TITLE: “Secret 4: The Word for Wind”

AUTHOR: Polly Burns

EMAIL: go_rimbaud@hotmail.com

SUMMARY: Jonathan and Andrew have a little sex, then they have a little fight, then they have a little more sex. With flashbacks!

SPOILER WARNINGS: “Superstar”, “Dead Things” and “Villains”.

RATING: Oh, this one is NC-17, for bad words, boys having sex (with each other) and, uh, adult themes. Yeah. I should throw on a double NC-17 for all the romantic bullshite contained here-in. You don’t want kids reading that!

DISCLAIMER: I’m tired, so I’ll just keep it simple. I don’t own Andrew, Jonathan or any of the other denizens of Sunnydale. Wish I did sometimes (A writer’s life is a lonely life…), but they belong to Joss Whedon, etc. The city of Tijuana belongs to itself. I do, however, own the image of Andrew singing Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. It’s like a screen-saver for my head… But I only borrowed Andrew, anyway. Lyrics come from Softer, Softest, which was written by the effervescent Miss Courtney Love.

NOTES: Okay, here’s how it goes: Andrew and Jonathan having sex or having fights or having baths is all in the present. Everything else is a flashback. Sections are separated by asterisks to avoid further confusion and rioting in the streets. In my imagination, Tucker and Jonathan hung out, so that’s how he knows Andrew. First flashback takes place pre-Trio, like summer of 2001. Second flashback takes place post-“Dead Things”, when Warren has officially gone from vaguely sympathetic to somebody you’d like to see Willow do nasty things to. Ahem.

1.1 The Word for Wind

2 Your milk turns to cream-

“So, what kind of stuff can you do, magic stuff?” this kid named Andrew, whom Jonathan had only ever thought of as Tucker’s brother, asked him nervously. They were walking down a too-sunny street. Spring had just begun its swoon, leaving everything blurred, hazy, drunk on light.

Jonathan squinted. “Oh, just small stuff. I could do, um, bigger stuff, but, uh, I had, something happened…”

For some reason, Andrew recalled this dream he’d had about The Matrix, with Jonathan playing Keanu Reeves’ part. And the time he was pretty sure his father had told him to be more like Jonathan. That was ridiculous, though, cos Jonathan was only some friend of his loser brother’s, and probably almost as hopeless as Andrew. “Oh, well, what kind of things could you do, if you wanted to?” “Well…” The street was in a residential neighborhood, near the bookstore where they had met that afternoon; it was such a small, innocent place, lined with flowering bushes and young elms. In the daytime, Sunnydale was a beautiful almost paradisal place. Some of the leaves on the trees were yellow, dry from the smiting sun; they almost looked like gold when the light was on them. A soft breeze shifted the branches caressingly, making them let off little sighs. Jonathan suddenly looked very calm to Andrew, as though he were sleepwalking, almost. He seemed to be whispering something, and Andrew was going to ask what, but thought it better not to open his mouth. The breeze picked up, became a healthy wind, plucking some of the blonde leaves from the end twigs of the trees; they fell to the sidewalk with a breathy, sated sound.

The wind picked up a bit more, shaking a greater number of leaves from the trees. Now, they drifted down in slow motion, and seemed to Andrew to split in midair. They had split, and rather than drifting down, the leaves were suspended, as though by wires, fluttering curiously all around them. Jonathan and Andrew kept walking, surrounded by dozens of butterflies, red- gold, tawny, pale yellow butterflies. One of them hovered over Andrew’s shoulder and then dropped down for just a moment. He wanted to say something, but he was afraid of breaking Jonathan’s concentration and ruining the spell. The air was smothered in pollen, in embryonic honey.

And then, after just a moment, which went by either too slowly or too quickly, Andrew wasn’t sure which, the air stilled, and all the butterflies dropped to the pavement, motionless and dry. They were walking on a train of dead leaves.

“Oh my God,” Andrew gasped, “That was-”

“I can’t make it last for very long,” Jonathan interrupted, sounding strangely sad, “I can only do small things.”

***

To spite all the tequila he had drank the night before, which had spent eight hours painted on the inside of his mouth, possibly fermenting a second time, Andrew tasted so clean to Jonathan. He was nothing but softness and sweetness, languid touches of his hands, liquid kisses, slight pressure of his teeth on Jonathan’s lower lip. Everything around them seemed to be softening; perhaps the building would melt into itself like a candle under the Mexican sun. It was like being enfolded, sucked into the center of a rose- all of this. It was like being swallowed.

