Five Lives Xander Didn't Lead
This is the fanfic I used the second time I did the "Who Do I Write Like" meme. I don't think I've posted this before - I wrote (longhand) it in 2007, I think, but never finished transcribing in till this year. In fact, I still haven't finished - Unlived Life No. 5 isn't here. I'll try to get that up later this week, in the interests of completeness.
5 Lives Xander Didn't Lead
-1-
On Xander's fourteenth birthday, his dad took the family to dinner at Luigi's. To Xander's surprise, he didn't order wine. No beer. No booze of any kind. That was nothing compared to Tony's announcement that he'd been attending AA meetings regularly for the past three months.
Xander choked on his linguini. "You whu ha?" He turned to his mother, who smiled. "You knew?" She nodded and continued smiling as she ate her shrimp scampi.
"It's not easy," Tony continued, "but I'm learning to take one day at a time. One step at a time."
Xander stuffed more linguini in his mouth and concentrated on chewing so he wouldn't have to answer right away. Finally he swallowed and said, "That's, uh, that's great dad. But I hope you won't mind if I stay a little sceptical."
Tony smiled - could a smile be sad and hopeful at once? - and said, "No, it's ok. I haven't given you a lot of cause to trust me." Then he changed the subject, started talking about Star Trek - who knew Tony'd been an original Trek geek thirty years ago?
While they waited for the waitress to bring cake and capuccinos, Tony asked, "So what's this deal in San Diego you mention every summer?"
"ComiCon - big comics convention."
"How 'bout I take you this year? You and Jesse?"
Xander looked in disbelief at his mom, who again smiled and nodded. Inside he was jumping up and down, excited like a little kid. No way was he showing that, though. "Uh," he said, "Ok. That'd be cool."
Life didn't get perfect after that, but it sure got better. Tony's temper didn't disappear, but without alcohol to fuel it, he was able to control it. The verbal and physical abuse stopped and Xander's mom stopped creeping around like a scared mouse. Xander's wardrobe improved somewhat, as did his grades, and he gained a couple of coolness points. Amazing what a difference a decent home life made!
By the time Xander was sixteen, he was on the college track along with Jesse and Willow. Jesse was good at math, Xander wrote science fiction stories, and Willow was turning into quite the computer geek. They called themselves the Three Musketeers and even went to Prom together. (That night was oevershadowed by the death of a student in a freak drowning accident but not too much, since she was a new girl and a loner and none of them had known her.)
Jesse's family, tired of the freakiness that was life in Sunnydale, moved to the east coast their junior year, which was a bummer, but they stayed in touch through e-mail. After the Graduation Day Masscre their senior year, Xander figured Jesse had been the lucky one after all. A lot of families moved away after that, Xander's and Willow's included. The Rosenbergs moved to Portland and the Harrises to LA.
Xander, Willow, and Jesse joined forces again at the University of Michigan, where Xander and Willow had a four year on-again, off-again romance. The Sunday after graduation (Willow rolled her eyes at the cliche but didn't want to wait) Xander and Willow were married. Too young, perhaps, but Xander was optimistic. Good things could happen, even after years of a nightmarish existence. Maybe there couldn't be happily ever after, but there sure could be just happy enough.
-2-
Had Xander know that his father's sobriety would lead to his death along with that of most of his classmates on graduation day, he might've started spiking the o.j.
Because the thing was, in some alternate reality where Tony Harris was an abusive, drunken father and husband, Xander stayed away from home as much as a teenage boy can manage. He was so eager to be away from home that he even lurked around the school library (losing multiple coolness points by dong so) and thus met Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.
In that other world, Xander performed CPR on Buffy when she was drowned by the Master. From there he went on to help her avert various apocalypses and smaller catastrophes until, on graduation day, Xander played a major role in defeating the Mayor, stopping the Ascension, and saving lots of lives in the process.
But when Tony Harris joined AA, two years before Buffy Summers arrived, and never looked back, Xander's life took a turn for the better. It didn't become perfect, no, but life at home was finally livable. Forget hanging out with the odd new girl with her pointy sticks and her friend the slightly weird librarian. It wasn't so bad going home after school, with Jesse sometimes, or Willow, or both. They're the Three Musketeers - they even went to the Prom together, sophomore year. So of course, Xander wasn't there when Buffy drowned and she stayed dead.
