semby
in
ficofsemby
It's a Good Song
Title: It's a Good Song
Pairing: Dawn/Xander
Setting: Future, undefined location (some town on some coast where most of the gang apparently lives in this version of the future)
Summary: It's Dawn's wedding day, but Xander's sitting at home. That can't last long.
Disclaimer: Just messing with Joss's creations.
A/N: Written for the Happy Endings Ficathon. Request details posted at the end. Beta'ed by the always awesomely helpful lillianmorgan.
It was just an ordinary quiet day in Xander’s apartment. Not totally ordinary, because he was burdened with the knowledge that he was spending the day quietly in his apartment when there was somewhere else he was supposed to be, something else he was supposed to be doing, something… important. It was Dawn’s wedding day, but instead of attending, he’d sent his regrets.
He hadn’t been able to explain it, but he knew there were a thousand things he’d rather be doing that day than watching Dawn walk down the aisle and vow to spend the rest of her life with that… that smarty-pants fancy European guy. Since everyone else he knew and cared about was at the wedding, he was stuck spending the day by himself. That, helpfully or not, narrowed down the list of the thousand things he’d rather be doing that day to a list of very few things he actually could do. He was instead sitting at home, and had claimed to have tons of paperwork due for work, or the flu, or maybe even food poisoning - he couldn’t remember the exact excuse he’d given and was pretty sure not everyone had gotten the same version. He’d been hasty to give any lie that would get him out of being expected at that wedding. Fake paperwork and diseases were immensely preferable to the alternative.
It would have stayed a quiet, dull day, except that it was shortly interrupted by a knock at his door. He sighed, and considered spreading out a bunch of business papers or tissues haphazardly, but decided that anyone who would need proof that he couldn’t make it to the wedding would actually be at the wedding rather than at his door. He half-heartedly attempted to straighten his shirt as he slowly headed towards the door, expecting a salesman, Jehovah’s Witness, or someone else he’d just be turning away momentarily. He opened the door.
It was Dawn, in her wedding dress and Nike sneakers, out of breath and grinning.
“You don’t look so bad,” she greeted. “Come out with me for a bit.”
Xander, caught looking neither ill nor overwhelmed by paperwork, feebly tried, “Dawnie, I can’t go to the wedding, and shouldn’t you be off finishing getting ready now anyway?”
She let out a “pfft” and waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about that. It’s still early. I’m not dragging you to the wedding, but you have to come with me for a little while. Please?”
Bending to Dawn’s will and following wherever she led sounded much more appealing than the prospect of attending to fake paperwork, at least for a little while. He only hoped this wasn’t some devious plan of hers to get him out of the house without any excuse to then go back home before the wedding.
When they reached her car, there was a brief argument over who would drive. He had his depth perception issues, but she would have to navigate around the endless layers of frills and lace in her way. He won, and as they started moving, he teased her about how the ride must have gone from the bridal chambers to his place. She ignored him in favor of giving directions to their destination.
When the car pulled into a parking spot, Xander looked at Dawn with a raised eyebrow. “You had a desperate craving for ice cream and couldn’t get anyone from the wedding party to go with you?”
She gave a soft smile. “It was more that I couldn’t stand the thought of you sitting at home. Ice cream always helps on days like today.”
He sighed and followed her out of the car and through the door to the ice cream parlor. It definitely seemed like this was her plan to cheer him up and get him motivated to attend her wedding. He knew he had to come up with a decent excuse before she turned on him.
After they got the ice cream - cookie dough for her, rocky road for him - he reluctantly reminded her of the time, and she led him back to her car, just smiling and shaking her head.
“I told you not to worry about it. I know when I’m expected.”
Dawn again took the reins of navigating duty, and he merely followed her directions without question as they seemed to be getting farther and farther from both the church and his apartment. Before long, the smell of the sea and the sound of waves crashing invaded his senses. He drove as close to the sand as he could before he stopped the car. She practically jumped out of her sneakers and socks, handed them to him, and then went racing down to the water. She only dipped in her feet, but by the time he caught up to her, the bottom of her dress was noticeably soaked.
He kept back from the water as he called out, “That’s not going to ruin your dress, is it?”
She twirled before looking back at him and laughing. “I don’t care!”
Xander simply shrugged as she made her way back to him. He was through trying to understand women - sometimes fashion was a life or death matter, but apparently sometimes it was okay to ruin the most expensive dress you’d ever own for the most important event of your life. He handed her back her shoes as he grudgingly and gently reminded her of the time again.
