Chapter Text
For Kyrieane.
The Lost
Xander carefully made his way over the wooden walkway that led to the spotter platform. It was strange living in the treetops with the rope bridges and walkways that interconnected the huts nestled in the branches of the trees.
Xander waved at the tribesmen as they left to check the traps, normally he would be joining them but not today.
Today he had something he had to do.
Today he had to remember.
Today was the one-year anniversary of the closing of the Sunnydale Hellmouth.
Exactly one year to the day he had lost both of his lovers.
One past and one he had hoped would be his future
Xander sank to sit on the platform, It was less than an hour till dawn.
He closed his eye and breathed in deeply.
The scent of the rain forest filled his lungs, the soft smell of rain from the night mingled with the sent of exotic flowers. Xander relaxed into the scent and his memories.
*~~~~~*~~~~~~~~*~~~~*
Anya's face came to him first as he reached up to feel the engagement ring he still wore around his neck.
It was fitting that he would remember her first, as she was his first true love and the first to fall in battle.
He remembered how the sunlight would make her hair almost glow.
How her eyes would light up when she smiled and how she would stroke the back of his neck when they kissed.
Smiling sadly to himself he let her image fade.
She had been lost to him long before the battle for the Hellmouth.
Slowly he built the image of Him in his mind.
He reached down to his left arm and stroked the thin leather band around his wrist.
The leather was smooth, supple and warm from his body heat. Raising his wrist to his nose he could still smell his scent permeating the leather but now it was intermingled with his own scent.
Tracing his lips with his fingers he could still feel the gentle pressure of his lips against his own from the only kiss they had ever shared.
Xander remembered.
All they had, had were a few stolen minuets before they left for battle.
He had come down to the basement for a few minuets alone.
He had felt Him come up to stand behind him. Over the previous few months they had become steadily closer until they had both become aware of their growing attraction for one another.
Xander could remember the feel of His hands as he had tied the strip of leather around his wrist.
The soft sound of His voice as he had shyly explained how he had cut it from his coat.
The feel of His arms around him as they had held each other close.
The smell of him as Xander had tucked his face into his neck and wept at the thought of losing him.
The taste of him as they had kissed for the first and last time.
A taste of copper, smoke and strangely chocolate.
*~~~~~*~~~~~~~~*~~~~*
Xander opened his eye and blinked away the tears as he removed the necklace with the ring on it and dropped it in to the hollow tree, the one that the tribe used to remember their dead.
Fingering the leather on his wrist he smiled sadly.
He was gone as well but Xander was not ready to give him up, not yet.
"Maybe next year" he said sadly as he faced the rising sun, its light blinding him momentarily.
At the sound of a plane overhead, he smiled one last time at the sun before tuning away to head home.
"I still love you Spike."