Title: The Many Men of Andrew Wells
No ship.
Andrew, post-AtS series, tries to date.
Quick beta from i_warren. Please help. Write the next part.
( More )

Let it be known, I haven't missed a single class since I've been at UC Sunnydale. I even audited a couple of classes that I thought might be cool to take next semester. Jonathan, who is struggling to maintain his GPA as WELL as conquer the FF/X-2 world, has missed some though. He says that's normal. Actually, everyone seems to think it's normal. College is weird like that. It hadn't really occurred to me until I was a couple of weeks into classes, but: the teachers don't actually care if you go. They usually don't even NOTICE if you aren't there.

Which makes it easy to flake out, I guess. If no one's watching and no one cares, you're free to make your decisions as willy-nilly as you want. It just so happens that my decision is to attend class. On time. Prepared. With my thinking cap on and studying materials. My pencils are sharpened, if you know what I mean.

I'll bet Tucker misses a lot of classes. I wouldn't know, really, as the only class I have with him is Latin. He's there most of the time, sitting in the back of the lecture session and whispering things to his girlfriend, only just barely under his breath. I could have sworn that he said my name the other day. It was like "...psh pshy pssh psh Andrew's face... psh psh." But when I turned around to glare at him, he spit his gum at me and told me, kind of loudly, to mind my own business. The professor didn't seem to notice the gum-spitting, which was a total bummer. I had to remove his gum from the shoulder of my jacket and stick it under the fold-out desktop. Not very cool. Everyone sitting between Tucker and I narrowly averted being hit with it instead, but even still, they all looked at me like it was my fault.

Which brings me to my next point: my self-defense class is going REALLY well. I think I'll probably be able to beat Tucker up by Winter of 2006. With Jonathan as my sparring partner, though, I think my progress is impeded. He's really... naggy and sensitive. I thought about asking Warren or Xander if they'd spar with me, as they are more or less my brother's size, but... we're not at that point in any of our friendships. And both of them kind of scare me. At least with Jonathan, *I* feel like "the cool one" -- but with both Xander and Warren, I feel like an annoying, dorky little brother again.

I need to take an assertiveness course next semester, I think. I wonder if I can do that over the internet? Or maybe there's some kind of magic that I can look into for self-confidence boosts? Note to self: ask Jonathan about upping my personal, real-life stats via mystical means.

Anyway, this is what I'm thinking about on my way to class. Walking quickly, keeping my eyes on my shoes, readjusting my bag every five seconds. I'm also considering getting headphones so I can walk around, work on my conversational Klingon, and not have to talk to anyone.

[[Open to anyone that wants to trip Andrew and make him fall down.]]

Hey, you guys. (Laggers, busikins, cold-hearted playas and miscreants! Lend me your ear!)

I just put up a FIRE FIRE OMFG THE DORMS ARE ON FIRE tag from Andrew and Jonathan. Tag in! From wherever you are. You don't have to interact with Jonathan and Andrew, either. (Especially as I didn't check with Anne and I'm going to see Sin City shortly, woot!) Your characters could be in the dorms, across town, in outer space... whatever. OOC, strange whims, mayhem! Do it!

It's April Fool's! Let's dork out!

With permission from our modliness, the Pope Christina Lollawhatsit the XIV, this weekend is an approved free for all. So, don't worry about your current storylines, or lack thereof. Get your yayas out. We have our chat tomorrow night, where we can get all plotty with it, so for right now, have at it! Tag in, tag out. Tag tag tag!

Kate (Andrew and Tucker)

Mom called me first thing, shattering this really cool dream I was having about At-ats and a million squishy ewoks. She wanted me to tell my brother that he'd gotten a phone call from a big Los Angeles law firm. She was "very concerned that he was in trouble with drugs."

"I don't like how he wouldn't look me in the eye the other night at dinner," she complained. I held the phone away from my ear as Jonathan stirred awake.

Rolling my eyes, I sighed into the phone. Tucker hadn't looked my mom in the eye since he was maybe 12 years old. I don't know why she insisted that it was a sign of distress in Tuckerland. All the same, I promised her that I would pass on the message when I saw him next (year) and that I loved her, too.

Jonathan was okay with going over to Tucker's dorm before we went to breakfast so we could tell him the message. I suggested that maybe Tucker would want to come to breakfast, even though Jonathan appeared to have some very serious doubts.

"He doesn't want anything to do with us. You told me about what a jerk he was when you took over your laundry. Let's not invite him to breakfast. He won't come and he'll figure out a way to twist it so we feel bad for eating - or something," Jonathan said, matter-of-factly.

He was right, of course, but I had to deliver the appropriate "Hey dude, that's my brother you are talking about!" Even though it was really just half-hearted.

Plus, I was thinking that maybe Tucker's roommate Warren would want to go. Not that I wanted to tell Jonathan that. But, maybe it would be cool if they could meet.

So, we walked over. Teeth brushed, hair combed, looking dang college-y. I even gelled my hair, because you never know when you are going to meet your perfect match while crossing the Quad. I found my way through a fairly unfamiliar dorm, telling Jonathan about my dream. When we got to Tucker's room, I knocked solidly.

"Do you think it's weird that 'rocket-propelled grenades' and 'roleplaying games' have the same acronyms?" I asked idly, thinking back to a conversation that me and Jonathan had before leaving our dorm. He shrugged, and we waited for Tucker (or his cool roommate) to open the door.

