Marta's Birthday Fic - Goodbye To All That
An out of sequence Ripper Files story which tells of how Xander left the dark continent. This is a HAPPY BIRTHDAY MORRIGUSHOUT story. Shame it made me cry but it's a happy fic for all that.
title: Goodbye to All That
author: Mwrgana
pairing: Xander/OC
summary: Xander leaves the dark continent
beta: Julie,
umalumna
Goodbye to All That
Xander sat on a hotel balcony overlooking the classical Kenya view. He had a battered notebook open on the table before him. His pen lay slack in his hand as he drank in the panorma for the last time.
Below his perch high up on the mountains' foothills, the grasslands unrolled in front of him, dotted with zebra, antelope and hidden lion, until at last, peaking over the western horizon, far away in Tanzania, rose the tip of snowcapped Kilimanjaro. Which, according to the experts was soon to lose its eternal snows owing to global warming.
Excerpt from the diary of Xander Harris:
The Balcony, Cherangani Bar, Ruguru Hotel. Kenya
So, this is my last day in Africa. In just a few hours I'll be skybound and flying towards England. I wonder if I'll ever come back?
It is so big and yet we Americans label all the diversities of tribes, nations, countries and languages into the catch-all 'African.' It means nothing. It's like saying Leafy Tree.
Jim told me that within Africa there is a wider diversity of DNA than in the rest of the world put together. So Hitler was closer related to every single Jew in the world than an African native is to another African native. *G* Or something like that. It's to do with mitochondal something. I'll look it up sometime and read up about it. Giles will know.
*********
The view was one to dream of. As Xander swirled ice and the last of his drink around the glass, he reflected that this sight was at least one pleasant dream of Africa that he would take away with him. He still woke up in a cold sweat night after night, deaming about Nigeria and horrors so intense that he doubted he would ever be able to speak of them. This past two months or so in Kenya, on the other side of the continent, had been a convalescent holiday from the nightmare of his Nigerian Year as he thought of it to himself.
Excerpt from the diary of Xander Harris:
The Balcony, Cherangani Bar, Ruguru Hotel. Kenya.
I've seen so much since I've been here.
I've lived with the sick, the dying, the healthy, the poorest of the poor, the leisured and rich, the hard working and getting rich and the hard working and getting poorer. They 've been noble, kind, wise and generous, mean-spirited, ignorant, evil and vicious. Their position in life and if they've got money gives no hint of how they are. I thought I knew it already but it took here to teach me that people are just people everywhere you go.
I savor my last view of this incredible land as I sip my gin and tonic. *G* That will raise Giles' eyebrow. Both of em probably. Who would have thought donut boy to have got a taste for something so English? I put it down to Jim's bad influence.
Jim. My wonderful Jim.
How am I going to manage without him? He pulled me back from death and kept me in life. If there's a God Jim was a gift to me from him. And I don't know if I'll ever see him again.
******
As he collected hat and bag, ready to go back to his room, Jimuyu, the night manager and hotel owner's son came up to him, "Is everything in order for your departure, Mr Harris?"
"Yeah, I'm all packed and paid up. Just a couple of hours now before the drive to the airport and then it's off to rainy England and back to work. There is just one thing, though, if you could just come up to my room with me to check."
They entered the elevator and as the doors closed, Xander clutched the other man's arms as if he would never let go, "God, I'm going to miss you so much. You're the reason I'm well enough already to go back to work. And how ironic, is that? You should have kept me sick and I could have stayed longer.
“Are you sure you can't come with me, just for six months or so, travel around England with me, meet the people I work with?"
The lift came to a halt and Jim was shaking his head as they stepped out into the corridor. "I can't do that, Xander. You know I can't. Not now. Not yet."
They reached Xander's room and the two men walked slowly in, very much aware that this would be the last time that they would enter this room together. Xander's hand was gentle as he cupped it around the back of Jim's head to pull him in for a long slow kiss full of love and gratitude and regret. Not regret for what they had shared but regret for what had drawn them together and regret that they now had to part.
**************
Xander had been all but dead when he arrived in Nairobi and had spent his first three weeks in hospital where he had met Jim, who had been visiting one of his large extended family. By the time the doctors and surgeons had agreed that Xander was well enough to leave - as long as he would receive good care - it had been decided that he would spend some weeks staying at the Ruguru Hotel which belonged to Jim's family.
Jim, it had turned out had major problems of his own. His young wife had been killed in a road accident some fourteen months before and he and his little daughter, Hamisi, had gone back home to The Ruguru. He was an archaeologist and normally spent much time in the field; now, with only his daughter to remind him of his beloved wife he was spending as much time with her as he could for as long as he could. The love and support of his family was an extra bonus and one which, he had explained with a smile, was likely to turn his little girl into a spoiled princess, "Not that they don't spoil me, too. Dad was all for having me just relax around the place like some tourist but I insisted that I at least take on the token duties of night manager.
