"ANDREW!"

Anya's voice was insistent and very, very loud. Startled, he tried to jump up and pull his hand out of his pants at the same time – instead, he found himself tipping backwards into the tub, pulling various shampoos and the shower curtain down on top of him. So much for private time.

"What are you doing in there!?!? Andrew! You have five minutes to get out of there, or I'm kicking the door in." There was a pause, and then she amended, "Or I'll have Buffy kick the door in. Either way, big trouble."

He untangled himself, and moved with as much dignity as he could muster – which was, admittedly, not much, since he was forced to hunch over to try and hide his erection – to the door. Opening it, he affected nonchalance. "What's going on? Is there a problem?"

"Yes, of course there's a problem, Andrew. You're using up other people's bathroom time. What could you possibly be doing in here for all that time, anyway?" Hands on her hips, she stared him down, top to bottom. To his embarrassment, his posture hid nothing. "Oh! You were masturbating? Why didn't you just say so? So why was it taking so long?" She frowned at the mess in the tub and the open window. "Were you doing something perverted?"

"No, no, I, uh, I just – you startled me. You were really loud." He fidgeted, and edged towards the door, but she wasn't moving yet.

"Why did you have the window open?" As she watched, Xander moved once more across the yard, carrying the scraps from the latest Summers' home repair to be thrown away. "Oh," she said, "I see, you were watching Xander. Well, as understandable as that is – he does look very sexy in his work shirts – you can't do it in here. So go somewhere else."

"Well, it's not like there's anyplace else –" he whined, "There's always girls going in and out, and they don't ever knock."

"You could go down in the basement. That works really well – well, when everybody's out, anyway."

"You mean where Spike is?" Andrew's face paled, he knew it did, and he could feel the beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. "I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Why not? All the girls are terrified of him, they don't go down there unless Buffy makes them do laundry. And his cot's quite comfortable, considering."

"Yeah, but see, there's this thing where he nearly ate me? I mean, I don't still have to be an evil genius to be smart enough to, uh, not make myself vulnerable in my would-be killer's lair."

"Oh, don't be such a baby. He hasn't tried to kill you for at least two months. And anyway, it's not like it's something shocking around here - Buffy tried to kill me, I wanted to kill Xander, Willow tried to kill everybody. Anyway, Spike didn't seem to mind when Xander and I - "

"What?" Andrew was all ears, now. He loved information, the fresher, the better. That was him, the Ace Reporter, ear to the ground - well, figuratively speaking - for news. "When you and Xander...you mean, you're back together?"

"Well, not as such. We might have had sex, but only for purposes of clearing the air, that's all." She frowned at him. "But that's not the point. The point is that you can't hog the bathroom anymore. Now get out, I have to pee."

Andrew found himself shoved into the hall, and the door shut firmly in his face. There were other girls in the hall, too, which was extra embarrassing, because they giggled and whispered to each other. Probably they heard Anya. He hated living here. It would be all right if he had someplace that the others couldn't get in, but this was worse than when he had to share his room with Tucker, and Tucker cut out all the covers off his comic books. It sucked.

He stomped down to the kitchen, and out onto the back porch to hide for a minute. Nobody was training; they were all probably watching TV, and nobody had come to ask him if he wanted to. He was still standing there when Xander came around the side of the house, toolbox dangling from one hand, still wearing the leather gloves he'd worn earlier when he fixed the glass. "Uh, hi, Xander," he mumbled.

Xander set the toolbox down on the steps, and wiped his forehead with his arm. "Andrew. What's up?"

"Nothing - nothing at all. Just ...just enjoying the afternoon air. It's a little crowded right now."

"I hear that. Sometimes the amount of estrogen in the house reaches the danger level, even for me." He smiled, that crooked half-smile that made Andrew's heart beat just a little bit faster, and hefted the toolbox once more. "Well, I'd better go in and get cleaned up before it's suppertime."

"Xander!"

He stopped in the door way, shoulder against the frame, his skin glowing in a beam of light. The tight musculature of his forearms straining with the weight of the tools of his trade, the darkened nipples of his broad chest stiff beneath the nearly-transparent fabric of his white tank-- "Andrew, what?"

He blinked, back to the reality of Xander in his rough brown workshirt, waiting impatiently for whatever it was Andrew had planned to say. "I...uh..." The words stuck in his throat. "I thought you did a really good job on the windows. They look nice."

Xander grinned, pleased at the compliment. "Yeah, I think it came out OK. Thanks for noticing."

He smiled at me, thought Andrew. A hundred beautiful scenarios took shape in his brain, all of them requiring some sort of privacy. Maybe the basement wasn't such a bad idea, after all.