Tijuana for Two, Giles/Xander, FRT
Tijuana For Two
Written by anyjay for spring_with_xan
Pairing: Giles/Xander
Setting: Summer between seasons 6 and 7. Slight spoilers for Grave.
Summary: Xander’s phone call to Giles goes badly. Fortunately, the story doesn’t end there.
Rating: FRT
Word count: 2200
Disclaimer: I make no money, I have no rights.
Beta’ed by Mr. Jay
Much, much gratitude to Katekat1010 who made a most excellent movie poster for this fic. You can click on the link below to see it. Isn't it wonderful? This was part of a group she did for spring_with_xan. If you want to check out the others that she made, they're here.
Much, much gratitude also to Davinci_1985 who told me exactly how to make the poster appear in my journal, even providing me with the link, because I am severely graphically-challenged.
Now I am very, very happy. Yay!!
Xander walked out of the bar after only one beer. This had been a mistake. Really he’d known it was a mistake from the start, but that hadn’t stopped him. He was a Harris, after all. With that as his inspiration, he walked into the next liquor store he saw. He’d spent enough time with Giles during Buffy’s freshman year, he remembered the brand of scotch he drank. If it was good enough for Giles- Xander bought a bottle and carried it back to the cheap hotel where he was staying.
Xander poured two fingers of scotch into one of the hotel’s clear plastic cups. It smelled like Giles and despair. He swirled the cup and watched the play of the light on the liquid. Pretty. He took a sip. Not bad. Better than his mother’s gin or his father’s wild turkey.
Xander took another sip. He knew what he was doing, of course. He needed a drink. It was the first step in a dance the Harris family had practiced since the dawn of time. Later he would need another drink, and then a third. At some point, maybe around the fourth or fifth drink, he would be officially drunk enough. Drunk enough to call Giles long distance. The call would start with Xander asking why Giles hadn’t called or written since he’d taken Willow to England. Then, if Xander kept up the Harris tradition, he would list every hurt Giles had ever done him, and yell at Giles for each one in turn, possibly interspersed with some crying. Then he’d begin to blame Giles for everything what was wrong in his life. Stuff would be hurled against walls.
The biggest hurt, the real reason for all the resentment, would be held for last. “Why don’t you love me?” As if that were a question anyone could answer. As if Giles could make himself love Xander any more than Xander could stop himself loving Giles. As if Giles would want to. There would be more crying and yelling and whatever remnant of friendship still remained between them would go down in flames. In the morning, he would be plus one hangover, minus one friend and he would still be alone in Tijuana.
Xander took another sip of the scotch and set it on the table. He replaced the cap on the bottle, and put it next to the cup. He was a new generation of Harris. He could ruin his life without the help of alcohol. Pulling out his cell phone, he punched in Giles’ number.
“Hello?”
“Giles, it’s me,” There was silence on the phone, so he added. “Xander Harris.”
“Xander. What time is it?”
Xander laughed. “Oh God - it’s like 6 in the morning there, isn’t it. I woke you up.”
“You did rather, but I’m glad you called. How’s everything in Sunnydale?”
“I’m in Tijuana, actually. Came down here to celebrate. Know what I’m celebrating, Giles?”
“Your birthday,” Giles said.
“Yeah, my 21st birthday. Today I am a man. Of course, if I were Jewish I’d have been a man at 13, but what can I say? I’ve always been kind of slow.”
“Happy Birthday, Xander.”
“Thanks,” Xander said.
“Aren’t Buffy and Dawn still off seeing the world?” Giles asked.
“Yeah. They sent me a real nice birthday card, though.”
“With whom are you traveling, then?” Giles said.
“No one. It’s just me.”
“No friends from your work? No, ah, girlfriend?”
“No and no. Because when I said it was just me, what I really meant was, it’s just me.”
“You drove 4 hours to spend your birthday alone in Tijuana?”
“Hey! When you say it like that, it sounds stupid,” Xander objected.
“How does it sound when you say it?” Giles asked.
