The Fabulous Ladies Night Club (8/8)
Title: The Fabulous Ladies Night Club
Author: ubiquirk
Rating: R
Genre: genfic: action-adventure, humor, drama
Word Count: ~14K
Character: Xander
Disclaimer: Not mine; no money.
AN: Set between S3 and S4 of Buffy. Written for
spring_with_xan . Lots of thanks to my lovely beta,
firefly_124 . There’s a Spanish Glossary to have open in another tab for easy reference.
Summary: The road trip that wasn’t. After graduation, Xander only makes it to Oxnard before his car breaks down, and he finds himself washing dishes at The Fabulous Ladies Night Club. Forty miles to get back home might not seem that far, but sometimes, it can take a lot to cross.
Previous parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
8.
She lunges at him, and her strength generates enough momentum that Xander falls over backward with Kit on top, the two of them sliding on the morass of curtain to fetch up against the wall.
Stunned from the impact, he looks up at her, and he’s lost as soon as he does.
She’s touching me. She’s on me! God, how I want her. His hands reach up to pull her closer, closer …
Kit gives a delighted trill of laughter and smiles, tongue playing over prominent teeth, and leans forward.
“Please, Kit. Please.” Clutching her as she lays down on him, his body stirs at the glorious press of her weight, the sweet promise in her golden eyes. Anything you want, you gorgeous creature, you. Anyth-
The kick rocks his head to the side, sending a sharp burst of pain across his skull. It also breaks her spell.
Xander’s no longer cuckoo for your Cocoa Puffs, bitch!
His right hand reaches down to scrabble in his pocket. Huffing out bursts of air, he fights to hold her back from his neck with his left hand. The wood works free, and he raises his hand above her back, suddenly releasing all tension in his left arm so that she falls forward into his reach.
Plunge!
A quick expression of shock morphs to a small smile right before she explodes in a cloud of dust that settles across him.
Letting everything collapse back against the floor, Xander lies stunned. Then he hears chains rattle and turns his head to see Jorge looking at him.
“Xander, man.” He coughs and smiles weakly. “I told you she wanted to keep me.”
He grins back. “And unfortunately, you were right again.”
Jorge glances away. “I didn’t want to kick you.”
“You did what you had to.” Xander sits up and crabs over to his friend. Grabbing a chain, he inspects the cuff wrapping Jorge’s left wrist. It weights his hand, pulling to the floor, metal thick and seemingly imperviable. “How are we ever going to get you out of these?”
“Key under the mattress.”
He smiles. “Of course it is.”
When he’s limped over to the bed, left knee protesting with sharp snaps of pain whenever he raises that leg, Xander tosses the mattress off, sheets and pillows flying before it. No way I’m sticking my hand under there. Place like this? There’s just no telling.
It’s tamer than the things hanging on the wall would lead him to expect - the inventory coming to nothing more sinister than a pistol and a small ring of keys.
Ignoring the gun, Xander makes his way back to Jorge, keys jingling with each uneven step. The locks turn with the smooth precision of expensive mechanism, and Xander snorts. ‘Cause we wouldn’t want to be inconvenienced when chaining and unchaining the ‘toys,’ now would we?
It’s not until he’s got a shoulder under Jorge’s arm and has lifted the other man to his unsteady feet that Xander once again notices the partially mummified body. “Martin’s …” He waves his free hand vaguely to the left.
“Gone, sí. He did not wake up from the time I was brought here.”
They start across the room, moving slowly. Jorge feels like he weighs too, too little where he leans on Xander.
“I gotta ask. How did you survive when he couldn’t?”
Jorge coughs out a grim chuckle, then places a hand against the doorframe while Xander tries a few keys before finding the one that unlocks the door. “My abuelita, she comes from Chihuahua, and she always tells me, ‘Jorge, if you are in the desert, you must find agua. Nothing else is as important.’”
“Wait. You were in a desert?” He grabs Jorge again, getting him steadied to begin the climb, which they take slowly - left foot, right foot, pause, repeat.
“No, estúpido, but this place, it is like a desert. So when the bruja used the hose on me every morning, I was not too proud, and I drank.”
“What? Hose … huh?”
Jorge pauses to rest on the third stair, palm pushed flat to wall. “It is not as if she let me use the baño.”
“You know - you don’t actually have to tell me all about it. I’m good with the imagining.”
Each step a little battle, a little victory, they fall silent until they reach the top, the wheeze of Jorge’s breathing the only sound.