Jonathan remembered something from a movie, about a woman who was helping her husband cheat at cards by signaling to him with a finger to her ear, her throat, her heart. All around the table she had strode, pointing here and there with slack, graceful hands, her gestures falling away from her like petals. The way Andrew touched him reminded him of that, the absolute lack of force to his caresses, the ethereal brush of his fingertips. The touches were so light, Jonathan could swear he felt the whorls of his fingerprints. This is what he’s really like; Jonathan thrilled at the thought. This was a new world.

Their mouths separated, met again, then came apart; kisses lined in hot breaths. Jonathan couldn’t stop looking at him, wanted nothing more than to stare at him forever. “What is it?” Andrew asked, his voice cracking like the very thin glass of a Christmas tree ornament.

“Nothing, I just…” What am I gonna say?- I like staring at you? Cos I’m such a freakin weirdo?

“You don’t wanna do this, right?” Andrew regarded the ceiling with its delicate bruise-like water stains. In places, the plaster had bloomed- that and the tea-color of the water-bloat made the ceiling resemble the skin of a drowning victim.

“No, not that. I just, I just like looking at you. And I can’t do that with my eyes closed.”

“Do you mean that?” Under the guise of rubbing at his eye, Andrew looked down, his ears lit from within with red light.

“Yeah, I mean that. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.”

“Well cos, people have said stuff to me, and I don’t think they actually meant it.” Still, his eyes were kept down.

So he’d look up, Jonathan touched Andrew’s face. “Andrew. I. am. not. him. I have no reason to mindfuck you.”

Andrew thought of something he could say in response to that, to make use of the word “fuck”, which Jonathan had thrown out there, like an invitation. It didn’t seem right, though, to say those things to Jonathan. Instead, he looked down again and said, “I know.”

Jonathan put his arms around Andrew. “Let’s just lie here for a minute.” How they were lying, on their sides facing each other, their shapes seemed to interlock, like the various complementary parts of key and latch. Andrew’s face fit right up against his throat, his breath tickled Jonathan’s skin.

“This is good,” Andrew said, his lips lazily brushing Jonathan’s pulse.

“Yeah, it is.” Such, softness, the feeling of being rocked, like the by the sea- Something jabbed at him, at his mind, at his heart. He tilted Andrew’s head up so that they could look at each other properly. Terrified eyes met his. “Look, I know you don’t trust me, and I’m not sure I trust you.”

“Yeah…” He could feel Andrew tense up.

“I’m not mad, don’t worry. I just wanna make sure that we understand each other, that we’re not gonna be lying to each other. I don’t want a repeat of that bullshit that went down in Sunnydale. We’re not gonna do shit behind the scenes like that. If you have something that’s bothering you, tell me, cos I’m gonna do the same. Okay?”

“Yeah.” Andrew nodded. Jonathan kissed the top of his head.

“I’m not sure if I trust you, but I want to, I want to be able to. And want you to trust me. Cos we really don’t have any choice, we’re in this together. If you help me, I’ll help you. If you hurt me, I’m gonna hurt you. And I can.”

“Oh, make with the threats! That’s not, um, very trustworthy.” Andrew attempted to wriggle out of the embrace, but Jonathan held him close.

“I’m only telling you the truth. We both have the potential to damage each other a hell of a lot, and I really don’t want that to happen.”

Again, Andrew twisted and struggled. “So you threaten me? That’s better than Warren how?”

“I’m not threatening you,” Jonathan sighed, “I just want to make sure we understand each other.”

“Well… you’re doing it wrong! You don’t have to be such a hardass about everything!”

“Andrew you admitted yourself that you’re not very loyal, and I’m, I’m… afraid that you’re going to run off with the first person who you think can give you something that I can’t.”

“Is this why you were, why you were kissing me? So that I’ll stay with you? And that is not exactly identical to Warren how?” Finally, Andrew managed to sit up, Jonathan did the same.

“That’s not why I was kissing you. I was doing that because I wanted to.”

Before Jonathan could stop him, Andrew jumped out of bed and ran around to the other side; he stood with his hands on his hips. “So why did you stop?” he shouted.

“Because I’m scared shitless, all right!” Jonathan shouted back.

Somebody pounded on the wall in the room next to theirs. Putos Americanos! Cabrones!, the person barked. Andrew jumped. They turned their heads toward the wall.

“What the hell does that mean?” Andrew asked.

“Probably nothing good.” Jonathan scratched his head. “I’m scared shitless,” he repeated, “Cos I’ve never done this before, cos it’s you and I know you have, cos I keep thinking that you’re comparing me to, to him. Cos I’m afraid you’re gonna hurt me.” This last part he said almost under his breath.

