Fic: Wannabe Rated: Mature-ish 1/1
Title: Wannabe
Rating: Mature-ish
Author: Bastard Snow
Written for the Old Friends With Indiscretions fic-a-thon.
Prompt: Don't you think you've already had too many caipirinhas?
A/N: Thanks to Drake for Beta’ing. And thanks to Invisionary for coming up with the fic-a-thon.
A/N 2: This story didn’t end up anywhere near where I thought it would. I started out saying, “Oh! Finally! I can put some angst into something!” Which sucks, because I’m not entirely happy how this turned out. There’s definitely room for improvement, but I just couldn’t put any more into it at the moment. Possible I’ll revisit it in a while.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Feedback: Yes, please!
________________________
Brazil was beautiful, that much was certain. And in Brazil, you were much less likely to wander across a war than in Africa. You were also much more likely to wander across drunken beautiful naked women dancing in the streets.
At least, that was true in Rio.
Xander had been having a great time, too. Kennedy and Willow had broken up months ago, after Willow had come home from work early to find Kennedy face down in another girl. The break up was fast, and Kennedy set a new land speed record getting reassigned.
Xander, after eighteen months in Africa dodging poachers, demons, shamans, dictators, and any of the various and sundry other threats that came with life on that continent, had decided to take a vacation and visit his best friend. They had been connecting, laughing, and enjoying themselves like they hadn’t since high school. Since pre-Buffy high school, even.
And they also drank. A lot.
The pair of them had stumbled into a bar at around midnight and started drinking. Willow the 25 year old witch could hold her alcohol a lot better than Willow the college freshman who got tipsy off two beers after Oz had dumped her.
The bar was a dive. Dirty floors, dirty men, dirty women, and a DJ who played the greatest American hits from ten years ago. The décor was shabby, run down. The tables were wobbly and spoke of great use and poor craftsmanship. The lighting was the kind of fluorescent that made everybody look green.
But the music was loud and the bar had alcohol, and that was good enough.
Willow elbowed her way up to the bar and caught the eye of the bartender. He asked her what she wanted, but in her already-intoxicated state, any Portuguese she’d picked up fled her brain. She looked up and down the bar, saw a drink she liked, pointed to it and held up four fingers. Three minutes later, she returned to Xander with the drinks.
Xander looked down at his glass, which had a whole lime, cut into pieces, some ice, sugar and cachaça, a Brazilian liquor made from sugarcane.
“Don't you think you've already had too many caipirinhas?” he yelled over the din.
“No such thing!” Willow yelled back, grinning. Together, they downed the first of their drinks in one gulp. Willow threw down a gauntlet.
“I can drink more than you!”
And thus it was on. They downed their remaining drinks, and Xander picked up the next two rounds, a series of Three Wisemen. When Willow returned with the next two rounds, something Xander didn’t recognize but looked like somebody’s brains had spilled out inside the shot glass, they toasted and downed the first shot.
Then the DJ picked up with “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls. Willow’s eyes flew wide and she grinned.
“Oh, no,” Xander muttered under his breath, as he waited for the inevitable. Sure enough, a moment later, Willow grabbed his hand and dragged him out into the middle of the floor. And they danced. In their partially drunken state, they danced close, hard, and fast. The music segued from song to song, and they didn’t pay attention. Xander’s whole world revolved around the small redhead who was currently grinding her pelvis into his hip, as his hand snaked around and pulled her closer.
Their foreheads came together, and they looked straight into each other’s eyes. And in the moment, feeling nothing but the moment and the connection between them, Willow leaned forward, Xander leaned down and their lips met, forcefully, passionately.
Their drinks forgotten, they fled the scene, hopped in a taxi just outside the bar and told him there was a huge tip if they got home in fifteen minutes.
Twelve minutes and one massively entertained cabbie later, they arrived back at Willow’s house. Xander stayed and paid the driver, who, cruelly, could not find change for almost an entire minute. Xander finally got frustrated, told him to keep the change and ran inside.
The first thing to hit him once he got inside the house was that it was still dark. Willow hadn’t turned on any lights, and he was afraid he might trip over something.
The second thing to hit him was her blouse.
He looked up and saw Willow at the top of the stairs, looking down at him with hunger in her eyes. Xander dropped the blouse on the floor and chased her. At the top of the stairs, he found her skirt. At the door to her bedroom, her bra.
Xander slowly opened the door and found Willow waiting for him, clad only in her thong. She crooked an eyebrow at him. Xander grinned, stripped off his shirt, flung it to the floor and kicked the door closed.
* * * * *
Willow awoke feeling sore, but a good sore. She sat up stretching, the covers dropping from her naked chest. She looked to the other side of her bed, but it was empty. A sniff of the air told her Xander had not gotten up to cook her breakfast in bed.
Willow stood up out of bed, wrapped the covers around her and walked to the window. She frowned. Xander’s rental car was missing from the driveway.