“Like a plan in action.” Xander said. “Remember my post-graduation road-trip-that-wasn’t? I was going to spend my birthday somewhere cool that summer, like Chicago or DC or New York. Definitely not California and definitely, definitely not washing dishes at a strip club in Oxnard. So when that plan went kaflooey, I promised myself I’d spend my 21st birthday in another country.”
“You haven’t been to Mexico before?” Giles asked.
“I’d barely been out of Sunnydale County before. I’m 21, Giles, and this is the first time I’ve gone beyond the California state limits.”
“So for three years, you’ve been planning to spend your 21st birthday alone in Tijuana?”
“This? So not what I planned. When I first got the idea, I wanted to bring the whole Scooby gang along. Once Anya and I got together and I had a real job, I was going to take her to Paris. After the whole wedding disaster, I thought about visiting you in England.”
“Then I kissed you,” Giles said “and you decided you’d rather be alone in Tijuana.”
“What?” Xander said. “No! I can’t believe you even remember that; you were on the really good sedatives. You told me I had pretty eyes for God’s sake! Whoever you thought you were kissing, I know it wasn’t me.”
“Ah.” There was a long pause on the line. Xander began to suspect Giles had fallen back to sleep. Loud salsa music erupted in the street outside Xander’s window. Possibly it woke up Giles, because he spoke again. “If it wasn’t the kiss, what made you decide against coming to England?”
“You didn’t call me.” Xander winced at how very, very un-manly that sounded. “I mean, if you had called me, I could have mentioned really casually that I’d like to visit England. Then you could have said, ‘it sounds like jolly fun, Xander, do come,’ because that’s how you British guys talk. But it’s a whole different vibe if I call and invite myself. Plus, if you don’t want to talk to me on the phone, you really don’t want me there in person.”
Giles was silent again, which meant that either he’d fallen asleep or he was carefully not agreeing with Xander’s last statement on the general principle of ‘if you can’t say anything nice….”
Xander babbled on. “I thought about just getting on a plane and surprising you, but, well, I didn’t.”
“Thank God for small mercies,” Giles said.
Wow, Xander thought. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known from the start where this conversation was going. He just hadn’t expected them to get there this fast. How very efficient of Giles.
“Yeah. Sorry I woke you. It won’t happen again.” Xander thumbed the cell phone off.
Okay, minus one friend, check. Or minus one illusion that Giles had ever been his friend. Working towards that hangover suddenly seemed like a really, really great idea. At least the music from the street would make it seem like a party.
Xander had taken two steps towards the bottle when there was a knock at the door. Would a hotel this cheap have turn-down service?
No, because when Xander opened the door, there was Giles. A whole different kind of turn-down.
“You’re teleporting now?” Xander said in disbelief. “I thought that was a one-time thing from the Coven, because Willow was doing her end of the world schtick.”
“You rang off rather suddenly,” Giles said.
“And because of that you teleported? Are you suddenly a really powerful mage?”
“Is this truly a conversation you wish to have in the hall?” Giles asked.
“Oh, uh.” Xander stood back from the door.
“There’s no reason not to invite me in,” Giles said as he crossed the threshold. “Vampires can enter hotel rooms and other public accommodations.”
“So you’re saying you could be a teleporting vampire? You’re freaking me out here, Giles,” Xander said.
Giles crossed to the nightstand, pulled out the bible and held it firmly in both hands. “See, it doesn’t harm me. I have not been turned.” He put the bible back, and closed the drawer. “Really, that was one of the council’s better ideas.”
Xander laughed. “Bibles in hotel rooms? That’s not the Council. That’s the Gideons.”
Giles raised his eyebrows. “Of course, you would know better than I about council practices.”
“No, I just, uh, they all have ‘Gideon’ stamped on them.”
“Yes, well, stamping them ‘Council of Watchers, but we’re a secret organization, so please don’t tell,’ would have used too much ink, wouldn’t it?”
Xander made a hand gesture, vaguely indicating ‘fine, I’m an idiot,’ but he said “Okay, Mr-Snarky-Guy, why are you here?”
“Yes, thank you, Xander,” Giles said, pulling one of the chairs away from the table. “I would very much like to sit down.” He gestured towards the bottle and plastic tumbler on the table. “How very kind of you to offer. Please don’t go to any trouble. I’ll just have whatever you’re drinking.”