When Xander props Jorge against the brick wall of the alley, they both rest, the cool night air sweet-smelling in its freshness.
After a few minutes, Xander stirs. “Let’s get you to the hospital.” He shoulders most of his friend’s weight again, turning them toward the alley’s entrance. “The car’s just over here.”
“Martin …”
“Is gone like you said. We take care of you first.”
Jorge looks over at him. “You, Xander Harris, are a good friend. Un amigo verdadero.”
“Yeah.” He grins. “You might be right.”
~~~
Xander slams shut the door of the Impala and crosses the employee parking lot, entering The Fabulous by the kitchen’s backdoor. Being Wednesday, the place smells like meatballs, and Xander almost can’t believe it, but after a month and a half of this, he’s really, really sick of Italian food.
Doris looks up from where she stands by the stove. “Just try to use less cheese. You’re killing me on the food bills, Gino.”
The older man grunts something that sounds like his reluctant affirmative as she turns to walk toward Xander.
“Xander! How nice of you to drop by.”
“Hi, Doris. I’m here for my check.”
She takes the piece of paper from her pocket, holding it out, then pulling it back slightly. “Sure I can’t convince you to stay? You get better every night, and it wouldn’t take much work to get you up to speed with two different acts.”
While Jorge recuperated, Xander held his slot for him by dancing the next round of Wednesday through Sunday nights. Smart enough to realize that Xander could get away with doing basically the routine he’d already learned as long as he used a different song and costume, Doris enlisted Jorge’s tux and ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” for the cause. After a vague, awkward explanation, she never pressed him to use “Hot Stuff” again.
“Nah. The next time I take my clothes off for a woman, I don’t plan on being paid for it.”
She laughs up at him, eyes crinkling with mischief. “That could be arranged too.”
Grinning, he takes the check, folding it into his wallet and tucking both away. “Thanks, Doris. You took a chance hiring me when I didn’t have any references. I appreciate that.”
Her smile becomes small and serious, a faint upturn of the corners of her mouth. “And thank you for helping with … with …” Her hand waves at the floor. “The whole situation around here.”
Police in Oxnard actually investigate strange occurrences, and it took Scooby thinking to come up with Kit as the crazy stalker who GHB’ed the dancers’ drinks but ran off when Xander, having only had half of his, fought back.
Doris grabs his arm and gives a little squeeze. “You’re good people, Xander. You ever need a job, you’ve got one at The Fabulous.”
“Thanks.” He bobs his head, uncomfortable. Living in one place all his life hasn’t really prepared him for goodbyes, or not the un-undead kind, so he gives her a little wave and turns for the door.
“Of course, part of the reason is you’ve also got quite a money maker.” A jolt tingles up his spine from the sharp/sweet pain of one butt cheek, Doris wielding her incredible power of pinching.
He rubs the area, half for show and half to block her from taking another shot, and edges out the door sideways. That would so be her Wonder Twin Power! I can see it now: ‘shape of … ass-pincher.’ She’d probably make the guy take the form of a giant butt. He frowns. Eew - as long as the guy wasn’t actually her brother, that is.
Xander heads back to the car. He said goodbye to Trey and the other guys on Sunday, and Carlita frowned and ‘accidentally’ spilled a drink on him when he told her he was leaving, so going into the club now seems unnecessary - and potentially sticky.
Time creeps as he sits in the driver’s seat, drumming on the steering wheel to the song in his head. He stops when he realizes the song is “Hot Stuff.” I hate the way it creeps into my brain … because of the brain creepage.
The roar of an engine cuts into his thoughts, and a silver Acura slides smoothly into the space beside him, Jorge at the wheel.
Xander leaves the Impala to go to the other car, leaning in the window to look around. “I wasn’t sure you were going to show. Sure took you long enough.”
“Sí. For a small used-car dealer with no other customers, Bob’s Best Autos was stupidly slow.” Jorge flashes his brightest grin. “But then, I did distract the saleswoman with my charm and good looks.”
Xander laughs. “I just bet you did.” He straightens and waves one hand over the length of the car. “But I gotta say - all of that, and you get an Integra?” He’s teasing - the car looks sweet, all low and sleek with a large spoiler on the back.
“Hey, man, this is the Type-R.” Jorge gets out and locks the door carefully. “She’s a sports car.” He strokes a hand down its side.
“Seriously, how’d you afford her? I mean, I only gave you two hundred bucks for the Impala.”
Jorge’s head snaps up and he looks at Xander, expression serious. “And I would not even have charged you that much if you had not insisted. You, Xander Harris, saved my life.”
