Fic: Two men (and their dog) in a boat 13/??
Disclaimers in Part One
Part Thirteen
“So we thought we’d try and do it for Halloween, because - you know - all quiet on the undead front … and yeah, we had the joke about not inviting Ethan and being careful about what we all wore, and I told him he could bring his chain saw, just in case …”
Willow’s laugh was warm, her voice echoing down the phone link with barely a crackle, despite how far away she was. Xander smiled to hear it, thinking that she didn’t laugh often enough - hadn’t, in fact, laughed much since Tara … and he understood that, understood how losing someone so close and precious could haunt you for the rest of your life, no matter what - or who- came after. Now Willow had Ken, and he had Giles, but that was all about scribing new chapters in their lives, not overwriting old ones.
“Anyway,” he went on, balancing the phone with his shoulder while he unclipped Twink’s lead and replaced it with the bow tether, “we were wondering if you’d handfast us first - a ceremony just for close friends before we - well, the civil partnership thing’s not exactly a marriage, ya know? It’s legal and stuff, but not … yeah, not yet, anyway. But we will need to - to sort out the proper paperwork and make the public commitment, right? So we thought we’d do it properly with the handfasting, and then do the official thing - and there’ll have to be a formal reception for that, even if we keep it smallish, so … we can invite the Morrison’s, and all the gals and guys from SunnyD days … and then there’s the bigwigs and the office staff, and all the - what did Giles call them? Hoi-poloi? Yeah - the hangers-on we need-to-keep-sweet guys. But it would be good if … you will? Will, that’s wonderful. Of course we’ll invite Buffy - fact, Giles is calling her right now. So, yeah - you and Ken, and Buffy and Dawn. And Faith and Robin, I guess … yeah, and Andrew - provided he promises to behave himself.”
He encouraged Twink to settle down on her blanket and carefully poked his head over the edge of the roof to glimpse what was happening at the stern. Giles was standing in the hatchway, leaning against one of the doors with his phone pressed to his ear and his head down in concentration: he glanced up to catch Xander’s attention on him, and he smiled, a warm and amused be with you in a minute smile. It suggested that the conversation with Buffy - which he’d been somewhat nervous about - was going better than he’d expected. Xander gave him a thumbs up - to let him know that Willow had said yes - and the smile widened into a delighted grin. One Xander returned in kind. They’d both agreed it made sense to tell the girls at the same time - if only to avoid sending any inadvertent messages about who got told first - and they’d had to time it carefully. Fortunately their lunchtime coincided with Buffy’s late morning and Willow’s late afternoon, so they’d waited until they’d reached the Coventry basin - and, equally fortunately, both girls had been in to take the call.
“Yeah,” he said, in response to Willow’s distant question, returning his attention to his own conversation. “Yeah - it’s been good. Really good. Apart from the trip to A&E, I guess. The boat’s been great, and … even the the weather was - okayish. Not so much with the sun, but then, not so much with the rain, either. We’ve kind’ve - chilled, most of the time. Hung out. Recharged.” He grinned. “Good times.”
Willow’s response to that was a whole stream of babble that basically boiled down to I knew it, and you both needed it, and you should do it more often - and then degenerated into an embarrassed sputter about which ‘it’ she was talking about, and not that, but yes that, because … And Xander laughed and ‘uhuhed’ in all the right places, letting her words wash over him with warmth and approval and all the Willowness he loved. He rather hoped Giles was getting the same reaction - although it was equally possible he was getting the Buffy version of the shovel speech, or even a series of ewws and I need to bleach my brain remarks in between the I’m happy for you, don’t hurt him, and if he hurts you I’ll hunt him down and go First Slayer on his ass - which if it had been him on the end of the line would generate the inevitable no you won’t, that’ll be my exclusive privilege once he’s wearing my ring … but she was talking to Giles, so he might think it, but not say it, which was probably just as well. Once Buffy got that joke, she really would want to go and bleach her brain - because in her head? Giles and sex - and especially sweaty, macho, guy to guy sex - were two things that did not belong in the same sentence. Ever.
