Anya ... interesting.
Anyway, I was in the middle of yet another birthday kiss from Anya when there was a knock at the door. Anya and I exchanged a look -- it was one of those buzz-people-in apartment buildings and the only people whom the rest of the residents were usually nice enough to let in were already in the room.
The others were too occupied in their own conversations to watch me peek out the crack in the door.
Oh, no. Not a chance. This was not happening to me.
"Mom?"
As soon as I said it, I saw Anya tense up out of the corner of my eye. She knew just as well as I did that I hadn't wanted my mother here. Or, for that matter -- "Dad? What are you guys doing here?"
Let me give you some idea of what I saw through the crack in the door. My mom, an excited smile on her face, her eyes dancing with anticipation. And my father, ready to punch a whole in the wall and reeking of schnapps. A family favorite if there ever was one. Neither of them looked ready to speak, much less equipped for cognizant thought.
Before I slipped out the door, I glanced over my shoulder, catching the concern in Anya's eyes. She'd never been stupid. Naive, hell, yeah. But stupid, no. Her gaze quickly darted to the rest of the Scoobies before connecting with mine once again, and she gave me a slight nod. No one would bother us out here.
I stepped out into the hallway, just in time to be confronted by my mother. Mom's one of those hug-me types. If twenty years with my father had taught me anything, it was to back away from people. No wonder I always felt pulled in two different directions. "It's your birthday, sweetheart. Don't think I'd forget --" Everybody, say it with me now. "-- the yearly anniversary of sixty-seven hours of mind-numbing labor pains."
At that particular moment, I knew there was a reason I loved my mother, I just couldn't remember what it was.
My father, on the other hand, glared at me as if I were the Anti-Christ. He looked as if he wanted to make fun of me, tease me ... hell, maybe even beat the living shit out of me. But all he did was grimace at me and sneer, "I'm leaving." Which he did.
Mom started to go after him. "Stuart!" And then promptly decided against it after she saw the look on my face. I'm guessing it was the not-again look. "Oh, don't mind him, sweetie. He's just jealous because he didn't get one of these when he turned twenty-one."
That's when I noticed the purse.
You know, I'd like to call it something else. But that's what it looked like. A little bag with a couple of carved wooden handles attached to it and a shiny gold clasp on it. It was a purse. I knew this. My best friends were two girls. One of them had a girlfriend. Hell, I had a girlfriend. Purse. Yeah.
But hey, I played along, because it was Mom and when your mother goes senile at an early age, you play along until you can reach either a phone or a rock. "A purse? I don't blame him for being jealous. And such a lovely shade of teal," I said, reaching to take it away. I thought for a second that the hum grew a bit, but I was probably going nuts.
Kind of like Mom.
She snatched the purse away from me, giving me a dirty look. "It's one thing to humor your mother. It's another thing entirely to tease your ancestors for their choice in ..." She examined the bag for a second, trying to figure out what to call it, finally deciding on, "Containment units."
Oh, I knew this one. I didn't have "Ghostbusters" memorized for nothing. "Containment units."
"Uh-huh."
"Ancestors."
"Yes."
"A purse."
Mom smiled awkwardly. "I blame your great-great-great-grandmother Irene. She thought you'd be a girl."
Great-great-great grandmother Irene? Okay, what? 'Cause I specifically remember the genealogy assignment I did in junior year definitely not containing anyone named Irene. "Mom, not to steal a pretty stale cliche here, but you lost me at hello."
Her expression softened, and I immediately felt like crap for treating her the way I had. "I knew I should have told you sooner. But your father --" Her jaw set, and her grip tightened on the ... um ... okay. Still sticking with purse here. "Your father is a man who doesn't understand the hardships of living on the Hellmouth."
You know that dream where you're taking a test you know all the answers for, and you get to the essay question and it's to remove your own spleen? And it's history class?
I had several thousand words in the English language on the tip of my tongue. As it was, the only one that would come out was, "Hellmouth?"