[[ Open to Jonathan and Warren, for some Troika-formative fun. ]]

What do you do, after a full evening of espionage and sabotage? Jonathan and I had given Fred's new boyfriend (or his bike, anyway) the what-for. Oh yeah, we did. We giggled about it all the way back to the cafeteria, where we shared a lovely trough of tater tots and washed down our success with super-sized Squirts. Jonathan seemed to be in way better spirits, even engaging in a rousing game of Kevin Bacon (Luke Perry to KB in 2 STEPS! OH YEAH! I RULE!) with me.

Back at our dorm room, we worked on some WarHammer figurines for a while before the light got bad and our eyes were tired. In the end, Jonathan and I sat up for a while and watched the Princess Bride. Again. I thought about calling that Warren guy who Tucker roomed with, but chickened out. He was probably building something amazing and complicated -- with gears and expansion packs and hydraulics -- and I was just watching Inigo Montoya's speech for the 87th time. It's not like I could invite him to hang out.

"Anybody wanna peanut?" I prompted, looking over at Jonathan who was wrapped up in a blanket on his bed. He was fast asleep. I turned out his desk light and switched off the movie. He always fell asleep first. It was really kind of annoying, because then he'd go around telling everyone that he'd seen the movie, when I knew for a fact that he'd start a movie off and then wake up during the ending credits.

I switched off my own desk lamp, said some half-assed prayer about making some friends in college and figuring out how to get Tucker to be my friend again, and fell asleep, too.

There were receipts and some books that looked like they might have been ledgers at one point. If someone had actually kept logging expenses and accounting for stuff. But everything fell off -- it looked like -- when stuff in LA got weird. I guessed, anyway, because nothing had been logged for just about ever.

I sat in the twirly office chair that maybe Harmony had been sitting in when I called from the bus station. I wondered why no one had seen her here, or why I hadn't even heard her name since I'd been back. Twirling around in the chair a couple of times, I considered the fact that she'd possibly written something down. I mean, probably not. Like, maybe a Post-It or something. She managed to find the slush fund easy enough, which was good for me, but bad for accounting.

On the desk, there were postcards that a couple of the girls had written to people far away. Unstamped. No one bought stamps, not anymore. The postcards just sat there, looking stupid. I thumbed them lazily, thinking about how we were the same. An afterthought -- something that seemed like a good idea at the time, but kind of just wound up gathering dust in the corner anyway. Still, they'd written them with all the hope and intent that anyone wrote a postcard with, right? "Wish you were here" or "wish I was there" ... "I miss you" and "please give my love to everyone." Stampless, though -- they had no real point. The girls had written them to make contact, but then, distracted by big life-and-death stuff, the postcards were just going to sit there, get old and become obsolete.

Just like Calecovision. Just like me.
( Although, Caleco kind of ruled. )
[[Open to anyone who is just around.]]

Anything Goes at now_ish:

I didn't so much steal the book as ... well, you know. I took it without anyone seeing or knowing. I smuggled it upstairs under my hoody, claiming that I was retiring early to do some studying. That wasn't a lie, really. Reading this book would be like studying. I'd leaf through the pages in the relative privacy of my room, with two Hot Pockets and an English Beat CD to keep me company. Getting to my rroom, I felt just like Bastian Balthazar Bux, holed up in the attic of his school with a few sandwiches, and opening up The Neverending Story for the first time.

Except The Neverending Story's cover was like, way way cooler than the cover of Everything You Wanted to Know About Demon Loopholes (But Were Afraid to Ask). NeS had the Auryn on the cover, but this just had the title in gold leaf and, in the corner, something that looked like a smashed bug. I don't think anyone here had really used it, except for the noted bug-smashage. Some bargain-hunting genius picked it up at an EVERYTHING MUST GO!!! W&H clearance and I, Andrew Wells, Summoner Extraordinaire, was about to reap the benefits.

I woke up an hour later because my CD was skipping right in the middle of "Best Friend"... the part when it's all "talk about yourself again, you you you" was just going "you you you you you you you you you you." Dear god in glowing places, this book was boring. Not even like, Episode II boring, but, "Steven Wright Reads My Friend Flicka" boring. I must have passed out of sheer exhaustion somewhere between Article Five-Thousand and Sixty Seven Point Oh One One Seven Tenths and... yeah, whatever the next number was. I thought the book would be cooler, like, a spellbook. Or even a cookbook. A textbook, even. At least illustrated, come ON! Instead it was just like the title sort of implied -- a big book of really boring legal loopholes. No wonder the intended reader was afraid to ask.

After fixing the CD player by throwing my neck pillow at it, I decided to employ another method. Hovering my hands over the closed book, I concentrated on focusing on finding the right spell. I tried doing the "Om" thing too, just in case that would help. "Om." Keeping my eyes closed, I opened the book and pointed at a random page. Chance divination... it works. It works. It --

Yuck. "Reguritation of Newborn Sacrifices, Bile Market Value, and You!" read the heading. No. The divination wasn't working.

I'd had just about enough of this. Out of sheer frustration, I shoved the book off my bed. It landed heavily on the floor, bouncing off the binding and coming to rest up against my laundry hamper. Out of sheer curiosity, I rolled out of bed and crawled over to it to check out the page. Maybe now? How 'bout now?