Sighing, Willow tossed the covers back on the bed, headed to the bathroom and performed her morning ritual. After her shower, she dressed in a pair of comfortable jeans and one of Xander’s old t-shirts that she’d stolen years ago, and headed downstairs to make her own breakfast. She poured herself some cereal and sat at the table, alone, pouting, with CNNi on in the background.
For twenty minutes, Willow poked at her cereal until it became soggy and relatively inedible. Then she got mad at herself for wasting food and forced herself to eat it.
She considered her options. She could call Xander and see where he was, but she didn’t want to seem clingy. Especially since they hadn’t said anything about… anything. There had been no discussion about possible futures, and Willow wasn’t even positive if she wanted a future with Xander, other than as best friends.
She could get up, go out, and do something, and see how he liked being left alone after a night of wild sex. Unfortunately, that had the distinct feel of being petty, especially since she hadn’t gotten up first and done it. Although, she pointed out to herself, if she had gotten up first, she wouldn’t have left, and this wouldn’t even be an issue.
Willow sighed and settled on option three: sitting around at home and sulking while watching soap operas. She wished Buffy was around to offer girly advice. Suddenly the front door opened.
“Hello?” Xander called out.
Willow popped up out of her chair, then slowed herself down. She resolved to be calm, rational, and poised.
“Where the hell were you?” she asked, angrily.
Xander pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “Buffy -”
“It’s always about Buffy with you, isn’t it?” she asked, not really sure where this was coming from, nor where it was headed. “Everything you do, it’s always -”
“Okay!” Xander yelled. “I’m gonna stop you right now before you embarrass yourself. I don’t know what your deal is right now, but you need to calm down. And quick.”
“Oh, I need to calm down? I’m the one who had to wake up to an empty bed and your car not in the driveway! I’ve been sitting here wondering, worrying, what happened? Did I do something? We had sex, Xander! You can’t just run out on that! We need to, you know… talk!”
Xander sighed. “I know. And now, so does Buffy.”
Xander stepped to his left and revealed the diminutive Slayer, looking every bit the deer in the headlights.
“Oh,” Willow said. “Um. Hi.”
Buffy looked between them for a few seconds. She dropped her bags on the kitchen floor and held out her hand to Xander. Reluctantly, he handed her his car keys. She held out her other hand and looked at it expectantly. Even more reluctantly, he pulled out a wad of bills and placed it in her hand.
“I’m going shopping,” she announced, looking at her watch. “I will be back in three hours. Exactly three hours. But before I go I have three things to say.”
Buffy pointed to Xander. “Hurt her in any way and I will make you sorry you ever lived.”
She pointed to Willow. “Hurt him in any way and I will make you sorry you ever lived.”
She looked back and forth between them and grinned. “You guys are so cute! I can’t wait until Dawn hears about this. Bye!” Before they could stop her, she ran out the door and Xander’s rental was screeching down the street.
Willow looked up at Xander, grinning innocently. “Oops?”
* * * * *
“You could have left a note.”
Willow and Xander were sitting on the couch, facing each other. Willow’s legs were tucked up underneath her, something Xander had always found adorable. That she was wearing a too-large shirt, one of his, no less, didn’t hurt matters any.
“I could have,” he agreed. “Should have, even. Sorry. But I think we might have a bigger problem.”
“Such as?”
Xander laughed. “What was all that stuff about it always being about Buffy?”
Willow frowned. “Well… it is, isn’t it?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” he said.
Willow huffed a little and sunk herself deeper into the couch. “In high school, even after. As soon as Buffy came into our lives, everything you did was always about her.”
“That’s not true,” he protested. “That’s not even remotely true!”
“It so is!” she proclaimed. “From the moment you saw her, you were drooling. You crashed your skateboard, I remember!”
“So? She was hot. She still is. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything!” Willow said. She slumped even further. “Nothing. I don’t know.”
“Will,” Xander said. He reached out and took her hand. “What’s going on?”
Willow scrunched up her face. “What’s going on with us? This isn’t like us.”
“Do you mean the arguing or the drunken sexfest?”
Willow snorted. “I think we’ve argued enough to say it’s kind of exactly like us.”
Xander shook his head. “That would have required talking to each other back in the day.”
Willow frowned. She stood up and started away.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m thirsty. You want anything?”
Xander shook his head and waited for her to return. She came back with a bottle of water and sat down across from him again.
“So what’s going on here? I mean… what are we to each other?” she asked, taking a long sip of the water and setting it down on an end table.
“I guess that’s the $64,000 question,” Xander said.
Willow tucked her legs up under herself again. “Well last night was really good.”
“Agreed.” Xander nodded. “I guess the question is, does it happen again? I mean, I don’t mean the… I mean, well, yeah, I do, but… aren’t you gay or something?”
“I thought so.” She frowned. “Not last night, though.”
Xander waggled his eyebrows. “That much is obvious.”
Willow swatted at his shoulder. “Don’t be crude.”
