TITLE: “Honey”

AUTHOR: Polly Burns

EMAIL: go_rimbaud@hotmail.com

WEBSITE: http://rednotebook.tripod.com/polly

SUMMARY: Andrew has something to tell Jonathan.  Ooooh…

SPOILER WARNINGS: Well, considering that they’re practically their own show now, not so many.  Um, “Villains” and “Grave”, maybe

RATING: PG-15, for naughty words, possibly disturbing content (Lorne’s paisley robe).  Not to disappoint you, but there is no sex in the champagne room.

DISCLAIMER: I hate to beat a dead Warren, but it must be said: (Sigh) Jonathan, Andrew, Lorne, Groo, and even Dead-Warren all belong to Joss Whedon, and not, not, not me.

Lucky, Scout, Michael, David, Interchangeable and Poppy, however, all DO belong to me, and if I catch you stealing, I’ll come to your house and strangle you in your sleep.  And that means YOU!

NOTES: La la la- well, this story takes places in November 2004, which means that Andrew and Jonathan have been together for two and a half years.  Sweet, no?  I think so.

 

Honey

 

Autumn had come, two months earlier, opening like a great tarp of spun gold over the city.  In the mornings, the aching sunlight came on paler each time, platinum blonde, whispering secrets of the impending, inevitable winter.  The leaves on the trees had shivered and then fallen, little teacup-shaped boats on the winds laced with ash and sand.  Now, in November, the streets were dusted with the pulverized remains of the dead and desiccated leaves.  The mountains were the color of new bruises, the circle of them that made up the valley were a hanged-man’s collar around Las Vegas.

            Being as thin as he was, Andrew naturally suffered quite a bit.  It was a shock to have it be so cold, especially after the summer, smooth and hot as a stone in the desert.  Now, he shivered through most of the day, shaking like a career-drunk.  Jonathan held him tightly, and often, slipped his warm hands under the many layers of clothing that Andrew wore just to keep himself together, tried to rub the cold right out of his skin.  You weren’t made for this kind of weather, were you?, Jonathan said in a silky whisper, kissed his almond-pale throat.  Jonathan had no such problems with the cold- he never had.

            To spite the nasty shock of the sudden frigidity to the air, to the whole world, life was all right.  Life was good, actually.  They rented an apartment by the month, a walk-up on the second, and top, story of one of the blocky clumps of buildings on the side of a rather steep hill.  The town they lived in was a suburb of Las Vegas, called Green Valley; the name was comforting, familiar, of the same ilk as “Sunnydale”.  The name of the street they lived on was Sunset-they couldn’t seem to escape the solar imagery.  For the first time in his life, Andrew had a job, friends, the things which most people believed made up life.

            Once a week or so, he went out with this boy he had met at the bookstore where they both worked.  Scott was in the music department, Andrew was in magazines.  Like Andrew, he had a wounded, lost look to him- it was disconcerting seeing this in another person, Andrew decided, he’d only just gotten used to seeing it himself; he was about Andrew’s height, slim and fair, with auburn hair and great luminous blue-green eyes.  Scott came complete with his own set of friends; they were a loud, tough-looking girl whom everyone called Lucky, Lucky’s stick-thin, melancholic boyfriend, Michael and a younger boy who had the absurd name of Interchangeable.  There was a sometimes-friend, Johnny, who reminded Andrew a little bit of somebody he couldn’t quite remember, but knew he didn’t like.  There was Scott’s boyfriend, who also sort of gave Andrew the creeps.  They were all right, though, Andrew had known worse people.

Jonathan stayed home, as he had never really been one for social gatherings.  After the raging adolescent fervor to be part of the in-crowd, or any crowd, had subsided, Jonathan figured out something about himself.  He didn’t actually care for people all that much.  Oh, he didn’t hate them, didn’t wish them any pain or suffering, didn’t even think about them all that much in general, just, he was happier on his own.  The only person he really enjoyed spending time with was Andrew, but Andrew wasn’t people, Andrew was Andrew.  At first it had bothered him a little, Andrew going out and leaving him in their apartment, but soon he began to think himself rather silly for feeling that way.  Look, dipshit, he said to himself, you don’t even wanna go with him.  And you know you could, if you just asked- but you don’t wanna.  And it’s stupid to be jealous of these people you haven’t even met, you know he loves you.  That pretty much settled it.  Jonathan stayed home, with his books and a cup of something or other, unbelievably pleased and proud to be reading Latin or Greek.  Most people never even dreamed of being able to do things like that- not that most people cared.  To Jonathan, though, knowledge for the sake of knowledge was becoming more and more wonderful.  And when Andrew came home, they’d get into bed and lie together all cozy while Andrew told him about some shocking thing that Lucky had said or done, or some obscene, funny story that Interchangeable had told, or how Scott looked like something was bothering him, but would never say what.  Sometimes, Jonathan started to get jealous of Scott, but then he shook his head vehemently, as if to physically eject those kinds of thoughts, and calmly told himself, Andrew loves you, don’t forget that.  That was something he could never forget.

 

***

 

The thing about Lucky was, you never knew what she was going to do, nor could you anticipate what results her actions would have.  She was almost like the hand of fate, her bizarre whims yielding unforeseeable consequences, her drunken antics forging new worlds and tearing apart old…  It wasn’t even a matter of keeping her sober, that was next to impossible anyway- she always seemed to be fucked up, somehow- because she was just as unpredictable when straight.  She sort of frightened Andrew, something about her was like something about Buffy- if Buffy had been deranged.  After he had seen Lucky a few times, seen her enough to be able to form a mental sketch of her, he decided that it must be this kind of fearlessness that they both had.  In Buffy it was natural, her being the Slayer and all, in Lucky, it was more than likely something she’d had to learn, teach herself.  Imagine if Lucky were the Slayer, he mused and then shuddered as though somebody had blown cold air right up his back. 

