Prompt 62 - Ice-cream - BtVS Chapter One

[thismaz]

I began writing this a couple of years ago, but it kind of died and I was left with this, and a few other orphan parts, and no idea what I was going to do with them. Then it occurred to me that a weekly prompt might be exactly the thing I need to make me take it/them in hand. I still have no idea what's going to happen, but I trust the prompts to help me out.

It might be more of an occasional series than a continuous story (the bits really are mostly unconnected bits) but with luck I might manage to get them fleshed out and turn them into something.

Title: Ice-cream (not very imaginative, I know, but I think I used up my quota)
Fandom: BtVS
Prompt: 62-Solitary Confinement
At: tamingthemuse
Rating: Pg
Summary: Xander, Willow and Jesse in the summer before season one.
Word Count: 3,115
Disclaimer: here.
Now beta'd by the wonderful laazikaat



1. Ice-cream

Sunday

Ice-cream had to be the best invention ever. Of course to a growing boy, and that's what he still was, just, lots of things were the best invention ever. But on a hot afternoon, with school over for the year and the summer stretching ahead full of promise and laziness, ice-cream was definitely the best invention ever.

Xander let the swing rock idly as he glanced around and took another lick of his cone. Across the grass three older boys were sitting under a tree with guitars, chatting and laughing and passing a cigarette around between themselves. One of them had a really quiet smile and he sat so still, like he was in control of everything and nothing could phase him. Where his larger companions gestured with their hands and threw back their heads to laugh, the smaller guy just smiled and nodded. And he had green hair.

Briefly, Xander considered that idea, but realistically he knew he'd look stupid with green hair. Or any other colour. Plus, his Dad would object. Which meant that the green-haired-boy had really cool parents. Xander closed his eyes and imagined the boy and his family sitting around the dinner table, eating home-cooked food and talking about music and important stuff, like Xander had seen on TV. Maybe the boy's Mom and Dad had dyed hair too? Xander tried to picture his own Mom with a pink or purple dye job. He tried to imagine his Dad wanting to talk to him, like Jesse's Dad sometimes did. Snorting to himself he shook his head; no chance of that ever happening. His Dad hardly noticed he was there most of the time, let alone asked about what he did. He watched the boy with green hair strum his guitar and wished he had that kind of cool.

Xander dreamed of being cool, and of being envied for his cool. He rehearsed cool lines to say. The problem was, it never seemed to work out like it did in his head. The feed line was never quite right and the few times he tried to adapt his beautiful, cool line, all that came out of his mouth were broken phrases and mangled words. Somehow he always ended up tripping over his own feet. Sometimes literally. Like last week when he was showing Willow his new prowess on his skate board. He'd got up a good speed and was ready to sail majestically between the passing students, weaving with consummate skill, but just as his foot touched the ground to give that one, last shove, his toe had caught on an empty chip bag and he'd ended up flat on his face under a tangle of long legs and angry pink sandals which turned out to belong to Cordelia Chase of all people. So, in addition to a bloody nose, he'd got a thick ear, been subjected to her shrill castigation and the last week of school had been spent cringing from her sneer and the not so subtle sniggers of her gang of followers.

Maybe, Xander thought, he was going about this all wrong. Watching the guy with the guitar he began to wonder if 'deep' was a difficult look to cultivate, because it sure looked good on him. He allowed his mind to wander that path - silent and mysterious; the tall, dark stranger who everyone wants to know, because he never says anything about himself. He just moves through their lives and no matter how hard they try, they can never discover his tragic secret.