Xander glared, but went to get the second plastic tumbler from the bathroom. He set it down in front of Giles with an audible snap. “Help yourself, Emily Post. Now, if it’s not too much trouble, You. Teleporting. How? Also, why?”
Giles picked up the bottle and examined it. “I didn’t teleport. It took three planes, a locator spell and a four-hour drive for me to follow you here. When did you start drinking Scotch?”
“Half an hour ago and what do you mean you didn’t teleport? I just called you in England. I woke you up.”
“Willow insisted I buy a cell phone,” Giles pulled a phone from his pocket to show Xander. “She forwarded my home line to it. I was asleep because I had had a rather tiring day.”
“Were you planning to say hello at any point? If I hadn’t called?”
Giles didn’t look up as he poured himself a generous helping of scotch. “I did ask for your room number at the front desk. But it occurred to me you might be here with a girlfriend, possibly even Anya. I feared knocking at an inopportune moment.”
Xander laughed. “No such luck. My moments are nothing but opportune. All opportune, all the time, that’s me.”
Giles acknowledged the joke with a smile, and sipped his drink.
“So,” Xander said, “here we are, two wild and crazy guys, in Tijuana, with a birthday to celebrate. We got the music.” He pointed towards the street. Then he made a show of looking around the room. “No cake, no balloons, but look! A bottle of scotch and two cups. Drinking games it is. The problem is, I only know one drinking game, and if we play ‘I never’ you’ll be under the table before I’m even buzzed.
“I assure you, Xander, I can hold my liquor.”
“No, it’s just in “I never’ we take turns saying something we’ve never done. If the other guy has done it, he has to take a drink. You’ve done pretty much everything, so I win this at a walk. I say, ‘I’ve never been to England,’ and you drink. ‘I’ve never spoken Ancient Sumarian,’ you drink. ‘I’ve never been in an orgy,’ you drink. Get it?”
“I believe so.” Giles held up his glass of scotch and contemplated it for a moment, then he looked up and gave Xander what could only be described as a fierce smile. “You’ve never made love to another man.” Without taking his eyes from Xander’s, he drank. “You’ve never given another man an inelegantly expressed compliment on the luminous beauty of his eyes.” Giles stared defiantly into those eyes and drank. “You’ve never fallen in love with someone unsuitably young.” Giles tilted his head back and chugged the rest of the scotch.
Xander watched the muscles in Giles’ throat work, and tried to breath. He’d thought he had a good grasp of English, but the words Giles had just said, in the order that he’d said them, couldn’t possibly mean what Xander thought they meant.
Giles crushed the cup with his hand and let it drop onto the table. “When I woke up in hospital and realized what I’d done, I was horrified, but also relieved. At last, you knew. I imagined the worst when you didn’t come to see Willow off. But if anyone would understand that unrequited love needn’t interfere with friendship, it was you. I thought if I gave you some time, if we talked face to face- When I discovered you thought nothing of the kiss, I should have been overjoyed. Yet, I wasn’t.”
When Xander still said nothing, Giles stood up. “If you like, I’ll go.”
As if the words had released some switch, Xander stood suddenly, nearly knocking over his chair. “I thought about the kiss,” he said hoarsely.
“That’s not what you told me earlier.” Giles said.
“I thought about the kiss, Giles. I thought about it a lot because I liked it a lot. But I couldn’t face you the next day, because I knew sedation-guy thought he was kissing someone else.” Xander smiled apologetically and repeated the ‘I’m an idiot’ gesture. “Just another in the long list of things I knew that turned out to be wrong, like vampires existing only in horror films, or the council having nothing to do with bibles in hotels, or Xander Harris being very, very not-gay.”
Giles smiled and stepped closer. “Can I take it that you don’t need me to leave now?”
“You can take it that I need you to stay.” Xander danced backwards to the beat of the music from outside until he backed into the bed. He sat down, gesturing for Giles to join him.
It was the first step in a new dance by a new generation of Harris.
