[fic] Now I Live Here for buffy_love month (B/X, R)
Title: Now I Live Here, Another Island
Characters: Buffy, Dawn, Xander
Pairing: Buffy/Xander, unshippy, I promise. Mention of canon pairings.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: ME, not me.
Summary: "It's not a Sunnydale summer without a funeral to kick it off." After "Grave".
Notes: Happy buffy_love month! Beta (and alpha) by thenotoriousg. Title from "Crusoe in England" by Elizabeth Bishop.
Giles wired them the money for Tara's funeral. The Council only paid for a slayer's pine box, not those of family members or comrades, or whatever Tara had been. In the bank, Buffy stared at the number on her receipt, amazed and overcome. With that kind of money, she could fix the roof, pay the reglazer who had replaced the window in Mom's old bedroom. She could buy Dawn jeans that fit, and food for longer than a week, and supplies for the first-aid kit.
With that kind of money, she could live.
Other than Dawn, Buffy, and Xander, only a few people showed up. There were three girls from the campus Wiccan group, gothed-out hippies who blinked at the bright daylight like it was something they had previously only heard about; the old lady from Women's Exchange charity consignment shop, who luckily did not recognize Buffy from her skulking visits; and two professors, one of whom kept referring to Tara as Daria.
Her other family, the blood one, told Buffy that Tara had made her choice. It was no business of theirs how she was buried.
Cousin Beth did not say good riddance, but she might as well have.
The other professor said some words in Gaelic at the grave. Brown dirt, emerald-green grass, blank blue sky: the day was too clear, too beautiful, to be here. Doing this.
*
No one ever used this balcony much. That was strange, now that Buffy thought about it, since along with the ceiling fan, the balcony had been one of the big selling points to Xander's apartment. She remembered Riley joking about bringing over his standard-issue hibachi and having a grill-off with Xander, taste testing charcoal versus gas, and Anya chiming in about fire regulations and lease violations.
The balcony did not have the greatest view, admittedly. Just a stripe of lights from Sunnydale Heights directly ahead, a stand of trees to the left (west? East? She got easily turned around), and murky sky overhead. Not a spectacular view, but nothing to sneeze at, either, and it was quiet.
Buffy sat with her legs crossed, stretching out the skirt of her black dress, rubbing the blisters on her right foot. She had worn her mother's old black pumps all day, her arches complaining, the blisters blossoming as the hours passed. Temporary discomfort, however, was still cheaper than new shoes, even at Payless.
"Cold?" Without waiting for her reply, Xander handed Buffy a sweatshirt, followed by a bottle of beer. Or, really, he dropped the sweatshirt, a maroon and gold memento from Sunnydale High, then pushed the bottle into her hand. As he dropped down next to her, he clinked his own, half-empty bottle, against hers. "For what ails you."
"Thanks."
"Nice night." Shivering slightly, Xander drew closer, his elbow first knocking Buffy's waist, then moving back until finally his arm circled her back.
"Is it?" she asked.
"Well, that's what you're supposed to say. Like, 'come here often?' or, later, 'want to see my etchings?'."
"Oh, right," Buffy said. "It's just a night, though."
"True." Xander went quiet then, taking a long swig of beer and sighing out after he swallowed. Buffy twisted a little, in order to see him, smiling as Xander turned his head the same time. He sort-of smiled and said, "Okay. Night. I'll leave it at that." Frowning, he bobbed his head. "Sounds wrong." He drew a breath. "Nice night."
"Nice night," Buffy echoed. She tasted the words, weighed them, heard them in a voice not quite her own. "Nice night. Is there such a thing?"
"No, I already told you that." Xander drained his beer and set the bottle between his feet. "But it's what you say."
"All right." Buffy remembered the sweatshirt in her lap and handed her beer to Xander in order to pull it on over her head. When she had pulled it down and pushed up the arms, Xander was drinking the beer. "What else do you say? Help me out here."
Xander was silent. He drummed his fingers on Buffy's shoulder, hooked his other arm around his knee, and rested his cheek there. When his eyes drifted closed, his face started to relax. His mouth loosened, curving a little, and his cheek, smushed out on his knee, crinkled up his eye. Buffy wondered if that was what he looked like when he was asleep.
"It's like I always say--" Xander opened his eyes and tightened his arm around Buffy. It was just a gentle pressure, friendly, but for a split second, she fought the instinct to shove him away, to duck down, to *fight*. He did not notice, or, at any rate, he gave no sign. "Like I always say, it's not a Sunnydale summer without a funeral to kick it off."
The beer dangled from his first two fingers, swaying a little. The green glass caught and reflected the safety light over the driveway next door. Behind Buffy's lids, the reflection moved like a bright comma. "I've never heard you say that," she said without opening her eyes.
"Sure, all the time." Xander's hand slid up her arm. Through the thick fleece of the sweatshirt, she could no longer feel its warmth; it might have been any weight, any random pressure. "Gotta have the funeral, or it's no summer at all."