“Will,” Xander chuckled, “you did things last night Anya never even brought up. I’ve seen you naked from angles I didn’t know existed. I don’t think crude is really an issue here.”
She scrunched her face up. “I’ve been lonely.”
“I’m not complaining,” Xander clarified quickly. He shook his head and waved his hand. “I cannot express to you how much that is not a complaint. I’m just trying to figure out what’s really going on here. I -”
The phone rang and interrupted them. Willow glanced at the caller ID.
“It’s Buffy,” she told him.
Xander glanced at his watch. “What happened to three hours?”
Their eyes met. “Apocalypse.”
Willow answered the phone as Xander ran upstairs to get her a change of clothes. When he came back down, she was on the couch, her shoulders hunched over and moving up and down as though she were sobbing.
“Willow?” Xander asked worriedly. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
Willow started laughing. She turned to Xander with a sheepish grin, one hand covering half of her face. “She crashed your car.”
* * * * *
“I didn’t say anything,” Xander protested.
“Oh, you said plenty, you just didn’t say it with your mouth,” Buffy accused. “I totally caught that look you two shared.”
“Us?” Willow asked innocently, glancing in her rearview mirror to catch sight of the blonde in the back seat.
“Yes, you. Okay? I feel bad enough as it is. That was like a whole car.”
“It’s not anymore, though,” Xander pointed out. “Kinda more like a third of one, plus some glass and metal. Not to mention the poor shop owner.”
“It wasn’t my fault!”
“Buffy, you crashed into the shop at like thirty miles an hour,” Willow said. “You barely skidded. And you ruined a perfectly good … uh… what was that?”
“Looked like a set of cardboard cutouts of the Spice Girls,” Xander said. “From that first album. The one with Wannabe?”
“How do you know so much about the Spice Girls?” Willow asked.
“I couldn’t see,” Buffy claimed. “I mean… the sunlight… and the reflection from the glass…”
“Uh huh.” Willow’s tone was decidedly sarcastic.
“Shut up,” Buffy argued.
After spending literally hours with the police, and on the phone with the insurance people, and on the phone with Giles explaining why their premium was about to go up again, the three Scoobies were headed back to Willow’s house.
“Anyway,” Buffy continued, “I’m really sorry about this.”
“I think you should be apologizing to the shop owner,” Xander said.
“No, not the crash. I mean, yeah, that, but. I mean. You guys needed to talk.”
Xander and Willow glanced at each other, each with a nervous smile. Xander glanced down at his lap, then out the window. “Still do,” he said softly.
“Well, then,” Buffy said. “Why don’t you let me out at -”
“No!” they both shouted.
“We can do this with you around,” Willow said. “We’ll move our discussions upstairs, you can watch TV or something. We don’t want a return of Property-Damage Buffy.”
“Complete with life-like karate chop action,” Xander added.
“Are you sure?” Buffy asked. “Because I don’t wanna get in the way of -”
“We’re sure,” they said.
“Damn,” Buffy grumbled.
Xander rolled his eye and received a smack in the back of the head for his effort.
“I told you to shut up,” she pouted. He decided not to start the argument again.
* * * * *
She wasn’t eavesdropping. Really! The television was on, and Buffy Summers was doing her damnedest to watch it, pay attention, not listen to what her two best friends were saying a mere twenty feet away and behind the closed door of Willow’s bedroom. She could even hear that weird bug with the scritching sound it kept making on Willow’s window. But it wasn’t her fault. Her hearing was too good, and they weren’t exactly keeping their voices down.
Well, actually, they kind of were. And the TV was on, but the sound wasn’t. But this was important stuff, dammit, and they shouldn’t have been hiding it from her anyway!
Even if it was private.
And now Buffy was getting frustrated. It had started out so well. Buffy would have sworn they were well on the way to becoming a happy couple. They were talking, they were communicating, and they were laughing. Buffy thought it was just possible they might even have kissed.
Now? They were being idiots. Xander was being all ‘these are the many, many, many reasons that a relationship between us wouldn’t work,’ and, okay, some valid points, true. But Willow was just sitting there, agreeing with him!
And she knew that wasn’t right. Because Buffy could tell, from the moment she saw them in the car together, when they had come to pick her up from her little fender bender, that Willow was in, and deep. She knew, even if Willow didn’t, that the witch had somehow, in the space of a few weeks, invested herself in the emotional roller coaster that was Xander Harris.
Or maybe it was the space of one night, but Buffy didn’t think so.
What Buffy wasn’t sure of was Xander’s true feelings. He’d always been harder for her to read, though she wasn’t sure quite why.
However, after years of being best friends, and losing loved ones and saving the world and each other, Buffy Summers was positive of one thing: Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg would be the best thing in the world for each other.
“So, then, we’re agreed?” she heard Xander say. “There’s just… too much that could go wrong.”
“Uh huh,” Willow confirmed blandly.
“You’re my best friend, Willow,” Xander told her. “I can’t lose that.”
“No,” Willow said. “Me neither.”
