***Important - this chapter has undergone significant revision.  I decided to repost it so that later chapters will make sense.  ~Willa~***

Feedback:  If I got down and begged, would it help?  I'm not too proud.  All FB savored and given lots of love.

Summary: In which Xander carries Andrew in his arms, and Andrew finds out more than he wanted to k now about where he is - but not, to his frustration, *why*...

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03/?

It began with a memory...

And it was a good memory, the kind you keep safely tucked away in a comfy corner of your mind, nestled in with care, taken out only when you can really soak it up and savor the deliciousness of it all.

Yet it wasn't Andrew's memory.  He knew it had never happened.

But he *remembered* it so well...

A fall afternoon.  November?  Close to early winter.  The air had that friendly skittering nip to it that almost gave you goosebumps, but was kind enough to let you enjoy it with a warm sweater on.

He and Xander.  Together.  In a hammock?  A soft net surface that gave beneath their weight but still held them up off the ground; gently rocking, it felt like flying.

Two bodies, twisted and tangled together so closely that it was hard to tell where one began and the other ceased, rocking slowly together at the breeze's whim.  Their bodies and limbs were clad in nicely battered fleece, but it was each other they held onto to warm themselves, and were content.

When they'd rollicked, laughing, into the hammock in the first place, bickering playfully about "it's my turn" and "it so is not, you got it last time", they had ended up collapsing onto it as one, grabbing one another and hugging so hard and fierce that Andrew felt as if he'd melt into Xander, two gooey milk chocolate men melding into one big, sweet lump.

They'd gotten comfortable, every so often murmuring little things - lover's sweet nothings, joker's playful gibes.  But in the end, they'd laid quiet for some time.  At peace.  Content.  Exactly where they should be - with one another.

Andrew's head rested against his lover's, his chin tucked in the crook of Xander's neck.  "Your eyelashes are tickling me," Xander murmured sleepily.

"Sorry."  Andrew pressed a gentle, warm kiss against the maligned skin.  "Better?"

"You missed."

He laughed a little as he snuggled more deeply against, into, Xander.  That was their running in-joke - any kiss that didn't end up on the lips or the cocks was a "miss".

He enjoyed hitting the target.

So did Xander.  A tingle ran down Andrew's spine, finishing with a small explosion in his groin at the thoughts and memories summoned forth.  If he moved his hand, just a little, or perhaps his calf --

But -- no.  It wasn't the time.  That moment was meant and made for peace and pleasure, just knowing that he was with the one he loved, the one who loved him.

And it was good.

But it wasn't his memory.  He could feel-it-taste-it-smell-it-see-it-touch-it in his mind's eye, but it had never happened.  Not in his history.

A chill utterly unlike the one he'd just remembered so vividly ran through him, and he shuddered.

"Are you cold?"  Xander pulled Andrew a little closer to his chest.  "It's freezing out here.  You're barely dressed.  Just a T-shirt and jeans in November; you should know better."  Warm, callused hands chafed at the parts of Andrew's chilled arms that could be reached.  "It can't be helping that you're soaking wet.  We'll get you back home and dry you off good.  OK?"

Not OK.  Andrew shook his head with all the strength he could muster - it wasn't much.  "Not my home," he managed to mutter.  "It's not - not right.  Not right here."  He tried to force his eyelids open, but the warm blanket of sleepiness pulled them immediately closed again.  "Don't think I'm supposed to be here," he protested.  Although he wasn't sure why... or was he?  Things weren't making sense inside his head.

He could hear Xander's jaw tighten.  "Yes, you are supposed to be here.  You belong with me."

"No."  Andrew struggled.  Moisture welled up in his closed eyes at the futility of it.  "Stop.  Cruel.  Don't."

"Am I hurting you?  God, Andrew, you've got to tell me.  I don't know my strength sometimes."  Stroke, stroke, with the sweet, painfully gentle hands.  "I'm so much bigger than you."

The words triggered a --

                                  *flash*

                                              and another memory played out as vividly as a plasma-screen DVD against the inside of his eyelids.

