(Fic) That Kiss
I've written a quick fic with a missing scene from 'The Long Way Home' issue #3. Buffy, Willow; 748 words; rating 12. Mostly light-hearted, unusually for me.
So. Just who did kiss Buffy awake?
That Kiss
"You're saying I was woken by a kiss of true love? But that's so... so Sleeping Beauty."
"Yep. But also Amy's modus operandi: that spell she cast on me back in Sunnydale got broken the same way, remember? Some dogs just never learn new tricks."
"Hmm. So you're telling me somebody in this castle loves me? As in, loves me loves me? Who is it?"
Willow looked embarrassed. "Um, I don't think - I mean, I can't - "
"It was Xander. Oh God. It was Xander, wasn't it? He's been acting strange ever since we - erm, we had that conversation about, about, um, hypothetically..." Buffy's sentence trailed off in the face of her friend's quirked eyebrow.
"Really? You and Xan?"
"No! No, of course not. That would be horrible and incestuous and wrong and OH GOD you don't know what it's like being stuck here with a hundred women and no other men for miles!"
"Dunno. Sounds like heaven to me."
Despite her self-pity Buffy couldn't stop herself smiling at Willow's wry tone. "I suppose it would be for you. Well, except that I don't know if any of the girls here are actually gay..."
"Oh, I think it's pretty safe to say that they're not all 100% hetero."
"What? You haven't been - oh! You mean that it was one of them who kissed me?"
"I'm not sayin'."
"It must have been. Since I'm actually sitting here hoping really hard that it wasn't Xander, even though it would be horribly complicated and embarrassing if one of the other Slayers had a crush on me..."
"Why?"
"What- oh! No, I don't mean it like that. It's just that, you know, I'm their leader. I'm the one who has to order them into battle. Maybe send them to their deaths. And how awful would it be if I knew that they were in love with me? Would it make me make the wrong decisions? I mean-"
"Buffy, really: no. I know you, you'll always do what you think is right, y'know?"
"Not always. I try. So anyway-" she made a conscious effort to shake off her downturned mood with an upbeat grin, "Will you tell me I'm right if I guess her name correctly? Twenty questions?"
"Nope. Wouldn't be fair. I promised I wouldn't tell anyone who she-"
"Aha! "She"! It was one of the Slayers!"
"Damn! Er, I mean, I was going to say 'she or he'..."
"No you weren't. Ner ner ner. I'm just pleased it wasn't Xander. So come on, you may as well tell me who it was now."
"No, I really can't. I promised. Um, anyway, how do you know it wasn't me?"
"What? Willow! You don't want to kiss me like that! Do you? You don't, do you?"
Willow giggled at the look on Buffy's face. "Well... not lately. Not since Anya's birthday party three years ago..."
"That was entirely the fault of that bottle of tequila and didn't I threaten to kill you horribly if you ever mentioned it ever again?"
"You can't kill me, 'cause I'm a human. Currently non-evil, too: evil-free for 28 months and counting!"
"Every rule has an exception." Buffy tried to glare threateningly, but the grin quirking the corners of her mouth rather spoiled the effect. "No, I know it wasn't you. And you say it wasn't Xander. So, hmm - let me think..."
"Are you sure you really want to know? I mean, what are you gonna do if you do? After all these years I really can't see you hoppin' the gay train, so it's not like she has a shot with you. So wouldn't it be kinder if you just, y'know, treated her the same as all the other girls?
"When did you become so wise?"
"It's kinda in the job description now. Wisewoman, y'know? And it beats the alternative."
"And you're really not going to tell me, are you?"
"I'm really not."
Buffy sighed. "I suppose you're right. As usual." She gave Willow a jaundiced look. "But you don't have to look quite so smug about it."
"Huh? No, no smug. I just had a thought." She giggled, and Buffy's eyes turned suspicious. "What?"
"Oh nothing. It's just that this time, Amy's spell needed someone to kiss you to break it, right?"
"Right..."
"So what if next time, she casts a, y'know, stronger spell on you?"
And she doubled over laughing as a dawning look of horror lit in Buffy's face...
Click here for the prequel, That Other Kiss!