Buffy rolled her eyes, left all pretense of not eavesdropping behind, and sprinted up the stairs. Xander opened the door to Willow’s bedroom and Buffy stalked up to him, planted her palm in his chest and shoved him back into the room. A little too forcefully, she found out, as he flew across the room and smacked against the opposing wall.
“Buffy!” Willow yelled. She rushed over to Xander’s side and coddled his head in her lap.
“Ow,” Xander said. His eye was glazed over a little. He shook his head to clear it and then looked at Buffy, confused. “I haven’t been hit that hard since… ow.” Xander rubbed his chest.
Buffy turned to Willow. “You’re stupid.”
“What?” Willow asked.
“You’re an idiot, you’re… obtuse!”
“Hey!” Xander yelled, standing up and stepping in front of Willow. “Don’t talk to her that way. There’s no need for that.”
Buffy peeked around him and saw Willow looking up at Xander with big, round eyes, and she smiled.
“You’re right,” Buffy said, drawing her eyes back to Xander. “I was out of line.”
Xander nodded. “Good.”
“You’re the idiot,” she told him.
“What the hell is your -”
“Oh, stop rationalizing,” Buffy said. “I heard everything that the two of you said, and maybe a lot of your points are valid, but guess what? They don’t matter.”
Xander blinked repeatedly. “I’m sorry, are we all of a sudden supposed to take advice on our love lives from you?”
“Yeah,” Buffy said, stepping up to him and getting in his face. “You are. And do you know why?”
“Why?” Xander asked, leaning his face down to her.
“Because you are two of the most important people in the world to me, and I don’t wanna see you throw something away that could be incredible, just because you’re cowards. That’s why.” Buffy grabbed Xander’s shirt and threw him onto the bed, then grabbed Willow as well and tossed her right next to him.
“Now you listen to me. I may not be able to get my love life to anything resembling normal, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to just stand by and watch you two ruin yours. And if Dawn were here, she’d say the same thing.”
Xander shook his head. “No, she’d figure out someway to manipulate us, she wouldn’t use brute force.”
“Point,” Buffy said. “But she’d agree with the intent.”
“I honestly don’t see how your opinion matters in this,” Xander said. “We’ve decided that we’re going to -”
“Did you?” Buffy asked. “Or did you decide, and she agreed?”
“We decided!” Xander asserted. He turned to Willow. “Right?”
“I… we… he… there was a decision made,” she sputtered.
Buffy shook her head. “I can’t believe this. You guys are like perfect for each other! You know all your dirty laundry, you’ve been friends since forever, and I *know* you’re attracted to each other. I can smell it!”
“Really?” Xander asked, a little weirded out.
“Well, no,” Buffy admitted, glancing around the room. The scritching bug had disappeared. “Not literally. I just, you know. Know it. Where did that bug go?”
Xander and Willow looked at each other. “Um?” Willow asked. “What bug?”
Buffy walked over to one of the windows and inspected the glass. A bug that was scratching that loud should certainly have made some kind of mark.
“Buffy?” Xander asked.
“There was a bug. It was making a lot of noise while you guys were in here talking.”
“Uhhh,” Xander said. “Okay.
“I can’t believe you didn’t hear it! It was scratching for a long time, and it was loud.” Buffy turned around to look at them, but something caught her eye; a small table with a piece of paper on it. And a blue Bic pen right next to it. A blue Bic pen that, if pressed hard enough against the paper, and the table, might sound like a large bug scratching on the glass.
“I think she’s on to us,” Willow said. Buffy glanced over at them - they were holding hands now, and smiling - then moved towards the table. She picked up the paper and started reading.
“‘I think Buffy’s eavesdropping,’” Buffy read, “‘I think we should have some fun.’”
“We may not be have Slayer hearing, but we can hear whether a TV is on or not, Buffy.” Xander was grinning like a fool.
Buffy looked down at the paper. Xander and Willow’s notes to each other were enlightening. Their words were almost exactly the opposite of what she had heard; acknowledging that there were issues, that they would have to work, but that in the end, there was something between them that was more than friendship. And that it was worth working towards, and fighting for. One section stood out to her.
So you really want to do this? was written in Willow’s flowery script.
You mean mess with Buffy? asked Xander’s surprisingly neat print. Absolutely!
I mean you and me, doofus. responded Willow. We’re actually going to do this?
And there, the writing ended. “What comes after this?” Buffy asked. “It’s not…”
Buffy trailed off. Xander and Willow were wrapped up in each other, having apparently forgotten that she was even in the room. A little embarrassed by their apparently inattentiveness, or possibly just apathy, Buffy snuck past the *ahem* involved couple and headed downstairs.
A thought hit her, and moments later, Willow’s purse in disarray, Buffy slammed the door on Willow’s BMW 5 series, peeled out of the driveway and headed downtown. She flipped on the radio. “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls blared from Willow’s speakers. Buffy loved that song. She cranked up the volume and put her foot on the floor.