Night.  Cool.  Dark.  He remembered himself snuggling deep into the warmth of a bed that gave beneath him as nothing else ever had.  He breathed in two strong smells at once: the strange, birdlike scent of the mattress that billowed beneath him, and the deep musk of the man that moved ever so gently above him.  Deep, wet kisses seared his jaw, the curve of his neck, his closed eyes, his eager, open lips.  Kisses that he returned with all the willing fervor he had in him, each one devouring a little more of the man that devoured him in turn.

Xander.

Loving him.

Wanting him.

Showing him.

They were stripped naked, the both of them, and the sheen of sweat on their bodies had them sliding slickly against one another.  The crispness of curling hair on Xander's chest felt coarse against his smoother skin, but it was a chafing that Andrew adored.  Just the friction from that would be enough to bring him to hardness, if he hadn't already been that way just from the sight of his lover.  This much contact was sweet but he ached - burned - for deeper, lower, harder, more.

In his memory, Xander teased him, keeping his hips canted up so that Andrew couldn't bring their swollen cocks together, couldn't achieve the joining of flesh that he grew desperate for.  Cruel/kind with passion's hunger, he'd announced his intention to worship Andrew with his mouth alone and looked to be making good on that promise.

Andrew stirred in the now-Xander's arms, horrified to realize that his dick had stirred at the vividness of the memory.  ~Don't let him notice, please don't let him notice~ he silently begged whatever might be listening.

The memory stole up and swallowed him again. 

Again so real, as if he were there, in the flesh, not merely reliving it within his mind.  Finally and too soon Xander's rough, tender hands caressed Andrew's back as he lifted him up and away from the goose-down mattress, easing him back into the cradle of his own waiting hips and equally eager, full flesh, straining for completion.  They laughed together with the relief of contact at last, chuckles muffled by one another's mouths.  Playful, they twisted and turned until Andrew found that he lay beneath Xander, full-body to full-body.  He broke away from the searing contact of their mouths to tilt his head back in a cry of delight.

Xander always tried to be gentle in that position.  Not to crush with his greater height and weight.  But just then Andrew burned for the solidness of his lover atop him, moving just like that, just so, ohgodohgodohgod --

"Xander," he breathed, awash in the sea of sensation, of mind-searing pleasure.  "Don't stop.  Don't ever stop."

Hard flesh thrust slickly against the hollows of hips.  "I won't if you won't," Xander breathed back to him, dragging his hands down Andrew's back, down under the curves of his ass.  He brought him closer, deepening the contact, as if he wanted to absorb Andrew's very being.  "Don't ever leave me."

"Ah - ah - I won't -" Andrew gasped.  "I swear - I won't --"

                            -- and then --
                                    *blank*

The memory stopped there.  Andrew tossed and twisted in now-Xander's arms, murmuring unhappily to himself as he found himself snapped back to the cold, confusing present.

"It didn't happen," he mourned in a ragged whisper, all he could manage.  "Why do I remember it?"

"Shhh, shhh," now-Xander tried to soothe him, snuggling Andrew's limp head into the crook of his shoulder.  "You're tired.  Maybe sick.  I'll get us home.  I'll take care of you."

"Why?" The tears started to well up again, dampening his eyelashes.  "After you - after I - it didn't happen, not to me, not like this." 

~Why are you being so nice to me?  What happened?  How?~

"It's okay," Xander cosseted.  "We'll be there soon."

"All these things!"  Andrew fought to swim back up out of the darkness that had such a hypnotic pull on him.  "They didn't happen to me.  Or to you.  But I remember them like they did.  Why?"

He could tell that this-Xander didn't understand him.  How could he?  Andrew didn't even understand himself.  The two vivid flashbacks had shaken him to his core.  They felt so real - but they were so *unreal*.  They never happened.

::But they did happen, to the you-here-and-now.::

Andrew flinched violently, twisting in Xander's arms so that the larger man nearly tripped and instinctively tightened his grip.  "What's wrong?"

"Who was that?" Andrew twisted his head, searching for the source of the voice that had come from - it looked like - nowhere.

