What You Learn to Live Without
Title: What You Learn to Live Without
Author: girlpire
Pairing: Xander/Anya (Genfic, really)
Rating: It's gen, so... general audiences. E for everyone.
Disclaimer: This story is based on the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" series, with which I am not affiliated in any way. Joss Whedon is my master, etc.
Distribution: Please no. kthnxbye. :)
Summary: After Buffy's death, Xander and Anya go on with their lives.
Warnings: Nothing specific.
Author's Notes: This story is set during the summer between seasons five and six of BtVS.
*
What You Learn to Live Without
*
Xander finds a giant tree stump. He decides to bring it into his apartment, thick roots and all, dirt clods dropping off of it as he marches it in. Sweating a little from the exertion of lifting the thing, he arranges it in the corner of the living room. It’s sort of artsy, he thinks. He suddenly feels very bohemian. Xander carefully sweeps up the dirt trail, rearranges the furniture so that the stump rather than the TV is the focal point of the room.
Anya doesn’t like it. “Take this stump away,” she tells him. “It’s not right, having a stump in the middle of the apartment as though it were some sort of stump-shaped furniture.”
“It’s nature,” he says. “We’re bohemian.” And he puts a framed picture of the two of them on top of the stump, as though it were indeed a piece of stump-shaped furniture. She throws up her hands and stomps away, and he stands there for a while, admiring the stump.
Later he moves the picture back to an end table. The stump shouldn’t have anything on top of it.
The stump sits in the corner for three days. Xander rests his hand on it while he watches TV. Sometimes he watches the stump instead of the TV. It’s got tiny little bugs crawling on it. At first he is entertained by the bugs, but then he becomes concerned that they are eating the stump. After fretting about this for a few hours, he decides that the stump can take care of itself. It’s a very old stump. He can tell by the number of rings.
One day he comes home from work and he finds Anya pressed into the corner behind the stump, trying to push it away from the wall. “Anya, what are you doing?” he asks her.
“I hate this stump,” she says, straining to push it. “I’m taking it back outside.” The stump won’t budge, though. She grits her teeth.
Xander watches her for a few moments, then sadly squeezes into the corner beside her to help. They push together, but the stump won’t move. Anya gets the idea to wedge a broom handle beneath it to move it, but this doesn’t help. The stump is there to stay.
Xander doesn’t let on that he is oddly satisfied at the stump’s determination. He feels like maybe he could learn a thing or two from this stump. Anya sits on top of the stump and frowns. “This stump is squat and unattractive,” she says. “It doesn’t go with our décor.”
“So we’ll decorate it,” Xander says. “A throw pillow, maybe?”
The next day, he finds Anya sitting on the floor in front of the stump, meticulously braiding its smaller roots together. She hasn’t done anything else to it. “This is all it needed,” she tells him. And he agrees, silently pleased that she didn’t try to cover it up with anything. He gives it a small pat.
The stump sits in the corner for weeks. It slowly begins to own the corner. Xander tries to remember what that corner looked like before the stump came to be with them, but he only remembers that he had felt like something was missing, and now he doesn’t feel as much that way anymore. That’s all.
“It’s a nice stump,” Willow offers one night, and Tara nods dutifully, adding, “It’s home-y.” No one else really notices the addition. At least, no one says anything. Xander finds Giles sitting on the couch squinting at it a few times, but he’s only lost in thought, and seems not to have realized there was a stump there at all.
Xander and Anya start leaving each other notes on the stump. Post-its.
“We’re out of milk.”
“Patrolling tonight. Back late.”
“Gone to the Magic Box.”
“Love you.”
Anya takes to sitting on the stump instead of the couch. When she’s not there, Xander props his feet on it. They name it Gertrude. “I once knew a Friplek named Gertrude,” Anya says. “They have similar features, but the Friplek wasn’t nearly as useful.”
The stump gradually becomes essential to them. They mold themselves around it, shape their living space so that the stump seems to hold everything together. It has gone from being an eyesore to a centerpiece, from a centerpiece to something bigger. It doesn’t intrude on or dominate the apartment, but it blends in, becomes one with the room, almost as though its roots have actually dug in and spread. It creates aesthetic harmony, draws in the furniture around it. It even seems to bring the young couple themselves closer together.
The stump has become such an integral part of their everyday lives that it’s something of a shock when they come home from patrolling with the Buffy-bot one night and it’s gone.
“Xander,” Anya says, horrified. “Where’s Gertrude?”
Xander has no idea. They look for the stump throughout the rest of the apartment. It isn’t anywhere to be found. The corner stands empty, a gaping hole in the middle of their lives. There’s a horrible feeling around the place where it had sat, as though it had been ripped forcibly from its rightful corner spot. There’s no trace of the stump there at all, as though it had never even existed.
Anya calls the police. “We’ve been robbed,” she tells them. “Someone took our stump. Please bring it back to us right away.” The police laugh at her. She hangs up the phone in tears.
Xander wraps his arms around her in a daze. “It’s okay,” he says into her hair. She snuffles against his neck as he stares at the terrible empty corner. “It’ll be alright,” he says.
“No,” she cries. “Xander, it’s not alright. I need that stump.”
“Shh, Anya,” he soothes, blinking away a tear. “At least… we still have each other.”
They stand there together, arms around one another. Xander can’t take his eyes off the spot where the stump sat all summer. The whole room looks different, feels different. Feels empty. There’s a hole to fill now, needs suddenly going unmet. He thinks about what he said and pulls Anya closer to him.