Buffy did not answer. The poured-cement floor of the balcony burned dull and cold through the flimsy fabric of her dress; when she wriggled, tugging the sweatshirt's hem down to sit on it, Xander leaned away, making room. When she stilled, he moved back.
"...first summer I knew you, had a funeral for the Master," he said. "Giles went all out, big drama queen that he is, robes and incense, whole nine yards. Next summer, okay, no funeral, but --"
"I was gone again," she said for him. He spoke as if these were stories they both knew, frequently told each other, ritually, campfire tales to keep away the dark.
"Yeah," he said, and drew a long rattling breath. "Next summer, hoo-boy. Bonanza of funerals, thanks to me, world's worst general since Benedict Arnold. Larry's was cool, though. Speaking of incense."
"What about the one after that?"
Xander shook his head shortly. "Exception to the rule. The one after that, well. You weren't there. Or, you were, but --" His eyes widened. She patted his hand and he nodded, relaxing. "Which brings us here."
"Could've been all our funerals, if it wasn't for you," she said. "Hey, Dawn and I were already in the ground."
Xander's smile was quick, more than a little insincere, but it was the effort that counted, and she returned the smile, more widely.
"Have you noticed, Miss Summers, that this is going to be our first summer together?" he asked. When he called her anything but by her name, she knew he was teasing.
"You don't say, Señor Harris," she replied, before her thoughts caught up. "Wait, what about that summer after Adam?"
He pointed at her, grinning a little. "Like I said, exception."
"Oh." It had been a good summer; she was with Riley, and he was out of the military, and Xander and Anya were togetherstill, always, a little freakish and irritating, but not scary any longerand a lot of the time, Willow brought Tara along when they went to the beach or the movies or the free theatre in the park. "I had fun, though."
"It was all...couple-y, not friendly." When he frowned, a fold of skin formed between his eyebrows, plump as a raisin. "No, it was friendly. But notfriendian? Friendish. Of the friend."
"I know what you mean. Heavy on the pairs."
Xander nodded rapidly, a grin spreading fast across his face. "Big time with the pairing-off."
"Two by two, yeah," she said.
Her mother held a Fourth of July picnic that year and Buffy remembered her handing a glass of lemonade to Giles and, as she looked around, saying something about all the children looking so happy. Giles hadn't wanted to come, had hemmed and hawed about the colonials and how the revolution was no such thing; her mom wore a yellow sundress and her hair kept blowing in her face as she laughed.
They never got a summer where it was just the three of them.
Buffy swallowed now and nudged Xander. He still held her beer, and it was nearly empty. Waggling his brow, Xander ostentatiously drained the bottle and set it down.
"Oh," he said, "sorry about that."
"Sure you are."
He reached across and dragged over a six pack, the bottles rattling. "Help yourself. Not like either of us is driving."
"True," she said and twisted off the cap to the new bottle. She and Dawn were staying here for at least another few days until the cops gave the all-clear to her house.
Xander lifted his own bottle and clinked it against hers as she went to drink. "Here's to the summer, then."
"Summer," she said.
"Back together again for the first time."
Buffy nodded. They weren't going to talk about Willow; she knew that much. If this were a real summer, a friendian-friendly summer, it would be her and Xander and Willow. They'd be in high school and Angel would be lurking around somewhere doing his Mr. Mysterioso thing and she'd be hanging out with her friends.
She was sitting right next to XanderXander who, despite everything, had saved the world, go, Team Xanderbut Willow wasn't here. Willow was a big blank space, elsewhere, away, in witchy jail or whatever it was that Giles was doing to her.
When she sniffed, trying to clear her sinuses, Xander misinterpreted the sound and moved closer. His arm was heavy, not too heavy, and warm. That was Xander: right here, no pressure, and she didn't have the first clue about what he might be thinking.
She shook her head. No gloom. Not this summer, not any more.
Cracking her neck, which she knew would make him wince, just like that, Buffy said, "Thanks, Xander."
Slowly, he lifted the bottle to his lips. Before drinking, however, he said, "Glad you're"
"Not dead?"
Xander squeezed his eyes shut and gulped down the beer. Wiping his mouth, he said, "That, too. Glad you're here. Is where I was going. With that."
Her mind did not want to settle on any one thought, not for too long. Settling meant really thinking, and thinking meant remembering, and there was too much to remember. Mom in a sundress, Tara in her coffin. Funerals, and Riley; the Master and the look of wonder and hope on Angel's face when she killed him; summer after summer. "Larry's funeral was kind of weird, wasn't it?"
"Yes, ma'am," Xander said. "But the reception was a blast."
