Random Xanya slice of life - ie. FIIIIC
So, I should have been attending a conference today, but I wanted to have a break in the end, since it's WriterconUK next week and then I am on holiday! (An extended break, you might say, but not one that means doing nothing and faffing around in my pyjamas.) I was inspired by a post on rbfvid's journal which had pics of Emma Caulfield and Nick Brendon looking very Anya and Xandery for the present day.
There isn't much about the shorts, but I couldn't get this little scene out of my head, in which Xander confronts the fact he's hit the age of one of the flashfowards in Hells Bells. This could be from any 'verse where he went through with the wedding and Anya didn't die, though for me personally that means it's actually part of Turn and Face the Strain and its final epilogue. I am actually a Xander/Anya person as much as I can be pro anything beyond the Spuffy (although this fic has been kept Spuffy free just in case you want to imagine that it isn't obviously going on in the background). But anyway, its about 900 words, PG fluff, because there wasn't much else to say. It might well need a better title. Enjoy!
To Have and to Hold.
He was reaching for the remote when the déjà vu hit. It was Monday; it wasn’t the same - but Xander found himself on the couch, wincing as he reached for the remote, the taste of beer still on his tongue. He’d shot his back over the weekend, laying tile, and now he was resting up while his guys kept going on the latest contract without him. The kids weren’t back at school yet, so they were running wild with boredom, and Anya…
“Kai Harris, stop tormenting your sister right now!” Her voice travelled in from the kitchen, where she was yelling as she came in from the back porch. “Your father built that treehouse so you could play on it together, and he can unbuild it just as quickly!”
There were faint whines of complaint, fear and ultimately obedience, as Xander hoped Kai finally let the ladder down so Siri could climb up.
That was the moment when Xander reached for the remote and winced as his back pulled again. It struck him like a sledgehammer, the memory of how this moment was meant to be. His back hurt. He felt useless. His kids were rebelling and it all had sent Anya cold and shrewish and mean and -
Only - when she came out of the kitchen, she wasn’t.
Fresh from the day at Magic Box HQ (Your No. 1 Supplier for Everything Else on the West Coast and Beyond), Anya Harris was a woman who looked Euro chic and self-confident, not like anybody else in the family. She had round, dark sunglasses and understated, glinty jewellery that Xander had bought for her on Buffy’s advice. It looked like it might even go with the necklace he’d bought on his own, currently in a box and waiting for their anniversary next week.
The sunglasses were now sweeping short blonde hair back from Anya’s face. “I think we can say that Niklas and Sigrid take after you,” she joked, bluntly, while Xander stared at her in the clean light of their house. A house finished by a man who finished houses professionally and a woman who’d been developing taste for a thousand years. The silence hung for a few seconds more. “Hello; Xander?” She paused, then spoke again. “Um, why are you staring at me? I insulted your ability to father well-behaved children.”
Still without words, Xander shook his head. Kai and Siri were not Josh and Sarah, whose names and faces were still carved on his memory. These kids were quieter and definitely his genetically, one of them conceived in an aeroplane and the other in Buffy’s basement - which no one ever needed to know. They were named for Anya’s picks from the internet, even if she was annoyed she couldn’t remember any names from her own childhood. Their whole family was quieter, less vicious than the one in that nightmare. Including him, tanned and muscular in the flowery shorts Anya had brought him back from her last business trip.
“You aren’t sick as well as injured, are you?” Anya was asking now, and it was relief that he was feeling. Great heady swirls of it as his wife rushed over to him, sat by his side and felt for a temperature.
Feeling more than well enough, Xander batted Anya’s hand away and reached to wrap his arm around her waist. His back was still twinging, neglected, but he hugged this Anya to him and smelled the evening sweat on her neck, the trailing hints of Farina Eau de Cologne. It made him feel like a hero. “I love you, Anya,” he promised, holding her as tightly as he could.
Stiff with surprise, it took a few moments for Anya to relax. But then she did and she patted his chest with two strong, reassuring taps. “You are very strange,” she said, in a long-suffering way. “But I love you too. Now, if you aren’t sick, you listen to my story about today’s money.”
Nodding, Xander relaxed back against the couch cushions. “OK.” Anya left her legs slung over his, but slid back so she could also get comfortable, her head coming to rest just by his shoulder.
“So.” Her eyes met his, sunglasses askew on her head. “You know we were due a new shipment of salamander eyes? Well…”
Honestly, as the words washed over him, Xander thought about telling her. He tried not to bring up the wedding that nearly wasn’t, and Anya was hardly proud of it either, to the extent that most people who knew them nowadays probably figured they’d been unlucky with the photographer, rather than have any other reason to hide the photos. But it seemed important, somehow, to make sure Anya knew that he realised what an idiot he’d been. How little he’d known himself and how very little he’d really known her.
And yet, in the end, it probably wasn’t necessary. “Xander?” Anya interrupted her narrative, his name not a nag but a repeated reminder of who and where he'd come from. “You’re not listening to me; why aren’t you listening?” He’d promised, he’d sworn, to honour and respect this woman - and he relied on her to not let him get away with anything but.
