Followed
Author: Perry
E-mail: icemulder@hotmail.com
Characters: Xander, ?
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy, Joss does.
Summary: Xander's being followed
When you are scared, you tend to sweat.
When it is cold out, and you're sweating, you start to get a headache.
When you have a headache and have already had more than your share of alcoholic
beverage, nothing seems real.
When nothing seems real, everything goes in slow motion.
When everything is going in slow motion and you are scared, you start to panic.
You panic, and you die.
This was why Xander was trying so hard not to sweat.
The first thing that hit him coming out of the Bronze was just how cold the
night had turned. He choked on his own intake of foul-smelling breath, and this
must have alerted someone of his whereabouts.
Because it was right after Xander left the Bronze, almost directly after he
started to cough that someone began to follow him.
Xander was about a block away from the Bronze, heading down a side street with
no one around that he realized he was being followed.
Perhaps realize isn't the best word. Perhaps there is no word. Xander sensed
someone behind him, and the more he walked the more certain he became.
There was an extra echo of footsteps, a little more shadow than necessary for a
solitary man to have when walking down an alley.
Xander turned a corner, and out of the corner of his eye he saw someone behind
him.
It was just a blur, which made Xander deathly aware that he wasn't in his most
sober of states.
This realization, and yes we can call it a realization, led him into the
heightened state of fear.
But he wouldn't sweat. He knew the chain of causes and effects that happened
when someone was being followed by a vampire. He knew what would happen if he
chose to slow down, turn around, god forbid get lost.
Xander also knew that Buffy was no where around. She had a physics exam to study
for and wouldn't be out to patrol all night.
Xander swallowed a dry lump that had grown in his throat and tried to
inconspicuously check his pockets for a stake, holy water, a cross, anything.
Xander had no pockets.
Xander had no jacket that would entail pockets for checking.
Xander's jacket, with pockets loaded with crosses, holy water and stakes was
sitting on the bar stool in the Bronze, along with Xander's fake ID.
That's great Harris, just great.
Xander felt something sting his eye. He wiped away the salty droplet of
perspiration, feeling more form on his forehead. He was beginning to sweat.
His pace quickened.
Xander turned another corner, and was approaching a short bypass bridge, where
he would be under at least 3 streetlights, perfect for someone to play hero to
the boy that was being followed by supposedly a kid on PCP.
Yeah, right.
Xander passed under the streetlights, but no heroic passerby came. No one came.
He could hear his stalker laugh.
He was close.
Xander's heartbeat began to pound in his head.
So this is what a migraine feels like.
Xander hurried down the slope of the bridge and make the stupid, awful, idiotic
mistake of taking a short cut.
Short cuts can lead to confusion.
Confusion can and will lead to getting lost.
Xander's vision was bathed in surreal darkness, filtered by the 3 glasses of
cheap booze he had guzzled down at the Bronze.
Uh-oh.
Xander stumbled over his own awkward feet and the only thing that kept him from
kissing the dewy ground was the fact that his muscles were too stiff to fall
over.
So he kept walking.
Xander wasn't really watching where he was going, thinking that this brilliant
short cut of his would lead him to safety, but it very much didn't.
Hello, graveyard.
It wasn't so much getting lost as it was making a huge mistake. He had followed
the path of the short cut perfectly. It was just that the path of the short cut
didn't follow to where Xander wanted to be led.
Nothing was real, everything was awful.
Cue the slow motion.
It was as if Xander was walking through water, trying to make his way across a
river with the current going in every direction except the right one. He was
drowning in his own fear, becoming encompassed and overwhelmed by nothing more
than the notion of someone behind him.
And just when Xander was on the brink of reason, almost thinking that he was
just being paranoid, that there was no one behind him at all, a twig snapped.
And it wasn't under Xander's foot.
Xander stopped. He couldn't go further. The final stage; the utmost level of
panic had paralyzed him. There was someone behind him.
There was most definitely someone behind him.
Xander didn't have to look to know that the certain someone behind him was
decked out in his most frightening game face, and he was out to kill.
You panic, and you die.
Xander couldn't move; it was physically impossible. He couldn't think, could
hardly breathe.
Oh but he could panic.
Heart pounding in his head, cutting off all need or desire to think, fear
crippling his legs, eliminating any chance to escape, Xander took a deep, jagged
breath.
He turned around.
Silence.
Stillness.
Then words, venom, coated with fear, anger.
Relief.
"Oz, I'm going to kill you so bad, you son of..."
A smirk.
"You left your jacket at the Bronze."
Xander snatched the jacket from Oz's outstretched hand, cursing himself for ever
leaving it in the first place.
"Did I scare you?"
Xander didn't even reply, just shrugged his jacket on and stepped around a
gravestone, making his way out of the cemetery.
Oz followed, more than a little proud of himself.
He and Xander proceeded to walk side by side, discussing odd and ends and
nothing of much importance, leaving all fear and tension behind them.
Neither noticed that they were being followed.
If they had, they might have been scared, perhaps even started to sweat.
Sweat never seems to lead to anything good, especially when it's cold out.
Especially when you're being followed.
But they didn't know they were being followed, now did they?
Of course not.
The ones that get caught never do.