Xander didn't think too much about it when he heard the news Monday at school - sad, yeah, but she was hardly the first student in Sunnydale to die in some freakish way and he hadn't known her.
It sucked when Jesse's family moved away the next year but they kept in touch and made plans to go to the same college. But Xander never made it to U of M - or any other college, for that matter. Neither did Willow. Neither did most of Xander's graduating class. There wasn't anyone to stop the Mayor and the last thing Xander ever saw was the alarming yet highly amusing spectacle of Principal Snyder being swallowed by a giant snake. At least Xander died laughing.
-3-
The thing was, he loved Willow, he did, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But he loved Jesse, too, always had though it had taken him years to apply that word to what he felt. In fact, his feelings for Jesse (and Jesse's for him) were the reason for the "off" in the "off again" part of he and Willow's relationship. Willow suspected it but didn't know it for a fact until she confronted Xander directly one Saturday when Jesse was out of town. To say it wasn't an easy conversation would be an understatement. A lot - maybe most - relationships wouldn't have survived it. But when Willow said, with an air of finality, "I will not share you like this!" Xander managed to catch the undercurrent.
"Like how?" he said. "You mean there's a way you would share me?"
Willow put on her resolve face and said, "Xander, you have to make a decision and stick with it. One of us or both of us but no more going back and forth between us." Xander's jaw dropped but before he could recover himself Willow added, "I love Jesse too, Xander. If you hadn't made the first move with me, maybe I'd be having this discussion with him instead of you."
Xander's mouth was dry, his voice scratchy. "It's not up to just the two of us, you know." Was the best of both worlds ever possible?
"I know. But Jesse's home tomorrow. Let's talk then."
- 4-
On Xander's first day at Sunnydale High, his first contact with anyone was when he literally ran into a cute blonde girl, knocking her bag to the ground and spilling its contents. His heart sank - he knew the sort - she was clearly a cheerleader type, fashionista, probably able to rip him to shreds verbally in fifteen seconds flat. To his surprise, she seemed more nervous and flustered than he felt as she scrabbled to pick everything up and put it in her bag.
"Hey wait - " Xander noticed something she'd missed. "You forgot your, uh, pointy stick."
She seemed, if anything, more nervous. "Oh, yeah, uh, that. It's kind of a thing back in LA. All the girls carry them."
Xander had heard stranger things from girls his age. "LA, huh? So you're new?"
"Yeah," she said. "First day."
"Hey, me too! Only I'm not from anywhere as cool as LA. I'm from Peoria."
The blonde gave him one of those polite, blank smiles that say, "I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm not walking away yet."
"Illinois. It's in Illinois. Way too far from Chicago, though. I'm Xander, by the way."
"Buffy."
Xander tried to pull his eyebrown down from his hairline - a cute, blonde, cheerleader type was talking to him - in a friendly manner, even. No need to offend her by laughing at her name.
"So Peoria, is it cold?"
"Huh?"
"In winter, you get snow and stuff?"
"Oh yeah. What's your next class?"
They walked on, comparing schedules. They were happy to see they shared some classes. Xander's heart sank again when a very pretty, rather ostentatiously rich brunette named Cordelia Chase gave Buffy a coolness test which Buffy passed with flying colors. "This is it," he thought, "my five-minute friendship with Buffy is over. She'll head over to the cool crowd now." But Buffy asked Xander if he wanted to eat lunch with her and was he checking out The Bronze tonight? "Cordelia says it's where everyone hangs out."
Later that day, Xander observed Buffy being friendly to a nervous-looking girl even Xander knew weren't fashionable. She had striking, long red hair and if she weren't so pinched-looking and mousy, she'd be really cute.
That evening, Xander made his way to The Bronze where he met Buffy and the red-head, Willow. "You don't have to sit with me," Willow said. "I know Cordelia thinks you're ok now, but she won't if she sees you with me."
"Don't be silly," Buffy said and the three of them snagged a corner table.