The prompt:
Pairing: Xander/Giles
Include:
Xander teaching Giles something new
Something about Giles Xander never knew
How Xander feels about Scotch
Cannot Include:
A location in England or the US
G-man
Giles hitting his head
Written by anyjay for spring_with_xan
Pairing: Giles/Xander
Setting: Summer between seasons 6 and 7. Slight spoilers for Grave.
Summary: Xander’s phone call to Giles goes badly. Fortunately, the story doesn’t end there.
Rating: FRT
Word count: 2200
Disclaimer: I make no money, I have no rights.
Beta’ed by Mr. Jay
Much, much gratitude to Katekat1010 who made a most excellent movie poster for this fic. You can click on the link below to see it. Isn't it wonderful? This was part of a group she did for spring_with_xan. If you want to check out the others that she made, they're here.
Much, much gratitude also to Davinci_1985 who told me exactly how to make the poster appear in my journal, even providing me with the link, because I am severely graphically-challenged.
Now I am very, very happy. Yay!!
Xander walked out of the bar after only one beer. This had been a mistake. Really he’d known it was a mistake from the start, but that hadn’t stopped him. He was a Harris, after all. With that as his inspiration, he walked into the next liquor store he saw. He’d spent enough time with Giles during Buffy’s freshman year, he remembered the brand of scotch he drank. If it was good enough for Giles- Xander bought a bottle and carried it back to the cheap hotel where he was staying.
Xander poured two fingers of scotch into one of the hotel’s clear plastic cups. It smelled like Giles and despair. He swirled the cup and watched the play of the light on the liquid. Pretty. He took a sip. Not bad. Better than his mother’s gin or his father’s wild turkey.
Xander took another sip. He knew what he was doing, of course. He needed a drink. It was the first step in a dance the Harris family had practiced since the dawn of time. Later he would need another drink, and then a third. At some point, maybe around the fourth or fifth drink, he would be officially drunk enough. Drunk enough to call Giles long distance. The call would start with Xander asking why Giles hadn’t called or written since he’d taken Willow to England. Then, if Xander kept up the Harris tradition, he would list every hurt Giles had ever done him, and yell at Giles for each one in turn, possibly interspersed with some crying. Then he’d begin to blame Giles for everything what was wrong in his life. Stuff would be hurled against walls.
The biggest hurt, the real reason for all the resentment, would be held for last. “Why don’t you love me?” As if that were a question anyone could answer. As if Giles could make himself love Xander any more than Xander could stop himself loving Giles. As if Giles would want to. There would be more crying and yelling and whatever remnant of friendship still remained between them would go down in flames. In the morning, he would be plus one hangover, minus one friend and he would still be alone in Tijuana.
Xander took another sip of the scotch and set it on the table. He replaced the cap on the bottle, and put it next to the cup. He was a new generation of Harris. He could ruin his life without the help of alcohol. Pulling out his cell phone, he punched in Giles’ number.
“Hello?”
“Giles, it’s me,” There was silence on the phone, so he added. “Xander Harris.”
“Xander. What time is it?”
Xander laughed. “Oh God - it’s like 6 in the morning there, isn’t it. I woke you up.”
“You did rather, but I’m glad you called. How’s everything in Sunnydale?”
“I’m in Tijuana, actually. Came down here to celebrate. Know what I’m celebrating, Giles?”
“Your birthday,” Giles said.
“Yeah, my 21st birthday. Today I am a man. Of course, if I were Jewish I’d have been a man at 13, but what can I say? I’ve always been kind of slow.”
“Happy Birthday, Xander.”
“Thanks,” Xander said.
“Aren’t Buffy and Dawn still off seeing the world?” Giles asked.
“Yeah. They sent me a real nice birthday card, though.”
“With whom are you traveling, then?” Giles said.
“No one. It’s just me.”
“No friends from your work? No, ah, girlfriend?”
“No and no. Because when I said it was just me, what I really meant was, it’s just me.”
“You drove 4 hours to spend your birthday alone in Tijuana?”
“Hey! When you say it like that, it sounds stupid,” Xander objected.
“How does it sound when you say it?” Giles asked.
“Like a plan in action.” Xander said. “Remember my post-graduation road-trip-that-wasn’t? I was going to spend my birthday somewhere cool that summer, like Chicago or DC or New York. Definitely not California and definitely, definitely not washing dishes at a strip club in Oxnard. So when that plan went kaflooey, I promised myself I’d spend my 21st birthday in another country.”