She looked at him quietly for a moment, her face more serious than it had been all day, but then she suddenly burst into a grin again and blurted, “Last one back to the car’s a rotten egg!”
Instinct kicked in and Xander raced after her. By the time they reached the end, they were both out of breath from laughter, and neither noticed who won.
She plopped herself down to the ground where he’d collapsed and started putting her shoes back on. “You get to choose where to go next.”
This time he could no longer deny that something was fishy. It was getting close, and the fact that she was running around town with him rather than running through the bridal chambers getting ready for the big event wasn’t normal or right. She was hiding something.
He sat up and reached out to her arm to stop her in the process of putting on her shoes. “Dawn, what’s going on? What are we doing here?”
She smiled back at him and replied, “Well, we’re done here, so nothing. I said already, you get to choose where we go next.”
“Dawn.” The word was laced with about as much sternness as Xander had ever mustered.
The light-hearted smile she’d been wearing for almost the entire time since she’d shown up at his door suddenly disappeared. “Why wouldn’t you come to my wedding?”
Xander was taken aback, and mentally kicked himself for not yet thinking of the excuse he had known he would need in order to get out of going to her wedding once their little outing reached an end. Eventually all he could get out was a measly, “I… couldn’t.”
He expected to be yelled at for that pathetic excuse for an answer, but she simply nodded. She wasn’t expecting or demanding that he explain further - she just understood. “Yeah. I couldn’t either.”
He let out an inappropriate, loud laugh, he was so surprised at her response. “What? But - Dawnie, it’s your wedding.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I know. I was getting ready today, and suddenly I found myself thinking: my God, this is the day I’m going to get married. This is my wedding day, and everything’s supposed to be perfect. And do you know what? Almost everything was. My dress was perfect, the flowers were perfect, the church was perfect. I had Giles there to give me away and my Dad sitting in the pews wishing he was close enough to me to earn that honor. I was secretly happy that Buffy was secretly jealous that I was getting the perfect, normal, white-picket-fences life that she’ll never get. And I was all set to marry one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met who just… gets me. But all I could think about? Was how much it sucked that you weren’t going to be there. So that’s why I’m here. It’s my wedding day, and that means I get to do what makes me happy. And what would make me happiest is to spend this day with you.”
He ran a hand through his hair, nervous and frustrated, and then blurted, “You can’t just give up everything you’ve been planning because I-”
“No,” she interrupted. “I can’t. But I can give up everything I’ve been planning because I realized I didn’t want to do it with him.”
Xander felt a wave of bitterness flow through him as he turned his gaze down towards the sea. “You mean there’s actually something unappealing about Mr. Perfect?”
“Xander, don’t. Just…” She let out a long, heavy sigh. “Just tell me why you couldn’t come.”
“I think you already know why.”
She gave him a pleading, almost desperate look. “Why? Because it’s the same reason I couldn’t go through with it? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
He ran a nervous hand through his hair before looking back to her. “I don’t know. I really just - I don’t know. I just know that I couldn’t watch…”
“…me marry someone else.”
He didn’t dignify that with an answer. He didn’t have to - the truth was written all over his face. Of course, he also quickly became incapable of speech altogether when her mouth covered his a moment later.
It was a long, slow, revealing kiss - in which their forms melted into each other and they were laid completely open and vulnerable to each other, finally sharing the feelings they’d each suppressed for so long in the belief that they wouldn’t be returned, and in the belief that those feelings were wrong, or meant for others.
They eventually pulled an inch or so apart, and Xander murmured quietly, “This is really how you’d rather spend what was supposed to be your wedding day?”
Dawn giggled lightly and nodded. “It really is.”
She began to lean in again, but he jerked back to add with a note of nervousness, “And really with me and not just anyone who isn’t Mr. Apparently-Not-So-Perfect?”
She grabbed his collar and pulled him closer again before reassuring him, “Really with you.”
He reluctantly pulled back even further. “Wait.” Dawn pouted and he grasped her hand comfortingly. “It’s just… I get the needing to bolt, Dawn, I really do. You know I do… more so than, well no one else knows like me. But - have you really thought through the consequences? Have you thought about how you’re going to break the news to-”
Dawn pressed a finger to his mouth to shush him. “The news has been broken. And he took it… surprisingly well. And I’m going to take that as further justification that I’m doing the right thing here, so would you please just shut up and kiss me again?”
Xander couldn’t help but grin at that. “Now how could I possibly argue with-”
He was again cut off from talking by Dawn’s insistent kisses.