"Alexander ..." I would have complained, but she was my mother and they're allowed to call you whatever the hell they want. "Alexander, I've wanted to tell you this for so long. So that you could prepare for this. So that you could psych yourself up for it."
Uh-oh. She was trying to use the lingo of the young. Not good.
But there was something in her eyes that just broke my heart. You've never met my mother. She's sweet. She's beautiful. I don't care about the twice-broken nose or that jagged scar above her eye. She's my mother and she's beautiful. Can't convince me otherwise.
My mother did not belong with an asshole like my father. Never had. Never would.
And just ... her eyes ...
"Mom, what's wrong?"
"Stuart ..." She cleared her throat and finally said it. "Stuart is not your biological father."
I know you're not supposed to feel like you've hit the lottery when your mother tells you something like that. But I did.
She was saying something about her and my father -- the rat bastard who raised me, that father -- having been broken up before I was conceived. About a strange, handsome, dark-haired stranger she met at a bar one night. About the moment weeks later when she realized she was pregnant and the UPS box that showed up in the mail not long afterwards.
I had a father. An actual, real, blood-and-guts father. Who, okay, hadn't been there for twenty-one years, but, considering what I had had, had done a much better job of fathering than --
Go on, say it. You know you want to.
--Stuart ever had.
"Alexander? Sweetie, speak to me."
I couldn't hear the party anymore. The music inside dulled to a whisper all of a sudden, then stopped. It was if time froze for a second.
Thinking back on it, maybe it had.
"Alexander?"
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Your father --" C'mon, Mom, please say it ... "Your real father --" Thank you. "Your real father wasn't human."
Do you have any idea how strange it feels? Not to have it hit you suddenly that you're different than everyone else. No ... in my case, it's more like a terrific, comfortable sensation that sweeps over you, from head to toe.
I'm not the Zeppo anymore. That's the feeling.
Now, okay, I admit it. First things first, I'm thinking, where are my powers? Do I get 'em at midnight or something? Is it going to hurt? Is it going to be horns and scales? It's not going to involve carrying around that purse, is it? Because I could handle the horns and the scales, but let's face it -- teal doesn't go with my coloring. Or something.
Go on, Xander, ask her. "Well, if he wasn't human, then what was he?"
"I don't know. But he said I was supposed to give you this --" She handed me the purse. Oh, joy of joys. "And this." She pulled a book out of her own purse, a thick volume bound in soft black leather that looked like something out of Giles's collection. The humming in my head went silky and vibrant all of a sudden. Kind of like an oh-I've-been-looking-for-that feeling. My fingertips drifted over the line of intricate symbols along the spine, my brain ... God, what's the best way to phrase it? Relearning the language? Whatever it was, something in me knew it.
Part of me couldn't wait to open the book. Another part of me was glad to see it again.
Again?
Mom was starting to cry. Something wasn't right.
I was standing in the hallway of my apartment building having a life-altering experience, and my mother was crying.
And I was holding a purse.
"Mom? Are you okay?"
She leaned forward, and gently kissed my forehead like she used to when I was a kid. Her fingers stroked my face as she held it in her hands, studying me, memorizing me. Like she was never going to see me again.
"You, Alexander, will be officially twenty-one years old in five minutes. You look at the book, and then you look in the bag. That's what he said to do."
She didn't even give me a chance for a retort. She just gave me one last kiss on the forehead, stroked my unruly hair from my face, got to her feet, and walked away without looking back.
The last time you ever see your mother is harsh. It's even worse if you don't realize until it's too late that that's exactly what it was.
Open the book. Do that first. Well, hell, I could do that. I was Research Guy on a regular basis.
It tickled. Just touching it was like a blessing. A curse. An ... okay, for lack of a better word, an orgasm. It's like, "Here, kid, have your very own Orgasmatron." It felt like something. A destiny. A future. I don't know. I didn't yet, anyway.
The bag? Still felt like nothing.