"It's worked well up to now. I've been able to take Hamisi on all of the safaris we run; we've been across to the Mountain several times; and I've been able to catch up on my reading and submit a few articles I'd been meaning to write. But, when it comes down to it..." Here his voice had caught and he had changed the subject, "and now I'm going to be busy looking after you as well."
*****
And now it was over for Xander. He was, if not well, much better than he had been - although it would be difficult for anyone who had not seen him before to believe that this indrawn, withered shell was, actually, comparatively healthy. Those who had known Xander in his Sunnydale days would not have believed that he was the man who had arrived in Nairobi and he had made sure that none of his friends had visited him.
It was a bitter-sweet parting as they gently and slowly undressed each other: another last. As they lay on the bed together, Xander felt the lump in his throat growing. As they commenced upon their last, fond exploration of each other, his tears overflowed and splashed on to the shiny, ebony-coloured chest beneath him. He followed their course with kisses, and licked their trail across the sweet-tasting skin down to the thatch of tightly curled hair in which nestled Jim's pretty purple cock. Xander kissed this, too, and licked it, swallowing his tears as he swallowed the iron-hard flesh.
He pulled one of Jim's legs over his shoulder and carefully prepared him, murmuring words of endearment and encouragement as he slid carefully into his lover, for the last time. All the while trying to hold back further tears as he loved the beautiful man below him - his saviour and his friend.
This would be the last time they would be together, the last time they would see each other. They had agreed that any farewell in public had no chance of discretion so, as soon as Xander walked back out of the room that would be it.
They had made open-ended arrangements about Jim's visiting Xander in England and Xander's coming back for a holiday but, deep down inside, they both knew that they would never meet again. Now was all the time they had left, and the previous four weeks all the memories they could build upon. During this last two hours, their love-making was gentle and tender, wild and passionate and, above all, it was giving.
It wasn't true love that they had but it was love of a sufficient kind to help heal each other; to keep the worst horrors at bay. This was what they could take comfort in when, eventually, Jim was left alone in Xander's room to watch from the window as his lover climbed into the hotel taxi and left him .
Xander dared not look back but he could feel Jim's eyes upon him and he raised his hand in farewell, holding it high in the air for an infinitesimal moment before shutting the door.
He hugged his bag - into which Jim had put a small present, to be opened when he got to England - tightly against his chest and bowed his head.
They had shared a love of a kind sufficient to break their hearts now they were on their own again.
But it was also a love of a kind sufficient that they would continue to support each other, even as they separated for ever.
Most important of all, it was a love of a kind sufficient to let each know that, however long it would take, there was still chance of another love and another lover in the future.
fin
continues in Old Friends, New Beginnings
title: Goodbye to All That
author: Mwrgana
pairing: Xander/OC
summary: Xander leaves the dark continent
beta: Julie,
umalumna
Goodbye to All That
Xander sat on a hotel balcony overlooking the classical Kenya view. He had a battered notebook open on the table before him. His pen lay slack in his hand as he drank in the panorma for the last time.
Below his perch high up on the mountains' foothills, the grasslands unrolled in front of him, dotted with zebra, antelope and hidden lion, until at last, peaking over the western horizon, far away in Tanzania, rose the tip of snowcapped Kilimanjaro. Which, according to the experts was soon to lose its eternal snows owing to global warming.
Excerpt from the diary of Xander Harris:
The Balcony, Cherangani Bar, Ruguru Hotel. Kenya
So, this is my last day in Africa. In just a few hours I'll be skybound and flying towards England. I wonder if I'll ever come back?
It is so big and yet we Americans label all the diversities of tribes, nations, countries and languages into the catch-all 'African.' It means nothing. It's like saying Leafy Tree.
Jim told me that within Africa there is a wider diversity of DNA than in the rest of the world put together. So Hitler was closer related to every single Jew in the world than an African native is to another African native. *G* Or something like that. It's to do with mitochondal something. I'll look it up sometime and read up about it. Giles will know.
*********
The view was one to dream of. As Xander swirled ice and the last of his drink around the glass, he reflected that this sight was at least one pleasant dream of Africa that he would take away with him. He still woke up in a cold sweat night after night, deaming about Nigeria and horrors so intense that he doubted he would ever be able to speak of them. This past two months or so in Kenya, on the other side of the continent, had been a convalescent holiday from the nightmare of his Nigerian Year as he thought of it to himself.
Excerpt from the diary of Xander Harris:
The Balcony, Cherangani Bar, Ruguru Hotel. Kenya.
I've seen so much since I've been here.
I've lived with the sick, the dying, the healthy, the poorest of the poor, the leisured and rich, the hard working and getting rich and the hard working and getting poorer. They 've been noble, kind, wise and generous, mean-spirited, ignorant, evil and vicious. Their position in life and if they've got money gives no hint of how they are. I thought I knew it already but it took here to teach me that people are just people everywhere you go.
I savor my last view of this incredible land as I sip my gin and tonic. *G* That will raise Giles' eyebrow. Both of em probably. Who would have thought donut boy to have got a taste for something so English? I put it down to Jim's bad influence.
