Title: On the Road
Author: Adalisa
Email: [email protected]

Feedback: I love it. It's inspiring... and let's face it, it's the only real reason to keep writing.
Distribution: Chelle's site, XanderSlash site, WWOMB and my site. Anywhere else, just ask.
Web site: http://members.tripod.com/luxshine/

Summary: After many tale telling dreams, Angel decides to talk with Xander. But Xander is already gone.
Sequel to: Chasing your dream
Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all related characters belong to Joss Wheldon and Warner Brothers. I'm not making any money out of this. Trust me, if I own them, they would be much happier in the show.

Content: X/A
Warning: This has m/m. You should know that already, since you found this. Also, a lot of nastiness against Buffy. If you like her, stay away from this.
Spoilers: Angel, Prophecy Girl, Homecoming, Amends, Choices, The Prom.
Notes: This started as a NC-17 PWP... How in the name of Acathla the boys managed to end with a _romantic_ PG-13 with a plot is beyond me.

Angel looked at the empty mansion with mixed feelings. All his real important stuff was already in L.A. The rest was in a vault, locked safely.

But he... he still couldn't say if going away was the right decision.

Staying away from Buffy was good. But it was not because of his love for her. That had died and disappeared long ago. Only that he hadn't realized it until the Mayor had told them about his ill-fated love life.

Buffy hadn't even understood.

And Xander... Xander had glanced at him, his brown chocolate eyes full of... pity... compassion... something.

Trying to recapture what he felt for the Slayer, Angel went to the Prom.

Only to feel as if his heart broken in two at the sight of Xander dancing with Anya.

Anyanka, a thousand year old demon disguised as a human girl.

A _demon_ who had erased Buffy from existence, turning Sunnydale in a hell where Xander was a vampire and died.

And Xander had forgiven her.

That _hurt_ more than anything Angel had ever felt.

So he had danced with Buffy, laughed at her jokes, and left with his heart broken in pieces.

He really had to get out of Sunnydale, before he embarrassed himself by begging for Xander's forgiveness and love.

Before he hoped that Xander could find warmth in his heart to forgive him for all what Angelus had done.

But first he had to fulfill one last promise, and go to the 'Farewell Party' that the Scooby Gang had made for him.

Big Joke.

Buffy was angry at him for going away, Giles hated him for killing his girlfriend, Willow was just plain scared... He had never crossed more than 20 words with Oz, Cordelia was too busy trying to either make Xander jealous or caught Wesley's attention... And Xander probably would never forgive him all that he had done.

Still, he had to go.

In a way, it would be the final cut to the bonds that tied him to Buffy.

He arrived at the Library around 20 minutes after the sun set, nervous and half jumpy. He hadn't sleep well that day. In fact, he was growing frustrated with sleep. He always ended up dreaming with Xander and that couldn't lead to no good.

Someone had decorated the Library with a big sign that said 'Keep in Touch' and there was a cake on the big table. He couldn't eat, but obviously Buffy or someone wanted to make it look more like a party.

He forgot about all that when he noticed that Xander was not in the room.

And that Willow was _glaring_ at him.

"Where's Xander?" He asked, trying his best to maintain a non-caring tone. "I thought he wouldn't miss the chance to see me go."

Buffy snickered, and Angel thought he saw something close to triumph in her eyes. That was not good.

Willow scowled a little more.

"He's gone." Oz's voice was neutral, as always. The young werewolf rarely show any emotion, even when his eyes were much more expressive. "He left after the Ceremony."

Angel blinked, shock slowly dawning upon him. A week ago, they had fought the Mayor in the Graduation Ceremony. They had been triumphant, but there had been many loses. That morning, the Town Council -now led by Joyce Summers- held a small mourning ceremony for those students who had died, and finishing the interrupted Graduation one.

That had been almost 7 hours ago.

"But... why... where?" All rational thought left Angel, as his last chance to try and make things right with Xander had been taken away from him.

