Episode 209: Campaign Dinner (Xander)

The dinner was all crystal chandeliers and champagne and tuxes. All the things Xander hated.

And loved.

It was a show, and he was a showman.

Meldrick and his human arm candy added to the essence of the night: Who could deny Spence’s connections, when a fairy – pointed ears and pale skin and all – showed up with a human practically drooling over his every word.

Not just a human…a gorgeous human woman. Proof that not all fairies were gay.

Of course Meldrick knew how to schmooze, which added to the ambience. No, Spence had a family emergency and couldn’t be here, but his father-in-law came in good faith and can answer any of your questions.

Meldrick was the star of the show.

Right up until Acheron transported, pale and dressed in a spectacular tux that made Xander’s tailored job look secondhand.

Damn the gays, for their fashion sense.

“Hi,” he stammered, his mouth in a little ‘o’ of shock. Clearly he didn’t know that Meldrick and the arm candy were already here.

“How are you?” Meldrick asked, in that underplayed way he had.

Xander liked being flashy. Meldrick was quiet in a way that almost made him seem more powerful. Almost. Xander was still president here.

“Ready not to start a war,” Acheron said, under his breath.

Something on his face caught Xander’s eye. He leaned closer, transfixed, watched Acheron turn his head in the lights from the chandelier.

Xander almost swore.

Glitter. The kid had decorated his face with some kind of subtle glitter. Fuck him. Had he ever even tried being straight, for five minutes?

The kid dipped his head toward Meldrick. “Spence is okay,” he provided. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Keep the spell in your pocket,” Meldrick instructed. “You don’t need it.”

Xander wished he knew what that was about. He watched, hoping for some kind of clue, or maybe for someone to bother including him in this unexpected little chat.

“You think I can do okay without?” Acheron asked him. He kneaded his hands in front of his shirt, tense as fuck.

“I believe so,” Meldrick assured him. “Your mom’s luck agrees.”

“Okay.” Acheron turned to the arm candy. What was her name, again? Genevive? Georgia? Something Babylonian, European, and stuck-up. Not that the first to descriptors didn’t imply the stuck-up part. “You…’re wearing a dress,” he commented.

The arm candy laughed, affectionate. How the hell she could be affectionate towards a glitter fairy baffled him, but Spence baffled him too. They all did. Zane had surrounded himself with people Xander couldn’t pretend to understand, and then acted like it was all normal.

“No Zane tonight?” Xander complained pleasantly. Zane, he’d at least be able to carry on a conversation with, maybe ask what was the deal with the glitter.

“He couldn’t make it,” Meldrick apologized. He patted the red-haired kid on the shoulder.

Xander had forgotten about the red-haired kid, mostly because thinking about him made Xander’s eye twitch.

He wasn’t gay, so at least there was that. But he walked around the room like everything was foreign and new, a research experiment. He answered every adult who questioned him with either no or yes, followed by whichever title was appropriate, ma’am or sir.

Xander hoped he’d call Acheron ma’am. It would make the whole night worth it.

“My grandson was happy to take his place,” Meldrick continued. “This is Annatto.”

Like the plant?

You’d think wiccans would name their kids after plants. They at least cared about plants. Something was wrong with the fire fairies, to name a kid Annatto. Xander almost felt bad for him. He shook the kid’s hand, eyes still on Meldrick. “I didn’t know you had other grandkids.”

“Only a few,” Annatto answered for him. “I’m the oldest.”

Good for him. Did he want a prize for that?

“Annatto is hoping to become an influence in some way,” Meldrick explained. “I thought tonight was a good opportunity to show him what it’s about.”

Xander looked at the kid. He had a good build, for getting people to listen. And he definitely stood out in a crowd. “In Sylem?” Xander asked. If he took the kid under his wing, he could delegate, expand his power, take credit for his success… “Welcome,” he said. He shook the kid’s hand again.

“How is the crowd?” Meldrick asked. Fuck him. He’d already walked the room once, which meant he wasn’t asking about the room. He wanted to know what Xander knew about the room.

“Tame,” Xander summarized. Let him pick meaning from that. He added, for fun, “I don’t buy the war thing at this point. Gwen would have loved the smoked salmon.”

Meldrick still bought into the war threat. “Something would have set Spence off,” he concluded.

Something, such as maybe his husband wearing glitter to a campaign event?

Meldrick slung his arm through the arm candy’s arm, making her literal arm candy. “Do you want to talk to some people before we sit down?”

Giordana, or whatever her name was, smiled. At least she was hot. “My favorite. I promise not to start a war.”

Meldrick smiled, but something behind it looked pained.

Trouble with the arm candy? Or something else, coincidental?

It was probably the arm candy. Nine times out of ten, hot girls had empty brains. He’d gotten lucky with Gwen – brains and beauty – but she was a rare find. Even Zane’s wife Indigo, for all her intelligence, insisted on looking like a boy with that short hair.