“Sorry,” he apologised, and listened to her problems as if they were his to solve. Her successes felt like his, because, of course, they were.
On Thursday Xander went back to work.
.
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There isn't much about the shorts, but I couldn't get this little scene out of my head, in which Xander confronts the fact he's hit the age of one of the flashfowards in Hells Bells. This could be from any 'verse where he went through with the wedding and Anya didn't die, though for me personally that means it's actually part of Turn and Face the Strain and its final epilogue. I am actually a Xander/Anya person as much as I can be pro anything beyond the Spuffy (although this fic has been kept Spuffy free just in case you want to imagine that it isn't obviously going on in the background). But anyway, its about 900 words, PG fluff, because there wasn't much else to say. It might well need a better title. Enjoy!
To Have and to Hold.
He was reaching for the remote when the déjà vu hit. It was Monday; it wasn’t the same - but Xander found himself on the couch, wincing as he reached for the remote, the taste of beer still on his tongue. He’d shot his back over the weekend, laying tile, and now he was resting up while his guys kept going on the latest contract without him. The kids weren’t back at school yet, so they were running wild with boredom, and Anya…
“Kai Harris, stop tormenting your sister right now!” Her voice travelled in from the kitchen, where she was yelling as she came in from the back porch. “Your father built that treehouse so you could play on it together, and he can unbuild it just as quickly!”
There were faint whines of complaint, fear and ultimately obedience, as Xander hoped Kai finally let the ladder down so Siri could climb up.
That was the moment when Xander reached for the remote and winced as his back pulled again. It struck him like a sledgehammer, the memory of how this moment was meant to be. His back hurt. He felt useless. His kids were rebelling and it all had sent Anya cold and shrewish and mean and -
Only - when she came out of the kitchen, she wasn’t.
Fresh from the day at Magic Box HQ (Your No. 1 Supplier for Everything Else on the West Coast and Beyond), Anya Harris was a woman who looked Euro chic and self-confident, not like anybody else in the family. She had round, dark sunglasses and understated, glinty jewellery that Xander had bought for her on Buffy’s advice. It looked like it might even go with the necklace he’d bought on his own, currently in a box and waiting for their anniversary next week.
The sunglasses were now sweeping short blonde hair back from Anya’s face. “I think we can say that Niklas and Sigrid take after you,” she joked, bluntly, while Xander stared at her in the clean light of their house. A house finished by a man who finished houses professionally and a woman who’d been developing taste for a thousand years. The silence hung for a few seconds more. “Hello; Xander?” She paused, then spoke again. “Um, why are you staring at me? I insulted your ability to father well-behaved children.”
Still without words, Xander shook his head. Kai and Siri were not Josh and Sarah, whose names and faces were still carved on his memory. These kids were quieter and definitely his genetically, one of them conceived in an aeroplane and the other in Buffy’s basement - which no one ever needed to know. They were named for Anya’s picks from the internet, even if she was annoyed she couldn’t remember any names from her own childhood. Their whole family was quieter, less vicious than the one in that nightmare. Including him, tanned and muscular in the flowery shorts Anya had brought him back from her last business trip.
“You aren’t sick as well as injured, are you?” Anya was asking now, and it was relief that he was feeling. Great heady swirls of it as his wife rushed over to him, sat by his side and felt for a temperature.
Feeling more than well enough, Xander batted Anya’s hand away and reached to wrap his arm around her waist. His back was still twinging, neglected, but he hugged this Anya to him and smelled the evening sweat on her neck, the trailing hints of Farina Eau de Cologne. It made him feel like a hero. “I love you, Anya,” he promised, holding her as tightly as he could.
Stiff with surprise, it took a few moments for Anya to relax. But then she did and she patted his chest with two strong, reassuring taps. “You are very strange,” she said, in a long-suffering way. “But I love you too. Now, if you aren’t sick, you listen to my story about today’s money.”
Nodding, Xander relaxed back against the couch cushions. “OK.” Anya left her legs slung over his, but slid back so she could also get comfortable, her head coming to rest just by his shoulder.
“So.” Her eyes met his, sunglasses askew on her head. “You know we were due a new shipment of salamander eyes? Well…”
Honestly, as the words washed over him, Xander thought about telling her. He tried not to bring up the wedding that nearly wasn’t, and Anya was hardly proud of it either, to the extent that most people who knew them nowadays probably figured they’d been unlucky with the photographer, rather than have any other reason to hide the photos. But it seemed important, somehow, to make sure Anya knew that he realised what an idiot he’d been. How little he’d known himself and how very little he’d really known her.
And yet, in the end, it probably wasn’t necessary. “Xander?” Anya interrupted her narrative, his name not a nag but a repeated reminder of who and where he'd come from. “You’re not listening to me; why aren’t you listening?” He’d promised, he’d sworn, to honour and respect this woman - and he relied on her to not let him get away with anything but.
“Sorry,” he apologised, and listened to her problems as if they were his to solve. Her successes felt like his, because, of course, they were.
On Thursday Xander went back to work.
.
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comments on Dreamwidth! Add one?]