"He'll be all right. Let's party." Buffy's half attempt to draw his attention back to her was meet by a very annoyed stare from Willow. That was really strange, the red-head seemed to worship the floor where the Slayer walked.

"Buffy, stop it." The witch said, and walked towards Angel, her face doing her 'I'm serious' stare. "I try not to be angry against you, Angel, because I know that I also did some nasty things to find about your feelings..." She began, as all eyes locked on her.

All eyes except from Buffy, who was suddenly finding the roof very interesting.

"What do you mean, Willow?" Angel asked, terrified. This was starting to look a lot like a nightmare he had had not long ago.

"A couple of months ago, I found a spell to see other people's dreams." Willow stated, her eyes not leaving Angel's. "I was doing a little experimentation with it when Buffy found out, and asked me to find out why you were keeping her away."

Had Angel had any real blood in his veins, he would have paled. It was not difficult to do the math... Before Faith killed a man and turned rouge, when his dreams had lost all his interest in Buffy, and found a new star. A man who appealed both to his human soul and his demon side.

And shortly after that, Buffy had become even more possessive, trying to show her claim in his heart in any way possible.

"You _spied_ my dreams..." He began, but his voice was more of a statement than a real accusation. "...but why?"

"Later I found a 'dream-merging' spell... One that allows two dreams to merge." Willow continued, not paying any attention to Angel or to the shocked gasps of everyone else around. "Because I was tired to see you hurting yourself, tired of Xander hurting himself... and I couldn't confess to either of you what had I done."

"Willow..."

"No, let me finish Oz." She smiled sadly and looked at everyone in the room. "This last year, I've treated everyone badly... When we returned to classes, I wasn't really understanding your situation Oz, and I still had a grudge against you, Cordelia..." She walked towards the ex-cheerleader, and lowered her head. "It was me the one who seduced Xander... he wanted me to stop, because he wanted to be faithful to you, and wanted me to be faithful to Oz. But I let him take all the blame."

"Willow..." Cordelia stared at her for a long moment, remembering every time she had been nasty at Xander, every secret of her ex-boyfriend that she had revealed to the world... every moment she spent crying for him... And she couldn't stop herself. Using all her pent up frustration, she slapped Willow once, furious.

"I guess I deserve that..." The young witch rubbed her cheek, tears shining in her eyes. "After Christmas, I tried to make things better... and it was when I found that spell... " She returned to Angel's side, obvious of the shocked stares of everyone else. "Why you never told him? Why you kept hiding behind Buffy, behind your curse... behind everything?!" Now it was the vampire's turn to feel ashamed. Because it was true. "What you saw in dreams... it was not your imagination. It was real." She finished, not wanting to betray Xander's privacy more. With any luck, only Angel, Giles, Oz... and perhaps Cordelia would know what she was talking about.

She turned to see Oz, who smiled sadly at her, but with his arms open. He would always forgive her, because he loved her, and then they left the room.

For a long moment, no one moved or say anything. It had been a shocking turn of events, and every one needed a moment to think. Finally, Wesley muttered some sort of apology and left the room. Cordelia started to walk after him, but first, she turned to see Angel.

"You better fix this," she muttered, anger coloring her words. But it was more anger at herself, at knowing that she could have lost a wonderful friendship out of bitterness and that in this moment she could not do anything to repay all the good moments and things Xander had had for her. "Don't hurt him as I did."

Only Giles, Buffy and Angel remained.

The Watcher, the Slayer and the Vampire.

It seemed almost prophetic. Almost damning.

"Buffy..." Angel's words were failing him. What could he said now that his soul had been displayed for all to see? What dream had Buffy witnessed to make her so bitter against him, against Xander?

