Fake Plastic Trees

by Lise and River

It's these goddamned coconut trees that flip him out the most.

It's the way everything's so bleeding *drab*. Green, green, green, brown; fine. But all the green green brown is even shaped the same way. It's -- enough to make you want to run away.

Course, the world's basically covered with coconut trees at the moment, for all he knows, so there's not much point. Best to wait it out.

Green green green green brown green green green. Splash.

Red.

He tilts his head, studies the small figure on the ground. Crouches down. His hair is hanging in his eyes in this hell of a gell-less world.

Cute little squirrel just fell out of a tree, he thinks to himself, and snorts. There are other squirrels, other game. Red. He should probably get it to camp, but it's kind of revulsing, the way it just lays there. It doesn't even -- twitch, or anything.

Thinking about eating it later, that makes him queasy, too.

And then he stares harder, and think: life to none. I did this. And that helps, just a lttle, like always.

And he gets scared, just a -- little tiny bit. Like always.

Mostly, he's bored, and there's never anything to do and Bali wasn't like this because Ethan was there--

The sun feels suddenly blistering hot, so after picking up the dead thing, he moves a foot and a half, into a place of shade and more sand. Coconuts sway in the breeze above him, and he lays down, shading his eyes from the brilliant blue of the water lapping at the shore, and the brilliant blue of the sky above.

Green, green, green, brown. And all framed by sapphire blue; a little too bright for any normal earth but, of course, this isn't a normal earth. Last week he was in a mountain. The week before, a canyon.

Who knows what next week's earth will bring.

Ripper puts an arm over his eyes, and mutters to the sky, "A fellow can get tired of eating coconuts and dead things, you know. A little help might be in order."

But he knows the pattern-- in another day, things will change.

He ponders sleeping off the rest of this Shift, but the brightness is too fucking *everywhere* to let him rest. He thinks about climbing up to get a coconut or two.

It doesn't seem quite worth the bother.

He picks up his magicked squirrel, notes a little distractedly that the puncture point could be finer, and moves towards camp. He's glad to think he's not going to have to fry it himself; the air is too hot to encourage doing anything but lying on the beach, in the shade, on a tree, just lying without movement. He just hopes Xander isn't going to scream like a girl.

Really, the company he keeps sometimes surprises him.

Just a dead thing, he thinks, shaking his head a little with something approaching contempt for Xander; just a dead thing, boy. Ripper takes care not to touch the blood as he swings the squirrel back and forth by his side, walking more slowly. It's too hot.

When he hits camp, the others are nowhere to be found.

He almost stamps his foot, but feels too stupid and -- childish. Besides, it's too hot.

I miss Ethan, he thinks, miserably, slumping to the ground; a little too miserably, in fact. It crosses his mind that he might be overdoing it a little when a pout threatens. Damn that practicality he seems always cursed with. Except when Ethan's around.

It's not like Ethan would help him in any way, right now. He'd just wind up hunting the squirrel and making the fire and doing the frying, and probably getting a coconut or two, as well, and forgetting to resent it -- to resent it enough to dig his toes into the sandy ground and refuse to move further the way he knows, Ethan knows, that he's capable when pushed too far -- right up until they'd be lying down in their sleeping places by the fire, and Ethan's hand would fail to appear on his thigh, or not fail at all. And then he'd feel like a whore, only the wrong way round.

But life with Ethan, that's something before. This is -- most certainly not London. So who knows what it would have been like; he can imagine he'd be happy.

He doesn't really want to. Damned British practicality. Or -- damned something.

He stares at the squirrel by his feet. The ground must be damp; his ass, through the weird camo pants they'd found last Shift, is getting soaked.

He misses his jeans with a fierceness that weirds him out. But things that have fourty per cent holes in them to begin with aren't meant to survive in the Shift zone.

There's a mighty cry, and a flock of sea birds take to the air, whooping and cawing just like sea birds can. His eyes follow their flight, thinking about trying to take them down with a finger, but-- it's too hot, too much bother, he's too lethargic to want to try. Lots of days are past in lethargy, just like college, except the dorms didn't ever smell like the ocean.