“I’m not gonna,” Andrew muttered, almost petulantly, poking at the floor with the toe of his sneaker. “And how do you think I feel, cos first I was Warren’s patsy, and now you’re acting like you’re interested, and I don’t know whether I should say yes or no. I don’t even know if you asked the freakin question!”

Jonathan looked at the wall behind Andrew. “If I asked, what would you say?”

“I told you, I don’t know. I don’t wanna feel like I missed something, but y’know, if you’re scared, I’m fucking terrified! The last person I was with put spells on me and turned out to be a murderer. And I went along with it, all of it. If he had said to me, Hey, oh Andrew, by the way, I put the whammy on you so you’re my brainless fuck-toy now and you can’t ever leave me, I probably woulda said Oh, okay, Warren. I know I’m not the sharpest knife in the supervillain drawer.”

“Andrew, come here.”

Andrew clasped his hands in front of him. “You’re always saying that,” he murmured absently.

“You’re always moving away.” Instead of waiting for him, Jonathan walked around the bed and met Andrew where he stood. He took Andrew’s hands in his own. “I won’t lie to you if you won’t lie to me. About anything.”

“Okay.”

“And you know I put a spell on you, too, right?”

“That’s a protection spell, that’s different. It’s not like you magically tagged your name on my ass like Warren did.”

“Yeah, but I wiped out what he marked you with, cos, um, cos I didn’t want you feeling like you belonged to him anymore. Cos I was jealous,” he mumbled.

“Well, you don’t have to be jealous anymore, you have me now.”

“No, I don’t, I don’t have you. I don’t think I’m supposed to just get you, I think it’s supposed to take more time.”

“Maybe sometimes it just happens fast, maybe sometimes it just happens.” Andrew rested his hands on Jonathan’s shoulders. “Can we go back to bed now?”

“You’re still tired?” Cautiously, he placed his hands on Andrew’s waist, surprised that it was so slim, that it dipped in so much on both sides.

Andrew’s eyelids fell, his lashes made mysterious shadows on his face. “No, I’m not tired.”

Jonathan turned his head to the side a little. “So why do you wanna- Oh. Ohhh! I get it.”

Suddenly feeling as though he had very little control over himself, Jonathan tilted his head up and back, slowly, afraid that it would keep on going, like it had the night before when he’d been drunk. He closed his eyes. Almost immediately, he felt Andrew’s lips on his, slightly parted, as a silent, tentative invitation. Jonathan lapped at the inside of his mouth, felt Andrew return his every movement, with growing insistence. Without opening their eyes or breaking their kiss, they managed to maneuver to the edge of the bed, plunk down rather clumsily. The bed made an obscene moaning sound at their combined weight, the springs bounced and shifted. They lay down across the bed, on their sides again, because nobody was prepared to be on top. His hand loosely around Andrew’s throat, Jonathan pressed his thumb to the site of his jugular vein. It felt like the blood that danced through him were trying to return Jonathan’s touch; that through the fragile architecture of skin and muscle, Andrew’s blood was trying to touch him right back. All of Jonathan’s blood sped right away from his head. He felt luminous, light with dizziness. Sometimes I want to strangle you, he could remember himself saying, in a time and a place that seemed a universe away, in a life that might have been somebody else’s. Whose life is this now, then? Jonathan asked himself as Andrew’s long, thin fingers moved like a mist up under his shirt, walking like a ghost across his back.

This was getting really scary. They were touching now, really touching, having moved on from, but not abandoned, the light palpations they had lavished on each other earlier. Soon, clothing was going to come off- soon they were going to do… things. Even Andrew, who had done all of this before, was frightened to the point of witlessness. Kissing was good, because kissing meant you didn’t have to look at each other, you could just lie in that manufactured darkness, just feeling, hearing, tasting. Will he like what he sees?, they both wondered at the exact same moment, in the hollow silence of their minds.

In an instant of courage, Andrew pulled away, and after a small struggle, managed to get his shirt off. Jonathan hid his face in Andrew’s newly-exposed shoulder, rubbing kisses onto skin so like ivory that it might well have never seen the sun. Like jasmine, Jonathan luxuriated in the words- never sees daylight. Making some sort of delighted sound, neither of them was sure that there was a word for it, Andrew tugged at Jonathan’s hair. Encouraged by the half-moaning, half-laughing sounds Jonathan continued, brushing his lips against all the flat plains that made up Andrew. Up and down the dunes of his ribcage, over the slight depression of the sternum, dipping to reach the opaline meadow of his belly; he rolled his tongue over one of Andrew’s nipples, and then the other, sipped at the shallow dimple of his navel. It was the most surprising thing in the world, finding that he could do this, and do it so easily, and like it so much.