That first evening, Xander didn't feel like dancing. He was content to sit and drink Cokes with Buffy and Willow, watching their fellow students while Willow filled them in on who was who.
"Oh, and her - she lives with her grandma 'cause both her parents died last year. It was really sad. And weird. I mean," and Willow got a quizzical expression on her face, "neck rupture? What is that, anyway?" She took a sip from her Coke.
Xander didn't say anything. He noticed that Buffy had a strange look on her face but before he had a chance to say anything, Willow choked on her drink. "That's Jesse!" she exclaimed.
Xander looked at the boy Willow was pointing at. He was tall, thin - a bit gawky - with dark hair and eyes and he was dancing with the stunning brunette who had assessed Buffy's coolness earlier that day. "Jesse?" he said.
"Yeah. We're friends. Nerds, you know; gotta stick together. He's always had a crush on Cordelia but she thinks she's too good for him."
"Huh. Couldn't tell by looking at her."
"Yeah, she looks . . . " Willow's voice trailed off. "And he looks . . ."
If Jesse was a fellow nerd, you couldn't tell by watching him dance with Cordelia Chase. It was as if he owned her; she gazed at him with a look that said wherever Jesse wanted her to go, she'd be there.
Buffy hadn't said anything as they watched Jesse and Cordelia dance and now she stood up. "Hey, guys, it's been fun but I gotta go," in a distracted voice.
That was the last normal day Xander remembered. The next day he entered a strange, new world of vampires and demons, a world of excitement and terror interspersed with the sheer boredom of hours in the library under the eye of Giles, Buffy's Watcher. Some days, Xander thought he'd love to turn his back on it all, go back to his humdrum existence in Peoria, but he'd learned enough to understand nowhere was entirely safe.
Mostly, though, he was glad to be a part of the Scooby gang, especially the day of the prom, when he performed CPR on Buffy after she'd been drowned by the Master, and brought her back to life.
Even better was the night several months later, after the new school year had begun, when Buffy danced with Xander at The Bronze. "Did I ever thank you," she asked, "for saving my life?"
He shook his head.
Mindless of all the other people in The Bronze, Buffy stopped dancing and hugged Xander, then leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. "Thank you," she said.
I used all of No. 3 for the writing sample. I wonder if I used some original fiction.... Haven't written any of that in quite awhile, either.
5 Lives Xander Didn't Lead
-1-
On Xander's fourteenth birthday, his dad took the family to dinner at Luigi's. To Xander's surprise, he didn't order wine. No beer. No booze of any kind. That was nothing compared to Tony's announcement that he'd been attending AA meetings regularly for the past three months.
Xander choked on his linguini. "You whu ha?" He turned to his mother, who smiled. "You knew?" She nodded and continued smiling as she ate her shrimp scampi.
"It's not easy," Tony continued, "but I'm learning to take one day at a time. One step at a time."
Xander stuffed more linguini in his mouth and concentrated on chewing so he wouldn't have to answer right away. Finally he swallowed and said, "That's, uh, that's great dad. But I hope you won't mind if I stay a little sceptical."
Tony smiled - could a smile be sad and hopeful at once? - and said, "No, it's ok. I haven't given you a lot of cause to trust me." Then he changed the subject, started talking about Star Trek - who knew Tony'd been an original Trek geek thirty years ago?
While they waited for the waitress to bring cake and capuccinos, Tony asked, "So what's this deal in San Diego you mention every summer?"
"ComiCon - big comics convention."
"How 'bout I take you this year? You and Jesse?"
Xander looked in disbelief at his mom, who again smiled and nodded. Inside he was jumping up and down, excited like a little kid. No way was he showing that, though. "Uh," he said, "Ok. That'd be cool."
Life didn't get perfect after that, but it sure got better. Tony's temper didn't disappear, but without alcohol to fuel it, he was able to control it. The verbal and physical abuse stopped and Xander's mom stopped creeping around like a scared mouse. Xander's wardrobe improved somewhat, as did his grades, and he gained a couple of coolness points. Amazing what a difference a decent home life made!