            Lucky was always doing one crazy thing or other- in the beginning, Andrew had thought it was purely for attention, but Michael and Scott were transfixed by her even when she was asleep and drooling on her arm.  Really, it seemed like her need to constantly be in action, to test the bounds of reality, it felt like, was some kind of instinct- or organic brain dysfunction.  Sometimes, Andrew went home to Jonathan exhausted- just from watching her!  Sometimes, he felt a little bit bad for Scott, whom Lucky called Scout, and who had known her for ten years. 

This night, she’d gotten it into her head to play that game where you take a knife and stab your way around the outline of your hand, as quickly as you possibly can, trying to avoid catching yourself with the point of the blade.  Lucky had been using a knife she carried around in her boot; it looked older than time but was still wickedly sharp.  The first time she played the game, she went around her hand easily, the second time as well.  Michael clapped his hands indulgently; Scott was missing in action.  Truly amazed and mystified by her success, but covering it up with a sideways grin and a nodding of her head, she drank for a while and played again.  This time, though, she ended up pinning the flesh of her middle finger to the table.  As she drew the knife up again, she howled like a dog, and then threw the knife aside.  Thankfully, it only skidded across the floor.  None of the other people in the bar saw it, or had even been aware that Lucky was cheating fate at a nearby table. With a swiftness that was belied by his usual languid, downed-out movements, Michael got up and retrieved it from where it lay next to a wall.  Andrew’s heart was racing through the whole thing.  Just to get away, he said he’d go to the bathroom for some paper towels.  As he stood away from the table, his knees wobbled.  He still did not like the sight of blood.

            In the bathroom, he was startled to hear what sounded like, at first, somebody having the shit beat out of them- a lot of moaning and shoving against the door of the stall.  Andrew froze, hoping whoever was in that stall didn’t know he was there.

            Then, he heard a dark voice saying, “Come on, come on,” and somebody else sort of half-sobbing.  Struck dumb, Andrew looked to the floor tiles, which were the color of pigeon shit.  Somehow, he couldn’t quite do what he knew that he should, which was to just get the hell out of there.  Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, or underwater.  As he looked up, eyes passing over the spaces cut out of the bottoms of the stalls, he had a funny thought: Hey, those look like Scott’s shoes, and those, they look like his boyfriend’s shoes.  And then, he realized that they were.  Feverish, he finally managed to run out of the bathroom.

            Back at the table, Lucky was pouting, her wounded hand wrapped up like a dead fish in the lower half of her tee shirt.  At least her injury had managed to slow her down a little.  Weakly, he handed her the paper towels and, shaking, lowered himself into his chair.

            “Are you all right?” Michael asked him.

            “Yeah, I’m, uh, I’m fine.”

            “Did you see Scout?” Lucky asked.

            “Uh, um, I…”  Andrew felt trapped, he couldn’t even imagine what he ought to say.  Should it be Yeah, I saw him, or rather, I heard him, getting fucked by his boyfriend in the bathroom, or should he just shake his head?  He squinted, as though thinking really, really hard about it.  “Um, I think I saw him with, with, oh, what’s his name?  His boyfriend.”

            “Oh…  David.  No, that’s not his boyfriend,” Lucky laughed and moved her uninjured hand as if to bat away an insect that was bothering her, “That’s his brother.”

            “No, uh, I’m, I’m pretty sure that was his boyfriend.”  Andrew was glad for the mint jelly-colored lights in the bar, hopefully they made it look as though he wasn’t blushing quite as much.

            “Dude,” Lucky said, sounding indignant and dangerous, “I’ve known Scout for longer than you’ve been crossing the street by yourself.  David is his broth-er.”

            “Well, I really don’t think so, cos Scott never introduced him as his brother, and anyway,” he looked down involuntarily, “they were um, they were… together, just then.”

            Lucky laughed, a terrifying sound.  “Yeah, like stuck together, probably.  Christ, when they used to live with us, you couldn’t sleep for the sex-noises.  It was like living on a chicken ranch.”

            Interchangeable had suddenly become very interested in the neon beer bottle silhouette on the wall behind the bar.  Michael was having trouble sitting still, holding the zipper of his jacket between his fingers, staring at it as though it were an unspeakably complex machine.  All Andrew could do was stare at Lucky, feeling like he’d been slapped.

            “What?” she looked around the table, “Why do you all look like a funeral- Oh shit!”  She pounded her fist against the table, only it was the one with the stab wound so she let out a couple of sobs that sounded like canned laughter.  “Shit,” she said again, in a more subdued tone, once the pain had blazed in and out of her, “You cannot tell him I told you that.”

            “Wasn’t planning to,” Andrew murmured to an ancient beer stain on the gummy wood of the table.

            “Just forget I told you,” Lucky said, sounding frantic, “Nobody’s supposed to know.  Christ, I’m a fuckin idiot.”

            “It’s okay,” Michael said, finally, touched her arm.

            “No it’s not okay,” Lucky moaned, “I wasn’t even supposed to tell you, and then I did, and I threatened to bash your head in if you told anybody, and then what do I do?- Fuckin great.”  She drank some more from the half empty bottle in front of her.

            Just then, Scott showed up, looking as accomplished and tired as a new mother.  “What’s going on?” he asked, breathlessly, the bow of his lips sweet and his eyes liquid.

            Nobody said anything.  Lucky looked about ready to hit her head against the table, Andrew observed; he actually felt bad for her- it wasn’t really her fault that she had, what she referred to as, “verbal diarrhea”.  Andrew had been staring at the table for a while, but finally he looked up.  The first thing he saw was the man standing behind Scott, his boyfriend, brother, whatever, his skin devoid of the kind of ruddiness you would expect after what they had been doing.  David gave Andrew a piercing look, as though he could literally drill a hole through him and see all the way to the bottom of his soul.  Feeling as though he were being suffocated, Andrew looked down again.  The slick black leather of David’s sharp shoes caught the red-orange light from one of the signs advertising beer or liquor; reflected like that, against spit-slick leather, it looked like the liquid flame of a lake of fire.