Jim. My wonderful Jim.
How am I going to manage without him? He pulled me back from death and kept me in life. If there's a God Jim was a gift to me from him. And I don't know if I'll ever see him again.
******
As he collected hat and bag, ready to go back to his room, Jimuyu, the night manager and hotel owner's son came up to him, "Is everything in order for your departure, Mr Harris?"
"Yeah, I'm all packed and paid up. Just a couple of hours now before the drive to the airport and then it's off to rainy England and back to work. There is just one thing, though, if you could just come up to my room with me to check."
They entered the elevator and as the doors closed, Xander clutched the other man's arms as if he would never let go, "God, I'm going to miss you so much. You're the reason I'm well enough already to go back to work. And how ironic, is that? You should have kept me sick and I could have stayed longer.
“Are you sure you can't come with me, just for six months or so, travel around England with me, meet the people I work with?"
The lift came to a halt and Jim was shaking his head as they stepped out into the corridor. "I can't do that, Xander. You know I can't. Not now. Not yet."
They reached Xander's room and the two men walked slowly in, very much aware that this would be the last time that they would enter this room together. Xander's hand was gentle as he cupped it around the back of Jim's head to pull him in for a long slow kiss full of love and gratitude and regret. Not regret for what they had shared but regret for what had drawn them together and regret that they now had to part.
**************
Xander had been all but dead when he arrived in Nairobi and had spent his first three weeks in hospital where he had met Jim, who had been visiting one of his large extended family. By the time the doctors and surgeons had agreed that Xander was well enough to leave - as long as he would receive good care - it had been decided that he would spend some weeks staying at the Ruguru Hotel which belonged to Jim's family.
Jim, it had turned out had major problems of his own. His young wife had been killed in a road accident some fourteen months before and he and his little daughter, Hamisi, had gone back home to The Ruguru. He was an archaeologist and normally spent much time in the field; now, with only his daughter to remind him of his beloved wife he was spending as much time with her as he could for as long as he could. The love and support of his family was an extra bonus and one which, he had explained with a smile, was likely to turn his little girl into a spoiled princess, "Not that they don't spoil me, too. Dad was all for having me just relax around the place like some tourist but I insisted that I at least take on the token duties of night manager.
"It's worked well up to now. I've been able to take Hamisi on all of the safaris we run; we've been across to the Mountain several times; and I've been able to catch up on my reading and submit a few articles I'd been meaning to write. But, when it comes down to it..." Here his voice had caught and he had changed the subject, "and now I'm going to be busy looking after you as well."
*****
And now it was over for Xander. He was, if not well, much better than he had been - although it would be difficult for anyone who had not seen him before to believe that this indrawn, withered shell was, actually, comparatively healthy. Those who had known Xander in his Sunnydale days would not have believed that he was the man who had arrived in Nairobi and he had made sure that none of his friends had visited him.
It was a bitter-sweet parting as they gently and slowly undressed each other: another last. As they lay on the bed together, Xander felt the lump in his throat growing. As they commenced upon their last, fond exploration of each other, his tears overflowed and splashed on to the shiny, ebony-coloured chest beneath him. He followed their course with kisses, and licked their trail across the sweet-tasting skin down to the thatch of tightly curled hair in which nestled Jim's pretty purple cock. Xander kissed this, too, and licked it, swallowing his tears as he swallowed the iron-hard flesh.
He pulled one of Jim's legs over his shoulder and carefully prepared him, murmuring words of endearment and encouragement as he slid carefully into his lover, for the last time. All the while trying to hold back further tears as he loved the beautiful man below him - his saviour and his friend.
This would be the last time they would be together, the last time they would see each other. They had agreed that any farewell in public had no chance of discretion so, as soon as Xander walked back out of the room that would be it.
They had made open-ended arrangements about Jim's visiting Xander in England and Xander's coming back for a holiday but, deep down inside, they both knew that they would never meet again. Now was all the time they had left, and the previous four weeks all the memories they could build upon. During this last two hours, their love-making was gentle and tender, wild and passionate and, above all, it was giving.
It wasn't true love that they had but it was love of a sufficient kind to help heal each other; to keep the worst horrors at bay. This was what they could take comfort in when, eventually, Jim was left alone in Xander's room to watch from the window as his lover climbed into the hotel taxi and left him .
Xander dared not look back but he could feel Jim's eyes upon him and he raised his hand in farewell, holding it high in the air for an infinitesimal moment before shutting the door.
He hugged his bag - into which Jim had put a small present, to be opened when he got to England - tightly against his chest and bowed his head.
They had shared a love of a kind sufficient to break their hearts now they were on their own again.
But it was also a love of a kind sufficient that they would continue to support each other, even as they separated for ever.
Most important of all, it was a love of a kind sufficient to let each know that, however long it would take, there was still chance of another love and another lover in the future.
fin
continues in Old Friends, New Beginnings