By the time Xander was sixteen, he was on the college track along with Jesse and Willow. Jesse was good at math, Xander wrote science fiction stories, and Willow was turning into quite the computer geek. They called themselves the Three Musketeers and even went to Prom together. (That night was oevershadowed by the death of a student in a freak drowning accident but not too much, since she was a new girl and a loner and none of them had known her.)
Jesse's family, tired of the freakiness that was life in Sunnydale, moved to the east coast their junior year, which was a bummer, but they stayed in touch through e-mail. After the Graduation Day Masscre their senior year, Xander figured Jesse had been the lucky one after all. A lot of families moved away after that, Xander's and Willow's included. The Rosenbergs moved to Portland and the Harrises to LA.
Xander, Willow, and Jesse joined forces again at the University of Michigan, where Xander and Willow had a four year on-again, off-again romance. The Sunday after graduation (Willow rolled her eyes at the cliche but didn't want to wait) Xander and Willow were married. Too young, perhaps, but Xander was optimistic. Good things could happen, even after years of a nightmarish existence. Maybe there couldn't be happily ever after, but there sure could be just happy enough.
-2-
Had Xander know that his father's sobriety would lead to his death along with that of most of his classmates on graduation day, he might've started spiking the o.j.
Because the thing was, in some alternate reality where Tony Harris was an abusive, drunken father and husband, Xander stayed away from home as much as a teenage boy can manage. He was so eager to be away from home that he even lurked around the school library (losing multiple coolness points by dong so) and thus met Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.
In that other world, Xander performed CPR on Buffy when she was drowned by the Master. From there he went on to help her avert various apocalypses and smaller catastrophes until, on graduation day, Xander played a major role in defeating the Mayor, stopping the Ascension, and saving lots of lives in the process.
But when Tony Harris joined AA, two years before Buffy Summers arrived, and never looked back, Xander's life took a turn for the better. It didn't become perfect, no, but life at home was finally livable. Forget hanging out with the odd new girl with her pointy sticks and her friend the slightly weird librarian. It wasn't so bad going home after school, with Jesse sometimes, or Willow, or both. They're the Three Musketeers - they even went to the Prom together, sophomore year. So of course, Xander wasn't there when Buffy drowned and she stayed dead.
Xander didn't think too much about it when he heard the news Monday at school - sad, yeah, but she was hardly the first student in Sunnydale to die in some freakish way and he hadn't known her.
It sucked when Jesse's family moved away the next year but they kept in touch and made plans to go to the same college. But Xander never made it to U of M - or any other college, for that matter. Neither did Willow. Neither did most of Xander's graduating class. There wasn't anyone to stop the Mayor and the last thing Xander ever saw was the alarming yet highly amusing spectacle of Principal Snyder being swallowed by a giant snake. At least Xander died laughing.
-3-
The thing was, he loved Willow, he did, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But he loved Jesse, too, always had though it had taken him years to apply that word to what he felt. In fact, his feelings for Jesse (and Jesse's for him) were the reason for the "off" in the "off again" part of he and Willow's relationship. Willow suspected it but didn't know it for a fact until she confronted Xander directly one Saturday when Jesse was out of town. To say it wasn't an easy conversation would be an understatement. A lot - maybe most - relationships wouldn't have survived it. But when Willow said, with an air of finality, "I will not share you like this!" Xander managed to catch the undercurrent.
"Like how?" he said. "You mean there's a way you would share me?"
Willow put on her resolve face and said, "Xander, you have to make a decision and stick with it. One of us or both of us but no more going back and forth between us." Xander's jaw dropped but before he could recover himself Willow added, "I love Jesse too, Xander. If you hadn't made the first move with me, maybe I'd be having this discussion with him instead of you."
Xander's mouth was dry, his voice scratchy. "It's not up to just the two of us, you know." Was the best of both worlds ever possible?
"I know. But Jesse's home tomorrow. Let's talk then."
- 4-
On Xander's first day at Sunnydale High, his first contact with anyone was when he literally ran into a cute blonde girl, knocking her bag to the ground and spilling its contents. His heart sank - he knew the sort - she was clearly a cheerleader type, fashionista, probably able to rip him to shreds verbally in fifteen seconds flat. To his surprise, she seemed more nervous and flustered than he felt as she scrabbled to pick everything up and put it in her bag.