Xander attempted to stroke, to comfort.  "No one's here but you and me.  We're almost home.  Hold on just a little longer, sunshine.  OK?"

Andrew thumped Xander in the chest with all the strength of a newborn kitten.  "No!  This is important.  If it's your home, it can't be mine.  Not anymore.  Don't you understand?"

::It can be.  And it is.  Always was.  Here-and-now.  Don't *you* understand - yet?::

"Didn't you hear that?" he whispered, knowing that Xander hadn't.

::No.  He cannot hear me.  Just you.  Only you.::

"Why?"

::You don't need to speak out loud, you know.  You'll only make him think you've gone mad.::  The strange voice sounded amused, now, like a parent kindly laughing at a child learning how to walk, forever falling on its padded bottom.  The voice held a calm assurety that he would learn from his mistakes.  It would be patient; it could afford to be.

Andrew held himself still with a great effort, though he could feel himself beginning to tremble.  ~Who are you?~ he thought wildly at it.

::Nothing you need to know the name of.  For now.::

~I don't belong here.  Do I?~

::Of course you do.  Now.  This is your home now.::

"This is not my home!" Andrew protested, out loud, fearful enough to lose the control that had allowed him to direct his thoughts to the strange voice.

He felt Xander's carry-grip stiffen.  "You still feel that way?" he asked, tone darkening with a mix of sorrow and anger.

Andrew shook his head.  "Don't know.  So confused." 

He opened his eyes again and stared up at the man holding him.  For all intents and purposes it was Xander, down to the last detail.  Rough, dark stubble.  A wide mouth made for smiling and laughing, now turned down with unhappiness.  One warm brown eye staring at him, rich brown come-and-hurt-me, the other one an empty socket, covered with a black suede patch.

The eye-patch...

A rough hitch of breath caught in Andrew's chest.

Caleb had gouged out *his* Xander's left eye.

This Xander's left eye was whole and perfect.  He wore the patch over his right eye.

"Your face," Andrew breathed.  He ached to reach out and make sure it was real - to touch - to understand -

And then -

Oh, god.  Oh god, oh god, oh god.

Now he knew.

This wasn't his world.

Really wasn't his home.

And he had no idea where he was.

Realization gave him the new strength of panic.  "This is the wrong world for me!"  Andrew struggled in vain.  "Put me down!"

Xander's eye narrowed.  "No way in hell."

"Let me go!"  Andrew squirmed, rapidly losing strength if not will.  "This isn't the me you want!  You aren't you.  And this isn't my home.  Stop it!"

::But you belong here now.  Stop fighting, little mortal.  What's done - is done - and there will be no going back on the bargain struck between us.::

"Please, please!"  Almost hysterical now, Andrew fought against the strong arms holding him tight as prison bars.  "Xander, put me down!  You don't understand.  I'm not who you think I am!"

"No."  Xander gripped him tighter, seeming no longer to care if he hurt or didn't.  "We're almost home.  I'll put you down there, and not a second sooner."

Andrew knew what would happen, what Xander had planned.  He'd lay him to down to rest in a feather bed that wasn't his own, and he'd want answers that weren't Andrew's to give.  One of the tears gathering in his eyes finally broke free and ran down the line of his nose.  He'd rest in that bed - where a him that wasn't really him had made love to the Xander that wasn't his Xander - and he'd fall that much deeper into the lie that was this life. 

::This is no lie,:: the invisible voice said mildly.  ::You are this Andrew now.  He will be your Xander, in all the ways that matter.  You'll see.::

"What?"  Andrew's vision began to slide out of focus.  His struggles had made him tired again... so tired...

::You are him,:: the voice slithered in his mind.  ::You are him and now he is who you were.  You have traded, he and you, places and lives and loves.  Just as we agreed.::

"I don't understand."  Even to himself, Andrew's voice sounded small and frightened as a lost child. 

::In time, you will.  But for now - until this Xander-who-is-now-your-own has seen you safely to the home that *is* now your own - you shall sleep, little mortal man.::

"No," Andrew murmured, fighting the rushing wave.  "You can't - can't make me."