 

***

 

By some divine mercy, Andrew managed to extricate himself from the scene at the bar.  Lucky had feigned extreme emotional distress due to gashing her finger like that; she began to wave it about rather stupidly and scared the hell out of Andrew.  Michael volunteered to drive Andrew home, saying that Scott and David ought to take her to the hospital or something.  The arrangement seemed weird, nonsensical to Andrew, but these people had all known each other for years, so he wasn’t about to argue.  Like an alcohol-induced hallucination, Michael lead him from the bar out into the damp-cold parking lot.  Interchangeable was still inside, having mumbled something about needing to get well.  Andrew hadn’t actually drank that much, but he was feeling a kind of vague nausea, it clung to him like a wet garment.  Michael held onto his arm to steady him.

            Finally, Andrew managed to get it together to speak.  “Is it, um, is it true,” he screwed up his face, “about Scott and his brother?”

            Michael sighed and unlocked the car door.  He got in and leaned over to open the passenger’s side.  In the car, Michael lit a cigarette, opened the window just a slit and sighed again.  “You really weren’t supposed to know that.”  He looked at Andrew with the kind of boundless sympathy he had seen in a couple of paintings of saints.

            “Yeah, well, it’s not like I wanted to.”

            “None of us are supposed to know, actually.  Scout, er, Scott, he told Lucky a bunch of years ago, and I, I found out by accident, like you.  They haven’t exactly been,” he flinched, “discrete around us.  Interchangeable, he musta heard or seen something.  We all used to live together a while back, and, well, though she wasn’t exactly tactful about it, Lucky was right, they were,” he flinched again, perhaps it was a nervous tic, “loud.”

            “So it is true.”

            Michael’s eyes went up to the ceiling.  “Yep, it is true.”

            “It’s just, it’s just so, so… weird.”  Guilt spread its watery fingers around Andrew’s heart and squeezed; he’d never known himself to be a hypocrite.

            “They seem happy enough,” Michael said around his cigarette, it was stuck to the edge of the broad gash of his mouth.  He plucked it from his bottom lip and ashed out the window.  “I guess…  I really don’t know.  Nobody talks about it.”

            “He seems scary,” Andrew said in a small voice.

            “Oh, who, David?” Michael let out a puff of laughter, “Yeah, he’s a scary motherfucker.  No, really, he’s just, ah, what’s the word, he’s um, intense.  He’s had a pretty fucked up life from what I can gather, but, y’know, haven’t we all?”  Michael threw his cigarette out the window and started the car.

            Andrew slouched down in his seat.  Haven’t we all.

 

***

 

Jonathan was already in bed by the time Andrew dragged himself through the front door.  The walk up the stairs had seemed to last forever, his legs threatening to collapse under him with each step.  He’d held onto the railing for dear life, praying that he wouldn’t fall and split his head open on one of the pebble-scabbed concrete stairs, bleed out in the oily black night.

            “Hey,” Jonathan said, laid his book down, “How are you?”  He looked Andrew up and down and then said, “Oh, you don’t look well.  Sit down.”  He got of out bed and went over to Andrew, pulled his coat from his sagging shoulders, unwound the scarf from around his neck.

            “What happened?”  Jonathan’s voice was as cool as the breeze, chilled by the bitter liquor of fear.

            “No-nothing,” Andrew muttered and looked at his hands.

            “Bullshit.  Tell me what’s wrong.”  Gently, he placed his hand under Andrew’s chin, lifted his head so that they could be eye-to-eye.  Andrew averted his gaze.  Jonathan sat down across from him, ran his hand down his cheek.  “It’s okay, Andrew, it’s all right.  You can tell me anything, you know that.”

            Andrew’s hand crept into Jonathan’s, which was palm-up and made a shape like a candy dish.  “I, well, um,” Andrew looked down, his eyes sweeping from side to side, as though the right words were written on the blankets or the carpet, and all he had to do was search them out.  He looked up, his eyes shockingly clear, almost transparent.  “Jonathan, do you remember a long time ago when you told me how you tried to kill yourself, and you said you wanted me to know cos you didn’t want me to not-know you?”

            Jonathan’s stomach sank, like a firecracker spark plummeting back to earth.  “Yeah…”

            “Well, um, a long,” Andrew’s voice caught in his throat and he swallowed, “Um, a long time ago, when I was with Warren, when we were living in Sunnydale, my brother, y’know, Tucker, he came home from college, and we all went out and got drunk.”

            “Uh-huh…”  Unconsciously, Jonathan clasped Andrew’s hand very tightly.

            “And, well, when we came back to the, the lair, well, you were under that spell, where you couldn’t hear or see anything while it was night.  Um, so, uh, we, that is, me and Warren and Tucker, we, we,” Andrew looked down and let out a strangled sound, “We had sex.”

            “What, the three of you?”  Somehow, it didn’t add up in Jonathan’s mind.  He was hearing the words, but it was like he’d gone stupid or something. 

            “Yes, the three of us.  Me and Warren and, and my brother.”

            “So you had sex with your brother?”  Jonathan shook his head a little, feeling like it wasn’t quite connected to his body, trying to see if it would tumble off of his neck, roll down his shoulder...

            “Yeah,” Andrew said with his eyes still down, “But it wasn’t the first time.  When we were, when we were younger, in high school, we did, too.”

            “H-how old were you?”  Jonathan couldn’t make his voice sound not-horrified.  It was just impossible.

            “The first time, I, I was,” Andrew’s eyes went up, then back down, he frowned, then softly said, “fifteen.”

            “How long did it go on for?”

            “Um, a-almost a year.”

            “He raped you.”

            “No, no,” Andrew shook his head, “It wasn’t like that.  It was, um, well, he didn’t hurt me, he never hurt me.”

            “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

             “Well, I mean,” like darts of ice, Andrew’s eyes met his, “God, Jonathan!” he laughed a bit, “It’s not the kind of thing I would want to advertise.  I mean, it’s, it’s so,” he winced, “It’s sick, isn’t it?  It’s the kind of thing you would leave me over.”

            “That’s not true and you know it.”

            “Well, how the hell do I know that?  This isn’t something you hear everyday!  How did I know how you’d react?