There was shopping to be done.
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The End
Rating: Mature-ish
Author: Bastard Snow
Written for the Old Friends With Indiscretions fic-a-thon.
Prompt: Don't you think you've already had too many caipirinhas?
A/N: Thanks to Drake for Beta’ing. And thanks to Invisionary for coming up with the fic-a-thon.
A/N 2: This story didn’t end up anywhere near where I thought it would. I started out saying, “Oh! Finally! I can put some angst into something!” Which sucks, because I’m not entirely happy how this turned out. There’s definitely room for improvement, but I just couldn’t put any more into it at the moment. Possible I’ll revisit it in a while.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Feedback: Yes, please!
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Brazil was beautiful, that much was certain. And in Brazil, you were much less likely to wander across a war than in Africa. You were also much more likely to wander across drunken beautiful naked women dancing in the streets.
At least, that was true in Rio.
Xander had been having a great time, too. Kennedy and Willow had broken up months ago, after Willow had come home from work early to find Kennedy face down in another girl. The break up was fast, and Kennedy set a new land speed record getting reassigned.
Xander, after eighteen months in Africa dodging poachers, demons, shamans, dictators, and any of the various and sundry other threats that came with life on that continent, had decided to take a vacation and visit his best friend. They had been connecting, laughing, and enjoying themselves like they hadn’t since high school. Since pre-Buffy high school, even.
And they also drank. A lot.
The pair of them had stumbled into a bar at around midnight and started drinking. Willow the 25 year old witch could hold her alcohol a lot better than Willow the college freshman who got tipsy off two beers after Oz had dumped her.
The bar was a dive. Dirty floors, dirty men, dirty women, and a DJ who played the greatest American hits from ten years ago. The décor was shabby, run down. The tables were wobbly and spoke of great use and poor craftsmanship. The lighting was the kind of fluorescent that made everybody look green.
But the music was loud and the bar had alcohol, and that was good enough.
Willow elbowed her way up to the bar and caught the eye of the bartender. He asked her what she wanted, but in her already-intoxicated state, any Portuguese she’d picked up fled her brain. She looked up and down the bar, saw a drink she liked, pointed to it and held up four fingers. Three minutes later, she returned to Xander with the drinks.
Xander looked down at his glass, which had a whole lime, cut into pieces, some ice, sugar and cachaça, a Brazilian liquor made from sugarcane.
“Don't you think you've already had too many caipirinhas?” he yelled over the din.
“No such thing!” Willow yelled back, grinning. Together, they downed the first of their drinks in one gulp. Willow threw down a gauntlet.
“I can drink more than you!”
And thus it was on. They downed their remaining drinks, and Xander picked up the next two rounds, a series of Three Wisemen. When Willow returned with the next two rounds, something Xander didn’t recognize but looked like somebody’s brains had spilled out inside the shot glass, they toasted and downed the first shot.
Then the DJ picked up with “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls. Willow’s eyes flew wide and she grinned.
“Oh, no,” Xander muttered under his breath, as he waited for the inevitable. Sure enough, a moment later, Willow grabbed his hand and dragged him out into the middle of the floor. And they danced. In their partially drunken state, they danced close, hard, and fast. The music segued from song to song, and they didn’t pay attention. Xander’s whole world revolved around the small redhead who was currently grinding her pelvis into his hip, as his hand snaked around and pulled her closer.
Their foreheads came together, and they looked straight into each other’s eyes. And in the moment, feeling nothing but the moment and the connection between them, Willow leaned forward, Xander leaned down and their lips met, forcefully, passionately.
Their drinks forgotten, they fled the scene, hopped in a taxi just outside the bar and told him there was a huge tip if they got home in fifteen minutes.
Twelve minutes and one massively entertained cabbie later, they arrived back at Willow’s house. Xander stayed and paid the driver, who, cruelly, could not find change for almost an entire minute. Xander finally got frustrated, told him to keep the change and ran inside.
The first thing to hit him once he got inside the house was that it was still dark. Willow hadn’t turned on any lights, and he was afraid he might trip over something.
The second thing to hit him was her blouse.
He looked up and saw Willow at the top of the stairs, looking down at him with hunger in her eyes. Xander dropped the blouse on the floor and chased her. At the top of the stairs, he found her skirt. At the door to her bedroom, her bra.
Xander slowly opened the door and found Willow waiting for him, clad only in her thong. She crooked an eyebrow at him. Xander grinned, stripped off his shirt, flung it to the floor and kicked the door closed.
* * * * *
Willow awoke feeling sore, but a good sore. She sat up stretching, the covers dropping from her naked chest. She looked to the other side of her bed, but it was empty. A sniff of the air told her Xander had not gotten up to cook her breakfast in bed.
Willow stood up out of bed, wrapped the covers around her and walked to the window. She frowned. Xander’s rental car was missing from the driveway.