"By gum..." I murmured to myself. Just because, you know, it sounded cooler than "Eureka!"
( What does that even MEAN?? )
[[ Thread with First Wish ]]
[[ Thread with the Second Wish ]]
[[ Thread with Third/Fourth Wishes ]]

I rattled the dice in my hand, hesitating. There was just no way I could win here. I had two DMs and I was the only player. Warren and Jonathan looked at each other and said in unison, "Roll the 20, Andrew."

So I rolled. The dice started off small and, in rolling across the lair's game table, grew bigger and bigger until it tumbled onto the floor the size of a cinder block. I lurched from my chair to check how it landed. It was a 20! I rolled a natural 20! I clapped my hands, but Jonathan glanced at it at the same time I did and said, "Critical fumble."

I sat back down and folded my arms across my chest. Warren glowered at me and repeated what Jonathan had just said: "Critical fumble. Roll for damage."

See what I mean? I couldn't win. This was the worst D&D game ever. I had two DMs that I couldn't please, no fellow adventurers, all the snacks were gone and I didn't have any pants on. Warren and Jonathan, however, were in matching orange jumpsuits. They were buddies, and so they got to wear matching jumpsuits. I was the outsider, so: no pants. At least this time I had boxers on... sometimes I'm not wearing anything, and those are the worst nights of all.

Reluctantly, I picked another 20-sided die out of the fishbowl that rested in the middle of the battle map. Rolling for damage after a critical fumble was normally kind of stressful, but in this circumstance, it was excruciating. I wanted to roll low, so there would be less points doled out to Erlichda, my Half-Elven Mage. He was already pretty much just a torso after the last battle, and he'd just critically fumbled with his remaining right arm. This could be the end of Erli, as he only had three hit points left. Come on '1', come on '1', I mumbled. And then, I rolled.

It was a one! Dear god in heaven, that's rare. I'd just rolled a natural twenty and, then, a natural one. Erli was safe. Hallelujah and a hearty boo-yeah. I'd beat Warren and Jonathan at their own game! At least, until the next round of combat. I grinned and looked at my dead friends happily.

"Maximum damage," they said, together, smirking and giving each other high fives. I slumped down into my seat and watched as Jonathan collected my character sheet and tore it in half. Goodbye, Erlichda. I'm sorry that you lost all your limbs just by walking into town.

"But it was a one, you guys. That's no fair. It was a one and there are no editions -- not to mention no universes -- in which rolling a one means that you'd get maximum damage on a fumble, even after fumbling on a natural 20," I complained. It was useless, though. They weren't listening to me. We'd already played this game four times this week. Every game, a new character, then the same result. Erli lasted the longest, but ... yeah. He was all torso-guy.

Warren shrugged and assembled his papers. Eventually, he continued speaking without Jonathan, "Your character falls on his own weapon and cuts his own head off. His corpse lays unmolested in the woods until an evil witch skins him alive and his former best friend stabs him in the gut. Game over. Please begin rolling stats for a new character."

I resigned myself to creating another character. I rolled and jotted notes and rolled and jotted notes, as Warren and Jonathan discussed afterworldly gossip that I didn't care about, about people that didn't exist. They always did this, and I hate it. I hate being shut out. I still didn't understand why we couldn't just hang out and enjoy each others' company like we used to. Play some D&D, eat some chips, drink some soda.

Suddenly, something moved to my left and I gasped and turned to look. Oh. It was just Anya. Not that surprising, as I'd been thinking about her non-stop for three weeks. She looked different, though, than she did in my daydreams. I glanced at Warren and Jonathan, who had also noticed her blinky approach. I hastily got up and pointed at my chair, "Hey, Anya. You can sit there. You're probably tired."

She looked at me, confusedly. Oh! I'd forgotten to ask the guys if it was okay if she sat in for me. "Hey, um, Warren and Jonathan? Can Anya play with us? I'm kind of tired of being the only player. Maybe I could DM for a while and she could play with you guys? That'd be fun, right?"

In perfect synchronization, Warren and Jonathan looked at Anya and then shook their heads at me, "No way, bitch. Girls aren't allowed. This is the lair and you know that it's for boys only."

I looked sadly back to Anya, who was still gaping at me, and shrugged. Warren was the boss, along with Jonathan, and I had no choice other than to follow their lead. "I'm really sorry, Anya. Warren doesn't have skin on under his jumpsuit and it makes him grouchy. And Jonathan can't seem to get past when I stabbed him and opened up the Seal. They're mad at me all the time. So you can't play. But you could watch! It's easy to learn. I mean, normally it is. This game is kind of screwy, though. It's up to you. I'm glad you could drop by though... do you want a Mr. Pibb? Because, um, we're out."

For the first two days after the whole Sunnydale collapse, I was going completely batty. I wasn't eating bugs or throwing my poo or anything, but I couldn't eat, I didn't feel clean even after running out of hot water in the shower, I had zero interest in going out for mexican with the others ...I couldn't even handle reading. And I really, really wanted to read because 1) we were in LA and there are some really good comic book stores there and 2)-- best alone-time escapism ever (aside from maybe Final Fantasy XI). Xander even took me to a store to cheer me up; I bought four singles ...that are currently still in the bag that I brought them home in three weeks ago.