“And, anyway, are we ever going to catch a break?  I mean, first we have to leave the country cos some psychotic bitch wants to cut us up and set us on fire, and then, y’know, we’re happy for a while- then some crazy sorcerer guy slips me the magick Rohypnol and rapes me.  So, then, we have to leave Mexico.  And then we come here, and everything’s all right, and then Scott and David-”

            “Wait, who?  Who the hell are they?”

            “You know Scott, from work.  David is his brother or his lover or both, really.  I heard them fucking in the bathroom , cos Lucky stabbed herself and needed paper towels-”

            Jonathan laughed- this was getting stranger and stranger.  “Wait, she stabbed herself?  Like with a knife?  And Lucky is a girl?  That sounds like a dog’s name!”

            Andrew giggled, covered his mouth with his hand.  “Stop making me laugh when I’m trying to be hysterical!”

            “Don’t worry, you still sound hysterical,” Jonathan sighed and kissed Andrew’s cheek.

            “Well, um, and then Michael, that’s Lucky’s boyfriend, told me that it was true and I felt sick, and then I knew I had to tell you, cos I had to know if you would feel sick, too, and if you would leave me because of that.  Please don’t.”  Andrew’s eyes were leaking salted diamond-water.  Jonathan brushed his tears away, kissed his mouth, which felt softer than usual, perhaps from the salt water.

            “I’m not going to,” he said, in his steady, tired voice, “All that happened a long time ago, right?”

            “Yeah.”

            “What was it that you told me?- You were a different person then, and even if you hadn’t changed, I would still love you, I’d still try to keep you from hurting yourself.”

            “Ye-eah,” Andrew’s voice was a shallow whine.

            Jonathan shrugged wearily, “Well, if you can deal with the fact that I spent most of my life doing stupid-ass things so people would pay attention to me, I can accept that you were in love with your brother.”

            Nervously, Andrew forced out a couple of panting breaths that passed for laughter, “It wasn’t, it wasn’t like that.  I mean, it wasn’t what you’d call a real relationship, we just- we just needed each other, like that, at the time.  I think that was what it was, not really love, just need.”  He let down the fantastic shades of his rose silk eyelids.  It was like they were stained with sunset.  “Anyway, I’ve only ever really loved one person.”

            Puzzled, Jonathan frowned, “Oh, who?”

            “You, retard,” Andrew laughed, his voice still wet and shaking, but he wasn’t damaged, wasn’t hurt.

            “Oh,” Jonathan blushed, feeling like an idiot, “You know that I love you too, right?”  He took Andrew’s other hand in his own.  “You can’t ever forget that.”

            Andrew closed his eyes, his heart felt swollen within the boudoir of his ribcage, ocean-full with gratitude.  It was painful, but he had never felt any pain sweeter.  “I won’t.”

 

***

 

“Don’t make me go to wo-ork!” Andrew moaned.  The alarm had just gone off, singing its nasty little song.  As the tiny electronic march ended, he pulled himself closer to Jonathan, hid his head between  Jonathan’s shoulder and the pillow.

            “Yes, come on, out of bed,” Jonathan said gently, laughing a bit at Andrew’s attempts to lose himself in all the sheets and blankets that kept the cold away from him all through the night.

            “It’s so warm here, though.”  His voice was muffled by the blanket he had up around his mouth; he turned on his side and his shoulders trembled.  “You’re so warm.”

            “Come on, I’ll make the bathroom nice and warm for you.  Yes, up, up, wake up…”

            Finally, Andrew wrenched himself from the bed, making hiccuping sob-noises that Jonathan could only smile at.  Jonathan stood behind him and walked him into the bathroom with little pushes, closed the door and ran the bathtub.  The bathroom was clean, radiant in white, this made it seem even colder than the rest of the house, like it were painted with snow.  When the room was full of steam, so like the body of an ivory hothouse rose, Jonathan stripped Andrew and then himself and they got into the bathtub.

            “There, that’s good, isn’t it?”  He washed Andrew’s hair, dragging away the veils of shampoo that came too close to his eyes.

            “I so don’t want to go to work today…  What am I gonna say to Scott?  Lucky probably told him everything!”  He turned a little bit to show Jonathan his horrified expression.

            “No, no, I’m sure she didn’t.  And, anyway, even if she did say something, it was her fault, right?  For letting it slip out?  You didn’t do anything wrong.”  He kissed the slippery back of Andrew’s neck.  It felt nice, so he rubbed his lips against Andrew’s wet skin a bit more.

            “I know, I just, I just feel so guilty, and I don’t know why.”  Andrew leaned back and was enveloped by Jonathan’s arms.

            “Well, maybe because of what you saw, or heard, or whatever.  Maybe because you know something that you’re not supposed to know.  I don’t know, Andrew, all I can tell you is that I don’t think you should feel bad, cos none of it’s your fault.”

            Andrew turned toward Jonathan.  “Let me stay home with you.  It’s your day off.  We can go to IHOP for breakfast and then, oh, we could go to the movies!”

            Jonathan hated to say No to him, it felt like this Lucky person was stabbing him.  He sighed, “Next week, Andrew, I swear.  I just, I just have things to do today.”

            “You’re not mad at me, are you?”  A little imp of tension crept up between Andrew’s china-plate shoulders.

            “What for?”  Though Jonathan knew what he was thinking of.

            “For, um, what I told you, last night.”

            “I told you, Andrew, it’s in the past, it was way before we got together.  And the thing with Warren- he was using magick on you, so who knows if you really wanted to do that or if it was him making you do it.  Either way, I don’t care, cos it was a bad time for both of us, and we were all doing fucked up things.”

            “What if I did really want to do it, though?”

            “Well, you don’t want to now, do you?”

            “No.”

            “See?  Why should I care?”  Jonathan ran a finger up the shallow trench of Andrew’s spine, which was like the whisper in the sand left behind by a snake making its way across a dune.

            “I guess you shouldn’t,” Andrew offered.

            Jonathan pressed his lips to Andrew’s shoulder.  “And I guess you’re right.”