“You haven’t been to Mexico before?” Giles asked.
“I’d barely been out of Sunnydale County before. I’m 21, Giles, and this is the first time I’ve gone beyond the California state limits.”
“So for three years, you’ve been planning to spend your 21st birthday alone in Tijuana?”
“This? So not what I planned. When I first got the idea, I wanted to bring the whole Scooby gang along. Once Anya and I got together and I had a real job, I was going to take her to Paris. After the whole wedding disaster, I thought about visiting you in England.”
“Then I kissed you,” Giles said “and you decided you’d rather be alone in Tijuana.”
“What?” Xander said. “No! I can’t believe you even remember that; you were on the really good sedatives. You told me I had pretty eyes for God’s sake! Whoever you thought you were kissing, I know it wasn’t me.”
“Ah.” There was a long pause on the line. Xander began to suspect Giles had fallen back to sleep. Loud salsa music erupted in the street outside Xander’s window. Possibly it woke up Giles, because he spoke again. “If it wasn’t the kiss, what made you decide against coming to England?”
“You didn’t call me.” Xander winced at how very, very un-manly that sounded. “I mean, if you had called me, I could have mentioned really casually that I’d like to visit England. Then you could have said, ‘it sounds like jolly fun, Xander, do come,’ because that’s how you British guys talk. But it’s a whole different vibe if I call and invite myself. Plus, if you don’t want to talk to me on the phone, you really don’t want me there in person.”
Giles was silent again, which meant that either he’d fallen asleep or he was carefully not agreeing with Xander’s last statement on the general principle of ‘if you can’t say anything nice….”
Xander babbled on. “I thought about just getting on a plane and surprising you, but, well, I didn’t.”
“Thank God for small mercies,” Giles said.
Wow, Xander thought. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known from the start where this conversation was going. He just hadn’t expected them to get there this fast. How very efficient of Giles.
“Yeah. Sorry I woke you. It won’t happen again.” Xander thumbed the cell phone off.
Okay, minus one friend, check. Or minus one illusion that Giles had ever been his friend. Working towards that hangover suddenly seemed like a really, really great idea. At least the music from the street would make it seem like a party.
Xander had taken two steps towards the bottle when there was a knock at the door. Would a hotel this cheap have turn-down service?
No, because when Xander opened the door, there was Giles. A whole different kind of turn-down.
“You’re teleporting now?” Xander said in disbelief. “I thought that was a one-time thing from the Coven, because Willow was doing her end of the world schtick.”
“You rang off rather suddenly,” Giles said.
“And because of that you teleported? Are you suddenly a really powerful mage?”
“Is this truly a conversation you wish to have in the hall?” Giles asked.
“Oh, uh.” Xander stood back from the door.
“There’s no reason not to invite me in,” Giles said as he crossed the threshold. “Vampires can enter hotel rooms and other public accommodations.”
“So you’re saying you could be a teleporting vampire? You’re freaking me out here, Giles,” Xander said.
Giles crossed to the nightstand, pulled out the bible and held it firmly in both hands. “See, it doesn’t harm me. I have not been turned.” He put the bible back, and closed the drawer. “Really, that was one of the council’s better ideas.”
Xander laughed. “Bibles in hotel rooms? That’s not the Council. That’s the Gideons.”
Giles raised his eyebrows. “Of course, you would know better than I about council practices.”
“No, I just, uh, they all have ‘Gideon’ stamped on them.”
“Yes, well, stamping them ‘Council of Watchers, but we’re a secret organization, so please don’t tell,’ would have used too much ink, wouldn’t it?”
Xander made a hand gesture, vaguely indicating ‘fine, I’m an idiot,’ but he said “Okay, Mr-Snarky-Guy, why are you here?”
“Yes, thank you, Xander,” Giles said, pulling one of the chairs away from the table. “I would very much like to sit down.” He gestured towards the bottle and plastic tumbler on the table. “How very kind of you to offer. Please don’t go to any trouble. I’ll just have whatever you’re drinking.”