Ripper remembers college as if it was just last week-- which he should, since it has to have been less than a month since the world took him, barely twenty three and an Oxford dropout, and put him on a mountain top. Not supposed to be here, sure, but he's here anyway, and those sea birds and that squirrel aren't cooking themselves.

He's still just a college student, somehow caught up in a sick earth that someone else created, still playing with majicks that--

He missed Ethan.

The coconuts swayed in the breeze some more, and he looked at the squirrel in disgust.... but. It was easier than climbing a tree.

Someone starts singing, just as he moves to stand up -- or maybe not starts, but just gets close enough for faint notes of a song in motion to reach Ripper, who slumps down again, blissed out on knowing he has no need to move again today.

Once within eye sight, she blinks at him, tilts her head at the small pathetic lump. "What's that?"

Not a good beginning. He wonders why the fuck the kid couldn't get here first.

Xander, Xander is a little scared of him still. He must remember *something* from -- before the Shifts, even if he won't admit it, even if he, maybe, doesn't remember remembering. He keeps seeming to expect something from Ripper, hell if he knows what, and he flinches every time he's proven wrong.

On second thought, he's kinda glad Xander isn't here to see the blood. Girly screaming is a fun notion, and a blast to make fun of, but the flinching --wears thin.

The girl is still waiting. He measures her up, languidly, trailing his eyes along her small frame in a way he knows will make her mad. China doll, tiny thing, mouth big enough to bite your head off. Yeah.

Taps the ground by the dead squirrel with the heel of his shoe, carelessly. "Time to make dinner, luv."

Blue eyes scowl. J flips the hair off her face; scowls harder. He notes with some envy that she doesn't need anything to keep it out of her eyes. Maybe he should grow his hair longer. "Fuck you, Gile --"

"Ripper," He says, letting the threat creep into his voice. Giles; hell. Like having his father along for the ride.

Scowl drops a bit. Instead of rolling her eyes and foraging onwards, like usual, she says, "*He* calls you Giles all the time."

"The kid?" Shrugs a little, uninterested. "I get tired of tellin' him. Gonner wind up with a broken nose one day."

He doesn't mention that feeling of something being half-expected from him, of someone trying to fit him into a frame that exists only in his head. It's only happened in one way before and whatever form the kid seems to be carrying around in the back of his mind, it certainly can't be his father.

It pleases him, strangely, that he still tries. So he tends to let the name go. So fucking what?

That kid, he thinks, is seriously messed up.

Jubilee sits down, wrinkling her nose at the dead rodent in the sand. "I'm, like, so not touching that. I'll catch some fish or something."

Ripper shrugs. "Whatever. I have to take a piss."

He moves behind a palm tree -- greengreengreen brown number one thousand, nine hundred and seventy fucking six, before he lost count-- and whistles while he pisses. Life is relatively easy, right now.

The middle of the night should bring a whoosh and a trip and a-- noise, and then another world, so he should enjoy things being cheap and easy while he can.

--if it weren't for the fucking coconut trees.

They'll be the death of him for sure.

When Jubilee appears at his back, he isn't done yet, and he jumps and almost pisses on his pant leg in a way that's just -- in a way that would never happen to Ethan.

"You know, I almost hope he gets lost or something and doesn't get here for hours, just to see you have to cook that lousy thing yourself."

"Fuck!" Once his blood has settled again, he turns his head to glare at her over his shoulder. The hair hangs in his eyes again, ruining the effect. "Would you just -- jesus, never *mind*." Because she wouldn't hesitate one moment before laughing out loud if he asked for some bleeding *privacy*, no more than he would have in her place. "I caught the thing, didn't I?"

She snorts. "Oh, yeah, me Tarzan, you Jane. At least they taught you how to play house."

He just shakes his head, concentrating momentarily on zipping up. Bloody raving feminists.

"And anyway," she continues, "I'm sure it was a whole lotta work. Abra kadabra, zoom, you're dead." When he turns around, her finger is pointed at the base of his neck. She's grinning, a little, and not like a nice person.