Andrew pulled at Jonathan’s shirt. “Come on!” he laughed, “You’re not getting any nakeder!”

“Andrew… I don’t know…”

“You don’t know what? What’s the matter? And you can’t lie, cos of the no-lying rule.”

Gently, he placed his head on Andrew’s chest. “Well… I dunno, I’m scared that you, that you won’t like me.”

Andrew laughed and Jonathan felt it in stereo. “I’m skinny and pasty, you’re short. Over it.”

“It’s not that easy.” Jonathan lifted his head and laid it down next to Andrew’s up on the pillow.

“Why? Are you telling me that you don’t like the way that I look?”

“What? No, no, I’m not saying that at all.”

“So you do?”

“Well, yeah, I, I think… Shit, I don’t know what to say for guys.” Jonathan put his hand over his eyes.

“Just tell me what you think.” Andrew pulled his hand away.

“I think… I think you’re pretty, really pretty,” the words came out haltingly, like they didn’t want to be said, “You remind me of this painting I saw once, of, it was the, the, the birth of… somebody…” It was difficult looking at him as he said this; he wished Andrew weren’t holding onto his wrists like that.

“The Birth of Venus?”

“Yeah. You remind me of that, how your hands go, and cos your neck is so long, and your skin is so white.”

“See, and most people would say I’m a skinny, pasty geek. And you don’t think that.”

“So?”

“So, take off your clothes.”

Jonathan blushed. “Take off yours.”

“Fine.” Andrew stood up and Jonathan heard the sounds of clothing being removed. Heard, because he had turned his back, unable to have Andrew watch him undress. When he turned around again, Andrew had stripped down to his underwear.

“See, that was easy,” Andrew said softly, sitting down next to Jonathan, kissing his shoulder. Like Andrew, Jonathan was delicate and pale, but whereas Andrew was lanky and hospital-white, Jonathan didn’t have any hard edges to him, and his pallor was warm, like almonds and vanilla.

“Easy,” Jonathan repeated. Easy when Andrew was half on top of him, leaning tensely against him, letting them both sink down into the bony embrace of the bed. Easy when Andrew gave over control and relinquished the role of seducer, letting Jonathan push him onto his back. Easy when they were in the dark again, the dark they made whenever their lips met, touching in the dark, caresses flowing like streams to soft, hidden places. Everything was easier in the dark… Nothing to think too hard about, nothing to think about at all- Just a lust-drunk mental catalog of Andrew’s parts. Fingers like the backbones of absurd, delicate fishes… hipbones jutting out of the bowl of his pelvis, sharp as vampire fangs, the fake kind, rounded off nubs of plastic… nipples, lips, cheeks, throat painted sorely pink, Jonathan knew… the head-bone’s connected to the neck-bone…

Andrew’s hands had slipped into his underwear, somehow, in the dark. He had been running one finger in a line along his spine from the middle of his back, as far down as he could reach. That was like daylight, making even the darkness bright, waking up parts of Jonathan that had been asleep for what felt like forever. He had never been touched that way before, with such attention, and it did things to him, unpredictable things that had nothing to do with any physical response. It seemed that Andrew had gotten his body early on, now he was wrapping his long white fingers around his heart. He pushed against him and made them both moan.

Outside, it was storming; the badly made window had gaps between the panes of glass and the frames they were stuck in, so thin gasps of cold air fled into the room. All the sounds from outside walked right into the room, trampled what silence there had been like dead leaves and discarded fliers. Like the darkness they made when they kissed, the storm-sounds made it easy, easy to moan and pant and let loose wordless exclamations. In all the darkness and noise, Jonathan and Andrew found themselves completely denuded, moving against each other a bit desperately, as if in a daze, like parts in a dumb machine.

“Is this how you…” Jonathan couldn’t bring himself to ask the question. He had tasted Andrew’s mouth a dozen times and licked half a week’s sweat off of his skin, but he couldn’t say the words for what they were doing.

“Yeah, just… keep rubbing against me.” A sigh catching in his throat, he turned his head to the side, showing off the pretty curve of his neck, with its new, rosy red love-bites- love letters to the flesh.

“Is this what you want? Cos we can do whatever you want.” He kissed Andrew’s cheek.