"Don't." She was now looking at him as she had when she thought he had bit her mother. Or when he was Angelus. But surprisingly, now it didn't hurt. "I know that what I did was wrong. I know I should not have asked Willow to spy on you." Buffy was pacing now, avoiding to get too close to him, while Giles only cleaned his glasses. Obviously this was unraveling pretty much as he had thought it would. "But you have to understand me! I cannot have a normal life... It's all killing and not getting killed. I have no time to socialize, to meet boys. And you were going away... You are leaving me after you promised to be always at _my_ side! And you were leaving me for _him_!! For a useless jerk who always was ready to stake you! Why couldn't you just pretend just one more night? One more day?! What is one more day of pretending to love me if you have eternity for yourself?!"

Now she was hysteric, and she collapsed in a chair, sobbing. The curious thing was that Angel felt no need to confront her. Not even pity. He was sure that she felt that what she said was true, that she was the victim of it all. But it wasn't so.

Besides, she had insulted Xander in a cruel, unnecessary way.

Even if the mortal boy did hate Angel, Xander had always shown were his loyalties lie.

"Xander plans to travel across the country, to find himself." Giles didn't flinch at seeing his Slayer crying in an hysteric fit. In fact, he took it with the same cold calm he had when Angel had asked him for help in Christmas. But when he talked to the Vampire, the British' voice had a small touch of warmth.

With a simple nod of thanks, Angel left the Sunnydale High School Library for the last time.

A week passed and Angel was starting to loose hopes to find Xander. He had asked in every single road hotel he found if they had seen the chocolate eyed boy, just to get a negative as an answer. But in all, he simply couldn't stop looking.

The road was taking him north, deep inside the country, as he was sure that Xander would not go South, to L.A. or any city that brought bad memories to him.

Knowing Xander, the boy was probably heading to New York.

In the lonely days when he slept in one of those seedy hotels, he thought more and more about Xander. When he had started loving him, when he had started lusting him... And the answers were not clear.

He could remember with absolute accuracy when he had started dreaming with the teenager boy. It had been shortly after his return from hell, when Buffy had kept him hidden in the mansion.

His dreams had surprised him then, now he clung to them fiercely.

Sometimes, it was Xander the one who found him instead of Buffy, other times, Xander had been following Buffy only to find Angel. In his darkest nightmares, he was still Angelus, and upon seeing Xander, he feed from him... and turned the young lively boy into an undead creature like himself.

All variations of a single theme. He wanted to be _with_ Xander.

What was not so defined in his mind was the moment when that strange longing turned to love. When the dreams that only portrayed friendly touches turned into passionate embraces.

When his fantasies stopped being constricted to the realm of dreams.

But it really didn't matter, did it?

He loved Xander, and that was it. There was no need to go further than that.

Not until he found him.

Xander woke up, a little disoriented.

It was a pleasant and welcome sensation, one that had accompanied him since he hastily left Sunnydale.

It wasn't that he hadn't planned to go anyway, only that he originally had thought that it would take him a little more time to fully decide his route.

Then there had been all that stupid idea of a farewell party for both him and Angel, and Xander had done the only thing he could.

He packed up everything he thought he would need and ran away. Sure, it was the exit for the cowards. Sure, he ran like a girl. Sure, he was leaving behind all the ones he had loved, all the ones he had fought for.

But he couldn't face Angel.

Not after sending him to Hell, not after dreaming about him.

He had begun dreaming about Angel shortly after classes had started. At first, it had been simple dreams, just he and Angel meeting, and Xander would have a chance to apologize. Then they had changed... sometimes, he was best man in Angel's and Buffy's wedding only to stop the ceremony because he was sure that Angel could not be with her, because she didn't love him; sometimes Angel begged him to stake him before he could turn into Angelus again, and Xander refused; sometimes it was Angelus the one who appeared in his dreams, and Xander accepted gladly to be drained by the immortal demon, becoming a vampire himself.

Variations on a theme. As crazy as it had seemed at first, Xander wanted more than anything to be with Dead Boy.

Which was why he hadn't put much resistance when Willow tried to seduce him, as wrong as it had been.

He didn't want to love Angel, he didn't want to have fantasies about the vampire.

He surely didn't want to stick an icicle in his butt only to feel something that was as cold as the vampire.

