Fic: The Wonderland Subject (50/?)
CHAPTER FORTY NINE
Xander was lying on his back with his hands behind his head. He was shirtless and wearing only a pair of sweatpants, having thrown his sweaty shirt into the corner of the room when he’d gotten back from spending an hour or so in the gym: alone this time.
It had been a crazy hour. He’d done multiple curls on the huge free-weights Buffy (and until recently, only Buffy) used for her own workouts. He’d pounded a Slayer-tough heavy bag until he’d torn the canvas. He’d done pushups, situps, pull-ups, and every other ups he could think of. He hadn’t gotten tired. His muscles didn’t ache. He felt great.
Well, no, not just great. He felt weird too. Really weird. First of all, he was bigger than he’d ever been in his life. His abs were all washboardy, his chest was broad and muscular, and his arms: good Lord, his arms. They were like big massive big things made out of bigger massive big things.
Okay, maybe not that big. But they were big. When he curled his bicep there was actually a bulge there, unlike the feeble noodly thing that used to half-heartedly flex when he’d done such a thing in the past.
Then there was the whole senses thing. He could smell Buffy. Not just when she was around, either. He could smell her all the time. He knew where she was at that very moment, because her unique smell was mixed with the faintly musty odor of books. She was with Giles, and she was probably talking with him about what to do about the whole knock-down drag-out she’d had with Captain America.
He was smelling her! How had he never realized just how gross and creepy that actually was when he’d read about it in comics for all those years? Smelling people was not a good thing. Girls didn’t want to hear you tell them about how you could smell them from really far away.
It wasn’t like there was anything all that bad to smell. He’d thought having a hyper-sensitive nose would mean everything would smell like mold and poo all the time. Maybe it had for the first few hours, but now it was like he could just focus on the things he wanted to smell. Buffy with Giles in the kitchen, probably talking about what to do about the comic book people. Willow and Dawn in Dawn’s room, probably working to reverse the stone’s effects on Dawn. Faith and Tony Stark in one of the guest rooms, probably--
Okay. No more smelling.
Xander sat up and cleared his throat. He rubbed his hands over his face and exhaled sharply through his nose, trying to clear the scent. He kind of remembered that scent. It was spicy and musky and sexy and--
No! No more smelling. He’d already slept with a naked Willow last night. He was not about to smell-eavesdrop on Faith doing something that any healthy young woman might want to do with a handsome and rich super-genius.
“Oh God,” Xander groaned. He paced from one side of his room to the other, trying to think of something to do to distract himself. The gym! He could go back to the gym. Sure, he’d just come from the gym and he didn’t really see that there was any point to working out when he was already in holy-crap-I’m-stronger-than-a-Slayer mode, but why not? There was nothing wrong with a good healthy workout, and really he needed to be in the best shape he could be in case Giles or Andrew or Dawn or someone figured out where the third stone was, or in case they were suddenly attacked again. So yes, he would go work out.
He grabbed a clean shirt, brought it to his nose, and then tossed it aside. Then he picked up his sweat-stained shirt and sniffed that instead.
“Whew!” he gasped. “Wow. Okay, that stinks.”
He pulled it on over his head. He took an inward breath through his nose. Stinky Xander-sweat was all he got. Good. Perfect.
He put on his socks and sneakers and then quickly headed out the door.
And nearly smacked into a guy who had even bigger muscles than he did. Colossus was standing in front of his door. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and a tight black t-shirt. It looked like he had been standing solemnly in front of Xander’s door, but when Xander nearly ran into him he jumped a little in surprise and took a step back.
“Whoa!” Xander exclaimed, putting his hands up by his own shoulders and coming to a halt. “Sorry. Didn’t see you there.”
“That’s okay,” Colossus said. He looked down at the ground and shoved his hands into his pockets. Xander raised an eyebrow at him.
“Uh, something wrong?”
“I’m not really sure how to ask you this,” Colossus said, not meeting his eyes. He scratched the top of his head and shrugged. “I don’t know you very well. I mean, I know of you. I’ve seen Slay! many times with Jean. But I don’t really know you, so this is kind of difficult.”
Xander gulped. Oh God. He was going to ask him out. Colossus -- gay Colossus, which was totally cool and okay if that’s what he wanted to be even if it was a total divergence from the regular Marvelverse canon and was so obviously just used for shock value, but whatever it was cool, it was fine and there was definitely nothing wrong with it and there was no way it made Xander feel uncomfortable or weird or anything like that, not at all -- was going to ask him out. Big, muscular, six-foot-something-huge Colossus with his trendy black t-shirt and his too-perfect hair was going to ask out Xander Harris: confirmed non-gay guy.