But, heavenly handshakes, the first two days were the creepiest. I couldn't stop thinking about it. The same ten minutes over and over in my head, even when I was watching TV or listening to Dawn and Willow discuss what they wanted to do next.

The loop in my brain went a little something like this (hit it): in the hallway, I was supposed to be killed by any supervamps that had gotten past the girls at the seal. That was the arrangement. I'm not saying I had my heart set on it or anything, but, I really honestly just knew that they were going to kill me. It was fated, right? I would be torn apart by an ubervamp and then Buffy or maybe one of the new slayers would chop its head off and, later, when everything was over, Anya would tell Xander how I'd served my purpose ...and died trying to do the right thing.

But, when I heard the footsteps coming up the halls behind us, everything got all screwy. Time really does get weird when there is danger. Suddenly there were those gross eyeless bringer guys all over the place and I thought, "How did they know?" Anya was waving her sword around as I cowered behind her. I backed myself into a corner so no one could sneak up on me and before I knew it, dudes who couldn't even see were all up in my face. I could see the curved knife coming at me and I remember that. A knife. I hadn't thought about it, but I think I knew it would be a knife that killed me.

But, I didn't pee my pants like I thought I was going to and my life didn't flash before my eyes like I hoped it would. Thinking that maybe murderers don't get the whole life re-cap, I wasn't surprised when it didn't come. Instead, I saw Anya's sword come through the chest of the guy who was getting ready to stab me; the shock and goriness of it knocked me straight to the ground. She saved me before I could even think about using my own sword. As I realized that, I raised my own sword up ...at the same time that my other attacker lunged at me and impaled himself. I seriously almost laughed. It was like something out of Pumpkinhead. I wanted to tell Anya to check him out, halfway hoping I'd come up with some pithy phrase, but as soon as I glanced at her, I saw the bringer get her from the back. The back that I was supposed to be protecting.

So, yeah. I saw what happened to Anya. My eyes were open, my heart was pounding, and I saw it go down. Her go down. It was horrible, even from the back, even with bringer blood in my eyes. Thank Xavier, I couldn't see her face, because then her expression would have replayed in my head, too. Two days of watching Anya get chopped in half from the back was already driving me bananas, and I had to get it out. I decided to sit Xander down and tell him, because he loved her and he was the only other person, I thought, that might miss her. I don't completely understand why, but he said he didn't want to know any details. He was like "She's dead and it's over." Move on, is what he said, and I don't know if he meant he should, or I should. All I knew is that I couldn't. Not when every time I closed my eyes -- and a lot of times while they were still open -- I saw Anya die again.

Then I spent a couple days wondering if I was in love with Anya. It's not that weird of a thought... she was funny and pretty in a kind of young Lucille Ball way. So, love? Why else would I miss her so much, or feel so bad when I thought about her? It sounds stupid and I'll freely admit that I don't know very much about what love feels like, but if love is feeling an ache in your chest every time you think of someone, or wishing that they were just hanging out in the kitchen, doing something stupid, daily crap like washing carrots -- that's how I felt. Jonathan died because of me. Warren died in spite of me. But Anya died for me. Even if she interrupted my farewell speech, she was the only person who actually cared if I lived or died. All that stuff we talked about her loving humans... she loved me. I get that. She was protecting me. I mean, she was protecting herself, too, but, she went out fighting. Whereas ...I didn't go out at all.

So the question I meant to ask, while riding in the hero bus wasn't so much, "Why didn't I die?" as much as "--instead of Anya."


Anyway, so, screenwipe. I re-watched my documentary and looked at how she looked at Xander, and... I wasn't in love with her. I just loved her. So, long story short, I tried to bring her back. There were precedents, of course. Buffy, for one, but that was different. She'd died a mystical death, so I was kind of on my own with the whole 'death by stabination' thing. And, everyone knew about the Mrs. Summers zombie that almost ruined everything between Buffy and Dawn. No one would help me, probably because I didn't completely tell anyone what I wanted to do. Instead, I went and talked to a shaman and asked about bringing Anya back. On one hand, I was asking about resurrecting a girl who used to be a demon, but she was also a demon, who used to be a girl. Was I looking for a resurrection (which is totally hard and like, way beyond my capabilities)? Or, since the circumstances were different than with a normal ol' human, what about summoning Anyanka?

The shaman told me that the best way would be to maybe combine both. He was very wise and very... whoa. Weird. I don't think I should mention any names, but he's a musician. That used to perform with a sock on his wingding. Yeah. (The short one. Who knew?)

Anyway, I set about it. It was settled, at least in my head. Anya was my hero. And probably the only friend I'd had since Jonathan. Don't get me wrong -- the others were nice enough to me, but, none of them thought much of me, if they thought of me at all. Anya was different. And, after watching her parts of the footage I took at the Summers' house, I pretty much just holed up in my motel room with a pile of Power Bars and I worked on the spells.

But not hard enough, though, apparently. Because it didn't work. I didn't really figure out what parts of the ritual should adhere to the summoning and which should follow the instructions for resurrections. And the whole "blood of the innocent" thing was a complete disaster. I bought a guinea pig from the pet store and they wouldn't let me leave the store without naming it. (Strider.) So, I had to kill a pet, when I was hoping to just kill a little, inconsequential animal. I cried a lot. It's no fun at all to murder a cute little fuzzy woobie and I had a hard time getting enough blood out of him. It. Blood out of it.