 

***

 

After dropping Andrew off at work, taking a lot more time than he knew he should to kiss him as they were parked by the curb out front, Jonathan drove out of their little Green Valley and into Las Vegas proper.  The roads seemed to unwind lazily before him, gently, musically; most everyone was already at work, so there were very few people speeding around in their shiny morning cars.  Above, the sky was baby blue, the clouds clots of scar tissue.  Everything had a cracked, a fractured look to it, everything was somehow damaged, frail.

            The apartment was on a street named Paradise; Jonathan knew that Andrew loved this street just for that name.  This was the so-called “gay district”, though that banner was slipping a bit, since there were several block-long stretches that could also, easily, get that same reputation.  Andrew liked to say, Our house is the gay district, and Jonathan liked to pretend that he didn’t think this was funny.  It was a walk up three flights of stairs, he remembered from the last time, the shell pink-painted metal railing was bruisingly cold under Jonathan’s hand, turn right and then knock three times.

            “Coming!” rang out a voice from behind the door.  There were the clock-work sounds of many locks being undone, and then the door opened.  Jonathan was assaulted by burgundy and gold paisley that he anticipated seeing every time he closed his eyes for the next week.

            “Holy mother of Garland, is it cold out here!” was the first thing Lorne said, then he pulled on Jonathan’s arm with one hand and clutched at his technicolor robe with the other, “Come on, get in here now before I freeze off something important.”  Jonathan allowed himself to be rushed into the apartment.

            “It’s not so bad,” Jonathan said, in that derisive, nasal tone.  Why was it that everybody around him was always so cold?

            “Sit down,” Lorne said, pleasantly, once they were inside.  He waved toward the sofa and chairs in the front room.  Though he didn’t particularly feel like it, Jonathan sat.

            “So, what’s the haps?”  Lorne sat across from him, crossed one leg over the other and leaned forward so that he could clasp his hands around his knee.  Like new spring shoots emerging from beneath the bells of his pajama pants, Lorne’s ankles were slim and graceful.  Jonathan found this sight rather charming, then he thought of Andrew’s milk-white ankles and lost contact with reality.

            He shook himself.  “Huh?”

            Amiably, Lorne rolled his eyes.  Jonathan still couldn’t get used to how red they were; his irises were like perfect maraschino cherries.

            Like some antique monarch, Lorne made a flowery gesture with his hand.  “Y’know, what brings you here, to this paradise on Paradise?”

            Jonathan opened his mouth, but he wasn’t quite sure that any words were gonna come out.  What was he supposed to say, and how?  Just then, Lorne’s boyfriend, Groo, Jonathan remembered, though he didn’t understand why somebody might be named that, came into the living dressed as Lorne was, in a robe and pajamas.  Groo’s did not make Jonathan’s eyes hurt.

            “Hello,” he said to Jonathan and bowed his head a little, “It is always so nice to have guests in one’s dwelling.”  He turned to Lorne, “Do you desire coffee?”

            “Coffee would be great, and would you Irish it up a little, I think we’re gonna need it.”

            Groo frowned, which made him look like some great, but harmless, beast that had just been woken from a nap.  “You must recall what the doctor said, about your liver and possible damage.  I would not feel at ease with myself if I did something to damage you, any part of you.”

            Airily, Lorne sighed in acquiescence, lifted his hands briefly, as though he were beginning to conduct a symphony but then got tired.  “Fine, Mr. No-Fun, regular, non-Irish coffee, then.”  Groo leaned in and kissed Lorne’s cheek, which went a sort of red-green.  Lorne closed his eyes for a moment, as though letting the moment root itself in his mind.  Groo went off to the kitchen, humming to himself.

            “Now, then,” Lorne re-entwined his fingers.  They looked to Jonathan something like one of those rose bushes that are tended so that the branches grow together into a braid.  “Now then,” Lorne said again, as though he liked the way the words sounded a lot, “What can I do for you?”

            Feeling helpless, Jonathan cast a glance toward Groo, measuring dark brown powder in the kitchen.

            “Groo doesn’t eavesdrop,” Lorne said in a moth-grey whisper.

            “Oh,” Jonathan blushed, “Well, the thing is, um, well- Why didn’t you tell me that Andrew had slept with his brother?”

            “Ohhh boy,” Lorne unfixed his fingers and leaned back in the chair, letting his hands clap down on his knees.  “I knew we were gonna have a chat about this one day.”

            “Well why didn’t you tell me?”

            “Now, pudding-pop, if I was able to see that Andrew had done that, don’t you think I’d also be able to see that he hadn’t told you, and wasn’t ready to yet?”

            Jonathan frowned, dug his front teeth into his bottom lip.

            “I didn’t tell you, because he didn’t want me to.  I don’t go telling people your business, so what makes you think that I wouldn’t keep everyone else’s secrets as well?”

            “It’s different,” Jonathan mumbled, “I’m his boyfriend.”

            “Which makes it even more important that he told you himself, and when he was ready.”

            “I know.”  Feeling like a child being given a stern talking-to, his gaze sunk to the carpet.

            “I know you know.  And I also know that you’re angry, and you want somebody to yell at, and that’s perfectly natural, but don’t come around wanting to scratch my eyes out because I respected your honey’s privacy.”

            Silently, Groo came into the room with the coffee.  “I will wait for you in the bedchamber,” he said softly to Lorne and then glided out of the room.  How such a big guy could glide was beyond Jonathan, but it was still nice to see somebody that graceful.

            “I don’t mean to, I mean, I don’t want to scratch your eyes out, or, um, anything.  I just don’t understand it, I don’t understand why he did that…”

            “Yes you do.  You know perfectly well why he did it- because he was lonely, and he wanted to feel like somebody loved him.  Not to be Queen Bitch, but if anybody knows how that feels, I’d think it would be you.”  Lorne lifted the cup of coffee to his lips, but then, finding it to be too hot, made a pained face and set it down again.

            “But the thing with Warren, though, that’s just, that’s just wrong!”