“Um, look, Pete. Can I call you Pete? Or is it Piotr?”
“Pete.”
“Yeah, um, Pete. Look. I know about you too. Willow and Giles made me come to the bookstore with them once, and when they go to the bookstore it’s like an all day thing, so I had a lot of time on my hands, so I read all your trades. I mean not your trades. Um, all the Ultimate X-Men trades. So I know you, even if I don’t know-know you.”
“I see,” Colossus -- Pete -- said in reply. “That’s good. It makes it fair.”
“Yeah. But uh I don’t really know how accurate these things are, you know? I mean Nick Fury’s supposed to be missing an arm, but he’s got both of them right there. Plus I don’t think he’s actually supposed to be in your universe anymore.”
“He’s not,” Colossus said. “He’s in yours.”
“No, I mean-- nevermind. The point is that the comics I’ve read might not be totally accurate. You see what I’m getting at?”
Colossus frowned a little. “I think so. We can’t necessarily trust what we think we know about each other?”
“Yes! Yes, exactly!”
“That makes sense,” Colossus replied. “Your friend Andrew was asking me about my drug habit. It was a little confusing. Maybe it’s a similar thing?”
“I guess. Or maybe it’s just Andrew being Andrew. The point is, we can’t trust everything we’ve read. Or watched. In a play. A Broadway play. In a theater. On Broadway. In a musical. On Broadway.”
“That makes sense. But still, I think I know enough about you to ask you--”
“Okay, look,” Xander said, placing a hand on Colossus’s shoulder, which wasn’t the most natural gesture in the world since Colossus was several inches taller than he was, but he did it anyway because he was totally comfortable with this and he wanted Colossus to know that. “I’m not like a, uh, a ‘theater’ type. If you know what I mean.”
“Okay,” Colossus said slowly. “That’s fine.”
Xander sighed in relief and patted Colossus’s shoulder before he took a step back. “Whew! Good! Glad that’s cleared up.”
“Right. Anyway, this may be a little awkward, but I was hoping--”
“I’m not gay!” Xander said very quickly. Even more quickly he added. “But it’s totally cool if you are and everyone can be if they want to it’s just not for me and also my best friend is gay so it’s fine, it’s cool!”
Colossus blinked at him. He looked off to one side and then looked back to Xander. His mouth opened and closed again. Then he leaned back a little. “I know you’re not gay.”
“What? You do?”
“I told you, I know about you from the musical.”
“I’m not gay in the musical?”
Colossus snorted. A little smile spread onto his face. “No. You’re not.”
“What about the actor playing me?” he countered, a smug expression on his face. “I bet he’s gay! Wait, why am I arguing this?” He shook his head to clear his mind and then looked back to Colossus. “Um, what did you want to ask, and can we forget I ever said any of this?”
Colossus’s smile grew. He nodded and this time he was the one to clap Xander on the shoulder. “I wanted to ask you about Megan.”
“Megan,” Xander whispered. “Oh. What about her?”
“She’s very upset. The girl who died, Ashley, was her roommate.”
Xander’s eyes lowered slightly. “I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t think she expected you to,” Colossus said in a gentle tone. “She’s been telling me a lot about her life here. I know you only just met her a few days ago. But still, you have a reputation, at least according to her.”
“I do?”
“Yeah. According to Megan, all the Slayers say you are -- were -- the best Watcher there was. The way she talks, it sounds like you were something of a legend. Did you really kill an entire army that was forcing peasants to mine for diamonds?”
“What? No.”
“Oh. Did you steal all their guns?”
Xander shook his head. “Uh, no. I had a friend who was part of the local government. I called him and he brought the real army to break up the militia.”
“Oh,” Colossus said again. He sounded disappointed. “Then you didn’t shoot a warlock with a flare gun?”
Xander cleared his throat. “Um, not with just a flare gun. I had a regular gun too. But I shot him in the leg with that. Both legs, actually. But the second leg was because he tried to hex Gwen.”
Colossus’s smile returned. “You should talk to her.”
Xander hadn’t realized it, but he’d already decided he was going to do that. “Yeah. I will.”
“Be careful,” Colossus said. “I don’t know if all of your Slayers are like this, but once or twice she got a little violent in her grief. I had to turn to metal. She’s much stronger than she looks.”
“Yeah,” Xander said with a grin. “They all are.”