A cool, sticky sensation around his fingers caused Xander to look down and he realised that his ice-cream had melted all over his hand and dripped onto his pants. Even if he got it off, it would stain and he was doomed to spend the rest of the day looking like he'd wet himself. Glancing furtively around he licked his hand clean and wiped it on the underside of the swing, before trying to lift the big glob off his crotch without making the stain worse. He was only marginally successful and now his hand was both sticky and covered in dirt. Giving up, he turned to look across at Willow and Jesse and realised that he had about as much chance of passing himself off as a mysterious stranger as he did of flying to the moon. For a moment he felt a spark of hope; 'now there's a thought, astronauts are cool.' A moment later the spark was extinguished; it was unlikely NASA would have many openings for straight D students - unless it was for sweeping floors or cleaning the locker rooms. 'Could you get cool,' he wondered, 'just by being in the same locker room as cool people? No,' he decided, 'that couldn't be right'; he'd done gym class with the whole of his grade all his life and just about every one of them remained more cool than him. 'Are the janitors at NASA cooler than other janitors? Is it even possible to be cool while scrubbing toilets?' Xander doubted it.

Watching the guitar players, Xander dreamed of having the courage to just walk over and sit with them. He tried to think what a cool person would say as they did that. He imagined the musicians' heads turning towards him as he waved casually - right before they asked him who the fuck he thought he was and told him to get out of their light. 'Yeah' he snorted to himself. 'That would be right'. Maybe he should learn to play the guitar first? It couldn't be that hard, could it? Maybe that could be his summer project. Once he found the money to buy the guitar.

Willow's voice dragged him out of his dreaming and he crunched down on at the last bit of his cone, sending a shot of ice-cream out of the end to land on his thigh. And that was the last straw. His common-sense clicked back into place and he began to laugh at his own craziness as he turned his attention back to his friends.

"This isn't too childish, is it?" Willow asked, glancing between him and Jesse. "Sitting on swings I mean. We're sophomores in September, are we too old for swings? Should we not be doing swings now?"

Jesse raised an eyebrow, but it was Xander who replied. "We're the big kids. We can do what we like. If we want to sit on swings, the little kids can't stop us. Because we're bigger."

"Oh, I don't know, Man," Jesse drawled. "Some of those sixth graders are pretty mean looking." His voice trailed away to silence.

Xander followed his gaze and saw that the object of Jesse's recent desires was walking into view, glossy shopping bags swinging, small band of drones trailing along behind. "Oh, man," Jesse said. "That Cordelia is so fine. Do you think?"

"No!" said Xander. "Not even in your dreams, boy."

Jesse looked at him, offended for a moment, before he sighed and turned away. "She's going to Paris," he said mournful. "I heard her telling Harmony." He brightened. "But not for a few weeks. Don't you think?"

"No," said Willow, with equally brutal honesty. "And certainly never, if you don't pluck up the courage to speak to her."

"And probably not then, either," Xander added discouragingly.

Jesse was once again cast into gloom and Xander tried to think friendship thoughts, but it was difficult to sympathise with Jesse lately. He and Xander had been a pair, since forever. Growing up a few doors from each other, they'd played together for as long as either could remember. As children they'd squabbled and fought, until faced with an external threat, at which point they'd turned, united, to bring it down. Even the introduction of Willow in kindergarten hadn't broken the bond; it had just stretched to encompass her too. Xander had really believed that nothing could tear them apart. And until now, nothing had. But in the last month or so Jesse seemed to have become a completely different person. He said he couldn't be bothered to hang out in the tree house they'd built in his backyard. Xander suspected he'd actually given his brothers permission to use it. He didn't want to loiter in the comic store, browsing for hours and reading the comics on the sly. He didn't even want to watch TV any more, and because Xander's parents had sole use of the TV at home that meant Xander was missing all his favourite shows. All because Jesse decided, one day, that Cordelia Chase was all he wanted. More than he wanted Xander. Cordelia for goodness sake! Jesse had been a founding member of the 'I Hate Cordelia Club'. Now, every time she came in sight, he turned into a big puddle of mush. And when she wasn't in sight he was daydreaming about her. Xander would never have believed he'd think it, but there were times when he got really bored with Jesse lately. He wanted to shake some sense into him. Or walk away. He just didn't understand what was so special about a girl. Of course, Willow was a girl. But that was different. Willow was a friend, so she didn't count. There was no way in hell that Cordelia would ever be a friend. Xander felt a pang of loneliness.