Which was her loss, and Xander’s gain, and if she wanted to believe that they spent their nights together discussing swordplay and medieval literature, then he was happy to let her do so - although, actually, now he came to think about it … Xander grinned, sinking down to the bench and playfully ruffling Twink’s ear. Now that they were officially engaged, Giles might actually do more than talk about those books of woodcuts he kept in his locked nobody look at these on pain of painful death bookcase. Not the bad mojo stuff, but the ones that those monks had produced and were apparently on a par with the Karma sutra - if those Indian aesthetes had produced a guys only version, that is …
“Just today,” he interjected at a relevant point in the babble-stream. “We’re heading into Coventry this afternoon, ‘cos Giles wants to show me the Cathedral, and then we have tonight and we take the boat back tomorrow. Back in the office on Monday, I guess. Unless something comes up before that, of course. Giles mentioned something about me picking up that construction project we’ve discussed, so I’m hoping to spend a little more time in London than I have been doing. The travelling’s been - well, challenging, and rewarding I guess, but - I have Twink to think about now. And Giles, of course. I know he’d - yeah, stay all stoic and wave me off and spend all day worrying about me if I wanted to go on doing the trips - and I might do a few a year, but - damn it, I want a home, and I want stay in it and worry about him - and make sure he’s not too stressed out over all the other worrying we kinda pay him to do …”
He took a deep breath, clenching his fingers in soft golden fur. There were things he’d begun to realise about what he’d found - what he had. Things he could have had with Anya, but had let slip away because he hadn’t been ready for them. Not back then. Now? Now he understood so much more - about life and living it, and the good and bad things that living actually meant. And about having someone to share it with. “I wanna - go on doing this,” he confided softly. “Being with him, working with him, going on vacations with him - for the rest of my life …well, for the rest of whatever time we both have to do it in. Every moment, Will. I don’t want to miss a thing. I probably will, because … life and Slayers and apocolypses will probably get in the way, but - even then? Will you bless the rings? Mojo them up? Make it so - we’ll always be together, even when we’re apart? Can you do that? For me? For us?”
There was a long pause at the other end of the line - and then he felt her reach across the distance and give him a warm if phantom hug. So mote it be, he heard her say softly - in his ear, and not down the phone - and he smiled and swallowed down the sudden lump in his throat.
He knew she’d understand.
Continued in Part Fourteen
Part Thirteen
“So we thought we’d try and do it for Halloween, because - you know - all quiet on the undead front … and yeah, we had the joke about not inviting Ethan and being careful about what we all wore, and I told him he could bring his chain saw, just in case …”
Willow’s laugh was warm, her voice echoing down the phone link with barely a crackle, despite how far away she was. Xander smiled to hear it, thinking that she didn’t laugh often enough - hadn’t, in fact, laughed much since Tara … and he understood that, understood how losing someone so close and precious could haunt you for the rest of your life, no matter what - or who- came after. Now Willow had Ken, and he had Giles, but that was all about scribing new chapters in their lives, not overwriting old ones.
“Anyway,” he went on, balancing the phone with his shoulder while he unclipped Twink’s lead and replaced it with the bow tether, “we were wondering if you’d handfast us first - a ceremony just for close friends before we - well, the civil partnership thing’s not exactly a marriage, ya know? It’s legal and stuff, but not … yeah, not yet, anyway. But we will need to - to sort out the proper paperwork and make the public commitment, right? So we thought we’d do it properly with the handfasting, and then do the official thing - and there’ll have to be a formal reception for that, even if we keep it smallish, so … we can invite the Morrison’s, and all the gals and guys from SunnyD days … and then there’s the bigwigs and the office staff, and all the - what did Giles call them? Hoi-poloi? Yeah - the hangers-on we need-to-keep-sweet guys. But it would be good if … you will? Will, that’s wonderful. Of course we’ll invite Buffy - fact, Giles is calling her right now. So, yeah - you and Ken, and Buffy and Dawn. And Faith and Robin, I guess … yeah, and Andrew - provided he promises to behave himself.”
