Something Old, Something New -- Buffy POV
Okay, last freaking summer, the great and wonderful nemo-gravis asked if anyone would want to write Buffy’s point of view for his story, “ Something Old, Something New”. I volunteered, and the first day, managed to do half of the story. And then, tragedy struck. The entire story? Disappeared. And I had to go on the road, so the computer I’d been using wasn't an option anymore.
Well, around Valentine’s Day (I think), I suddenly realized that I hadn’t done the story. So I posted it so that he could see it.
And right about now is when I realized that I hadn’t posted it so everyone else could see it. So, here it is.
Finally. (Sex is mentioned. Quite a bit. And there’s cursing, and … all right, it’s not my usual sort of story at all. But darn it, I’m proud of this baby. I’ve tried recently to try stories that aren’t my usual cup of tea, ’cause otherwise, how will I really grow if I’m always doing the same things?)
Something Old, Something New
by sroni
October 2011
Buffy heard the first bars of the Wedding March begin. She swallowed hard, imagining what was going through Xander’s head as he heard it, knowing he’d be dwelling on the memories. She smiled, knowing how different it was going to be this time.
The doors opened, and the first person she saw was Xander. She focused on him, paying no attention to the people around her. Xander would get her through this. He always got her through life. That was Xander for you. She was an idiot for not noticing how much she needed him before. She could see the look in his eyes as he watched her. She could tell that he was resisting the urge to wipe his hands on his pants. For some reason, the thought made her smile.
Xander probably had no clue how he affected her right then. There’s some unwritten rule about that.
She remembered the first time she’d seen him. Her amusement at the awkwardness, and how she’d managed to twist his tongue without saying anything to him. And the last time she saw him that night made her think twice about the boy that had asked the first thing that popped out of his mouth, “Can I have you?”. He’d shown a lot of courage, and a lot of trust in her, and was counting on her to save his friend. But he wasn’t going to let her do it alone. He was going to do it with her.
The man he’d became and the boy she met weren’t the same person. The man he was now was the person she was in love with. The boy he’d been was her best friend. Amazing how some things could stay constant, and some things could change.
He didn’t look the same. He was years older, and it showed. But he looked better. He was Xander. The one person who stuck by her since she’d met him. The one person who would always throw himself into a fight if it meant distracting something long enough for her to live one more second. The one person who’d put up with every thing she’d done, all the crap she pulled, and came out of it still loving her. The person she wanted to kill sometimes, because of how little he thought of his own safety.
***
The gang had split up after the wicked mojo Willow had pulled. Giles went back to England to try to regroup the Council. Willow and Kennedy had gone to South America. When they broke up, Kennedy headed up to Mexico with a group of Slayers. Faith and Robin decided to lead the bunch in Cleveland. Buffy decided to go to Rome, and where she went, Dawn went.
And Xander went to Africa. Africa. He wasn’t supposed to go somewhere dangerous. When she’d found out about that, Giles got an earful. She half suspected that he’d put a volume spell on the phone until she’d stopped yelling, and then explained to her that he had offered the job, and Xander accepted. It had been Xander’s decision.
If he’d been anywhere near a phone, she would have yelled at him, too.
He went crazy while he was there. His Slayer was killed, and he blamed himself, because that’s what he did. She’d gone to him while he was in the institution, and she, Willow, and Giles had pulled him out of there, while the doctors told them they’d be killing him to do it.
Yeah, right. He was just a doctor. They were his friends. They were what he needed.
He was what she needed.
It hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park. Sometimes, he’d be mondo depressed. Other times, he’d be yelling at them, and she’d yell right back. Willow yelled, too, sometimes, when he really needed it. Giles was just Giles. He kept them hydrated with tea a lot.