And denial was a river in Egypt.

Maybe he should have stayed a little, talked to Angel. Make things right between them before losing the vampire forever.

Like that would happen.

It was midnight, and he was feeling hungry. So he dressed, and left the cheap room he had rented, decided to get a burger in the dinner where he had worked for two days.

As soon as he got to the door, he froze.

Because talking to the woman behind the counter, showing her a picture of the Scooby Gang, there was Angel.

The man who plagued his dreams.

The vampire he had fallen in love with.

And he wasn't sure if he wanted to run away or stay and talk.

"Angel...?" his voice startled him almost as much as it surprised the vampire. He hadn't intended to say anything out loud. He really didn't want to call the vampire attention.

And he still was on denial.

"Xander...?"

For a second none talked, still surprised to see the other. Xander had dreamed of that meeting for some time, but couldn't find the words that he had used in those dreams. Angel had planned and thought every single convention he could device... but all that plans were forgotten as he found himself in his presence.

"Hey, Dead-boy..." Xander was the first to find his voice, even when it sounded a little high, and he walked towards a table, monitoring Angel to follow. "I thought you were on your way to L.A... What happened? You made a wrong turn in Albuquerque?"

The vampire chuckled, amazed of how much he had missed Xander's voice, even when he dreamed of it every day. "I changed my plans... after the farewell party."

"Oh... I missed that." The mortal managed to smile, as the night waitress brought them two cups of coffee. "But I have never been too fond of saying good-bye."

"Is that why you left as soon as you had your diploma? I thought you were going to wait a few weeks."

Their eyes locked and Xander had to look away, ashamed. Suddenly he was certain that Angel knew about his feelings, and that made him feel worse.

"I didn't have much reasons to wait, I guess..." Nervous, he tried to avoid the unavoidable. It looked a lot like one of his early dreams... the ones where he could talk to Angel because he was sure he was dreaming.

"Xander..." Angel breathed in, still unsure of how to continue, still wishing he had done this before. "... I'm sorry."

Whatever Xander had expected to hear from the Vampire's mouth, an apology was not among them. He had expected anger, sarcasm... even a kindly let down around the lines of 'I'm sorry, Xander, I know you think you like me but I love Buffy so don't think that just because I'm leaving her you have a chance'... Not an 'I'm sorry'. Those words he never expected to hear from Angel. "Sorry for what?"

It was so much like his dreams, that Angel was caught off guard... And he leaned to caught the mortal lips before Xander or himself could stop it. How many times he had dreamed of a similar situation? How many nights he had awaken after it, still feeling the warmth of Xander's lips over his own cold ones? How many nights he had stared at the windows of the mansion wondering if the sunlight would feel as warm as Xander would feel, just before burning him to death?

It really didn't matter, not when he finally was awake and fulfilling all those fantasies.

Not when Xander, at first surprised and immobile, began to respond to the kiss with a passion that matched his own.

In that moment, both were sure that they were dreaming again. It had to be a dream.

It was too perfect.

"Tell me I'm not dreaming..." Xander whispered over Angel's lips as they parted, still leaning over the table, under the curious eyes of the few men and women who were at the dinner during the graveyard shift.

"...you're not dreaming..." Angel assured him, barely touching his lips with a second kiss. "...I am not dreaming..."

"But... why?... how?..." Even when Xander didn't want to question his good luck, the wonderful feeling that he had while standing close to Angel, while kissing Angel... he really wanted to know what was going on. So very much against his own wishes, he pulled back and sat again, watching Angel's face while he drank his coffee, hoping it would help him to clear his ideas.

"How...?" Angel began, then blinked. He realized that it was not as easy as in their dreams, where both knew they loved each other and it wasn't necessary to give any explanation. Even if all the explanations had been given to them in dreams, they still had to voice them aloud. "I've been wanting to kiss you ever since I got back from Hell." he finally settled on saying. It was the truth. It had been the beginning of all that.