“I don’t want to scare you your first time,” Andrew laughed, then sucked at his bottom lip, “If you don’t like it, though, I can, I mean, I know how to do things…”

“Mm, no, no, I don’t want to stop.” It was almost painful, the friction between them. He moved his hand over Andrew’s hip, the skin there was pulled taut over bones structured like the inside of a sea shell and nearly translucent, feeling like he should put it someplace else, feeling like there should be more to this. He closed his eyes and moved enough so that he could touch Andrew between his legs. Andrew inhaled quickly. Oh, he exhaled, his eyes rolling under tender, fluttering lids, face almost beatific in its expression of joy. He kept that expression as he jerked Jonathan off in return, didn’t lose it until he began to come, and then it was replaced by one of what looked like intense pain. As his back arched up, Jonathan kissed his throat, feel-hearing the sounds that were trapped for a moment in there like perfume inside of a bottle before Andrew expelled them into the cool air. He lay still, as Jonathan finished, moaning into the pillow so that the person next door wouldn’t call them any more rude Spanish words. If he had, just then, neither of them would have heard it, anyway. The only sound was something like the roar of the ocean; the microscopic music of blood treading the roads of veins and arteries magnified into a symphony.

Andrew looked at him, with those ever-expectant, perpetually innocent eyes once he lay down next to him. Carefully, he smoothed down Andrew’s hair, which was sticking up at all angles, frightened at how frail he appeared to be, his skull like a child’s teacup. Silently, Andrew asked him ten questions at once, waiting for answers with his young, blue eyes. Looking like he might wait forever.

Finally, Jonathan spoke, “That was, um, good, right? I mean, you liked it, didn’t you?” Please say you did, his mind whispered, shamelessly.

“Yeah.” Andrew’s voice had that crack in it again. He sounds like something waiting to get fixed… “You, um, did you like it, too?”

“Yeah.” Jonathan ran his hand along the side of Andrew’s face, down his neck.

“Do you wanna take a bath?” Andrew asked.

“Together?”

He laughed, and then nodded,

“Don’t laugh, just, I’ve never taken a bath with somebody else. Yeah, I want to.”

The bathroom was quite nice, the nicest part of the room, maybe. The tiles were aqua, and though the paint was chipped off in places, the walls were clean and there was a picture of some flowers in a vase hanging over the toilet. When Andrew bent over to turn on the water for the bathtub, Jonathan tried not to look, ashamed that he had to stop himself from doing so; to spite what they had just done, he liked to keep Andrew innocent in his mind. Like he could sense it, Andrew left the tap running, stood up straight and put his arms around Jonathan’s waist. Taking Jonathan’s wrists in his hands, he turned around, placed his hands on his hips. Jonathan touched his lips to the back of his neck. The protruding bone of his top vertebrae was something like a tiny igloo…

Once the bathtub was full, Jonathan got in first, then Andrew, his back to Jonathan’s front. The sounds the water made around them were silvery, musical; Water speaks the same language everywhere, Jonathan mused. He filled his hands with water and wet his hair and then Andrew’s.

“Do they do the thing with the little shampoo bottles in Mexico?” Andrew asked.

“Not at the bring-your-own-toilet-paper inn. Maybe we should have bought soap yesterday instead tequila and ice cream.” He put his hand on Andrew’s face so that he could turn his head and touch his tongue to his earlobe. It was like a small slice off a peach. He pulled him closer so that Andrew was more or less sitting in his lap

“Mm, but you can’t get drunk off soap.”

“You can’t get drunk off what we were drinking, either. That wasn’t drunk. I thought I was seeing trails there for a while. That was high, or something.”

“It made me want to have sex.”

“I’m starting to think that soap would make you want to have sex.”

“Should’ve bought some then, huh?” Andrew turned his head to kiss him, but the closest he could get in that position was sliding the tip of his tongue over Jonathan’s.

“Do you think we’re going too fast?” Jonathan asked.

In Jonathan’s arms, Andrew tensed. “Too fast for what?”

“Too fast, y’know, in general. Like we just discovered that we can do things to each other and, and- I’m just afraid that we’ll burn out.”

“Like one day we’ll just stop?”

“Yeah.”

“We just started!” Andrew turned around to face him, he had a horrified expression.

“I think it happens in all relationships, how you really like each other at first and you do it like crazy, but soon, it’s just not the same.”

“Why are you saying that?”

“I just don’t want to end up like that.”

“Quit talking about it!” Andrew hit the water. It made a sound just like that of somebody being punched in the face, bones cracking.

“Well, when we just did it for the first time ten minutes ago, and you’re already thinking about doing it again, it makes me nervous.”

“So, what, I’m not supposed to want to have sex with you?”

“No, just, I think we should just, um, wait a while. Until the next time.”

“Are you trying to see if that’s all we have going for us? Like if we aren’t doing it, we have no reason to be around each other? Is that what you’re trying to do, Jonathan?”