In the end, just: crackle, fizzle, pop. No Anya. No Strider. No demon pimpdaddy. No message from the gods or the powers-that-be. Just, nothing. A little blood on my hands and on the hotel towels. Just a mess, but no Anya. Three weeks of working and planning and suffering, and I only wound up with bloodstains and a bad taste in my mouth.

Disappointment tastes funny. And... not 'funny ha-ha.'

now_ish: [ Andrew goes to return a crystal thingamabob to Fred. ]

ftvs: [ Andrew finds Faith passed out on the counter of the Blue Moon. ]

ftvs: [ Andrew gets a visit from Anya (as Leia) in his dreams. ]

( I beg to differ )

The closer I got to LA, the more nervous I got. By the time I was ready to get off at the bus station, I was a ball of stress. My hands were shaking.

My last night in St. Louis was weird. I got the money that afternoon and bought my ticket right away. I spent the night in the hostel that I'd spent all my money at before, and cleaned myself up. At that point, I wasn't really nervous, I was just excited. I'd made a choice to go back, and in the beginning of the return trip home, I felt resolute. I went out to this boutique place and bought Buffy a really pretty hairclip as an apology for ditching out. Realizing that I couldn't just buy her something, and ignore other people, I bought one for Gwen too. Presents are supposed to bridge rifts, right? I mean, especially with girls?

I woke up at two a.m. and walked to the bus terminal, missing my walkman at every step. I bought jerky and an apple and a big bottle of water. Used the facilities. Looked for someone cool to sit with, but they were all creepy middle-of-the-night bus people. Many of whom looked like convicts. A few of whom looked like vampires, even though they probably weren't. It didn't matter, though, because no one sat next to me for the first 10 hours of the ride.

I just looked out the window, ate my snacks and thought. I tried to remember all the lyrics on Pinkerton. I thought about Sunnydale, and LA. I thought about Warren and Jonathan. I thought about Buffy and Mr. Wyndam-Pryce. I tried to imagine what my brother looked like now. I even got so bored that I tried to watch Empire Strikes Back in my head, but I kept getting the chronology wrong. I think I fell asleep.

When I woke up, there was a skinny, punky boy named Justice sitting next to me. He and I talked for a couple hours. He had just graduated from high school, and he was moving to California. Guess why? Yes. To become a star. I almost cried when I heard him say that, thinking of LA, and all the people who move there to "get theirs" or "make a difference" or "become a star," and then wind up getting eaten by a vampire, or becoming a hooker, or working at In & Out.

It was talking to Justice that got me so nervous, I think. I was kind of dancing around my reasons for going back, saying that I was "part of a community" that did "charity work" and that I "really had to get back from my sabbatical." I flinched when I heard myself explain why I was going back. I sounded like a priest or a teacher who'd been ex-communicated or laid off. It was creepy and it felt so fake coming out of my mouth. I just kept quiet after that.

Justice got off in Burbank, and I gave him the phone number to the Hyperion, in case he needed someone to talk to. He'd never call, I knew. But, it felt like the right thing to do. I tried to think good thoughts about Justice finding a quality agent and a job on a sit-com, instead of me and what I was about to do. When I got off at the bus station downtown and took another bus to the Hyperion, I had to wipe my sweaty hands on my pants every 30 seconds. I tried to think positively -- that there would be someone to welcome me home. Someone that had worried about me, or... maybe someone who'd even missed me. But, positive thinking didn't work. My mouth dried up and I began to quake as I walked up the front steps and opened the door.

"Hello?"

[[Open to anyone, with the warning that I might not know how Andrew interacted with you previously.]]

Pointing at the little leaden figurine, I shook my head emphatically: "No, Oz. No. Absolutely not. Don't even try and do your jedi mind tricks on me. You're wrong. You've had Bull Strength for 8 minutes, and there have been six rounds of combat, but, you're down two constitution points, and there's just no way, dude..."

I quickly did some math, and looked at the game board. Oz's barbarian was totally kicking my big bad's ass. And Schwartzkoph the Dwarf was only like fourth level, but -- dude! The Emperor of Glockenschpiel was an Earth Elemental! There is no way that some 4th level dwarf with Bull Strength was going to...

"Oh god. You're right," I admitted, putting my DM pen in my mouth and chewing on it thoughtfully. "Genius! Oz, you are totally, like... oh my god. Check and mate. It's inspired, really."

"Thanks?" Oz said, flatly, as usual.

He was just so... cool. Aloof. I wish I was more like that. More... I don't know... terse? Reserved? I mean, Oz even had Spike beat in the aloof arena, and it's hard to be more aloof than an ensouled, persnickety vampire who used to date Buffy and is like, over a hundred years old. I mean, typically THAT is what is described as "aloof" in my personal dictionary. But, Oz was like, extra aloof. Aloof plus.

"No problem. I wish we had other people to play with. I'm kind of tired of being the DM and I want to ... I don't know. I kind of want to go help Faith patrol, but I guess I'm supposed to just storesit. Not that this isn't fun or anything, Oz. You know. I just feel so... lost," I rambled as Oz listened. Rambled. Yeah, shocking, right? I do that. Give me an inch and I'll take, um, a mile. "But I don't want to do more inventory." I added. Just in case it seemed like I wanted to do more work.

[[ Open to Oz and then, Jenn.]]