The point where Buffy was sure that Xander would be okay was when she came in, and Giles was hugging him as Xander cried. She’d been in that situation before. After feeling that kind of emotion, you start to get better. Must be some other unwritten rule. Or maybe it was a written rule … Anyway. His getting-better-meltdown was a long time coming. Almost three years since he’d first had the BIG meltdown. She was going to make sure it didn’t happen again.
He was her Xander. She was Buffy. It was her job to keep him safe, and no one was going to accuse her of not doing her job.
She knew him better than ever. Knew him better than anyone did, except Willow. Maybe even Willow. That was a gray area. He knew her better than anyone else did, too. She’d told him things she’d never told anyone. Things she hadn’t even realized she was feeling them, and had felt them, until the words were coming out of her mouth.
“You may now kiss the bride” snapped her out of her thoughts. She smiled as Giles kissed his new wife, and everyone in the church applauded.
How could he know her so well, have been through so much with her, and not know that she loved him?
Stupid unwritten rules.
***
She’d caught the bouquet. Yeah, like that was much of a surprise. Most of the other girls had her beat on reach, but she was more determined. Willow almost got it, but one look from Buffy made her stop the summoning spell she was doing.
When it was time for the toasts, Xander and Buffy shared embarrassing stories (she’d missed making her Watcher’s ears turn red), and Willow made up for it with a sweet one about how he’d saved her life.
And then she danced with Giles. “Buffy, I dearly hope that you’ve finally come to your senses.”
“Are we talking about what I think we’re talking about? ’Cause if we’re talking about a certain Watcher that I’ve been living with, then yes. I’ve seen the light.”
“That’s surprising to me. I would have expected him to be bouncing off the walls.”
“I don’t know what’s going on. I keep trying to make it clear, but …” She shrugged, looking at her feet. “I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t feel that way about me anymore.”
“Buffy, there is no power on this earth that could ever make him change the way he feels about you. He’s been in love with you for years.”
“Yeah, I know. But maybe he just wants to be friends now.” She could practically hear him rolling his eyes.
“That’s never going to happen.. Stop worrying about that, and just tell him how you feel. Remember. He’s still a male, so unless you strip for him, it’s not going to occur to him that you feel the same way. Even then, he might decide that you’re drunk, and don’t know what you’re doing.” Wow. Moira really had changed him. He said “strip” and he wasn’t even trying to clean his glasses.
Stripping. Now there was an idea.
***
Giles and Moira were gone, already on their honeymoon. Willow passed out, and Kennedy took care of her, pretending to grumble, but anyone with eyes could see how she felt. The drummer disappeared with Faith soon after Giles and Moira left, and the band had kept trying to play as if nothing was wrong. That didn’t last long. They lost their keyboard player, while he tried to find a CD. Once they had the CD, the keyboarder was hanging around Vi, the guitarist was trying to catch Rona’s eye, and the singer kept sending Buffy looks. Yeah, right, not happening. Most people had left, but there were still quite a few couples on the dance floor. Dawn and her new boyfriend, Daniel, were on the floor, too.
She was watching Dawn and Daniel dance, remembering what it was like to be their age, and trying to act like she couldn’t see Xander looking at her every once in a while. That made her ego feel good. She’d dressed with him in mind, and it looked like it was working.
She’d been living with him for two years, and he still didn’t know. Two years. Hard to say which of them was the bigger idiot.
She was in a morose mood, and ever since most people had left, she’d dropped the happy facade. Or at least, let it slip a little. Enough that Xander apparently noticed, because he’d finally decided to talk to her.
“What’s with the mopey face, Buff?” he asked finally.
She blinked, startled out of her thoughts, and turned to him. “Huh? Mopey face? I don’t mope! I’m just … pensive.”
“So pensive you’re getting a permanent crease in your forehead, just there.” He brushed a finger over the wrinkle. She knew that he was playing with her, but she couldn’t squelch the urge to check, and started digging around her purse for a mirror. He burst out laughing.
She scowled when she heard his laughter, and looked up. “Bastard.”