Jonathan looked down, at Andrew’s soft, snowy white skin. The pleasant dome of his knee cap. “Just a little bit.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Well, you’re acting like a nympho!”

“I’m acting like a nympho?”

“Yeah, cos with the dirty talk and the bath and the putting my hands places.”

“And you don’t like that?”

“I just want to know if you feel something other than horny!”

“We fight so friggin much, I don’t see how I could not feel something other than horny! Like irritated, or pissed off, or really, really confused.” At the end, Andrew’s voice shook like he were sobbing.

“No, you know what I’m talking about!”

“What, do you want to know if I love you?”

“Well, not love, but if you feel some kind of affection, something.”

“I don’t use the word ‘love’ anymore, it makes me sick.” Andrew’s voice was cold, and slate-hard.

“In the interest of not making you sick, I won’t use that word.”

Andrew looked him straight in the eyes. There was a coldness to his stare, like when something is so hot it chills you. “Yeah, Jonathan, I felt something about you before we had sex, before I even knew I wanted to. I felt it when we were in jail, and I felt it before that. Like I was trying to say, I think the fact that we fight so much proves something. I never fought with Warren, I guess I didn’t feel like I had a voice with him. I used to think it was cos you’re shorter than me, that I’m not afraid of you, but I think it’s cos you don’t make me feel like there’s something wrong with me. You’re a mean bastard sometimes, and you boss me around, but I don’t think you do it cos you’re trying to be cruel, or to prove something about the dynamics of our relationship.”

“Huh, ‘dynamics of our relationship’, that’s really good.”

Andrew blushed, “I read books. Sometimes.”

Leaning forward, Jonathan wrapped his arms around Andrew, pulled him close again. Their legs tangled together uncomfortably, but it was easy to ignore. “I don’t try to be mean, just sometimes I can’t help but get frustrated with you. It’s like you have this way of looking at the world, that makes you see stuff in a completely different way, and most people don’t get that, they just think you’re a freak. I get it, but I don’t get. it. Y’know? I understand why you’re different, I just don’t know what in the hell you’re thinking most of the time.”

“All you have to do is ask me.”

“But that’s lame, always going around saying, Hey, Andrew, what are you thinking? I don’t wanna have to do that, it would get weird.”

“It’s better than fighting all the time, though. Don’t you think it would be better for our relationship if we got along?”

“Huh. You said relationship.”

Andrew looked at him, with that heat again. At his slightest movement, the water around him sang out. “Yeah, so what? If I can say it, and I have, like, the emotional maturity of the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, why can’t you say it?”

“Re-la-tion-ship. See, I said it.”

Andrew started to get up, “I’m officially out of this bath.”

“No, come on, I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He grabbed at Andrew but came up with air.

“You didn’t hurt me, I’ve been hurt enough to know what it feels like, and that didn’t hurt.” He bit his lip.

“Tell me that this is for real.”

Andrew perched on the edge of the bathtub. “It’s not a hallucination!”

Jonathan shook his head. “It’s like we take turns being sensitive and insecure. Well, it’s my turn. Tell me that this is for real, that you want to be with me, like, like I want to be with you.”

Andrew’s eyes were wet this time. “Yeah, Jonathan, this is for real. Yeah, I want to be with you. I don’t want to fight with you anymore, and I think we have more going for us than sex. I mean, somehow, we stayed together, came all the way here together. I think that says something.”

Jonathan looked down; he could nearly see his reflection in the bath water. Neither of them said anything for a while, just sat sort of across from each other, and that was all right. It didn’t seem like anything needed to be said, for one. After a time, Andrew silently lowered himself back into the bath, drifted back over to him, back into his arms. Jonathan laid his head on Andrew’s shoulder, rubbed his cheek against his slick skin.

“The water’s cold,” Andrew said quietly.

“Yeah, I know.” Goosebumps studded both of their bodies, Andrew was shivering a little.

“Do you want to go to bed?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Clumsily, Andrew got out of the bathtub first, then held his hand out to Jonathan to steady him as he stood up. There was only one towel, but it was big enough for the two of them, so they draped it over both of them. Still under the towel, they went back to the bed, the covers still pulled up since they had slept above them the night before. Jonathan turned down the bed. Quickly, Andrew dropped the towel and got in next to him.

“I c-can’t b-believe I’m this cold,” Andrew stuttered.

“It’s cos you’re so skinny.” Jonathan put his arms around him and shook him a bit, tried to shake the cold out of him. “Is that better?”

“Much better.”