Somehow, he realizes, it won’t be enough.
*
Author: girlpire
Pairing: Xander/Anya (Genfic, really)
Rating: It's gen, so... general audiences. E for everyone.
Disclaimer: This story is based on the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" series, with which I am not affiliated in any way. Joss Whedon is my master, etc.
Distribution: Please no. kthnxbye. :)
Summary: After Buffy's death, Xander and Anya go on with their lives.
Warnings: Nothing specific.
Author's Notes: This story is set during the summer between seasons five and six of BtVS.
*
What You Learn to Live Without
*
Xander finds a giant tree stump. He decides to bring it into his apartment, thick roots and all, dirt clods dropping off of it as he marches it in. Sweating a little from the exertion of lifting the thing, he arranges it in the corner of the living room. It’s sort of artsy, he thinks. He suddenly feels very bohemian. Xander carefully sweeps up the dirt trail, rearranges the furniture so that the stump rather than the TV is the focal point of the room.
Anya doesn’t like it. “Take this stump away,” she tells him. “It’s not right, having a stump in the middle of the apartment as though it were some sort of stump-shaped furniture.”
“It’s nature,” he says. “We’re bohemian.” And he puts a framed picture of the two of them on top of the stump, as though it were indeed a piece of stump-shaped furniture. She throws up her hands and stomps away, and he stands there for a while, admiring the stump.
Later he moves the picture back to an end table. The stump shouldn’t have anything on top of it.
The stump sits in the corner for three days. Xander rests his hand on it while he watches TV. Sometimes he watches the stump instead of the TV. It’s got tiny little bugs crawling on it. At first he is entertained by the bugs, but then he becomes concerned that they are eating the stump. After fretting about this for a few hours, he decides that the stump can take care of itself. It’s a very old stump. He can tell by the number of rings.
One day he comes home from work and he finds Anya pressed into the corner behind the stump, trying to push it away from the wall. “Anya, what are you doing?” he asks her.
“I hate this stump,” she says, straining to push it. “I’m taking it back outside.” The stump won’t budge, though. She grits her teeth.
Xander watches her for a few moments, then sadly squeezes into the corner beside her to help. They push together, but the stump won’t move. Anya gets the idea to wedge a broom handle beneath it to move it, but this doesn’t help. The stump is there to stay.
Xander doesn’t let on that he is oddly satisfied at the stump’s determination. He feels like maybe he could learn a thing or two from this stump. Anya sits on top of the stump and frowns. “This stump is squat and unattractive,” she says. “It doesn’t go with our décor.”
“So we’ll decorate it,” Xander says. “A throw pillow, maybe?”
The next day, he finds Anya sitting on the floor in front of the stump, meticulously braiding its smaller roots together. She hasn’t done anything else to it. “This is all it needed,” she tells him. And he agrees, silently pleased that she didn’t try to cover it up with anything. He gives it a small pat.
The stump sits in the corner for weeks. It slowly begins to own the corner. Xander tries to remember what that corner looked like before the stump came to be with them, but he only remembers that he had felt like something was missing, and now he doesn’t feel as much that way anymore. That’s all.
“It’s a nice stump,” Willow offers one night, and Tara nods dutifully, adding, “It’s home-y.” No one else really notices the addition. At least, no one says anything. Xander finds Giles sitting on the couch squinting at it a few times, but he’s only lost in thought, and seems not to have realized there was a stump there at all.
Xander and Anya start leaving each other notes on the stump. Post-its.
“We’re out of milk.”
“Patrolling tonight. Back late.”
“Gone to the Magic Box.”
“Love you.”
Anya takes to sitting on the stump instead of the couch. When she’s not there, Xander props his feet on it. They name it Gertrude. “I once knew a Friplek named Gertrude,” Anya says. “They have similar features, but the Friplek wasn’t nearly as useful.”
The stump gradually becomes essential to them. They mold themselves around it, shape their living space so that the stump seems to hold everything together. It has gone from being an eyesore to a centerpiece, from a centerpiece to something bigger. It doesn’t intrude on or dominate the apartment, but it blends in, becomes one with the room, almost as though its roots have actually dug in and spread. It creates aesthetic harmony, draws in the furniture around it. It even seems to bring the young couple themselves closer together.
The stump has become such an integral part of their everyday lives that it’s something of a shock when they come home from patrolling with the Buffy-bot one night and it’s gone.
“Xander,” Anya says, horrified. “Where’s Gertrude?”
Xander has no idea. They look for the stump throughout the rest of the apartment. It isn’t anywhere to be found. The corner stands empty, a gaping hole in the middle of their lives. There’s a horrible feeling around the place where it had sat, as though it had been ripped forcibly from its rightful corner spot. There’s no trace of the stump there at all, as though it had never even existed.
Anya calls the police. “We’ve been robbed,” she tells them. “Someone took our stump. Please bring it back to us right away.” The police laugh at her. She hangs up the phone in tears.
Xander wraps his arms around her in a daze. “It’s okay,” he says into her hair. She snuffles against his neck as he stares at the terrible empty corner. “It’ll be alright,” he says.
“No,” she cries. “Xander, it’s not alright. I need that stump.”
“Shh, Anya,” he soothes, blinking away a tear. “At least… we still have each other.”
They stand there together, arms around one another. Xander can’t take his eyes off the spot where the stump sat all summer. The whole room looks different, feels different. Feels empty. There’s a hole to fill now, needs suddenly going unmet. He thinks about what he said and pulls Anya closer to him.
Somehow, he realizes, it won’t be enough.
*