Okay, it was totally weird. People don't just wake up and realize that they aren't who they want to be. It takes years of behavior modification therapy, or at least highly complicated conspiratorial brainwashing techniques. Or a isotopic modulator cube, maybe, like in Planetary. But, that's what happened to me -- I just woke up and realized two things:

1) I'm too perky to be a goth. And I didn't like the music as much as Michael thought I would. I mean, it would be cool to be all "I wear black on the outside because it's how I feel on the inside" but, it's just not me. I'm Andrew. I missed my red hoodie. I missed my blue jeans, my roots were growing in blonde and all this black eyeliner was making me get sties in my left eye.

2) I'm doing the wrong thing. I shouldn't follow Michael and Tamara to New York to embark on their new life. I'm worse than a third wheel, because if anyone should be a third wheel, it should be the baby.

So, I decided to bail out on the whole moving to New York plan.

( My reasoning )
It was pretty cool, I guess. And, by 'cool' I mean, the most humiliating week of my life. More humiliating than my first bowlcut. More humiliating than gym class at Sunnydale. I was not 'street,' I was just itchy and my socks smelled. After getting called 'faggot' by some high schoolers, I threw away all the gothy accessories and asked for various items from the lost and found. I'd admit it, I spare changed people. When that didn't work, I cleaned myself up in the bathroom and "borrowed" bus fare from strangers until I had enough to buy a bagel in the store.

It was really, really horrible. My back hurt. I was lonely and I'd sold my comic books to some girl who was wearing an X-Men t-shirt. I didn't make any friends, although I tried to talk to some of the other kids who spent the night in the bus station. They are, as it turns out, a very tightly knit group. And no one wanted to hang out with someone who was "from LA" and "weird" and... well, me.

I brought everything that had ever gone wrong in my life on myself. Four nights sleeping in the bus station told me that. I actually felt myself turning into the kind of of man who could admit when he'd messed up. It was hurty. But, men like that are men that can own up to mistakes. I'd blown it by leaving LA, where I had a room of my own, and clean clothes, and people who knew me when I was evil. People who knew how far I'd come. They needed me there, and I needed to be there.

I only had one phone number to call. I mean, that's what happens when you kill your best high school-era friend, disown your brother and mom, and never have a real job. I had one phone number to call and I didn't have enough to direct dial.

1-800-COLLECT. Their commercials totally sucked, but... it was all that came to mind.

God, I hoped that someone at the Hyperion would accept a call from a Mr. Andrew Wells.

I woke up to the sound of someone knocking on Jonathan's dorm room this morning. He and I had stayed up late watching Dr. No on TBS the night before, so Jonathan slept right through the knocking. I, on the other hand, kind of had to pee -- so I woke up right away and was first to hear the news: Tim was not only not a robot, but he was dead.
( Repeat After Me: Your. Roommate. Is. Dead. )


"A loan?" I asked. And, as the dream broke wide open when I heard Jonathan's door slam in real life, I heard myself say outloud, "What are the interest rates like?"

"What?" Jonathan said. He looked better. Still a little upset, but better. He'd been crying, the poor little gelfling. I don't know why he has to take the whole world on his shoulders, like he's somehow the big problem, except no one will tell him so.

"Nothing. Well, I mean, something. Do you think I should move in here? I think Tim would have wanted it. Don't you think so?"

[[ open to Jonathan ]]

Current Mood: sleepy

I didn't get half of the classes I asked for. I hate prerequisites. They're just wrong! If I'm smart enough to take a class, why not just ask me? Don't make me take a class to prove I can take a class! That's WRONG and also it's very unethical.

Here's how it looks:

M:
8 - 9:30: Intro to Psychology
10 - 12: Beginning Ceramics
1:30 - 2:30 Latin
3-5 pm: Open Swim

T:
9 - 11: Math for Liberal Arts Majors
12:30 - 2: English 101
2 - 4: Biology
7 - 10 pm: Science and Technology in American Media: Sci-fi

W:
8 - 9:30: Intro to Psychology
10 - 12: Beginning Ceramics
1:30 - 2:30 Latin
3-5 pm: Open Swim

TH:
9 - 11: Math for Liberal Arts Majors
12:30 - 2: English 101
2 - 4: Biology
7 - 10 pm: Science and Technology in American Media: Sci-fi

F:
8-11: Volunteer Meetings for Independent Student Activity Commission
(Event Planning, Clubs, Greek, Student Gov't)
11:30 - 2: Dramatic Writing Workshop
3-5 pm: Open Swim

I have a couple of classes with Jonathan, I think, but, I'm most excited about that night class. We both are, after we had to buy some of our books. One of the textbooks we had to buy was The Physics of Star Trek, which looks like it's going to be pretty cool. I don't think I have any classes with Fred, unless she gets into Biology. And I am almost halfway positive that I am not going to have any with my brother. Except for maybe Latin. That would flip him out, I'm sure, because he doesn't know that I started practicing a bit of the dark art of summoning as soon as he moved off to Dutton.

Well, anyway, I guess I can ask him today, as I'm supposed to go and find him. I really wish Mom wouldn't have made that request, because -- like I mentioned previously -- I'm really quite thrilled to be bruise-free at the moment.

Still, we're college men now. We're civilized and... grown up. And also, we are adults with adherence to societal norms. Or, at least, I am. Tucker might not be any more adhesive, where society is concerned, than he was when he left home.

