Twenty-One Short Stories About Sunnydale: Andrew
By Immicolia
immicolia@h... -or- immicolia@c...
http://www.digitalcandy.net/~neb


Rating: R, for mentions of child abuse

Summary: "Twenty-One Short Stories..." is exactly what
the title implies.
Twenty-one stories, each a little snippet of
the life of some
minor character or another. Some well known
and loved (or loathed
^_~) some obscure enough that you'll go
"who?". All just trying to
exist on the Hellmouth.

Spoilers: general Season 6, past "Flooded"

Disclaimer: All characters within belong to LGJ (Lord
God Joss) and Co. I
just enjoy playing with them. And boy do
I ever! And yes this
is inspired by that thing they did on the
Simpsons, which was in
turn a take on the movie "Twenty-One Short
Films About Glenn
Gould"

Feedback: It is by what I live... or at least my Ego
does.

For the record, this one makes it #10. Slowly but
surely. The other nine
are here:
http://www.digitalcandy.net/~neb/quiet/21.htm
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TWENTY-ONE SHORT STORIES ABOUT SUNNYDALE

Andrew
Monsters

By: Immicolia


He doesn't sleep. Doesn't sleep, can't sleep, won't
sleep. Because
when he tries to sleep that's when it comes. Even
now, years later. When he
thinks it's gone, that he's free of it. A memory
slips into his mind and he
can't sleep, doesn't want to sleep, won't sleep.

Just lies awake, staring at the ceiling. Listens to
the quiet
breathing of the others. Occasionally wonders, does
Warren's mom find it odd
in the least that his friends are staying over, like,
_all_ the time? Does
she find it even odder that there's a fucking
periscope down here? Even
wonder what her boy does in the basement for hours on
end, or does she chalk
it up to the eccentricities of the truly
intellectually gifted.

Gifted. He's gifted too. Not in the same way.
Hardly. He's no
genius. Can't even pretend. But he's still gifted.
Since birth, he's
always been special.

He can talk to the monsters.

And just as he's on the edge of drifting off, that
errant thought
dredges up another memory and he's laying there. Wide
awake and shivering.
Chilled deeply with no hope of being warmed.

Burying dad on one cold afternoon. Cold, so
unusually cold for
California, not that he really realized it back then.
Fuck, he was five.
But thinking back he remembers the cold and yes, it's
only right that it was
so cold that day. And then came the boyfriend who
became the step dad and
his hands. Big, sweaty, rough hands. Taking a swing
at him or Tucker when
they got in the way.

And the nights....

There's so many kinds of monsters. The worst are the
human kind. At
least demons he understands. Demons don't have souls,
and there's a certain
amount of honour to their dark doings. Twists in
logic that if you
understand you can manipulate to your favour to get
what you want, every
time. Plus being a summoner he's always had power
over them. With some, the
stronger ones, he doesn't have much power but he can
still deal with them.

But people can be so much worse. People he doesn't
understand. Give
him a demon any day of the week.

No demon ever slipped into his room in the dead of
the night and
touched him. Made him feel like this unclean thing.
Whispering foul words
on fouler breath. Eager hisses that made him feel
sick and cold. And he
cried. God how he cried. Finally begging for help.

Then help came. Slid in through the window one
night. Nasty, evil
looking thing. Fangs and scales and claws and spines
and its smile was more
of a grimace. A baring of a mouthful of sharp teeth.
But it didn't hurt
him. And it kept him safe that night.

For the first month everyone wondered what happened.
Where the step
dad went before deciding that he'd just run out on his
new family. And life
went on. No one noticed the odd, dark, stain on the
carpet in little Andy's
room. Or if they did they didn't think much of it.

Yes, he'll always trust demons more than humans.


~finis~