He pasted a joking look on his face. “Oh, Buffy! Really! You knew my parents, for which I am eternally sorry. They were very much married.”
She responded. “Getting a cheap laugh out of a girl like that is evil, Xander. I may just have to slay you.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that right?”
She was fighting back a smile. “Yup. Sorry, comes with the job description.”
“Slaying people for making with the bad jokes? Not exactly up to weekly world-saveage standards, Buff. Might be more important in the long run though. If someone had had the guts to take down Pauly Shore, the world would probably be a marginally happier place.”
“Yeah, well even he would know that a stunt like that is an automatic death sentence in most women’s book. Wrinklage is not something to fool around with. I’m still hot, Harris, and don’t you forget it.”
Oh, now she’d managed to hit him hard. “I never said you weren’t. Of course you’re hot! Way hot. You’re the hottest woman I know.”
Was he flirting with her? She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. When he turned red, she had her answer. He was flirting. She had succeeded in getting Xander Harris to notice that she might be serious. And then he frowned, and she had to fight off the urge to do the same.
“Seriously, Buff. What’s up?” He was trying to get her to talk.
She waved a hand at him, trying to think of what to say. “It’s just … No reason, specifically. You remember that movie? The one with Hugh Grant?”
She could see him searching his brain for it, and giving up. “Uh … They’re all pretty much interchangeable for me. You’re gonna have to clue me in.”
She suppressed an exasperated sigh. “The one with all the weddings and the madman in a kilt who died.”
He racked his brain some more. “Four Weddings and a Funeral?”
Good boy. Took him long enough. They’d watched it the night before. “Yeah.”
“What do Hugh Grant and kilt-wearing corpses have to do with anything?”
“This …” She waved a hand at the dance floor, seeing Dawnie again. “The being left out thing. I just feel like I’m still on the sidelines, you know?”
“Well, you kind of are.” Judging by the look on his face, he hadn’t meant to say that. She nailed him with a glare. “Well, you are, Buff. Sitting here with me.”
He sat there, shrinking under the well deserved look of fury (yeah, like she really meant it), and then stood up, straightened his tuxedo, and his hair. She watched him doing all of that, and then he stuck his hand out, in an obvious offer to dance. She grinned, and let him pull her up. And then they were dancing together. It was nice.
For some reason, it reminded her of the one dance that she swore never to think about again. The one that she’d just used him for. And that bothered her. She didn’t like to think about how selfish she’d been back then.
She tried to distract her memories. “I like this.” She spoke against his chest, in a calculatedly low voice.
He cleared his throat. “Ditto.”
“You’ve got much better at the whole coordination thing. Much lower spaz levels.”
“Uh … thanks?”
They danced a few more minutes, and then she bit back a grin. Her plan was working. “Xander?”
“Yeah?”
She lifted her head from his chest and peered up at him quizzically. “I know I’m probably gonna regret asking this but … Do you have a banana in your pocket?”
Xander blinked. And then blushed a bright red. If she’d missed turning Giles’ ears red, it was nothing to the amusement she felt at Xander’s red face. “Oh my God! It’s the booze, Buff! Just the booze. And it’s like one in the morning and my brain’s not working on all cylinders at the moment. I am so-o-o sorry. I mean, ew, how could I …? Let me just … I’ll just …”
He tried to pull away but she held him in place. She’d worked too hard to get him there, there wasn’t any way she was letting him get away. He was babbling excuses, and then she cut him off in pity. Amused pity, but still pity. “It’s okay, Xan. Really. Just … I don’t know. It’s weird to think I could have that kind of effect on you is all.” He was a sucker for her self-deprecating moods.
He was obviously trying to distract himself, and it worked. Now, that wouldn’t do at all.
She moved against him.
It worked.
“Remember that scene in the movie?” she asked out of the blue.
“Whahuh?”