Sighing, Willow tossed the covers back on the bed, headed to the bathroom and performed her morning ritual. After her shower, she dressed in a pair of comfortable jeans and one of Xander’s old t-shirts that she’d stolen years ago, and headed downstairs to make her own breakfast. She poured herself some cereal and sat at the table, alone, pouting, with CNNi on in the background.
For twenty minutes, Willow poked at her cereal until it became soggy and relatively inedible. Then she got mad at herself for wasting food and forced herself to eat it.
She considered her options. She could call Xander and see where he was, but she didn’t want to seem clingy. Especially since they hadn’t said anything about… anything. There had been no discussion about possible futures, and Willow wasn’t even positive if she wanted a future with Xander, other than as best friends.
She could get up, go out, and do something, and see how he liked being left alone after a night of wild sex. Unfortunately, that had the distinct feel of being petty, especially since she hadn’t gotten up first and done it. Although, she pointed out to herself, if she had gotten up first, she wouldn’t have left, and this wouldn’t even be an issue.
Willow sighed and settled on option three: sitting around at home and sulking while watching soap operas. She wished Buffy was around to offer girly advice. Suddenly the front door opened.
“Hello?” Xander called out.
Willow popped up out of her chair, then slowed herself down. She resolved to be calm, rational, and poised.
“Where the hell were you?” she asked, angrily.
Xander pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “Buffy -”
“It’s always about Buffy with you, isn’t it?” she asked, not really sure where this was coming from, nor where it was headed. “Everything you do, it’s always -”
“Okay!” Xander yelled. “I’m gonna stop you right now before you embarrass yourself. I don’t know what your deal is right now, but you need to calm down. And quick.”
“Oh, I need to calm down? I’m the one who had to wake up to an empty bed and your car not in the driveway! I’ve been sitting here wondering, worrying, what happened? Did I do something? We had sex, Xander! You can’t just run out on that! We need to, you know… talk!”
Xander sighed. “I know. And now, so does Buffy.”
Xander stepped to his left and revealed the diminutive Slayer, looking every bit the deer in the headlights.
“Oh,” Willow said. “Um. Hi.”
Buffy looked between them for a few seconds. She dropped her bags on the kitchen floor and held out her hand to Xander. Reluctantly, he handed her his car keys. She held out her other hand and looked at it expectantly. Even more reluctantly, he pulled out a wad of bills and placed it in her hand.
“I’m going shopping,” she announced, looking at her watch. “I will be back in three hours. Exactly three hours. But before I go I have three things to say.”
Buffy pointed to Xander. “Hurt her in any way and I will make you sorry you ever lived.”
She pointed to Willow. “Hurt him in any way and I will make you sorry you ever lived.”
She looked back and forth between them and grinned. “You guys are so cute! I can’t wait until Dawn hears about this. Bye!” Before they could stop her, she ran out the door and Xander’s rental was screeching down the street.
Willow looked up at Xander, grinning innocently. “Oops?”
* * * * *
“You could have left a note.”
Willow and Xander were sitting on the couch, facing each other. Willow’s legs were tucked up underneath her, something Xander had always found adorable. That she was wearing a too-large shirt, one of his, no less, didn’t hurt matters any.
“I could have,” he agreed. “Should have, even. Sorry. But I think we might have a bigger problem.”
“Such as?”
Xander laughed. “What was all that stuff about it always being about Buffy?”
Willow frowned. “Well… it is, isn’t it?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” he said.
Willow huffed a little and sunk herself deeper into the couch. “In high school, even after. As soon as Buffy came into our lives, everything you did was always about her.”
“That’s not true,” he protested. “That’s not even remotely true!”
“It so is!” she proclaimed. “From the moment you saw her, you were drooling. You crashed your skateboard, I remember!”
“So? She was hot. She still is. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything!” Willow said. She slumped even further. “Nothing. I don’t know.”
“Will,” Xander said. He reached out and took her hand. “What’s going on?”
Willow scrunched up her face. “What’s going on with us? This isn’t like us.”
“Do you mean the arguing or the drunken sexfest?”
Willow snorted. “I think we’ve argued enough to say it’s kind of exactly like us.”
Xander shook his head. “That would have required talking to each other back in the day.”
Willow frowned. She stood up and started away.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m thirsty. You want anything?”
Xander shook his head and waited for her to return. She came back with a bottle of water and sat down across from him again.
“So what’s going on here? I mean… what are we to each other?” she asked, taking a long sip of the water and setting it down on an end table.
“I guess that’s the $64,000 question,” Xander said.
Willow tucked her legs up under herself again. “Well last night was really good.”
“Agreed.” Xander nodded. “I guess the question is, does it happen again? I mean, I don’t mean the… I mean, well, yeah, I do, but… aren’t you gay or something?”
“I thought so.” She frowned. “Not last night, though.”
Xander waggled his eyebrows. “That much is obvious.”
Willow swatted at his shoulder. “Don’t be crude.”
“Will,” Xander chuckled, “you did things last night Anya never even brought up. I’ve seen you naked from angles I didn’t know existed. I don’t think crude is really an issue here.”