Xander glared, but went to get the second plastic tumbler from the bathroom. He set it down in front of Giles with an audible snap. “Help yourself, Emily Post. Now, if it’s not too much trouble, You. Teleporting. How? Also, why?”
Giles picked up the bottle and examined it. “I didn’t teleport. It took three planes, a locator spell and a four-hour drive for me to follow you here. When did you start drinking Scotch?”
“Half an hour ago and what do you mean you didn’t teleport? I just called you in England. I woke you up.”
“Willow insisted I buy a cell phone,” Giles pulled a phone from his pocket to show Xander. “She forwarded my home line to it. I was asleep because I had had a rather tiring day.”
“Were you planning to say hello at any point? If I hadn’t called?”
Giles didn’t look up as he poured himself a generous helping of scotch. “I did ask for your room number at the front desk. But it occurred to me you might be here with a girlfriend, possibly even Anya. I feared knocking at an inopportune moment.”
Xander laughed. “No such luck. My moments are nothing but opportune. All opportune, all the time, that’s me.”
Giles acknowledged the joke with a smile, and sipped his drink.
“So,” Xander said, “here we are, two wild and crazy guys, in Tijuana, with a birthday to celebrate. We got the music.” He pointed towards the street. Then he made a show of looking around the room. “No cake, no balloons, but look! A bottle of scotch and two cups. Drinking games it is. The problem is, I only know one drinking game, and if we play ‘I never’ you’ll be under the table before I’m even buzzed.
“I assure you, Xander, I can hold my liquor.”
“No, it’s just in “I never’ we take turns saying something we’ve never done. If the other guy has done it, he has to take a drink. You’ve done pretty much everything, so I win this at a walk. I say, ‘I’ve never been to England,’ and you drink. ‘I’ve never spoken Ancient Sumarian,’ you drink. ‘I’ve never been in an orgy,’ you drink. Get it?”
“I believe so.” Giles held up his glass of scotch and contemplated it for a moment, then he looked up and gave Xander what could only be described as a fierce smile. “You’ve never made love to another man.” Without taking his eyes from Xander’s, he drank. “You’ve never given another man an inelegantly expressed compliment on the luminous beauty of his eyes.” Giles stared defiantly into those eyes and drank. “You’ve never fallen in love with someone unsuitably young.” Giles tilted his head back and chugged the rest of the scotch.
Xander watched the muscles in Giles’ throat work, and tried to breath. He’d thought he had a good grasp of English, but the words Giles had just said, in the order that he’d said them, couldn’t possibly mean what Xander thought they meant.
Giles crushed the cup with his hand and let it drop onto the table. “When I woke up in hospital and realized what I’d done, I was horrified, but also relieved. At last, you knew. I imagined the worst when you didn’t come to see Willow off. But if anyone would understand that unrequited love needn’t interfere with friendship, it was you. I thought if I gave you some time, if we talked face to face- When I discovered you thought nothing of the kiss, I should have been overjoyed. Yet, I wasn’t.”
When Xander still said nothing, Giles stood up. “If you like, I’ll go.”
As if the words had released some switch, Xander stood suddenly, nearly knocking over his chair. “I thought about the kiss,” he said hoarsely.
“That’s not what you told me earlier.” Giles said.
“I thought about the kiss, Giles. I thought about it a lot because I liked it a lot. But I couldn’t face you the next day, because I knew sedation-guy thought he was kissing someone else.” Xander smiled apologetically and repeated the ‘I’m an idiot’ gesture. “Just another in the long list of things I knew that turned out to be wrong, like vampires existing only in horror films, or the council having nothing to do with bibles in hotels, or Xander Harris being very, very not-gay.”
Giles smiled and stepped closer. “Can I take it that you don’t need me to leave now?”
“You can take it that I need you to stay.” Xander danced backwards to the beat of the music from outside until he backed into the bed. He sat down, gesturing for Giles to join him.
It was the first step in a new dance by a new generation of Harris.
The prompt:
Pairing: Xander/Giles
Include:
Xander teaching Giles something new
Something about Giles Xander never knew
How Xander feels about Scotch
Cannot Include:
A location in England or the US
G-man
Giles hitting his head