She grinned up at him and leaned her head against his shoulder. “In the Hugh Grant movie. The bridesmaid is crying and everything and this guy asks her why and she’s all, ‘I was promised sex!’ I loved that part.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh-hunh. Always made me laugh. Sometimes, I feel like that.”
“… Sad and horny? Well, I’d offer my **cough** services, Buff, but …”
Putty in her hands. She was pulling out the big guns, and she knew it. Maybe he’d finally realize she was serious about it. She laughed and swatted him softly. “Not that, dummy. About life in general. Like whatever I was promised is … I’m on the outside looking in while everyone’s busy enjoying their lives.”
“Oh.” Xander nodded understandingly.
“I mean, Giles is married now. Giles! And Willow’s got Kennedy, I guess. Faith’s with … who was that guy anyway? Even Dawnie’s got Daniel out here somewhere.”
“Evan.” He was trying not to laugh.
“What?” Who the hell was Evan?
“Her boyfriend’s name is Evan, not Daniel.”
“Aw, crap. When did she dump Daniel?”
“She’s never dated a Daniel.”
“I’m a horrible big sister. How is it that you know that, and I don’t?”
He laughed, and then changed the subject back. “You’ve been alone for a while now, haven’t you?” he asked gently, as if afraid that she’d break him for asking. “How long since … that last guy? The one a couple of months ago. Roger?”
“Robert.” She corrected. And then, to make sure that he wouldn’t be able to resist crossing a line, she added, “And the state of my love life is none of your business.”
See, she knew that if she could make him curious, he’d be hooked. And the fastest way to make him curious was to avoid it.
“You made it my business, Buffy. Come on, I can see there’s a thing here.”
Oh, there was no way she could let him off the hook for that one. “A thing?”
He stood his ground, she’d give him that. “You talk and I’ll listen. I’m good at that, remember. Still got both my ears, after all.”
Now it was her turn to flush red. “There is no ‘thing’, Xan. Seriously. I’m just a little maudlin is all. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, and all that.”
“That’s all? A case of post-nuptial depression?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll find someone, Buff. You have to know you will really.”
She smiled against him. That’s Xander. “It’s just hard, sometimes. You have no idea how being a Slayer can put a crimp in your love life. Robert got all prissy when I decked some loser the last time we were out. Some guy who was hitting on me with clingy hands. He said I’d undermined his manhood or some such crap.”
Xander laughed. “Ah. The fear of emasculation! I know it well.”
Subject change time. “When they told you it’d make you go blind, they were lying, you know.”
He answered by squeezing her softly, before actually answering with words. “Funny, Buff. Pauly Shore’s gonna have to watch his back with you around.”
“The kings of non-comedy are not really what I want to talk about when we’re dancing together, Xander.”
He switched back to the other subject. “What Roger was harping on about, it’s just something I can sort of understand. Like when I couldn’t get that jar open a couple of days ago and you came in and popped the lid with one finger.”
“Yeah, but you don’t really care about the whole superhero dealie, right?”
“Years of practice. And, you know, perving on all the hot girls who fight evil is certainly to be placed in the perk column. I guess you can be a bit overwhelming sometimes, if a guy’s not ready for it.”
“Hey …! That was a criticism, right?”
“More of a backhanded compliment.”
“Then hey!”
“It’s not your problem, Buff. Some idiot pushes things with you, you clock him one. Simple. If Roger couldn’t deal with that, you’re better off without him.”
“Robert.”
“Whatever. Let’s not talk about that idiot right now.”
They danced a little longer, and finally, Dawn left. And once Dawn left, the bigger guns came out. “About what you said before …”
“You know I was just kidding around, Buff. You have no wrinkles.”
Idiot! “Not that. About the … the servicing idea.” The silence was deafening, and she felt like she was going to hyperventilate. “Xan?” No answer. She leaned back and tried to catch his eye. His brain was currently on vacation. She could tell by the glazed look over his eye. “You still there, Xander?”