“Uh…” He stares at the spoiler, running a nervous hand over his hair. How does Buffy deal with this all of the time? “You’re welcome?”
Laughing, Jorge claps him on the back. “Do not worry. I begin dancing again tonight, and the chicas, they will love me even more than before, putting many of their dollars in my waistband.”
Suddenly, Jorge looks pensive for the first time Xander can remember, brow creased, mouth frowning slightly. “The bruja … are all vampiros like her?”
“Not usually so much with the crazy, no. Though I think that happened to her before …” Knives and spiked things flash across his mind, and he shudders.
“Sí. She would talk sometimes …” Jorge shakes his head as if to dislodge the memory. “I think that man, he deserved to die.”
“Yeah. But …” Xander waves one hand in the air in a vague motion, letting it fall to his side after a few seconds. ‘But he was human instead of demon’ just doesn’t sound very convincing right now.
After long moments of silence, Jorge points to the Impala. “The auto de mierda, she is fifteen years old, but I think she has more life in her.”
“Well, right now, it only has to get me about forty miles.”
“That she can do.”
“And you’re always right, so …”
Grinning, they hug, adding in a few hearty back slaps in the time-honored manly fashion.
“When I am famous, I will still drink to your name.”
“When I’m not-famous, I’ll crack a beer for you every so often.”
One last laugh, one last flash of teeth, and Xander finds himself backing the Impala out, turning toward the road that’ll take him to the freeway.
The club’s neon sign lights up as he drives away, a brilliant blue ‘Fab’ visible in the rearview, and Xander sticks a hand out the window to wave to the receding figure standing in the parking lot.
Then he’s looking at the road ahead, enjoying the way the car responds to his touch on the steering wheel. It should take only an hour to drive back to Sunnydale - two if an accident extended rush hour.
Wonder who I’ll see first? Buffy or Willow? He smiles, imagining their shocked, happy faces, Willow squeaking out his name, Buffy crushing his ribs with a too-strong hug, and wonders if Giles will do that nervous thing with his glasses when he doesn’t know what to say in welcome.
The air flowing in the window refreshing, the REM song running through his mind nothing that could ever be stripped to in a million years, Xander relaxes back into his seat, listening to the tires thrum ‘home, home, home’ as they roll over the blacktop.
Feedback appreciated.
Author: ubiquirk
Rating: R
Genre: genfic: action-adventure, humor, drama
Word Count: ~14K
Character: Xander
Disclaimer: Not mine; no money.
AN: Set between S3 and S4 of Buffy. Written for
spring_with_xan . Lots of thanks to my lovely beta,
firefly_124 . There’s a Spanish Glossary to have open in another tab for easy reference.
Summary: The road trip that wasn’t. After graduation, Xander only makes it to Oxnard before his car breaks down, and he finds himself washing dishes at The Fabulous Ladies Night Club. Forty miles to get back home might not seem that far, but sometimes, it can take a lot to cross.
Previous parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
8.
She lunges at him, and her strength generates enough momentum that Xander falls over backward with Kit on top, the two of them sliding on the morass of curtain to fetch up against the wall.
Stunned from the impact, he looks up at her, and he’s lost as soon as he does.
She’s touching me. She’s on me! God, how I want her. His hands reach up to pull her closer, closer …
Kit gives a delighted trill of laughter and smiles, tongue playing over prominent teeth, and leans forward.
“Please, Kit. Please.” Clutching her as she lays down on him, his body stirs at the glorious press of her weight, the sweet promise in her golden eyes. Anything you want, you gorgeous creature, you. Anyth-
The kick rocks his head to the side, sending a sharp burst of pain across his skull. It also breaks her spell.
Xander’s no longer cuckoo for your Cocoa Puffs, bitch!
His right hand reaches down to scrabble in his pocket. Huffing out bursts of air, he fights to hold her back from his neck with his left hand. The wood works free, and he raises his hand above her back, suddenly releasing all tension in his left arm so that she falls forward into his reach.
Plunge!
A quick expression of shock morphs to a small smile right before she explodes in a cloud of dust that settles across him.
Letting everything collapse back against the floor, Xander lies stunned. Then he hears chains rattle and turns his head to see Jorge looking at him.
“Xander, man.” He coughs and smiles weakly. “I told you she wanted to keep me.”
He grins back. “And unfortunately, you were right again.”
Jorge glances away. “I didn’t want to kick you.”