Current Mood: annoyed

College is already the best of times, the worst of times. After The Fett went down, I momentarily considered just quitting school before classes even started. Obviously, that would be a really bad move, because I'd worked really, really hard to get my GED. UCSD was to be my fresh start, so I tried not to see the obscene mutilation of my favorite bounty hunter as an omen. He might have just been cardboard, but he was sacred cardboard. It was hard not to, though, you know? If I ever find this 'Sanchez' guy, I'm going to break his nose.

I'm not sure how yet, but oh ho ho -- I've been plotting. I assure you.

Okay, so, destruction of Fett was bad, but then we got our IDs, which was cool. I saw my brother, which sucked, but could have sucked worse, if he'd seen me. I know I'm going to have to talk to him eventually, but I'd like to spend more time without bruises. I like being bruise-free.

Jonathan and I met a girl named Fred and she had us over for pizza. So, yeah! Jonathan and I were in college for approximately seventeen minutes before we were already invited to hang out with a girl. At her dorm room. Jonathan was kind of surly to me while we were hanging out with Fred, but I think it's because she was being really nice to me and he got jealous.

Jonathan's roommate is okay. Tim. The British guy. He likes Star Wars stuff (or at least t-shirts), but he's definitely not into comics. JL and I discussed it after Tim left Fred's and agreed that Tim hasn't probably ever read a graphic novel, which makes him immediately suspect. I offered that he might be a robot, but Fred disagreed, saying that she didn't know much about sci-fi, but that robots weren't big on pizza.

After we left Fred's, Jonathan expressed dismay that although Fred seemed really nice, he was disappointed that she dissed sci-fi. I nodded, wondering if Jonathan and I would ever find our perfect match. I mean, in some ways, we're like each others' perfect friend -- we just needed to find more people like us. Then we can all double date and have bonfites

I stayed the night at Jonathan's dorm, as we got back from Fred's kind of late. I kind of think that I might do that a lot. I hope it's okay with Mr. "I Hate Graphic Novels and Am Possibly a Robot." My mom said it was cool but asked if I'd stopped by Tucker's room yet to say hello. She made me write down which building it was in.

"Tell him that I'd like to see him home for dinner on Sunday night so we can eat like a real, civilized family," my mother's voice squawked over the line. I felt my heart drop into my belly, realizing that now she'd made a request of me, and I was really going to have to go and talk to Tucker. Like, today.

[Open to Jonathan, Tim, and anyone else who might be roaming around in the dorms]

Current Mood: awake

This is how it all went down. I dropped out of high school.

I mean, there's more to it than that -- but, basically, I'm totally over going to high school. I'm better than grainy films in Personal Growth (although "Red Asphalt" was pretty much a show stopper). I'm better than boring "college prep" classes. I'm better (and smarter) than the entire football team -- especially the cavemen who couldn't imagine a more original way to insult me than calling me a "faggot" while coughing to muffle the noise. I'm better than sitting in my room reading D&D Modules by myself when I could be playing with other, more experienced gamers. I'm also waaaaaaaay better than doing the high-school McJob of food prep -- even if that's how I had to spend the last half of my junior year after I dropped out. I pretty much morphed into a new creature -- salt-of-the-earth, old-fashioned, blue-collar Andrew. A workin' man. Yep. The daily grind. Not like my layabout brother, Tucker the Destroyer, who was lounging around in silk PJs at his private technical academy. It was hard work, pulling dinner rolls out of the oven at Cafe Fontina at night and working on getting my GED and applying for student loans in the morning hours.

My older brother (henceforth to be referred to as "Tucker," rather than his full name, "Tucker the Destroyer") didn't make it all the way through Sunnydale either. Maybe leaving high school early will be some kind of a Wells legacy. Curse. Whatever. He didn't drop out, though -- he was transferred to some smartypants academy an hour away. Dutton Technical Academy. My mom sent him away after siccing some lame-o devil dogs on his own senior prom.

When I, too, decided to leave Sunnydale High behind me, I asked my mom and stepdad if I could go to the same school, but they turned me down. I guess school is, like, tres expensif. They blew a good portion of Tucker's college fund on half a year of boarding school and, later, booking him a spot in the dorms for his first semester at UC Sunnydale as a transferring sophomore.

I was really happy to see Tucker go, at least at first. No more Death Pinches or kicks in the behind while I carried full bowls of cereal across the kitchen. Without Tucker at home, I would sleep undisturbed. My stepdad wouldn't threaten to punch me out after hearing a report from my older brother about something "bad" (meaning "totally falsified") that I'd (not) done. I wouldn't wake up to have to feed Tucker's stupid hellbeasts, get spilled pig's blood out of the carpet, get my head flushed down the toilet, or the worst, get up in the morning just to find him on my PlayStation. I wouldn't have to endure his long tirades about yuppies, or preppies, or girls, or the stupidity of his schoolmates...

Smooth sailing, I thought. But. It didn't happen like that. It was nice, at first. Chill. I schoolinated. I hominated. I looked like a loner. I took pictures for Yearbook. I started to become Andrew, and not just "Tucker's brother." I also read all of Tucker's magic books that my mom had put in the garbage and tried to summon a lesser demon. (I failed, but I would have never tried if Tucker still lived at home.) But then, I noticed that I was getting picked on a little more than usual during school hours. It started off as getting shoved as I skipped down the stairs, or bumped while walking through the Cafeteria, but, the abuse quickly escalated into the aforementioned name-calling and obviously misplaced gay-bashing. Then, not even weeks after Tucker left, I got profoundly thrashed by something called a "tight end" on the football team. I'd been pummelled by Tucker before, but, not like this. Tucker had to answer to my mom, and my mom is a b-i-t-c-h, so he never broke my nose or anything. But, this tight-end guy sure did.