"Hey wait - " Xander noticed something she'd missed. "You forgot your, uh, pointy stick."
She seemed, if anything, more nervous. "Oh, yeah, uh, that. It's kind of a thing back in LA. All the girls carry them."
Xander had heard stranger things from girls his age. "LA, huh? So you're new?"
"Yeah," she said. "First day."
"Hey, me too! Only I'm not from anywhere as cool as LA. I'm from Peoria."
The blonde gave him one of those polite, blank smiles that say, "I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm not walking away yet."
"Illinois. It's in Illinois. Way too far from Chicago, though. I'm Xander, by the way."
"Buffy."
Xander tried to pull his eyebrown down from his hairline - a cute, blonde, cheerleader type was talking to him - in a friendly manner, even. No need to offend her by laughing at her name.
"So Peoria, is it cold?"
"Huh?"
"In winter, you get snow and stuff?"
"Oh yeah. What's your next class?"
They walked on, comparing schedules. They were happy to see they shared some classes. Xander's heart sank again when a very pretty, rather ostentatiously rich brunette named Cordelia Chase gave Buffy a coolness test which Buffy passed with flying colors. "This is it," he thought, "my five-minute friendship with Buffy is over. She'll head over to the cool crowd now." But Buffy asked Xander if he wanted to eat lunch with her and was he checking out The Bronze tonight? "Cordelia says it's where everyone hangs out."
Later that day, Xander observed Buffy being friendly to a nervous-looking girl even Xander knew weren't fashionable. She had striking, long red hair and if she weren't so pinched-looking and mousy, she'd be really cute.
That evening, Xander made his way to The Bronze where he met Buffy and the red-head, Willow. "You don't have to sit with me," Willow said. "I know Cordelia thinks you're ok now, but she won't if she sees you with me."
"Don't be silly," Buffy said and the three of them snagged a corner table.
That first evening, Xander didn't feel like dancing. He was content to sit and drink Cokes with Buffy and Willow, watching their fellow students while Willow filled them in on who was who.
"Oh, and her - she lives with her grandma 'cause both her parents died last year. It was really sad. And weird. I mean," and Willow got a quizzical expression on her face, "neck rupture? What is that, anyway?" She took a sip from her Coke.
Xander didn't say anything. He noticed that Buffy had a strange look on her face but before he had a chance to say anything, Willow choked on her drink. "That's Jesse!" she exclaimed.
Xander looked at the boy Willow was pointing at. He was tall, thin - a bit gawky - with dark hair and eyes and he was dancing with the stunning brunette who had assessed Buffy's coolness earlier that day. "Jesse?" he said.
"Yeah. We're friends. Nerds, you know; gotta stick together. He's always had a crush on Cordelia but she thinks she's too good for him."
"Huh. Couldn't tell by looking at her."
"Yeah, she looks . . . " Willow's voice trailed off. "And he looks . . ."
If Jesse was a fellow nerd, you couldn't tell by watching him dance with Cordelia Chase. It was as if he owned her; she gazed at him with a look that said wherever Jesse wanted her to go, she'd be there.
Buffy hadn't said anything as they watched Jesse and Cordelia dance and now she stood up. "Hey, guys, it's been fun but I gotta go," in a distracted voice.
That was the last normal day Xander remembered. The next day he entered a strange, new world of vampires and demons, a world of excitement and terror interspersed with the sheer boredom of hours in the library under the eye of Giles, Buffy's Watcher. Some days, Xander thought he'd love to turn his back on it all, go back to his humdrum existence in Peoria, but he'd learned enough to understand nowhere was entirely safe.
Mostly, though, he was glad to be a part of the Scooby gang, especially the day of the prom, when he performed CPR on Buffy after she'd been drowned by the Master, and brought her back to life.
Even better was the night several months later, after the new school year had begun, when Buffy danced with Xander at The Bronze. "Did I ever thank you," she asked, "for saving my life?"
He shook his head.
Mindless of all the other people in The Bronze, Buffy stopped dancing and hugged Xander, then leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. "Thank you," she said.
I used all of No. 3 for the writing sample. I wonder if I used some original fiction.... Haven't written any of that in quite awhile, either.