He came back. “Sorry, Buff. I just had the strangest hallucination.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Must have been. I could have sworn I heard you …”
“Ask you about your services?”
“… Okay, someone’s making with the wedding mojo again. I’ll get Willow back here and …”
Screw this. She kissed him.
***
It was a heck of a lot later now. Oh, man, was Xander a good kisser. How had she managed to not know this before? Insanity. That’s the only explanation. Insanity that lasted almost ten years. And then he’d gone all noble, and …
No matter. She knew now. Knew how he would focus on one thing at a time, making her toes curl …
He was a stubborn boy, but he had nothing on her. Please, she was a Slayer. They didn’t come much stubborner than her.
Oh, God, what if he thought she took advantage of him while he was drunk? Or worse, what if he thought he’d taken advantage of her? Well, he’d just have to learn that drunk or not, no one could take advantage of her. But he could make himself miserable before he got that lesson through his thick skull.
She was pretending to be asleep, and could feel him tightening up next to her as he woke up and remembered. Yup, right on cue, he was blaming himself, and thinking of how she was going to react. Figuring that she’d ditch him once she realized they’d slept together.
Moron.
She yawned and rolled over, giving him a sleepy smile. She could see in his eyes that he was freaking out, and called him on it. “You’re freaking out right now, aren’t you?” He blinked, indicating that she’d caught him before he’d actually finished a thought.
“Uh …” He was stalling for time. “You could say that.” She let her face drop, and he continued quickly to reassure her. “Don’t get me wrong, I love … what happened. But I can’t help thinking …” He trailed off.
“That is was some weird magical accident or that you’re dead or that you’ve gone nutsoid again and are currently drooling your food down your pajamas under heavy medication,” she offered helpfully.
He snapped out of his freaking out and glared at her. “I hadn’t got round to that last one yet!”
She laughed and reached up to tousle his hair. “Don’t over-think this, okay, Xan? It just happened. I wanted it to happen. You were out of your mind for it …”
He blinked. “Hey!”
She barely held back her grin. “Well, you wanted it, too, didn’t you?”
His voice was getting a little higher pitched. “As much! As much! There is no desperate stalkerness here, Buff.”
She was desperately trying to hide the smile. “Weren’t you the one who described me as, and I quote, ‘the hottest woman you know’?”
It took him a while to answer. “There might have been a certain amount of … of idle speculation on my part from time to time. Just healthy curiosity, you understand.”
She nodded seriously. “Of course. And we engaged in the act of intercourse purely in the spirit of scientific discovery.”
He nodded, grateful for the break she was cutting him. “That, too.”
She let him think it over, while she traced one of his scars. Damn, but his scars scared her. They were more proof that she hadn’t been there to protect him.
Finally, he spoke. “So … No magic mind-whammies? No sexy afterlife or hallucinogenic anti-depressants?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
“In a Freud way, not a Clinton way.”
She grinned. “Well, that thing we did in the living room might be considered …”
He finished the sentence for her. “Almost physically impossible?”
“Almost.” She agreed. “But definitely worth the attempt.”
He nodded vigorously. “Oh, most definitely.”
They lay in silence again, not feeling the need to say or do anything. Right about now he’d be thinking that it was a one-time thing, and they were still just friends.
Yeah, right. She’d really let him stick with that. Please. She’d worked too hard to get him here, there was no way she was letting him get away. She decided to break him away from the friends thought. She sighed softly, still lying on his shoulder, and he looked at her. She read his face, and saw that in the blink of an eye, he had changed from convincing himself they were just friends to wanting to be more.
Damn, but she was good.
***
She woke up before he did, and decided to grab some of her clothes. She looked gorgeous in her dress, and she knew it, but she didn’t want to get food on it while cooking. And she didn’t know how Xander would react to her stealing one of his shirts, and she didn’t particularly want to cook naked. Not exactly on the list of top ten things to do.