“You did what you had to.” Xander sits up and crabs over to his friend. Grabbing a chain, he inspects the cuff wrapping Jorge’s left wrist. It weights his hand, pulling to the floor, metal thick and seemingly imperviable. “How are we ever going to get you out of these?”
“Key under the mattress.”
He smiles. “Of course it is.”
When he’s limped over to the bed, left knee protesting with sharp snaps of pain whenever he raises that leg, Xander tosses the mattress off, sheets and pillows flying before it. No way I’m sticking my hand under there. Place like this? There’s just no telling.
It’s tamer than the things hanging on the wall would lead him to expect - the inventory coming to nothing more sinister than a pistol and a small ring of keys.
Ignoring the gun, Xander makes his way back to Jorge, keys jingling with each uneven step. The locks turn with the smooth precision of expensive mechanism, and Xander snorts. ‘Cause we wouldn’t want to be inconvenienced when chaining and unchaining the ‘toys,’ now would we?
It’s not until he’s got a shoulder under Jorge’s arm and has lifted the other man to his unsteady feet that Xander once again notices the partially mummified body. “Martin’s …” He waves his free hand vaguely to the left.
“Gone, sí. He did not wake up from the time I was brought here.”
They start across the room, moving slowly. Jorge feels like he weighs too, too little where he leans on Xander.
“I gotta ask. How did you survive when he couldn’t?”
Jorge coughs out a grim chuckle, then places a hand against the doorframe while Xander tries a few keys before finding the one that unlocks the door. “My abuelita, she comes from Chihuahua, and she always tells me, ‘Jorge, if you are in the desert, you must find agua. Nothing else is as important.’”
“Wait. You were in a desert?” He grabs Jorge again, getting him steadied to begin the climb, which they take slowly - left foot, right foot, pause, repeat.
“No, estúpido, but this place, it is like a desert. So when the bruja used the hose on me every morning, I was not too proud, and I drank.”
“What? Hose … huh?”
Jorge pauses to rest on the third stair, palm pushed flat to wall. “It is not as if she let me use the baño.”
“You know - you don’t actually have to tell me all about it. I’m good with the imagining.”
Each step a little battle, a little victory, they fall silent until they reach the top, the wheeze of Jorge’s breathing the only sound.
When Xander props Jorge against the brick wall of the alley, they both rest, the cool night air sweet-smelling in its freshness.
After a few minutes, Xander stirs. “Let’s get you to the hospital.” He shoulders most of his friend’s weight again, turning them toward the alley’s entrance. “The car’s just over here.”
“Martin …”
“Is gone like you said. We take care of you first.”
Jorge looks over at him. “You, Xander Harris, are a good friend. Un amigo verdadero.”
“Yeah.” He grins. “You might be right.”
~~~
Xander slams shut the door of the Impala and crosses the employee parking lot, entering The Fabulous by the kitchen’s backdoor. Being Wednesday, the place smells like meatballs, and Xander almost can’t believe it, but after a month and a half of this, he’s really, really sick of Italian food.
Doris looks up from where she stands by the stove. “Just try to use less cheese. You’re killing me on the food bills, Gino.”
The older man grunts something that sounds like his reluctant affirmative as she turns to walk toward Xander.
“Xander! How nice of you to drop by.”
“Hi, Doris. I’m here for my check.”
She takes the piece of paper from her pocket, holding it out, then pulling it back slightly. “Sure I can’t convince you to stay? You get better every night, and it wouldn’t take much work to get you up to speed with two different acts.”
While Jorge recuperated, Xander held his slot for him by dancing the next round of Wednesday through Sunday nights. Smart enough to realize that Xander could get away with doing basically the routine he’d already learned as long as he used a different song and costume, Doris enlisted Jorge’s tux and ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man” for the cause. After a vague, awkward explanation, she never pressed him to use “Hot Stuff” again.
“Nah. The next time I take my clothes off for a woman, I don’t plan on being paid for it.”
She laughs up at him, eyes crinkling with mischief. “That could be arranged too.”
Grinning, he takes the check, folding it into his wallet and tucking both away. “Thanks, Doris. You took a chance hiring me when I didn’t have any references. I appreciate that.”
Her smile becomes small and serious, a faint upturn of the corners of her mouth. “And thank you for helping with … with …” Her hand waves at the floor. “The whole situation around here.”
Police in Oxnard actually investigate strange occurrences, and it took Scooby thinking to come up with Kit as the crazy stalker who GHB’ed the dancers’ drinks but ran off when Xander, having only had half of his, fought back.