Outside, it was still raining; the bruising winds through the branches of the trees made wild ocean sounds. If he closed his eyes, Andrew would swear that they were on a boat somewhere, headed to a place even stranger and more unlikely than Tijuana. Maybe they were in the South China Sea- he didn’t know why this came to mind, he just liked the way it sounded. South. China. Sea.

“What are you thinking about?” Jonathan asked him.

“The South China Sea,” Andrew murmured, sleepily.

“You have the… most wonderful way of looking at the world…”

“You can say that I’m weird, it won’t hurt coming from you.”

“You are so weird…” Jonathan kissed his mouth. Once he did it again, it seemed ridiculous that he had gone so long without the taste of Andrew, without the feel of him. Why did they speak at all? They could communicate so much better without a word passing between them.

But it was words, only different kind. Not little arrows shot forth on breath- it was like what made the wind blow, like what made the rain fall. They told each other things, like this, with words that had no sound, things that they couldn’t find any more eloquent way to say. He looks so beautiful when he’s being made love to, Jonathan said to himself, and then told as much to Andrew- with the weight of his body, with the tide- sweep of his hands, with the softness of his lips. In return, Andrew said something to the same effect.

The room was silent, no voices raised in desperate anger, no wailed Spanish obscenities from the room next door, no words, except the words for wind and rain, coming in from outside. Silence, that yawned out over time and over this space, like a long, sparkling river. And when silence evaporated, the only words formed by human voices were Jonathan’s name, wrapped around the bubble of a moan, and then, in a long, low whisper, Andrew’s. This time, the person in the room next door only banged on the wall with a shoe.

***

Disturbingly, Andrew was starting to remind Jonathan of Cordelia Chase, of all people. The way he was swaggering around, spitting out rebukes in that breathless voice of his. Jonathan had seen produce sections less fruity than Andrew. Whenever he started talking about all the girls they were gonna get, laughing it up with Warren, Jonathan cringed. Who does he think he’s fooling? He’s gayer than, well, he’s really, really gay!

The walk, the attitude, the way he put his hands on his hips for, Chrissakes!, all of it invoked the memory-ghost of Cordelia, striding through the halls like some Queen of Hell, in her shiny skirts and fuck-me pumps. Miss Queen Bee, Queen C- he wondered what Andrew would have done against Cordelia in her prime.

It’s like he’s forgotten who he is, who we are. Does he think Warren gives a shit about him, that he’s Warren’s friend? It was becoming clearer and clearer that Warren didn’t have friends, he had, God, what were they?- adherents, flunkies, minions? Why couldn’t he just have conjured up some demons, maybe an elemental?- Yeah, cos Warren can do that. Warren couldn’t conjure his way out of a paper bag.

Jonathan was becoming more and more suspicious of him, and of Andrew, too. He was starting to think that they were somehow messing with him in his sleep. More and more frequently, his dreams were filled with moans or screams, which seemed to be bleeding through into his silken repose from the outside. Invariably, he dreamt of orgies or of slaughter grounds, and sometimes, his dreams were of both places at once, or he couldn’t tell the difference between the two. Sometimes, he tried to wake up, but found that he couldn’t, that he couldn’t open his eyes. The natural explanation was that Warren had figured out some spell or other and was getting him back for God only knew what.

He became very good at coming up with excuses for staying out all night: rituals that had to be done by the light of the moon, plants that could only be gathered at night, midnight showings of The Empire Strikes Back, anything to stay out of that house. The whole basement had begun to have a creepy feel to it; it was coated in magick, Jonathan knew, but not his. It was disturbing and the magickal presence itself was a kind of subtle violation, like somebody else’s scent on his clothing.

Steadily, Warren was becoming obsessed with Buffy Summers, and Jonathan didn’t like the things he said about her. Yeah, sure, they were supervillains, and Jonathan had always kinda resented her, for making him feel, well, small, but she had also saved his life- a bunch of times. She had saved the whole town at least once that he could think of, but probably more. And she had never asked anything of him, of anybody. He had been glad to fight with her at graduation, honored that he’d been asked. After that day, for a little while, he’d felt like his life meant something, maybe not a lot, but enough.

Warren’s Buffy-mania was just a symptom, though. Since Katrina, since Warren had killed her, and he and Andrew had helped, Jonathan had been even more creeped out. It was like Warren was losing his soul, losing everything about him that had once been kind of warm. It was like he was losing his sense of humor. Why did he keep helping him? He could understand why Andrew did, sort of, because he obviously thought the world of Warren, and aside from being his friend, he didn’t really have too much of a personality. He was the youngest, and it showed- he wasn’t even nineteen yet. It had only been a couple of years since Jonathan had been where Andrew was now, and he didn’t like to remember those days. Not that what he was living at the moment was all that much better.