On the whole Willow was more sympathetic to Jesse's state. She seemed quite willing to sit and listen to him ramble on and on about his feelings. It made Xander wonder if she was changing too. He'd caught her looking at him oddly sometimes, as if she was trying to figure him out. It made him nervous and that was just wrong. Willow may bully him occasionally, about homework and stuff, but she never made him uncomfortable. It almost felt like she was trying to find a way to change their friendship, or end it. And when she wasn't doing that she was distracted, seeming to be always thinking about something else, something that wasn't wherever they were. Would the same thing happen to him one day? Would he wake up some morning wanting nothing more than to be close to Harmony Kendal? The very idea left him slightly dizzy and a little nauseous. He didn't want a girl. He just wanted to have his friends back. It was confusing, the way he couldn't seem to do anything right.

"Come on you two," Willow said. "Let's get out of here. Go somewhere else. I recommend more ice-cream in front of the TV." Jesse continued to look doubtful as he gazed after Cordelia, so Willow upped the stakes. "Mom and Dad are away again and I bought gallons of chocolate ice-cream with the food allowance they left me." Jesse showed slight interest, tilting his head in her direction. "Haagen-Dazs," she enticed, "with chocolate chips."

Jesse caved with a grin and a shrug. "Okay," he said. "Just this once. But I'm telling you, I will speak to her before she goes away. Maybe if she goes to the beach..."

"Yeah, yeah, sure you will," said Xander, shaking off his broodiness and slipping out of the swing. He bent down and wiped his hand clean on the grass, picked up his skateboard, linked one arm through Willow's, and with Jesse on her other side they walked out of the park to Willow's house, where they ate so much chocolate-chip ice cream that Xander began to doubt that it really was the best invention ever and Jesse was almost himself as he explained the crucial plot points of the Star Trek episode to a tolerant Willow.

It was late when Xander and Jesse eventually left to go home, but the sky was clear and the streets were calm and they were teenage boys who mocked the superstitions and beliefs of their childhood - Father Christmas, the tooth fairy, monsters under the bed and monsters on the streets. In spite of which, when they said goodnight to Willow, they kept their voices low without thinking about why. If asked, Xander would probably have managed to come up with a reason - not wanting the trouble if they disturbed bad-tempered old Mr Williams next door, for example, but the truth was more instinctive. You just didn't shout in the streets of Sunnydale after dark. It was something kids grew up knowing, in the same way that they knew not to step on the cracks in the sidewalk, and it was talked about in the same way - 'watch out for the monsters if you go out at night'. And just like the cracks in the sidewalk, there came a time when it was no longer spoken of out loud, except to ridicule, but being cautious had become natural.

They headed off down the leafy suburban sidewalk past the large, prosperous houses, many dark and shuttered as the owners took every opportunity to travel for their work. A study would have found that Sunnydale's professional population was amongst the most accommodating in the country - always willing to undertake inconvenient travel whenever asked. It was amazing the number of Sunnydale residents who went into careers in travelling sales.

As they got nearer to their own street the houses got smaller and the yards were less well kept, although more people appeared to be home. Jesse's house was certainly not dark. There were lights on everywhere as the large family crowded into the inadequate space.

Jesse grinned at Xander. "Think I'm in for a lecture, being this late."

Xander grinned back, envying his friend the carefree way he anticipated being in trouble with his parents. He knew that Jesse shared a bedroom with four younger brothers who all drove him crazy in the small space, while Xander had a room of his own where he could hide out, choosing the confinement of solitude over the option of 'family time'. But he also knew that the lecture Jesse got would be motivated by his parents' concern for him. Xander wanted that fiercely. Wanted it, longed for it, prayed for it and despaired of ever getting it.

Jesse turned at the bottom of the steps up to the porch. "See you tomorrow?"