He encouraged Twink to settle down on her blanket and carefully poked his head over the edge of the roof to glimpse what was happening at the stern. Giles was standing in the hatchway, leaning against one of the doors with his phone pressed to his ear and his head down in concentration: he glanced up to catch Xander’s attention on him, and he smiled, a warm and amused be with you in a minute smile. It suggested that the conversation with Buffy - which he’d been somewhat nervous about - was going better than he’d expected. Xander gave him a thumbs up - to let him know that Willow had said yes - and the smile widened into a delighted grin. One Xander returned in kind. They’d both agreed it made sense to tell the girls at the same time - if only to avoid sending any inadvertent messages about who got told first - and they’d had to time it carefully. Fortunately their lunchtime coincided with Buffy’s late morning and Willow’s late afternoon, so they’d waited until they’d reached the Coventry basin - and, equally fortunately, both girls had been in to take the call.
“Yeah,” he said, in response to Willow’s distant question, returning his attention to his own conversation. “Yeah - it’s been good. Really good. Apart from the trip to A&E, I guess. The boat’s been great, and … even the the weather was - okayish. Not so much with the sun, but then, not so much with the rain, either. We’ve kind’ve - chilled, most of the time. Hung out. Recharged.” He grinned. “Good times.”
Willow’s response to that was a whole stream of babble that basically boiled down to I knew it, and you both needed it, and you should do it more often - and then degenerated into an embarrassed sputter about which ‘it’ she was talking about, and not that, but yes that, because … And Xander laughed and ‘uhuhed’ in all the right places, letting her words wash over him with warmth and approval and all the Willowness he loved. He rather hoped Giles was getting the same reaction - although it was equally possible he was getting the Buffy version of the shovel speech, or even a series of ewws and I need to bleach my brain remarks in between the I’m happy for you, don’t hurt him, and if he hurts you I’ll hunt him down and go First Slayer on his ass - which if it had been him on the end of the line would generate the inevitable no you won’t, that’ll be my exclusive privilege once he’s wearing my ring … but she was talking to Giles, so he might think it, but not say it, which was probably just as well. Once Buffy got that joke, she really would want to go and bleach her brain - because in her head? Giles and sex - and especially sweaty, macho, guy to guy sex - were two things that did not belong in the same sentence. Ever.
Which was her loss, and Xander’s gain, and if she wanted to believe that they spent their nights together discussing swordplay and medieval literature, then he was happy to let her do so - although, actually, now he came to think about it … Xander grinned, sinking down to the bench and playfully ruffling Twink’s ear. Now that they were officially engaged, Giles might actually do more than talk about those books of woodcuts he kept in his locked nobody look at these on pain of painful death bookcase. Not the bad mojo stuff, but the ones that those monks had produced and were apparently on a par with the Karma sutra - if those Indian aesthetes had produced a guys only version, that is …
“Just today,” he interjected at a relevant point in the babble-stream. “We’re heading into Coventry this afternoon, ‘cos Giles wants to show me the Cathedral, and then we have tonight and we take the boat back tomorrow. Back in the office on Monday, I guess. Unless something comes up before that, of course. Giles mentioned something about me picking up that construction project we’ve discussed, so I’m hoping to spend a little more time in London than I have been doing. The travelling’s been - well, challenging, and rewarding I guess, but - I have Twink to think about now. And Giles, of course. I know he’d - yeah, stay all stoic and wave me off and spend all day worrying about me if I wanted to go on doing the trips - and I might do a few a year, but - damn it, I want a home, and I want stay in it and worry about him - and make sure he’s not too stressed out over all the other worrying we kinda pay him to do …”
He took a deep breath, clenching his fingers in soft golden fur. There were things he’d begun to realise about what he’d found - what he had. Things he could have had with Anya, but had let slip away because he hadn’t been ready for them. Not back then. Now? Now he understood so much more - about life and living it, and the good and bad things that living actually meant. And about having someone to share it with. “I wanna - go on doing this,” he confided softly. “Being with him, working with him, going on vacations with him - for the rest of my life …well, for the rest of whatever time we both have to do it in. Every moment, Will. I don’t want to miss a thing. I probably will, because … life and Slayers and apocolypses will probably get in the way, but - even then? Will you bless the rings? Mojo them up? Make it so - we’ll always be together, even when we’re apart? Can you do that? For me? For us?”
There was a long pause at the other end of the line - and then he felt her reach across the distance and give him a warm if phantom hug. So mote it be, he heard her say softly - in his ear, and not down the phone - and he smiled and swallowed down the sudden lump in his throat.
He knew she’d understand.
Continued in Part Fourteen