Doris grabs his arm and gives a little squeeze. “You’re good people, Xander. You ever need a job, you’ve got one at The Fabulous.”
“Thanks.” He bobs his head, uncomfortable. Living in one place all his life hasn’t really prepared him for goodbyes, or not the un-undead kind, so he gives her a little wave and turns for the door.
“Of course, part of the reason is you’ve also got quite a money maker.” A jolt tingles up his spine from the sharp/sweet pain of one butt cheek, Doris wielding her incredible power of pinching.
He rubs the area, half for show and half to block her from taking another shot, and edges out the door sideways. That would so be her Wonder Twin Power! I can see it now: ‘shape of … ass-pincher.’ She’d probably make the guy take the form of a giant butt. He frowns. Eew - as long as the guy wasn’t actually her brother, that is.
Xander heads back to the car. He said goodbye to Trey and the other guys on Sunday, and Carlita frowned and ‘accidentally’ spilled a drink on him when he told her he was leaving, so going into the club now seems unnecessary - and potentially sticky.
Time creeps as he sits in the driver’s seat, drumming on the steering wheel to the song in his head. He stops when he realizes the song is “Hot Stuff.” I hate the way it creeps into my brain … because of the brain creepage.
The roar of an engine cuts into his thoughts, and a silver Acura slides smoothly into the space beside him, Jorge at the wheel.
Xander leaves the Impala to go to the other car, leaning in the window to look around. “I wasn’t sure you were going to show. Sure took you long enough.”
“Sí. For a small used-car dealer with no other customers, Bob’s Best Autos was stupidly slow.” Jorge flashes his brightest grin. “But then, I did distract the saleswoman with my charm and good looks.”
Xander laughs. “I just bet you did.” He straightens and waves one hand over the length of the car. “But I gotta say - all of that, and you get an Integra?” He’s teasing - the car looks sweet, all low and sleek with a large spoiler on the back.
“Hey, man, this is the Type-R.” Jorge gets out and locks the door carefully. “She’s a sports car.” He strokes a hand down its side.
“Seriously, how’d you afford her? I mean, I only gave you two hundred bucks for the Impala.”
Jorge’s head snaps up and he looks at Xander, expression serious. “And I would not even have charged you that much if you had not insisted. You, Xander Harris, saved my life.”
“Uh…” He stares at the spoiler, running a nervous hand over his hair. How does Buffy deal with this all of the time? “You’re welcome?”
Laughing, Jorge claps him on the back. “Do not worry. I begin dancing again tonight, and the chicas, they will love me even more than before, putting many of their dollars in my waistband.”
Suddenly, Jorge looks pensive for the first time Xander can remember, brow creased, mouth frowning slightly. “The bruja … are all vampiros like her?”
“Not usually so much with the crazy, no. Though I think that happened to her before …” Knives and spiked things flash across his mind, and he shudders.
“Sí. She would talk sometimes …” Jorge shakes his head as if to dislodge the memory. “I think that man, he deserved to die.”
“Yeah. But …” Xander waves one hand in the air in a vague motion, letting it fall to his side after a few seconds. ‘But he was human instead of demon’ just doesn’t sound very convincing right now.
After long moments of silence, Jorge points to the Impala. “The auto de mierda, she is fifteen years old, but I think she has more life in her.”
“Well, right now, it only has to get me about forty miles.”
“That she can do.”
“And you’re always right, so …”
Grinning, they hug, adding in a few hearty back slaps in the time-honored manly fashion.
“When I am famous, I will still drink to your name.”
“When I’m not-famous, I’ll crack a beer for you every so often.”
One last laugh, one last flash of teeth, and Xander finds himself backing the Impala out, turning toward the road that’ll take him to the freeway.
The club’s neon sign lights up as he drives away, a brilliant blue ‘Fab’ visible in the rearview, and Xander sticks a hand out the window to wave to the receding figure standing in the parking lot.
Then he’s looking at the road ahead, enjoying the way the car responds to his touch on the steering wheel. It should take only an hour to drive back to Sunnydale - two if an accident extended rush hour.
Wonder who I’ll see first? Buffy or Willow? He smiles, imagining their shocked, happy faces, Willow squeaking out his name, Buffy crushing his ribs with a too-strong hug, and wonders if Giles will do that nervous thing with his glasses when he doesn’t know what to say in welcome.
The air flowing in the window refreshing, the REM song running through his mind nothing that could ever be stripped to in a million years, Xander relaxes back into his seat, listening to the tires thrum ‘home, home, home’ as they roll over the blacktop.
Feedback appreciated.