Xander watched them walk off, and wished Gwen was there so he could show off what a real woman was.

He put his arm across Annatto’s shoulders instead. “Do you want to meet some people? I could take you around, introduce you.”

“Sure,” Annatto said.

Meldrick turned around, from a few feet away. “Xander is Rhyss’s uncle,” he told Annatto. To Xander, he added, “Rhyss took Annatto in, adopted him.”

Zach, he meant.

He wondered if Zach’s temper had calmed down now that he was rich.

He grinned at Annatto. “Well, I guess that makes you a Lavesque,” he summarized. “Better and better.” A Lavesque who was one hundred percent fairy…what campaigner would argue with that kind of connection?”

He brought Annatto around to a handful of Sylemese campaign guests…smaller donors at first, in case Annatto pissed off the wrong guy, but he knew how to talk so people listened. The kid had a brain and a knack for wowing adults.

What was he, twelve?

Take now, for instance, listen to the little shit:

“The whole point of a democracy is that it forces baby steps. Yeah, it can be frustrating when someone wants progress, but it looks pretty good to the people who don’t want that person to make progress.”

The guy he was talking to just nodded his head, a semi-smile on his lips. He was probably struggling to figure out what the hell to even say.

“Where I’m from,” Annatto continued, “someone new took over and it meant that the people who used to be in charge just had nowhere to go and feel safe. That’s a good way to make criminals and enemies. And it means that there’s always someone trying to overthrow the people in charge. Here…so people don’t like you, they can vote you out.”

The man smiled even more. “Plenty of people don’t like the Lavesques,” he said. Asshole. “But they’re still in power.”

Annatto shrugged his shoulders. “Then either not enough people don’t like them, or they aren’t trying.” He took a long sip of whatever drink he had in his hands – Xander hoped it wasn’t alcohol – and added, “But I don’t think that’s the issue. I think with Xander it’s about status quo. He lets enough people get away with just enough, and so they let him get away with being president. It’s a good balance.”

“But he’s changing things now,” the man argued. “No more status quo, with this new campaign.” He reached around and squeezed Annatto’s ass. “Things are changing.”

Xander was about to step in. He was. Because this donor had just turned out to be a total creep. Xander hadn’t noticed until now, the way the man had carefully maneuvered Annatto into a corner of the room, away from the main crowd. He needed to kick this man’s ass. Politely, because it was a political dinner.

But before he could, Annatto had a knife he’d pulled from somewhere, and he had it against the man’s side. His voice was suddenly deeper as he said to the man, “I don’t want to draw attention to us. But if you touch me again, this knife will go right into your liver. Understand?”

The man nodded his head and took two steps away, slowly.

“That,” Annatto said, tucking the knife back into his sleeve, “is the difference between your government and mine: Democracy makes people complacent about their own passions, because they don’t really expect change.” He rounded off his drink. “It’s a good thing you’re from a complacent democracy and you don’t expect change, because the change you want? Is never going to happen.”

He turned and walked back towards Xander, away from the guy.

“You okay, kid?” Xander asked. He sent a signal on his wrist communicator, to have the man silently relocated to one of the cells upstairs, for Xander to deal with later, and focused on Annatto.

“Yeah,” he said. “You saw? Why didn’t you help?”

“You didn’t look like you needed it.” He passed Annatto a new drink. This one was definitely alcohol, but the kid had earned it.

They stood there, together, and watched as a pair of guards quietly arrested the man and led him out a side door, further into the palace.

“He’s a creep,” Annatto said.

Agreed. “Next week, stop by my house with Rhyss. The two of you can help me make sure the rights of gays are explicit, when it comes to age.”

Annatto nodded his head. “I can help with that.”

Arrogant shit.

Xander guessed he had a right to be, with a mind like that at his age.

He took a long drink of his own drink – definitely alcohol – and watched the crowd mingle in their tuxes and cocktail dresses. Change was coming. Slow change, like Annatto predicted, but it was happening.

Spence was making it happen.

Fine.

Xander went looking for Acheron. Maybe it was time he got to know him a little better. Xander might not be the biggest fan of the whole gay thing, but it was leagues away from pedophilia, and if he was drawing the line, publicly, he didn’t want the public to have any doubt which side of it Spence and Acheron, and all the others, fell on.

He wanted – needed – his nephew and his nephew’s husband to know he didn’t think of them like that. It was time for him to step up about this, stop being an asshole.

When he found Acheron, he slung his arm across his shoulder, like they were family.

They were family, even though Acheron flinched when he touched him.

“Do you need anything?” Xander asked.

Acheron’s almost teal eyes popped wide in surprise, but he didn’t react verbally. “I don’t think so?” he said. “Am I doing okay?”

Xander patted his shoulder. “You’re doing great.” Quieter, he added, “Welcome to the family.”

Baby steps.

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