He doesn't do nice people, but he has never had any intentions to like her, and it bothers him when she pulls shit like this. Which is, basically, all the fucking time.

Going off on a high-priority tangent, he wonders if it's gonna take finding his time, sanity and college again before he finds another chick who's actually into sex.

She settles back with a belligerant stare that says, fuck you, I'm not touching that dead thing. Fuck you, Ripper, I'm not touching you-- that. I'm not touching that.

He sighs, and closes his eyes, settles down for a nap. The setting sun, shining orange through leafy fronds, is baking their skin to a nice, crisp, wrinkly brown. J looks like she'd burn, but some time in her high school life she picked up the ability to tan, and quickly. Somewhere in the, like, desert, was her only answer.

More squirrels run up and down brown trunks of trees, the hairy fruit threatening to fall on their heads any minute. Dark brown. Hairy. Lush.

He opens one eye, a crack, and glares at J. "Go make the kid cook that, and get something else. It's not going to do all three of us, you know."

She sighs, but moves off towards the ocean to start fishing, and Ripper moves closer to the fire, dozing in the twilight.

As it gets later, the tranquil scene shifts little-- the swiftly descending night is chilly enough to merit the fire, but not so chilly that they would freeze without it. He shuffles around, lays down on the sand again, wraps the rough woolen blanket around him loosely. Stares into the flames. In a couple of hours, they'd have to be ready for the changeover. He preferred to go through it asleep. He knew that Jubilee would stay awake, watch it roll over the fires of their ashes and him and the kid, asleep and dreaming. She's good for that.

Speaking of the kid, where did he get to?

"Hey, J!" he yells at the ocean. "Where's the kid?"

"Behind you," a quiet voice murmurs, and Ripper jumps a mile in the air.

"Jesus, mate! *Don't* do that."

The kid sits down, cross-legged, and stares into the same flames Ripper had been eyeing. He folds his hands in his lap, staring thoughtfully into the orange and yellow and blue-- makes a change from the green and green and brown. He furrows his brows. "I-- almost remember this."

Ripper rolls his eyes, and as J puts her two fish on the fire, replies, "This hasn't happened before, you pillock."

The kid scowls. "There's no need to be rude."

Jubilee pipes up with, "Hey, guys. Shut up and eat."

In a way, Ripper thinks, the girl's got the right idea. Even in the night, the air is muggy and warm, and their damp clothing sticks to them. It's a perfect tropical night, complete with a chorus of unidentifiable blue bugs, the gentle lapping of the seashore, smell of salt water, and a billion stars above them. He goes to sleep because there's nothing better to do-- bored out of his skull by a half-wit amnesiac, a pint-sized firecracker and a million fucking palm trees.

Ripper can't wait for the change.

~*~

The next morning, as the first rays of sunshine hit his eyes and blind him even through the skin, he feels the first tendril of real fear. Opening one eye to a brilliantly blue sky between green leafy fronds blowing gently in the breeze, that fear takes root firmly in his belly.

"What happened?"

J looks grim, and she presides over the ashes of their fire like those nancys in court passing sentence, like a teacher, a jailor, a--

"What *happened*?" he asks again. "We should be in another bloody world by now!" Her eyes stay grim, mouth the same straight little pucker. Xander sits up, sleepily, and blinks at the both of them, addled brain not understanding the meaning of this. Quieter now, as panic snaked its way through him, Ripper asks her, "What. Happened."

She breaks, suddenly, grim mask falling to fear, the shadow of fronds playing on her little face. "Nothing."

Nothing. Nothing happened. Ripper digests this slowly, trying to let the implications of this sink into his bones, into his marrow itself. His shoulders slump a little, and he lays back down, eyes shut firmly. There are sounds of a scuffle, Xander trying in his unique way to stand up gracefully. Jubilee plods off to the ocean to get more food.

Ripper feels safe opening his eyes when both of them are gone, and he stares at the color of the sky-- so normal, blue-- and doesn't miss Ethan, not even a little bit. The fear settles itself in his stomach. The brown, brown trunks all around him cast little straight shadows on the sand, and somewhere near the water, a crab scuttles off.

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