That's when I realized that Tucker had acted as kind of a buffer for me at Sunnydale High. For all his cruelty at home, he must have been keeping me a little safe at school. Perhaps he had an agreement with the burly jockos that he, and he alone, had Andrew beating rights. I don't know. All I know is that a good three beatings into the second half of my junior year, I started homeschooling so that I might graduate early. Which I did. Then, the school exploded (something about a giant snake), summer rolled around, Jonathan (who'd lived through his senior graduation) and I got to be better friends, and I decided I wanted to start going to college with his class.

I worked really hard all summer, like I said, and I did it. I got my GED. I matriculated (hee hee), managed to not get my ass kicked, and am starting school. Tucker, as it turns out, was earning college credit through his senior year and all summer, so he transfered to UCSD as a sophomore. I haven't hung out with him more than a couple of times since he moved out, so I haven't really had a chance to talk to him about high school, or thank him for protecting me for the first few years. I'm also looking forward to being in the same class as my best friend -- The Honorable Jonathan Levinson -- and maybe finding some people to play D&D with. I'm also thinking about running a WarHammer game, so... it should be really cool.

I wish I had enough money to move out of my mom's house and live in the dorms, though. It would be way easier to run games after classes were over if I was still on campus at the end of the day. Plus: slumber parties and spying on the girls' locker room. I've seen Revenge of the Nerds. That would be fun fun fun!

Really, it's not exactly how I pictured My First Time. I don't know what I expected -- maybe a double-feature of the black/white King Kong and then Peter Jackson's forthcoming remake, a delicious dinner of some kind of non-spicy ethnic food, perhaps a bottle of wine. There would be wine involved, and there would also probably be love. Yes, love would be involved, and the kind of love that was, like, reciprocated. There would be friendship and intimacy and openness. Love. Real love, not the kind that a spell makes happen.

It must have been a spell. For one, I was starving. And thirsty like I've never been thirsty before. For two, I couldn't remember anything clearly since, jeez, since Tracy and I were arguing at the murder scene. I had brief flashes of how I'd spent the last couple days, but it was all jumbled in my brain like a bad cable signal. There were a lot of NC-17 images, though, and, Tracy... and Tracy.

Tracy was talking about love. To other people in the room. I turned to see who she was telling that we loved each other, and laid eyes upon what is probably the most mortifying scene ever ... seen:

Faith (the slayer), Spike (the vampire), Amy (the witch), Michael (the warlock), Tamara (the slayer) and Oz (the werewolf) were all standing and sitting in Faith's room, staring. At me (the naked man) and Tracy (the naked woman), who were both very nude, and also naked. In Faith's bed. Oh my god, I was dead meat.

"Wait! What's..." I frantically tried to gather the sheet around my waist, but I wound up pulling it off Tracy, who fought back by pulling it back. I grabbed a pillow and put it over my groin, scrambling to get as far to the edges of Faith's ridiculous bed as possible.

I glanced at Tracy once I got some distance, and found her face completely fallen.

"Tracy, listen. I don't know what's happening. We were ..." I searched the faces of the other people in the room, from Spike, who was smirking, to Faith who looked sort of grossed out, to the back of Amy's head, to Michael, who was unceremoniously collecting his spell components in a hurry to get out of the room. Or so it appeared.

"What happened?"

"What do you mean, 'what happened,' Andrew?!" Tracy cried out. "We just spent the three best days of our lives. That's what happened!"

"Three days!? I've been ...sexually active... for three days? With... you?"

"Come on, Andrew, don't be such a dude," Faith said, getting up and handing Tracy her own robe to put on. "She obviously doesn't know."

"Know what?" Tracy whispered.

"There must have been some kind of freaky spell cast on you guys. I mean, how else do you explain knockin' boots for the better part of the work week? That's just... well, I was going to say wrong, but, then again, I've enjoyed some epic sessions myself," Faith snickered. As an aside, she turned to Spike and explained, "Non-magical, of course. Straight animal magnetism. Yeah."

"Of course," Spike nodded, with a grimace. He stood up, looking sort of disappointed that his free show was over. "Well, I'm off. Andrew, put some pants on -- you're shaming your modest little bint there."

With that, Tracy threw me another horrified look, and, wrapping the sheet around her, stood up angrily. Tears filled her eyes and she looked at me with what maybe was hatred? I couldn't tell. What she said next only confused me further:

"It wasn't a spell. It was love and it was real."

Tracy ran out of the room as best she could with a sheet tangled around her like a mummy.

"Andrew? You are going to be doing all my chores for weeks, kid. Starting with the sheets. And ending, blech, with Febreeze. It smells like goats in here," Fait waved her hand in front of her nose to illustrate the stinkiness, I guess, and then slowly left the room, collecting the other gross remaining voyeurs as she walked.

"Hey!" I called after them, "Why didn't anyone tell me what happened? And, where are my pants?"

Current Mood: confused

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