            Impatient, Lorne blew away some of the steam halo-ing his coffee.  He tried another sip, this one seemed better.  Above the rim of his cup, his eyes were like two buttons of red patent leather.  “I’ll agree with you on that one.  It was a pretty painful thing to even observe, at a distance, over time and space.  That’s why you have to get this all out of your system now, cos think how Andrew must feel, about all of this.”

            “He must feel pretty awful,” Jonathan murmured.

            “You know he does.  The reason why he told you, though, is because he doesn’t want to have secrets from you, because he loves you.  You’ve learned to trust him, right, no more of that what-does-he-see-in-me crap, right?”

            “Yeah.  I trust him, I trust him with my life.”

            “Well that’s certainly a step in the right direction.”

            Jonathan sighed, aimed his eyes like darts at the light-fixture.  It was dome-shaped, like a great pink crystal tit.  “It’s just, what did he say?- it’s like we can’t cut a break.  Cos first all the trouble in Sunnydale, and then all the trouble in Mexico, and now this…  Are we cursed?”

            Lorne laughed, his coffee cup trembled in his hand.  He swore, Jonathan guessed he was swearing, in a language Jonathan had never heard before.  “Oh, excuse me!  I’m sorry, but that was just kind of funny.  Curses can be very funny things.  No, honey, you are not cursed, and neither is Andrew.  Both of you know this.  Every relationship has its problems, and since you two got together under quite extraordinary circumstances, your problems are gonna be a little bit abnormal, your life together is gonna be a little bit abnormal.”

            “You’re telling me,” Jonathan snorted, “Almost getting killed by a crazy witch, running away to Mexico, finding out I’m in love with this person I could barely even stand six months earlier- Then he gets molested by some perverted sorcerer, and then we come all the way here so that a demon can tell us our future…  Now I find out he was having an affair with his sibling and that his ex-boyfriend had them do obscene things, possibly with the aid of dark magick- And then there’s his ex-boyfriend’s ghost, who pops in every so often to give me advice-  This is bizarre!”

            Lorne laughed, he sounded a little bit tipsy even when he was stone-cold sober.  It was nice, Jonathan decided, it made him feel like nothing could be all that bad.  “You don’t wanna play whose-life-is-weirder with me!  Cos, just going on appearances, I’ll win every time!”

            To spite himself, Jonathan laughed.  And he felt better.

            “See, a smile.  It’s not so bad, is it?”

            “Well, no, not really.  I guess I’m just mad at Warren,” he shrugged and rolled his eyes, “What else is new?”

            “Believe it or not, I don’t think this Warren is too pleased, either.  Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean he can’t feel guilty.  In fact, I’d say he was very guilty.  Maybe he’s the one you should be talking to.”

            Petulant, Jonathan lifted his chin and turned his head away.  “He knows where to find me.”

            Lorne looked around, like a hunting dog that scents something in the air.  “I think he’s waiting for you to tell him it’s all right.  I don’t think he’ll come to see you unless you ask.”

            “Now I have to invite that bastard over?!  No way!”  He crossed his arms over his chest, raised his shoulders all the way up to his ears.

            “Don’t be so stubborn.  Maybe that’s the way to feel better about this.  Think about it, you wanted to yell at somebody, who better than the actual person who made you angry?”

            Jonathan untensed a little bit.  “Well, that is pretty reasonable…  And you think that’ll make me feel better?”

            “I know it would make me feel a helluva lot better,” Lorne sipped his coffee, lifted one shoulder, “And at least you know there’s no danger of flying into a rage and killing him.”

 

***

 

On the way home, Jonathan stopped at the store where he worked and bought sage (which he needed more of, anyway), a big black taper, aconite (which they weren’t supposed to sell, but did so all the same) and sandalwood (he really had ridiculously few supplies in the house, it made him feel like an amateur).

            “Can’t stay away, can you,” teased Poppy, the girl who was at the register just then. 

If he hadn’t found Andrew, Poppy was the kind of girl he would have liked to have dated.  She was as unlike his “type” of earlier years as night was to day.  This was not a casual comparison, for as Buffy Summers and most of the other girls he’d been infatuated with had been imbued with the silken spun sunlight of a summer afternoon, Poppy was just like twilight fading willingly into night.  She was tall, taller than Andrew, he was pretty sure, thin in a way that was androgynous and strong, not weak, or sickly.  Her skin was naturally pale, though Andrew was paler, and her hair was naturally very dark brown, almost black, with a rich ruby tint.  There was never a trace of make up on her face.  She played guitar, Jonathan knew.  Her eyes were vortexes, deeper than any black hole or dimensional rift, they were wrought iron, pieces of darkness yanked from the living night.

            At her comment, Jonathan could only laugh.  She looked like loss all over, always had.  Something followed her around, like Dead-Warren followed him and Andrew around, ghostly coattails…  But what trailed Poppy around was worse than twenty Warrens, and Jonathan knew better than to ask about it.

            “Oh, before I forget,” she said brightly after she had given him his little shopping bag, “My band is actually playing, our very first show.  Come, if you can, it would be really nice to see you there.”

            “Can I bring somebody?”

            “Yeah sure,” she waved her hand, “Bring somebody, bring twenty somebodies, bring the whole family!”

            “My whole family is me and one other person,” Jonathan laughed.

            “Well, bring him,” she made a strange face, “Sorry.  Him or her.”

            “Him,” Jonathan said, softly, smiling to himself, something sweet like chocolate moving through him at the thought of Andrew.

            “Well, maybe your him can meet my her and we can all have drinks afterwards.”

            As though shocked, Jonathan looked up, “Nu-uh.  Really?”

            “Yeah, really.”  She gave him one of her rare smiles, and it was a rare jewel.  He tucked it away in the velvet-lined box of his mind.  “I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow.  Kay?”

            “Yeah, great,” Jonathan said, still feeling like the air had been knocked out of him.  He walked out into the grayish, plush afternoon, feeling something new, strange.  Then he said to himself, Wow, so that’s what it’s like to have friends.