"But... you were with Buffy then, Dead-boy..." Xander knew that he was pushing his luck, but after so many dreams that had begun like that... so many nights in which he had been sure that he felt the cold arms of the vampire around his body, he needed to be sure.

"I..." Suddenly, Angel's eyes seemed to loose all light, all life, and the vampire got to his feet. "I made a mistake following you, I'm sorry Xander. Good bye."

With his amazing speed, Angel left the dinner. Without much of a thought, Xander paid the coffee and ran outside, trying to catch up with him.

Angel was at the other side of the parking lot, near Xander's room.

"Wait...Angel!" The vampire stopped and turned to see him. "You can't do this! You can't suddenly appear into my life and kiss me just to go away again!! You can't say that you've been wanting to kiss me for a long time just to say it was a mistake!!" Now they were again within touching distance, and Angel could see a great sadness in Xander's eyes. A pain that he had caused.

How different was reality from dreams.

"You cannot leave me now, not after plaguing my dreams for so long." Xander finally said, his gaze set over the vampire's eyes. It had taken him a great deal of courage to say it, to say that he dreamed with another man, that he lusted a vampire. Angel knew that and his respect for Xander grew. The mortal boy at his 18 years was much more brave than he at his 200.

"I was shocked that you were not at the farewell party..." the vampire began, not very sure of how to explain all what he was feeling. "And Willow... she said that she knew all about my dreams and longings... that she knew about _your_ dreams..."

"What?" Xander didn't expect that. He had always believed that his dreams and hopes were private. He had never wanted or needed anyone in them... Except from Angel.

"She said that my dreams were real... And I really wanted to believe her..." the vampire continued, now looking straight to Xander's eyes. "Especially one dream... Where I was in the library, after acting like Angelus... and you came in, angry. You asked me if I was going to hit you again..."

"And you said you wanted to kiss me." Xander's voice was filled with wonder, as he finished the phrase. "I was angry, we fought..."

"Then you kissed me." Without much thought, Angel leaned in again, wrapping the mortal with his cold arms and kissed Xander thoroughly again.

As it had been inside the dinner, the kiss rapidly grew out of control. There were no witness now, no obstacles... they were only them.

"C'mon... let's go to my room..." Xander whispered, smiling. There were many doubts in his mind, the most important one regarding Willow and how she had know about his feelings... but all of that was not occupying Xander's immediate thoughts.

His only concern was that finally, his dream was becoming a reality.

Xander opened his eyes, feeling warm and cold at the same time. It was a weird sensation, but a pleasant one.

Because it meant that last night had not been a dream.

It meant that he was sleeping in Angel's arms.

Knowing that nothing would awake his undead lover during daylight, feeling as if his heart would burst of happiness at the simple fact that Angel was now _his lover_, he leaned down and kissed the vampire's hair before leaving the bed.

As much as he wanted to stay in Angel's embrace until the vampire woke up, he had to work. The whole point of his trip was to prove himself that he could be responsible, that he could take care of his own life, and cuddling while he was supposed to earn enough money for his next stop was not a way to prove it.

Still, he stopped for a moment before going out, just enough to write a quick note and steal another kiss from his sleeping beloved.

Angel woke up to find himself alone in a strange bed, and he panicked.

He could clearly remember that he had found Xander the night before, that they had talked...

And had a wonderful sex session.

"It's not fair." he mumbled, before leaving the bed. It had been a while since he had had those dreams, dreams so real that they could be mistook as reality.

He could almost smell Xander in his skin, hear the young mortal's moans of pleasure... feel the warmth of his love's body around his own.

It couldn't have been a dream.

As the tears began to well up in his eyes, he saw a small piece of paper in the night table next to him.

Curious, he picked it up, and all the sadness he had been building disappeared with only the first line.

"Dear Dead-boy,

No, it was not a dream. I'm here for you. I'm just across the street doing some work. I'll be waiting for sunset so we can be together.

I don't know who said vampires are cold. Because your heart is very warm.

Xander."

THE END.