They were interrupted again, barely seconds later by a couple of cars full of teenagers pulling up and jumping out to run a short distance down the beach in a noisy mass. Seconds later, a portable stereo was blaring.
Dawn sighed and put a fair amount of distance between herself and Xander. She gave him an awkward smile. “Kind of a mood killer. Feel like heading elsewhere?”
Xander nodded, raised himself to a standing position, brushed some remaining sand off his clothes and reached a hand down to help her up. As they turned back to the car, the music from the teens’ stereo switched from the loud, obnoxious, punk song to a mellower, softer tune.
“Now, hold on.” Xander grabbed her arm and stopped her trek back to the car. “I don’t know if the mood is totally lost. This song’s kind of nice, the kids seem to be settling down, we’ve got waves crashing, it’s not so long before sunset…”
“You’re so corny.” Dawn giggled.
“You should be dancing on your wedding day.” He twirled her clumsily before pulling her closer so they could sway together somewhat more gracefully.
She smiled wistfully. “Our first dance was going to be to ‘Stand By Me’.”
Xander pulled back slightly and looked from her to the source of the music and back. “And this doesn’t really compare? Well, I could sing…”
“No!” Dawn laughed, and covered his mouth with her hand. She let go and moved so they were tighter in each other’s embrace, still dancing. “I mean - this is perfect. Just like it is. This can be our song now.”
Xander grinned as he rested his cheek against her hair. “I think it’s a good song. It’s definitely a grower. Takes a bit of getting used to, but once you realize how much you like it, you really, really do don’t you? It sticks in your heart, right?”
Dawn smiled into his chest and murmured her total and absolute agreement.
End.
Request:
Name or LJ name: emeraldswan
Pairing and/or character requested: Dawn/Xander, Dawn/Angel, Dawn/Spike, or Willow/Wesley. Really craving a Dawn-centric fic, though...
Up to three things you would like included in your story: Dancing, a spur of the moment date/evening out, and smoochies.
Up to three things you would not like in the story: a lot of angst, character bashing.
Rating preference: Anything, though I'd like it to be at least PG-13.
A/N: I don't think it reached the PG-13 rating requested, but this was the best I could do with this plot and my time constraints (an earlier version reached at least PG-13 simply through abundant cursing, but that version was very, very bad).
Originally posted here on March 15, 2006
Pairing: Dawn/Xander
Setting: Future, undefined location (some town on some coast where most of the gang apparently lives in this version of the future)
Summary: It's Dawn's wedding day, but Xander's sitting at home. That can't last long.
Disclaimer: Just messing with Joss's creations.
A/N: Written for the Happy Endings Ficathon. Request details posted at the end. Beta'ed by the always awesomely helpful lillianmorgan.
It was just an ordinary quiet day in Xander’s apartment. Not totally ordinary, because he was burdened with the knowledge that he was spending the day quietly in his apartment when there was somewhere else he was supposed to be, something else he was supposed to be doing, something… important. It was Dawn’s wedding day, but instead of attending, he’d sent his regrets.
He hadn’t been able to explain it, but he knew there were a thousand things he’d rather be doing that day than watching Dawn walk down the aisle and vow to spend the rest of her life with that… that smarty-pants fancy European guy. Since everyone else he knew and cared about was at the wedding, he was stuck spending the day by himself. That, helpfully or not, narrowed down the list of the thousand things he’d rather be doing that day to a list of very few things he actually could do. He was instead sitting at home, and had claimed to have tons of paperwork due for work, or the flu, or maybe even food poisoning - he couldn’t remember the exact excuse he’d given and was pretty sure not everyone had gotten the same version. He’d been hasty to give any lie that would get him out of being expected at that wedding. Fake paperwork and diseases were immensely preferable to the alternative.
It would have stayed a quiet, dull day, except that it was shortly interrupted by a knock at his door. He sighed, and considered spreading out a bunch of business papers or tissues haphazardly, but decided that anyone who would need proof that he couldn’t make it to the wedding would actually be at the wedding rather than at his door. He half-heartedly attempted to straighten his shirt as he slowly headed towards the door, expecting a salesman, Jehovah’s Witness, or someone else he’d just be turning away momentarily. He opened the door.
It was Dawn, in her wedding dress and Nike sneakers, out of breath and grinning.
“You don’t look so bad,” she greeted. “Come out with me for a bit.”
Xander, caught looking neither ill nor overwhelmed by paperwork, feebly tried, “Dawnie, I can’t go to the wedding, and shouldn’t you be off finishing getting ready now anyway?”