 

***

 

First came the sage, to drive away any baddies that might be hiding in the corners, drawn in for whatever reason.  The smell of it when burned was sort of nice, Jonathan thought, strangely, it made him hungry.  Quit it, you’ll ruin the mood, he said to himself when he began to think about how he would take Andrew out to dinner after he picked him up from work. 

            Next, he burned the aconite, but not a lot, as handling it at all made him nervous, what with its being all poisonous…  In another small dish, he had sandalwood mixed with wormwood.

            “Goddess of the Crossroads,” he began, his voice wobbling like a guy on stilts.  He cleared his throat, “Dweller in the deep places of the earth and mind, Traveler in land between Worlds.  Wanderer and prowler, Mother of night…  Rend the veil between this world and the next, create a door through which one, and only one, may pass. 

            “Goddess Hecate, call forth Warren, let him come into this world so that we may see each other and speak.”

            He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, there was Warren, sitting before him, the black candle like a fence post between them.

            “Hey,” Warren whispered, “I, um, I guess you’re pretty mad at me.”  He lowered his eyes, but didn’t close them.  In the candle light, his irises were raw honey, amber beads pushed into the slits of his eyelids, thimbles full of scotch…

            “Understatement.  If you weren’t already dead, I’d kick your ass from here to Hoover Dam.  How could you?!”  Though it felt silly to do so, Jonathan found himself becoming furious with, contemplating lunging at an apparition.

            “I was a fucked up person when I was alive.”

            “I know that!  And, what, that excuses everything?  That makes it better, or justifiable, or something?”
            “No, it doesn’t, but-”

            “Of course it fucking doesn’t!  You used him like a, like a, like a,” Jonathan shook his head, trying to shake the right word out like candy from a machine, “Like a toy.  You didn’t consider him even slightly human, did you?  It not bad enough you had him doing God only knows what with you, but to have him fuck his own brother- why?  To see what you missed a couple of years earlier?”

            Dead-Warren shook his head violently.  “I didn’t know about them, then.  It was just a coincidence that they’d been together all those years earlier.”

            “A coincidence?”  Jonathan narrowed his eyes.

            “I didn’t know.  I just thought, I guess,” Warren opened and closed his mouth as though lip-synching, he turned his head from side to side, “I guess I wanted to see if he would do it, how far I could make him go.  And Tucker, he, I don’t think he really wanted to at first.  He didn’t not want to, but he wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t…”

            “You put a spell on him, too?”

            “I didn’t have to do much, cos, well-”

            “Did you ever get anything, do anything while you were alive without mind-raping everybody around you?  You did it to Katrina, who you were supposed to love, you did it to Andrew, who you, I don’t even know what you felt about him, you were fucking with me in my sleep, and you made it so that Andrew’s brother would be part of your little sick games.  Who else, Warren?”

            Warren was silent, his eyes were still like two golden-brown moths unable to get past the candle-flame.

            “You couldn’t do it to Willow, though, could you,” Jonathan gave a bitter laugh, “You couldn’t bribe her or mind-fuck her or hit her in the head with a champagne bottle, you couldn’t out-magick her or shoot her.  How did that feel, to have somebody who was finally more deranged than you, somebody who you couldn’t get one-up on?”

            Still silent, Warren let his eyelids drop over the highball glasses of his eyes.

            “Answer me, you fucker!  I want a reason why you had to destroy every fucking thing in the world!  I wanna know why you had to hurt Andrew, who would have done anything for you, even without your little shitty spells.  I wanna know why you had to use him, try to make him dead on the inside, like you were,” Jonathan let out something like a laugh, “before you got dead on the outside, that is.”

            “I never liked myself,” Warren said, eyes still closed.

            “None of us liked ourselves!  I tried to blow my brains out in the fucking clock tower cos I thought my life meant nothing!  Andrew thought so little of himself he willingly became your slave just so you’d say that you loved him,” Jonathan threw up his hands, “Obviously, we all hated ourselves, trying to take over the world isn’t something you do when you’re happy and well-adjusted!”

            “I was cold, on the inside, not dead,” Warren looked up, and for an instant, Jonathan understood what Andrew had liked about him.  There was a sweetness to Warren, something in the corners of his eyes, the sides of his mouth, all about the periphery of his being.  “I felt frozen up, like I could never get warm.  And I tried, I tried for a long time.  With Katrina, I felt warm, like a, like a person, not like a piece of machinery, or a monster, or an I don’t know what…  When she left me, I gave up on feeling like that, like what humans were meant to be.  Humans were made to love each other, I think I must have known that when I was alive, somehow…  And with Andrew,” again, Warren did the thing where his lips moved but no words came out.  He squeezed his eyes shut.  “With Andrew, I started to feel it again, because Andrew, he’s, he can love, and that’s amazing.  He’s so able to just give himself like that.  I don’t know how or why, even now.”

            “It’s because he’s good, he’s a good person.”  Jonathan was tired of yelling, he kept his voice flat and hard as a concrete floor.

            “I didn’t want to feel warm anymore, though,” Warren continued, “I wanted to be cold, now, then, I wanted to be what it seemed like I was destined to be.  So I hurt him, as much as I could, because I knew that I could- even without the spells, he would have done whatever I wanted.  I hurt him because I was falling in love with him, and I couldn’t stand it.”

            “Why the hell not?  What the fuck was wrong with you?  I mean, aside from the obvious.”

            “I couldn’t take it that I was, I mean, I never thought I was gay!”

            “That’s what it was all about?  Your sexual repression?”  Jonathan started laughing; he hoped it would hurt Warren.

            “Not entirely.  But it was a big part of what happened, why it happened.  You know what it was like, in Sunnydale, in high school, how people would talk about you-”

            Jonathan slapped his hand over his eyes.  “So you nearly destroyed Andrew cos of what you thought people from high school would think?”

            “Not people from high school, the world, everybody.  What you would have thought, what Buffy would have thought, what the supermarket bag-boy would have thought…”

            “Dude, that’s demented.  And as for what I would have thought, well, kinda been sleeping with Andrew for two and a half years.  Kinda been in love with him for just about that long.”