She scrunched her face up. “I’ve been lonely.”
“I’m not complaining,” Xander clarified quickly. He shook his head and waved his hand. “I cannot express to you how much that is not a complaint. I’m just trying to figure out what’s really going on here. I -”
The phone rang and interrupted them. Willow glanced at the caller ID.
“It’s Buffy,” she told him.
Xander glanced at his watch. “What happened to three hours?”
Their eyes met. “Apocalypse.”
Willow answered the phone as Xander ran upstairs to get her a change of clothes. When he came back down, she was on the couch, her shoulders hunched over and moving up and down as though she were sobbing.
“Willow?” Xander asked worriedly. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
Willow started laughing. She turned to Xander with a sheepish grin, one hand covering half of her face. “She crashed your car.”
* * * * *
“I didn’t say anything,” Xander protested.
“Oh, you said plenty, you just didn’t say it with your mouth,” Buffy accused. “I totally caught that look you two shared.”
“Us?” Willow asked innocently, glancing in her rearview mirror to catch sight of the blonde in the back seat.
“Yes, you. Okay? I feel bad enough as it is. That was like a whole car.”
“It’s not anymore, though,” Xander pointed out. “Kinda more like a third of one, plus some glass and metal. Not to mention the poor shop owner.”
“It wasn’t my fault!”
“Buffy, you crashed into the shop at like thirty miles an hour,” Willow said. “You barely skidded. And you ruined a perfectly good … uh… what was that?”
“Looked like a set of cardboard cutouts of the Spice Girls,” Xander said. “From that first album. The one with Wannabe?”
“How do you know so much about the Spice Girls?” Willow asked.
“I couldn’t see,” Buffy claimed. “I mean… the sunlight… and the reflection from the glass…”
“Uh huh.” Willow’s tone was decidedly sarcastic.
“Shut up,” Buffy argued.
After spending literally hours with the police, and on the phone with the insurance people, and on the phone with Giles explaining why their premium was about to go up again, the three Scoobies were headed back to Willow’s house.
“Anyway,” Buffy continued, “I’m really sorry about this.”
“I think you should be apologizing to the shop owner,” Xander said.
“No, not the crash. I mean, yeah, that, but. I mean. You guys needed to talk.”
Xander and Willow glanced at each other, each with a nervous smile. Xander glanced down at his lap, then out the window. “Still do,” he said softly.
“Well, then,” Buffy said. “Why don’t you let me out at -”
“No!” they both shouted.
“We can do this with you around,” Willow said. “We’ll move our discussions upstairs, you can watch TV or something. We don’t want a return of Property-Damage Buffy.”
“Complete with life-like karate chop action,” Xander added.
“Are you sure?” Buffy asked. “Because I don’t wanna get in the way of -”
“We’re sure,” they said.
“Damn,” Buffy grumbled.
Xander rolled his eye and received a smack in the back of the head for his effort.
“I told you to shut up,” she pouted. He decided not to start the argument again.
* * * * *
She wasn’t eavesdropping. Really! The television was on, and Buffy Summers was doing her damnedest to watch it, pay attention, not listen to what her two best friends were saying a mere twenty feet away and behind the closed door of Willow’s bedroom. She could even hear that weird bug with the scritching sound it kept making on Willow’s window. But it wasn’t her fault. Her hearing was too good, and they weren’t exactly keeping their voices down.
Well, actually, they kind of were. And the TV was on, but the sound wasn’t. But this was important stuff, dammit, and they shouldn’t have been hiding it from her anyway!
Even if it was private.
And now Buffy was getting frustrated. It had started out so well. Buffy would have sworn they were well on the way to becoming a happy couple. They were talking, they were communicating, and they were laughing. Buffy thought it was just possible they might even have kissed.
Now? They were being idiots. Xander was being all ‘these are the many, many, many reasons that a relationship between us wouldn’t work,’ and, okay, some valid points, true. But Willow was just sitting there, agreeing with him!
And she knew that wasn’t right. Because Buffy could tell, from the moment she saw them in the car together, when they had come to pick her up from her little fender bender, that Willow was in, and deep. She knew, even if Willow didn’t, that the witch had somehow, in the space of a few weeks, invested herself in the emotional roller coaster that was Xander Harris.
Or maybe it was the space of one night, but Buffy didn’t think so.
What Buffy wasn’t sure of was Xander’s true feelings. He’d always been harder for her to read, though she wasn’t sure quite why.
However, after years of being best friends, and losing loved ones and saving the world and each other, Buffy Summers was positive of one thing: Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg would be the best thing in the world for each other.
“So, then, we’re agreed?” she heard Xander say. “There’s just… too much that could go wrong.”
“Uh huh,” Willow confirmed blandly.
“You’re my best friend, Willow,” Xander told her. “I can’t lose that.”
“No,” Willow said. “Me neither.”