She let out a “pfft” and waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about that. It’s still early. I’m not dragging you to the wedding, but you have to come with me for a little while. Please?”
Bending to Dawn’s will and following wherever she led sounded much more appealing than the prospect of attending to fake paperwork, at least for a little while. He only hoped this wasn’t some devious plan of hers to get him out of the house without any excuse to then go back home before the wedding.
When they reached her car, there was a brief argument over who would drive. He had his depth perception issues, but she would have to navigate around the endless layers of frills and lace in her way. He won, and as they started moving, he teased her about how the ride must have gone from the bridal chambers to his place. She ignored him in favor of giving directions to their destination.
When the car pulled into a parking spot, Xander looked at Dawn with a raised eyebrow. “You had a desperate craving for ice cream and couldn’t get anyone from the wedding party to go with you?”
She gave a soft smile. “It was more that I couldn’t stand the thought of you sitting at home. Ice cream always helps on days like today.”
He sighed and followed her out of the car and through the door to the ice cream parlor. It definitely seemed like this was her plan to cheer him up and get him motivated to attend her wedding. He knew he had to come up with a decent excuse before she turned on him.
After they got the ice cream - cookie dough for her, rocky road for him - he reluctantly reminded her of the time, and she led him back to her car, just smiling and shaking her head.
“I told you not to worry about it. I know when I’m expected.”
Dawn again took the reins of navigating duty, and he merely followed her directions without question as they seemed to be getting farther and farther from both the church and his apartment. Before long, the smell of the sea and the sound of waves crashing invaded his senses. He drove as close to the sand as he could before he stopped the car. She practically jumped out of her sneakers and socks, handed them to him, and then went racing down to the water. She only dipped in her feet, but by the time he caught up to her, the bottom of her dress was noticeably soaked.
He kept back from the water as he called out, “That’s not going to ruin your dress, is it?”
She twirled before looking back at him and laughing. “I don’t care!”
Xander simply shrugged as she made her way back to him. He was through trying to understand women - sometimes fashion was a life or death matter, but apparently sometimes it was okay to ruin the most expensive dress you’d ever own for the most important event of your life. He handed her back her shoes as he grudgingly and gently reminded her of the time again.
She looked at him quietly for a moment, her face more serious than it had been all day, but then she suddenly burst into a grin again and blurted, “Last one back to the car’s a rotten egg!”
Instinct kicked in and Xander raced after her. By the time they reached the end, they were both out of breath from laughter, and neither noticed who won.
She plopped herself down to the ground where he’d collapsed and started putting her shoes back on. “You get to choose where to go next.”
This time he could no longer deny that something was fishy. It was getting close, and the fact that she was running around town with him rather than running through the bridal chambers getting ready for the big event wasn’t normal or right. She was hiding something.
He sat up and reached out to her arm to stop her in the process of putting on her shoes. “Dawn, what’s going on? What are we doing here?”
She smiled back at him and replied, “Well, we’re done here, so nothing. I said already, you get to choose where we go next.”
“Dawn.” The word was laced with about as much sternness as Xander had ever mustered.
The light-hearted smile she’d been wearing for almost the entire time since she’d shown up at his door suddenly disappeared. “Why wouldn’t you come to my wedding?”
Xander was taken aback, and mentally kicked himself for not yet thinking of the excuse he had known he would need in order to get out of going to her wedding once their little outing reached an end. Eventually all he could get out was a measly, “I… couldn’t.”
He expected to be yelled at for that pathetic excuse for an answer, but she simply nodded. She wasn’t expecting or demanding that he explain further - she just understood. “Yeah. I couldn’t either.”
He let out an inappropriate, loud laugh, he was so surprised at her response. “What? But - Dawnie, it’s your wedding.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I know. I was getting ready today, and suddenly I found myself thinking: my God, this is the day I’m going to get married. This is my wedding day, and everything’s supposed to be perfect. And do you know what? Almost everything was. My dress was perfect, the flowers were perfect, the church was perfect. I had Giles there to give me away and my Dad sitting in the pews wishing he was close enough to me to earn that honor. I was secretly happy that Buffy was secretly jealous that I was getting the perfect, normal, white-picket-fences life that she’ll never get. And I was all set to marry one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met who just… gets me. But all I could think about? Was how much it sucked that you weren’t going to be there. So that’s why I’m here. It’s my wedding day, and that means I get to do what makes me happy. And what would make me happiest is to spend this day with you.”