Warren should know better, we all should, Jonathan found himself chanting this in his head, almost constantly. Everyday, it seemed, Warren got a little bit colder, Andrew got a little bit sharper and Jonathan got a little bit more numb. Strangely, though, he still felt a kind of… protectiveness about Andrew. His annoyance came not so much from the way Andrew acted, but because it was a direct result of Warren’s attention, his whatever. The energy between Warren and Andrew was disturbing as fuck, too. Of all the disturbing things, that was up at the top of the list, right after Murder and Rape. There was definitely something going on, but Jonathan couldn’t quite figure it out, it was like he could recognize all the shapes, but he couldn’t remember the names for any of them. What the fuck is happening?

One day, silently fuming because Warren and Andrew had gone to the movies and left him alone in the lair to put his neck out of joint bent over some old-ass books, a voice popped up in his head. Dude, you’re not jealous, are you? the voice asked incredulously. Jealous, no, jealous of what? I’m the badass sorcerer here, they couldn’t do any of this alone, why the hell should I be jealous of them? No, the voice continued, not cos of that, cos they’re together. Ew, no, Jonathan snorted derisively, out loud, Whatever they’re doing is their business and I don’t wanna know about it, anyway. Cos, ew! The voice was insistent, I think you are. Why the hell would I be jealous of Andrew? he said, out loud again, Warren’s a psychopath and he looks like he has a sweater on when he takes off his shirt. No, the voice demurred, It’s not Andrew you’re jealous of. Then why would I be jealous of Warren? The voice laughed, You figure it out.

Weeks and weeks passed, but Jonathan couldn’t figure it out, and honestly didn’t want to, anyway. And then, in that horrible jail cell, when Andrew spoke, and Jonathan felt as though he was holding his heart in his hands- he figured it out. How he wanted to hurt Andrew and it the same time was desperate to keep him from harm, the desire to comfort him, the intense ache whenever he said Warren’s name. He had figured it out, and yeah, it kind of made sense.

***

So soft, so soft, Jonathan murmured, his fingers gently twisting through Andrew’s hair, wet sunshine between his fingers.

“What?” Andrew asked drowsily.

“You, your hair, your skin, all of you.” He kissed Andrew’s forehead.

“Jonathan, what’s it like to do magic?”

“It’s kinda hard to explain, and you know I’m not all that great at it, but the best way I can explain it is that it’s like learning how to speak.”

“How’s that?” Andrew looked up, his blue eyes luminous, like sunlight caught in stained glass for a moment before it shines, is filtered through.

“Well, you can talk cos you know the way a word sounds, the way it feels when you say it, how it looks written down. When you do magic, it’s like saying the word for something, but you’re not saying it with your mouth, you’re kinda like saying it with your whole mind and body. And it doesn’t have a sound, but, um, like, a feeling, I guess. And it’s more like calling someone than just making a statement. Your spell, that’s your statement, cos once you call someone, you have to have something to say to them, right, usually something you want them to do. Now, if you get really good, you can get to where you don’t even need a spell, or you can just use a one-word spell.”

“Like Willow,” Andrew shivered.

“Don’t worry about her.” Jonathan pulled him closer. No matter how close they got, it felt like there was some gap they could still close, a margin of space that left them hungry.

“So, could you do something, like now?”

Jonathan closed his eyes. “It’ll have to be something simple cos I’m really tired.”

“No, that’s cool. You don’t have to-”

“No, I want to.”

Jonathan lay very still, and Andrew could feel something happening, he didn’t know what, but something. Jonathan’s lips were moving, but he didn’t make a sound. Something was happening. Then, the window opened, naturally, almost shyly. From outside came a low, fragrant breeze, birdsong in the background. The rain had stopped, and the sky looked fragile and clean. Slowly, riding in on a shaft of light, a dozen very small butterflies, as translucent as fishes’ scales, entered the room.

In a flash, Andrew remembered something, something he knew was supposed to be very important. For a moment, he struggled with it, but then let it go. He had never felt so calm in his entire life. The butterflies lingered for a bit, and then as a cloud passed over the sun, they dissolved to dust motes.

“Wow,” Andrew said, “that was great.”

Jonathan shrugged. “I’m okay, I mean, I don’t think I’m going to be calling Willow out any time soon, but I- I can only do small things.”

Andrew took Jonathan’s hand and laid it over his heart. He closed his eyes, his eyelashes made black crescent moons on his cheeks; very softly, he said, “That’s all right.”