She was gone for maybe fifteen minutes, and then started cooking breakfast. She was going to surprise him. She started humming under her breath, grabbing whatever ingredients she felt like. The humming soon turned to cursing. She always thought that she was a better cook than she was. It was something she enjoyed, but not something that she was good at. And she hated to do things she wasn’t good at. So the enjoyment only lasted until she realized that she wasn’t good. Every single damn time. You’d think she’d get it through her head, but no.
He came in the kitchen while she was digging through his cupboards. She heard his footsteps, and turned to give him a wide smile.” Hey, Xan. Where do you keep the salt?”
She wasn’t a mind reader. She couldn’t read Xander’s eye as well as Willow. Those two could hold complete conversations with their eyes. But she’d become adept at translating his thoughts without verbal communications. And right now he was freaking out because she was in his kitchen.
He handed her the salt without saying anything. Now she was starting to get freaked out. She took it, and turned back to the stove, and went back to humming, trying to keep him from realizing that she was terrified because of his reaction. As a result, she dumped way to much salt in the omelet. She tried to keep cool. “I just nipped out to get some clothes from my place.” She spoke over her shoulder without turning. “Called Dawnie and Willow and told them we were gonna be out of reach for most of today.” No response. “Xan?” She looked over her shoulder, trying to look at him without letting him look her in the eyes. “What’s wrong?” He opened his mouth as if to reply, but then closed it again, and shook his head. She frowned at him, and turned to face him. Screw not letting him see how freaked out she was, he was freaking out too much for her to not help. “Xander? Are you okay?”
“I thought …” He coughed, and waved a hand. “Nothing. It’s just that, well, you weren’t here when I woke up and …”
She felt the blood drain from her face. “Oh. Oh my gosh, Xander! You thought I just ran off?” How could he think that?
Easily. He hadn’t had the world’s best record with her.
He looked insanely pissed at himself, but she reached out, cupping his cheek and making him look at her. “I’m … I’m really sorry, Xan. I didn’t think how …” She trailed off and tried again. “You were really kinda cute sleeping like that and I didn’t want to wake you up. And I only dashed home real quick to pick up a few things and get back here to make us some breakfast in bed. I never …” She wasn’t able to communicate with words so well, so she did the only thing she could think of. She kissed him.
After a couple of beats, he kissed back. And the next few minutes were spent pressed against each other in the kitchen doorway. When they both finally came up for breath, she gave him a watery smile and placed a hand against his chest. “You know me, Xan. I’m still working on that whole thinking-about-others concept.”
He gave her a smile. “Empathy?”
She shrugged. “Sounds about right. Sometimes I screw up and make a mess of things but you have to know I would never … You do know that don’t you?” She looked up at him, feeling like she would be blown away like dandelion seeds on the wind if he didn’t tell her that he believed her.
He nodded, taking away the lightheaded feeling in her head. “Yeah. I know you’re not … That you’d never pull a stunt like that. Intellectually, I mean. It’s just a thing I guess. My problem. I lov-” He didn’t finish that sentence, and she wondered what he meant with it. “I mean, I don’t want things to be weird for us now.”
“They aren’t.” She cut him off before he could argue, giving him another kiss. “Did that feel weird?”
“Uh …” It took a moment for his brain to come back, and then he grinned at her. “You know what? I’m not so sure. Maybe we should do that again to find out.”
She grinned back. “Maybe we should.” And they did.
The smoke alarm rang fifteen minutes later, causing them to pull apart, and she ran to the stove to check on their breakfast. It was a lost cause. It was all ash, and the air was toxic. “That was our breakfast, damn it!” she shouted, not being able to do anything, and trying to do too many things at once, causing her to stand there and wave her arms in frustration.
She could hear him laughing, even if he was trying to hide it, as he reached around her, grabbed the pan, and carried it to the trash can, dropping the whole mess inside.
“Xander!” She wanted to give him breakfast. The food was not working with her plan.