::I have no need to make you do anything.  Your body has been torn apart and reformed as you passed from that which was reality to that which is reality.  You are weary from the change.  Be kind to yourself, rest, and recover.::

"I don't trust you."  Andrew's voice was a breath, almost lost to any listening ear - but not Xander's.

He felt the shudder run through Xander's chest.  "You will again," he said, sounding as if it were something he'd hoped for - prayed for.  "I'll make it up to you.  I swear.  I wish that I could --"

The word echoed in Andrew's mind.

Wish.

*The bargain they had struck.*

Wish.

"No!"  Andrew gave a great lunge and nearly broke free.

Xander caught him by the barest of margins and pinned him tight.  "No!"  Andrew drummed his fists against the prisoning arms and chest.  "No, no, no, no, no!"

"Andrew, please!"  Xander shook him lightly.  "Stop it.  Don't.  Let me take care of you."

"I can't!  I can't let you."  Andrew's heart ached, cracked, burned.  All he could feel, just as sharp as before, was all the pain that his old Xander had dealt to him.  "You'll hurt me.  I'll hurt you.  I know!"

"I could never hurt you."

He knew this wasn't the Xander who'd done it, who'd written that letter.  But Andrew couldn't hold back the words:  "You broke my heart."

Xander's warm mouth dipped to his ear.  Andrew shivered, remembering/not-remembering kisses that had been lavished there in days gone by.  "And you broke mine," Xander whispered.

He pulled back.  "But I - god help me - I still love you.  And now you're - we're - home, where we belong.  Almost there."

"No..."

Xander ignored him.  Raising his head, he called out with a voice loud enough to hurt Andrew's ears:  "Buffy!  Giles!  Come help me, quick!"

"Xander?  You're home early."  Giles' voice, clipped and British as ever, responded instantly.  But it wasn't Andrew's Giles.  A not-his-Giles.

"About time, too.  Did you know Willow's teething?"  Ah, yes, that would be the dulcet tones of an irritated Slayer.  Buffy.  Not-his-Buffy. 

Not-his-Giles harrumphed.  "Yes, well, as I clearly warned you, she's chronologically at the age where--"

"She bit my finger!"

"Buffy, please.  Xander?  What have you got there?"  Not-his-Giles sounded intrigued.  Eyes still shut, Andrew could picture the Watcher stepping closer, peering through the dark.  "Good lord!"

"He's home."  Xander's voice broke.  Andrew found himself snuggled closer, tighter, nearer and dearer.  "He came back to me."

"Holy god," the not-his-Buffy-voice said, stunned.  "Is that really --?"

"Andrew."

"After all this time," not-Giles murmured.  "Is he well?"

"I don't know.  I don't think so.  But he's here, Giles, he's here.  Really here at last."

~I'm not,~ Andrew wailed inside his head.  ~I'm not the me you were waiting for.  Not the me you want.~

He felt the sudden, dry touch of another pair of male hands, resting against his forehead and pulling back first one eyelid and then another.  "Is he awake?"

"I'm not sure.  He was."

Not-Giles' hands smelled of chemicals that stung Andrew's nose.  Alchemy!  He wanted to laugh.

"He's fevered," the older man said critically.  "Bring him inside.  I'll make up an infusion of willowbark; as I recall, that's good for bringing down a temperature.  Buffy, fetch some sheets and make up a cot--"

"No!"  Xander's voice whip-cracked the word.  "The bed.  I'm taking him to my bed."

"Xander," not-Giles protested.  "Are you really --"

"It's bigger.  Softer.  Comfortable."  Andrew found himself snuggled closer again, protectively.  "And it's my home.  I decide what happens here."

Pause.

"As you wish," not-Giles said shortly.  "Bring him in, then.  When he's well, perhaps he'll feel like telling us why he's been gone for so long."

And with that, he felt himself being carried up three steps, manuevered through a door and into a welcoming warmth and light that felt not like the house he'd left behind, but   just like the home he knew he had never had...


~TBC~

B A C K