Finding Out

In waiting for an update for my favorite story Distant Relations by SeirraPheonix, I was inspired to make up my own Xander Winchester story.

My story is earlier in Xander's life than SeirraPhoenix's. It's set at the end of season 1 of Buffy, instead of the end of season 3.
Supernatural is also set in season 1 before Dead Man's Blood. The way I have it is since the last ep. from the first season is continued in the FIRST episode in the second, my story would be in the summer BEFORE the second season starts. Which means that Dead Man's Blood and anything after comes later than the airdates have them.

SPOILERS: Season 1 of Buffy and possibly Supernatural season 1

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from these awesome shows (or Xander would NEVER had lost his eye from that psychotic eye-poking son of a bitch!).







CHAPTER 1



Alexander AKA 'Xander' Harris sat stunned on the attic floor, surrounded by a blanket of dust, scattered papers, boxes long forgotten, and enough spiderwebs to make an arachnophobe run screaming from the state of California. But Xander didn't notice any of these things. His entire being was focused on the white piece of paper in his now slightly shaking hands.

When the words became blurred and unreadable, Xander looked up with unseeing eyes. Xander laughed, but not because what he read had amused him. It was more as if the sound had been torn from him.

If Xander had been a crier, he might have cried, because the paper in his hand created so many emotions in the sixteen year old that he couldn't contain them without some sort of release.

Another strangled laugh escaped. This time it came out as a more high pitched, almost insane sort of giggle.

"This is gotta be a joke," Xander said out loud, trying to smile and push down the hope, fear, and uncertainty that the paper produced in him.

Relief, hope, fear, doubt, disappointment, and hope again all pushed forth to try to overwhelm him. Xander didn't seem to be aware when he stood up and left the scattered remains on the floor. In his intense need for answers, Xander couldn't remember how he got out of the attic and downstairs. It was like one moment Xander was sitting in the dusty attic in deafening silence as his world came to a crashing halt. Then the next moment Xander was standing in the threshold of the kitchen facing his mother, who was sitting at the table with her late afternoon 'lunch' (a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of cheap scotch).

Xander stopped short, startled for a second because of the lost time, his brain trying to catch up to the unreality that had become his life. Another strangled laugh escaped Xander, this time more forced, as if he would choke on the sound if he didn't make it get past his throat.

The laugh didn't seem to register Xander's presence to his mother. So Xander stepped up to the rundown looking older blond and moved the scotch a little out of his mother's reach.

"What now?" Jessica Harris asked in angry annoyance.

Xander ignored the fact that his own mother was again viewing him as nothing more than an inconvenient intruder. Usually, Xander would just walk away, feeling hurt, no matter how many times he'd been denied love and attention from his mother.

But not this time. This time, Xander looked his mother in her blood-shot eyes and waved the offending paper in front of her. He had wanted to throw the paper on the table in front of her, but he couldn't seem to make himself let go of it.

"This is a joke," Xander said as if it was fact, with confidence he didn't feel. Xander forced another laugh. "A funny-if-you're-not me kind of joke because it's on me kind of joke. But it is a joke....right?" Xander asked, his voice cracking as tension tightened his throat.

"Right?" Xander asked again softly, this time almost pleadingly to his mother, who just sat stiffly looking from the paper in Xander's hand to Xander's face.

"I told you to leave it alone Alexander!" Jessica Harris said angrily, standing up and trying to tear the paper away from Xander.

Xander snatched his hand back before his mother could take the paper away from him.

"Does this mean it's true?" Xander asked, practically yelling.

"Watch that tone boy!" Anthony Harris' angry slurred voice boomed as the beefy man stumbled drunkenly into the kitchen.

Again Jessica tried to take the paper away from him and again he snatched his hand back barely in time.

"What the hell is going on in my house?" Anthony bellowed, moving surprisingly quick for someone his size who had been drinking all day and pinning Xander to the wall.

"He went snooping in the attic and found his birth certificate," Xander's mother said angrily, indicating the paper that Xander was desperately clutching against himself.

"Little Bastard! You just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?" Anthony snarled, punching Xander hard in the stomach with one hand while keeping Xander pinned to the wall with the other.

Jessica again tried to take Xander's birth certificate away, but still Xander wouldn't let her. Xander couldn't explain to himself why he held so desperately tight to it, but he couldn't let anyone take it from him. Xander held on even as Anthony switched from single-shot punches to using both fists. Even as Xander sunk silently to the floor (Xander had learned at an early age that screaming or crying out in any way was a sign of weakness from Anthony's point of view) and Anthony began to kick and scream obscenities at him, Xander held on.

When Xander saw the opening that he was hoping for, he kicked Anthony Harris in a place no guy ever wanted to be kicked, as hard as he could. Now it was Anthony that dropped to the floor. The paper now forgotten, Jessica rushed to her husband, who was howling in pain as he clutched his crotch.

Xander took this moment to stagger out of the house. He dragged himself around for almost two hours before he decided to let his feet take him where they wanted to go.