"Sure. I'll call you." Xander raised his hand as he stepped back onto the sidewalk and headed slowly home.

He crept into the house through the kitchen and down the hall to his room, grateful that the TV was loud enough to cover the sound of the door's protest as he forced it shut. Xander didn't believe it was worry for his safety that would cause his parents to notice and object to his lateness. It was more a matter of principle - he'd been told to be home by ten, if he was late he got into trouble.

Tonight, however, he made it without detection and climbed into bed, pretending to be asleep when the TV was shut off and he heard footsteps in the hallway. His door rubbed against the carpet as it was opened a crack and his father's voice whispered, "No. He's in. Looks fine. Must've been back a while," followed by the same soft noise as it was closed. He breathed a belated and unnecessary sigh of relief. It had been okay. It was one of the nights when they were in a good mood and decided to behave like parents. He probably wouldn't have got into trouble in any case. Bunching his pillow under his cheek, he tried to relax and ignore the faint clatter of his father in the bathroom and later his mother's muffled giggles and the creak of their bed springs.

Xander's early childhood had been confusing. It was not that his parents were unkind. It was just that their preoccupation with their own lives was stronger than their interest in his. Depending upon their moods he could be slapped, ignored or even rewarded for doing exactly the same thing. He was well on the way to being a troubled and troublesome child when Jesse, and later Willow, had taken him in hand. Jesse introduced him to the stable environment of his own family, where one more toddler under adult feet was not a problem, and Willow recycled her understanding of civilised behaviour, gleaned from her mother's occasional lectures. In the meantime Xander became skilled in reading moods and body language, so he could profit from the good times and avoid the bad. He was so expert now that he was usually in his room or halfway to Jesse's house before either of his parents had finished taking in the first breath to shout or scream at the other.

Jesse's house had been more of a home to him than his own, for most of his life. He spent as much time there as possible. It was the place he got to eat proper food, even if it was from a plate on his lap because the family didn't have the space for a table big enough to sit them all. It was the place he was given comfort for a scratched knee or a stern warning about road safety when he ran across the street after a ball. It was where he was taught to share his toys and divide up a bag of candy. It was where he learnt about fairness and trust. When he was there he almost felt loved. One of his childhood dreams was that they adopted him, made him theirs, because then they would love him like they loved their own. As he grew older he realised that was crazy, they would never love him like they loved their own children. But he still dreamed.

Xander sighed and turned onto his back, staring blindly up at the ceiling. He could vaguely make out the shapes of the model aeroplanes and spaceships hanging above him. He remembered how he and Jesse had spent a whole day constructing the Babylon 5 and had almost broken both it and their necks trying to hang it. Those thoughts led Xander back to his worries of earlier - that Jesse was leaving him behind. And Willow too - except she had always been way ahead. Nowadays Willow spent more time on her computer than with them, talking to interesting people in the chat rooms, and Jesse kept disappearing to follow Cordelia Chase. Xander didn't understand Jesse's sudden obsession with Cordelia, or any girl. He'd watched Jesse's older brother go through this sort of change and Jesse and he had joked about it between themselves. Now Jesse was the same and Xander still didn't understand. He just felt the loss like an ache in his chest.

This 'verse is continued here

Comments

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

This is an absolutely wonderful view into the teen mind. I absolutely adore where this is going already because all of the characters feel so real. Xander's voice here is just the best I've read, and I'm really curious to get the internal dialogue as Xander learns that the monsters on the streets really are monsters.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you. I am so pleased you like.
And thank you for that thought. As I said, I have no idea where this is going, if anywhere, so any suggestions like that are grist for the mill.

[lit-gal.livejournal.com]

Anywhere you go, I'll follow. Are you sticking with canon or going AU? I have to say, I think the show wasted vamped Jessie

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm going AU, I'm just not sure where *g*
Thank you for the vote of confidence, I'll try not to lead you down any dead ends.