Buffy rolled her eyes, left all pretense of not eavesdropping behind, and sprinted up the stairs. Xander opened the door to Willow’s bedroom and Buffy stalked up to him, planted her palm in his chest and shoved him back into the room. A little too forcefully, she found out, as he flew across the room and smacked against the opposing wall.
“Buffy!” Willow yelled. She rushed over to Xander’s side and coddled his head in her lap.
“Ow,” Xander said. His eye was glazed over a little. He shook his head to clear it and then looked at Buffy, confused. “I haven’t been hit that hard since… ow.” Xander rubbed his chest.
Buffy turned to Willow. “You’re stupid.”
“What?” Willow asked.
“You’re an idiot, you’re… obtuse!”
“Hey!” Xander yelled, standing up and stepping in front of Willow. “Don’t talk to her that way. There’s no need for that.”
Buffy peeked around him and saw Willow looking up at Xander with big, round eyes, and she smiled.
“You’re right,” Buffy said, drawing her eyes back to Xander. “I was out of line.”
Xander nodded. “Good.”
“You’re the idiot,” she told him.
“What the hell is your -”
“Oh, stop rationalizing,” Buffy said. “I heard everything that the two of you said, and maybe a lot of your points are valid, but guess what? They don’t matter.”
Xander blinked repeatedly. “I’m sorry, are we all of a sudden supposed to take advice on our love lives from you?”
“Yeah,” Buffy said, stepping up to him and getting in his face. “You are. And do you know why?”
“Why?” Xander asked, leaning his face down to her.
“Because you are two of the most important people in the world to me, and I don’t wanna see you throw something away that could be incredible, just because you’re cowards. That’s why.” Buffy grabbed Xander’s shirt and threw him onto the bed, then grabbed Willow as well and tossed her right next to him.
“Now you listen to me. I may not be able to get my love life to anything resembling normal, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to just stand by and watch you two ruin yours. And if Dawn were here, she’d say the same thing.”
Xander shook his head. “No, she’d figure out someway to manipulate us, she wouldn’t use brute force.”
“Point,” Buffy said. “But she’d agree with the intent.”
“I honestly don’t see how your opinion matters in this,” Xander said. “We’ve decided that we’re going to -”
“Did you?” Buffy asked. “Or did you decide, and she agreed?”
“We decided!” Xander asserted. He turned to Willow. “Right?”
“I… we… he… there was a decision made,” she sputtered.
Buffy shook her head. “I can’t believe this. You guys are like perfect for each other! You know all your dirty laundry, you’ve been friends since forever, and I *know* you’re attracted to each other. I can smell it!”
“Really?” Xander asked, a little weirded out.
“Well, no,” Buffy admitted, glancing around the room. The scritching bug had disappeared. “Not literally. I just, you know. Know it. Where did that bug go?”
Xander and Willow looked at each other. “Um?” Willow asked. “What bug?”
Buffy walked over to one of the windows and inspected the glass. A bug that was scratching that loud should certainly have made some kind of mark.
“Buffy?” Xander asked.
“There was a bug. It was making a lot of noise while you guys were in here talking.”
“Uhhh,” Xander said. “Okay.
“I can’t believe you didn’t hear it! It was scratching for a long time, and it was loud.” Buffy turned around to look at them, but something caught her eye; a small table with a piece of paper on it. And a blue Bic pen right next to it. A blue Bic pen that, if pressed hard enough against the paper, and the table, might sound like a large bug scratching on the glass.
“I think she’s on to us,” Willow said. Buffy glanced over at them - they were holding hands now, and smiling - then moved towards the table. She picked up the paper and started reading.
“‘I think Buffy’s eavesdropping,’” Buffy read, “‘I think we should have some fun.’”
“We may not be have Slayer hearing, but we can hear whether a TV is on or not, Buffy.” Xander was grinning like a fool.
Buffy looked down at the paper. Xander and Willow’s notes to each other were enlightening. Their words were almost exactly the opposite of what she had heard; acknowledging that there were issues, that they would have to work, but that in the end, there was something between them that was more than friendship. And that it was worth working towards, and fighting for. One section stood out to her.
So you really want to do this? was written in Willow’s flowery script.
You mean mess with Buffy? asked Xander’s surprisingly neat print. Absolutely!
I mean you and me, doofus. responded Willow. We’re actually going to do this?
And there, the writing ended. “What comes after this?” Buffy asked. “It’s not…”
Buffy trailed off. Xander and Willow were wrapped up in each other, having apparently forgotten that she was even in the room. A little embarrassed by their apparently inattentiveness, or possibly just apathy, Buffy snuck past the *ahem* involved couple and headed downstairs.
A thought hit her, and moments later, Willow’s purse in disarray, Buffy slammed the door on Willow’s BMW 5 series, peeled out of the driveway and headed downtown. She flipped on the radio. “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls blared from Willow’s speakers. Buffy loved that song. She cranked up the volume and put her foot on the floor.
There was shopping to be done.
----------
The End