He ran a hand through his hair, nervous and frustrated, and then blurted, “You can’t just give up everything you’ve been planning because I-”
“No,” she interrupted. “I can’t. But I can give up everything I’ve been planning because I realized I didn’t want to do it with him.”
Xander felt a wave of bitterness flow through him as he turned his gaze down towards the sea. “You mean there’s actually something unappealing about Mr. Perfect?”
“Xander, don’t. Just…” She let out a long, heavy sigh. “Just tell me why you couldn’t come.”
“I think you already know why.”
She gave him a pleading, almost desperate look. “Why? Because it’s the same reason I couldn’t go through with it? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
He ran a nervous hand through his hair before looking back to her. “I don’t know. I really just - I don’t know. I just know that I couldn’t watch…”
“…me marry someone else.”
He didn’t dignify that with an answer. He didn’t have to - the truth was written all over his face. Of course, he also quickly became incapable of speech altogether when her mouth covered his a moment later.
It was a long, slow, revealing kiss - in which their forms melted into each other and they were laid completely open and vulnerable to each other, finally sharing the feelings they’d each suppressed for so long in the belief that they wouldn’t be returned, and in the belief that those feelings were wrong, or meant for others.
They eventually pulled an inch or so apart, and Xander murmured quietly, “This is really how you’d rather spend what was supposed to be your wedding day?”
Dawn giggled lightly and nodded. “It really is.”
She began to lean in again, but he jerked back to add with a note of nervousness, “And really with me and not just anyone who isn’t Mr. Apparently-Not-So-Perfect?”
She grabbed his collar and pulled him closer again before reassuring him, “Really with you.”
He reluctantly pulled back even further. “Wait.” Dawn pouted and he grasped her hand comfortingly. “It’s just… I get the needing to bolt, Dawn, I really do. You know I do… more so than, well no one else knows like me. But - have you really thought through the consequences? Have you thought about how you’re going to break the news to-”
Dawn pressed a finger to his mouth to shush him. “The news has been broken. And he took it… surprisingly well. And I’m going to take that as further justification that I’m doing the right thing here, so would you please just shut up and kiss me again?”
Xander couldn’t help but grin at that. “Now how could I possibly argue with-”
He was again cut off from talking by Dawn’s insistent kisses.
They were interrupted again, barely seconds later by a couple of cars full of teenagers pulling up and jumping out to run a short distance down the beach in a noisy mass. Seconds later, a portable stereo was blaring.
Dawn sighed and put a fair amount of distance between herself and Xander. She gave him an awkward smile. “Kind of a mood killer. Feel like heading elsewhere?”
Xander nodded, raised himself to a standing position, brushed some remaining sand off his clothes and reached a hand down to help her up. As they turned back to the car, the music from the teens’ stereo switched from the loud, obnoxious, punk song to a mellower, softer tune.
“Now, hold on.” Xander grabbed her arm and stopped her trek back to the car. “I don’t know if the mood is totally lost. This song’s kind of nice, the kids seem to be settling down, we’ve got waves crashing, it’s not so long before sunset…”
“You’re so corny.” Dawn giggled.
“You should be dancing on your wedding day.” He twirled her clumsily before pulling her closer so they could sway together somewhat more gracefully.
She smiled wistfully. “Our first dance was going to be to ‘Stand By Me’.”
Xander pulled back slightly and looked from her to the source of the music and back. “And this doesn’t really compare? Well, I could sing…”
“No!” Dawn laughed, and covered his mouth with her hand. She let go and moved so they were tighter in each other’s embrace, still dancing. “I mean - this is perfect. Just like it is. This can be our song now.”
Xander grinned as he rested his cheek against her hair. “I think it’s a good song. It’s definitely a grower. Takes a bit of getting used to, but once you realize how much you like it, you really, really do don’t you? It sticks in your heart, right?”
Dawn smiled into his chest and murmured her total and absolute agreement.
End.
Request:
Name or LJ name: emeraldswan
Pairing and/or character requested: Dawn/Xander, Dawn/Angel, Dawn/Spike, or Willow/Wesley. Really craving a Dawn-centric fic, though...
Up to three things you would like included in your story: Dancing, a spur of the moment date/evening out, and smoochies.
Up to three things you would not like in the story: a lot of angst, character bashing.
Rating preference: Anything, though I'd like it to be at least PG-13.
A/N: I don't think it reached the PG-13 rating requested, but this was the best I could do with this plot and my time constraints (an earlier version reached at least PG-13 simply through abundant cursing, but that version was very, very bad).
Originally posted here on March 15, 2006