            “But that’s now, I’m talking about back then.  And I didn’t say that what was in my head at the time made sense.”

            “Nothing in your head ever made sense.  Oh, I know,” Jonathan said in a mocking tone, “let’s turn my ex-girlfriend into a zombie so we can use her like a blow-up doll!  And when things get bad, I’ll go shoot Buffy Summers, cos nobody’ll ever try to prosecute me for it.  Uh-huh, yeah.

            “Because of you, I can say that I was accessory to a murder, and so can Andrew.  He still has nightmares, he still wakes up in the middle of the freakin night crying his eyes out.  Even though we know it’s not true, he still thinks he was raped as some kind of punishment for getting away with Katrina’s murder.  I doubt I’ll ever stop thinking about it for more than a few days at a time.  Of course you probably know all of this cos you’re always hanging around like some kicked ghost-puppy or something.

            “What the hell would it take to get you to go the hell away?”

            Warren pressed his lips together, swallowed.  “I think you’d have to forgive me.”

            Jonathan sniffed, “Yeah, cos that’s gonna happen sometime this century.  And while I’m asking you questions, how the hell is it that you’re always hanging around?  I mean, shouldn’t you be chained to a rock, constantly having your liver pecked out by a big bird or something?”

            The corners of Warren’s mouth turned up the slightest bit, and his eyes rose for a moment, like wan winter suns.  “If this isn’t irony, I don’t know what is, but the reason that I’m even in existence at all is because,” he smiled again, “Because Andrew loved me and didn’t like the thought of my not existing.”

            Jonathan shook his head and looked at his hands.  “That is some kind of irony.”

            “It’s some kind of something.  I’m supposed to watch out for the two of you, that’s why I’m always around.”

            “That’s weird.  I wouldn’t trust you to watch over somebody I didn’t like.”

            “I don’t mind it.”

            “I don’t really care if you don’t mind.  It seems like we’re stuck with you, until I forgive you.  Couldn’t Andrew just forgive you?- cos he’s a much better person than I am.”

            “He already did.”

            “Huh?” Jonathan scratched his head, “When?”

            “When you said that you loved him.”

            “You are so making that up!”

            “I swear I’m not.  What could I gain from lying?  I’m dead.”

            “Yeah, but still, it just seems so, I don’t know what to call it- so sappy, I guess.”

            Dead-Warren gave a little laugh- he almost sounded light-hearted.  “Life is filled with sap.  Things are thought to be cliched for a reason- it’s cos they’re true.”

            “Well you’re a cliche- the guardian angel, ghost, dead-guy, whatever.  What the hell are you, anyway?”

            “I think dead-guy pretty much sums it up.”

            “What, you don’t want to be called a Deceased American or something?”  Jonathan couldn’t keep his severe expression after that.  The graphite-frigid line of his lips split, and there he was, laughing, with the only person he could say that he’d ever truly hated, who was now dead.  This is insane, Jonathan said to himself, still laughing.

            “Life is insane,” Dead-Warren said, blithely, “And death isn’t exactly a state of shining reason and sanity, either.”

            “Don’t read my fucking mind!”  Jonathan punched the floor, but he was still laughing.

            “Feel better?” Dead-Warren asked after a while.  The silence had been filled with their laughter, what could have been like an Ice Age was frothy and pleasant as the August sea.  Jonathan knew that he wasn’t going to forgive Warren any time soon, but he wasn’t thinking Never anymore.

            “Yeah, I do, actually,” as though this were almost impossible to contemplate.

            “Good.”

            “Do you mean that?”

            “Yes, I mean that.  I know you don’t believe it, but I’m not the same person I was when I was alive.  Death can be kind of… purifying, I guess.”

            “Whoa, weird.”

            “That it is.”

            “So, do you have any advice for me this time?”

            Warren turned his head to the side a little.  “None, really, just, y’know, let time do its thing.  However mad you still are, it’s gonna get to be less and less.

            “Oh, yeah, and take Andrew someplace nice for dinner.”

            “Planning on it.”

            “Now go pick him up.  He likes it when you show up early and hang around until he’s done.”

            Jonathan smiled, closed his eyes against what was welling up within him.  That swollen feeling, as though his heart might be crushed by its own fullness, that was, that was love, wasn’t it?
            “Yep, that’s love,” Warren said.

            When Jonathan opened his eyes, Warren had left and the room was scented slightly with burnt sugar and honey.

 

***

 

“How was work?” Jonathan asked as they moved into the parking lot.  The sun was just setting, a stain of partially rubbed away gold leaf in the West of the grease stain sky.  It all looked so huge, boundless, like the world was swelling, expanding, a heart always beating outward.

            “Sucky,” Andrew turned up his nose, laughed, “No, it was all right.  Scott didn’t say anything about the, the you know.  But he did apologize for Lucky stabbing herself in the hand and freaking me out, though he didn’t have to.”

            “Maybe he felt responsible cos she’s his friend, cos she got out of control and he didn’t stop her.”

            Something seemed to run through Andrew like an injection of ice water.  He shivered a little bit.  Jonathan put his hands on his arms, shook him, until he laughed.

            “I’m not that cold!”  His laughter was like white-gold champagne.  He lowered his eyes.  No matter who else did this, Jonathan always thought of Andrew, of the velvety shade of his eyelashes, their liquid softness, the dusk-colored shadows on Andrew’s cheeks… “Though if you really want to warm me up…”

            They swayed closer, a little bit at a time.  Finally, they were pressed close, as close as they could get.  Andrew leaned down and Jonathan stood on his toes, and there, beside the same car they’d stolen back in Mexico, with new Las Vegas tags, they kissed.  Back in the bookstore, Scott stood by the window, watching, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, a ridiculous grin on his face.  Above, the stars, which had actually imploded and died millions, if not billions, of years earlier, shed their light like long white hairs.  And in the West, the sun sank like sugar-syrup into a black cup of tea, the last light the color of plasma, of clarified butter, of the blood of flowers that is transformed, becomes honey.