"Well, here goes nothing, Xander." I took a deep breath and cracked the book open.
God.
I still think back on it occasionally, pulling back the cover to face the first page. Seeing what looked to me just like plain old silver lettering and then, all of a sudden --
Bam.
Like a lightning bolt.
Bam.
Like opening your eyes for the first time.
Bam.
I knew.
I knew everything. How do you kill an Ashrava demon? Pig's blood spiked with graveyard dust. How did Abraham Lincoln like his steak? Rare -- just run it through a warm room. How come Buffy always smelled like vanilla? Body spray in the morning, lotion in the afternoon.
That's why I didn't feel afraid. When, at the very second that I had been born, the bag started to purr. When I felt that inner pull to open it, and did.
When the demon -- the soul of the creature that was the missing other half of me -- poured out of it and into me like a fountain.
When a split second later, I vanished.
Okay, I know what you're thinking.
So maybe I don't. That's not one of my powers.
But I can guess. You're thinking something along the lines of, "What?! Where did you go? What's with the book? The purse? The dad? You can't leave me hanging like this."
Well, actually, I can, since I'm the one telling the story.
But I won't, since I'm me.
Where I went is the easiest question, so that comes first. I went to Heaven.
All right, hold on a minute. I don't mean the Heaven. You know how there are more than a few versions of Hell? Well, if you didn't, you do now. There are Hells where you're a slave. There are Hells where you're the slave owner. And then there are Hells where you have to watch the torture.
Heaven -- the one that I went to -- it needs a little more explaining, I guess.
You say Heaven, and people get this image of this place where people wear robes and play harps and sit on clouds all day long. Or you say Heaven, and they think of that Robin Williams movie with the paintings. Or they think of a place where all your wishes comes true.
I'm leaning towards the last one here, okay. Just bear with me.
I came to standing in a field. Naked. Flowering weeping willows all around, sun warming my skin, soft, velvety grass under my feet. My bare feet. Because I was naked. I mentioned I was naked, right? I just ... don't mind me. Even in flashback, it's a shock just to not be one of the clothes-wearing people anymore.
"Alexander?"
Oh, God ... that was a girl voice.
Luckily, it was behind me, and if whoever it was had already seen the rear view, covering it up just didn't seem an issue. "Xander," I corrected automatically, trying to glance over my shoulder at her. "Sorry about the ... naked."
A musical giggle came from behind me as she walked up to me and handed me a robe over my shoulder. I tried to get a peek at her over my shoulder as I put it on, but no luck. She kept darting out of the way. "Not a problem. I saw you naked when you were a baby. Not much of a difference." It only took her a second to go, "Okay, that came out all wrong. Sorry."
And that's when I turned around and caught a glimpse of what Heaven really looks like.
It was medium-sized, willowy and graceful. It had blue-green eyes that twinkled in the sunlight and shimmered across the color spectrum with every movement. It had glossy brown curls that descended past some incredible ... territory that stops sounding romantic and starts sounding smutty.
I searched all the knowledge that had crammed itself into my head, all the things I just knew, and for the life of me, I couldn't access whatever part of my brain knew who this was. But I did. I was sure of it. "Do I know you?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.
She smiled -- she could do that at me any time she wanted -- and sauntered forward, walking up to give me a tight hug. Okay, not the best circumstances to hug me under.
"Of course you know me, silly," she said. "I'm your aunt. Sort of."
And pulling away enough to flash me a smile, she vanished. Apparently, just in time to put me into therapy.
Dry the Rain
By: Troll Princess
With great power comes great responsibility. How long will it take Xander Harris to learn that after a surprise revelation on his 21st birthday?
Rated: Fiction M - English - Chapters: 4 - Words: 9,387 - Reviews: 34 - Favs: 5 - Follows: 4 - Updated: 4/1/2001 - Published: 3/7/2001 - id: 223991
+ -
Full 3/4 1/2 Expand Tighten
|
||||||