“Forget it, Buff. I’m not really hungry right now. Not for breakfast anyway.”
She blinked. Xander just came on to her, without her having to flash the Las Vegas signs. She felt a smile spread across her face. “Oh, yeah? Well what if I wanted to sink my teeth into something?”
“I’d warn you to be careful, I mark easily.”
***
A few hours later , they were reading a magazine together in bed. He reached over and turned the page, which she rewarded with a swat on his chest. “Hey! I wasn’t done yet!”
He laughed. “You weren’t done with Ten Ways to Please Your Man? Trust me, Buffy, you don’t need any help there.”
She smiled at him. “I’ll take that as a compliment and just say thank you.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “No, really, I should be the one thanking you.”
She rolled her eyes and turned back to the magazine. He rested his head on top of hers, and wasn’t able to see her smile.
After a few moments, he spoke, surprising her. “Am I?”
She blinked. “Are you what?”
She felt him swallow. “Your man?”
She tensed against him but didn’t draw away. Dammit, how could he even doubt it? She took a deep breath and counted to ten, so that she wouldn’t yell at him. “You ever watch As Good As It Gets, with Jack Nicholson?”
“Depends. Hugh Grant got me laid, what’s Jack gonna do for me?”
She laughed at his smart-ass comment, and swatted the arm that was around her waist. “I’m being serious here, Xander. There is method to my madness.”
He nodded, agreeing to be serious with her. “Yeah. That’s the flick where he had OCD and threw a dog down the garbage chute.”
“Right.” She was glad he got it. “Well, it’s like that.”
“Like falling down a garbage chute?”
No. Thick. “Like Nicholson in the movie. When he did that speech about taking his meds to be a better person for Helen Hunt.”
“You lost me at the last turn, Buff. How does this answer my question?”
Time to lay all the cards on the table. She turned to face him with a sly grin on her face. “You don’t think I haven’t been wanting this, us, here, together, I mean, for a long time now?”
He blinked. “You have?”
“Uh-hunh. But you, in typical Xander fashion, were so damn oblivious to the signs that I decided to give up on it. Last night was my final attempt to seduce you.” Okay, that was a slight lie. She knew that she probably wouldn’t have given up, no matter what she’d thought the night before.
He batted his eyelashes coyly. “Why, Buffy, I’m flattered.”
She grabbed a pillow and thumped him about the head. “Dumbass. I pulled out all the stops. Make-up, perfume, a dress cut so low I was almost arrested for indecent exposure on my way to the reception. Even brought out the Victoria’s Secret. All the stops. And I shaved my legs.”
“Well, I would hope so. No one likes to feel like they’re sleeping with a yeti.”
She thumped him with the pillow again, and they mock-wrestled for the pillow, before they got back to kissing.
Xander pulled away from her after a few minutes. “So what do your legs, which I find incredible by the way, have to do with Jack?”
Damn. He was a good kisser. Was able to knock a few brain cells right out of her head. “Huh? Oh. I hate to shave my legs, really hate it. Somehow the Slayer reflex thing just doesn’t kick in there and I’m always cutting myself.”
He was apparently expecting more. “And?”
She sighed. “Well, you’re my Helen Hunt, okay? You make me want to shave my legs.”
He stopped to think for a moment. “Let me get this straight. I asked you if I was your man.”
She nodded, grateful that he’d gotten it through his head. “Yup.”
He continued. “To which you replied that I was the Helen Hunt to your Nicholson.”
She nodded again. “That’s right.”
He was still working it out in his brain. “And I therefore make you want to … shave?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s a metaphor.”
“Oh.” He was obviously thinking about it, and then nodded, and kissed her some more. After ten minutes or so, he picked a bad time to get an answer out of her. “Buffy?”
It took her a moment to realize he’d said anything. “Hunh?”
She could hear the smile in his voice. “You make me want to shave, too, you know.”
She laughed, which quickly turned back into moans.
END