Buffy nodded. Mrs. Blaisdale hired the Dingoes to play, throwing open their big house to everyone who wanted to come, and there were poster-size pictures of Larry everywhere, in his football uniform, his baseball uniform, his referee jersey for when he coached Pee-Wee soccer, in his prom tux with Freddy Iverson on his arm, looking squirrelly and handsome all at once. That was the first time she had ever seen Xander actually drunk, when he stormed the makeshift stage, tackling Oz, rolling around with him. Oz's guitar was never quite the same afterward. When the party broke up, she and Crazy J Wheeler had found Xander in the middle of Mrs. Blaisdale's rose bushes, crying his eyes out. They each took an elbow and helped him to his feet while he muttered about getting an early start in the morning. Hitting the road, leaving this town in the dust.
"We're coldhearted callous asses, aren't we?" she asked now, tipping back her head and looking at the three visible stars. "Talking about funerals like this."
Xander rocked against her. "Nah, I don't think so."
With the clarity of half a beer and the strong desire not to think, Buffy said, "No, we really are. Like, if you recorded us right now, and a stranger listened? Callous. Cold."
"That applies to everything, though," Xander said. They were sitting so close now that he was able to slide his hand into the big patch pocket on her sweatshirt. "No context."
She tried to think about it, but the words would not quite come. "I guess so," she said finally.
Xander harrumphed. "You guess, but I know so. So, you know. There."
Her reactions were less-than-stellar lately; it was like her muscles had permanently cramped up and refused to loosen for man, beast, demon or deity. So when the door opened behind her, Buffy should have ducked low and whirled around, leading with her fist, to knock the intruder off-balance.
Not what she did do, which was fall forward when the door hit her in the back and give out a little squeak.
"Guys?" Dawn asked.
Buffy straightened up, surprised and relieved to see that her beer had not spilled. Not a drop: Take that, reflexes. She still had her priorities. "You okay, Dawnie?"
Too bright back there; Buffy buried her face against Xander's shoulder.
"Are you" Dawn's voice came closer. "What are you guys doing?"
Without even looking at each other, with instinct kicking in, she and Xander raised their bottles over their heads. Single, fluid motion that left Buffy grinning loonily at the night sky.
"Oh, God," Dawn said. If a voice could roll its eyes, hers just did. Buffy hoped, though, that that was as impossible as it sounded. "Are you drunk?"
"Negatory," Xander said. "But we're more than halfway to maudlin and we ain't looking back."
Dawn nudged Buffy's shoulder. "Shove over."
She should tell Dawn to go back to bed. Teenagers needed their sleep. All the magazines said so. On the other hand, Dawn's eyes had been bright red, fire-engine-red, all day long and she'd shut herself in Xander's bedroom as soon as the funeral over.
She would miss Tara more than anyone. Probably even more than Willow.
Although there was room, Buffy shook her head and opened her legs. Dawn sighed. "Fine."
With Dawn settled between her legs, Buffy's arms around her waist and Xander's arm around Buffy's shoulders again, they formed a tight, warm little bundle. No one spoke for a long time. Xander's breath was sweet and yeasty, mingling with guy-sweat and aftershave; Buffy rested her cheek on top of Dawn's head, silky hair stirring with her breath.
Sirens sounded across town; closer to, a cat screeched and yowled and a dog started barking. Another few stars winked in and out of the sky.
Buffy wondered what they would look like to someone passing by. If the balcony railing was see-through, that is, and there were a light on them. Who would they be? In someone else's eyes, from a stranger's perspective? They could be, if you squinted and unfocused your eyes, mother and father and daughter, but otherwisewho were they?
She didn't know. She wasn't sure how to ask the question in the first place.
*
Things were normal. For a given definition of normal, that was. She worked her shifts, plus any extras she could get, at the Palace. Now that it was summer, though, and Bitchy Laurene had inexplicably become night assistant manager, the extra shifts were harder to nab. Dawn studied like a demon (metaphorical) for her finals, going paler and tighter in the face until her anxiety broke out over forgetting to push start on the washing machine, after which she cried for three hours and ate two bags of Chips Ahoy ($1.29 on sale; Buffy had been saving them for the expected PMS attack).
She patrolled, she trained, she tried to take up yoga but got bored.
A rogue strega came to town, decked out in knock-off Armani, intent ondoing whatever it was that Etruscan fertility cults and bad Italian accents would be interested in. World domination, mastery of the climate, something like that. Without Giles or Willow, the whole analytical point of the operation kind of fell by the wayside.
"Analyze this": It wasn't one of her better jibes, but Xander cracked up, the witch-bitch scowled at being interrupted, and that gave Buffy enough time to swing the flat of her axe at the strega's head.
Buffy knocked her out, Xander stole her ugly pentagram ring ("Totally Hot Topic, jeez," Dawn said and Buffy really had to agree), and they dumped her outside the town limits.
It wasn't shaping up to be a good summer, necessarily, but it was a summer. And she wasn't dead or a runaway, so maybe she should chill.
*
She fought once with Xander. It wasn't nearly as horrible as it could have been. It was more like a pseudo-fight. An approximation of a fight, blueprints and lots of pencil erasures, storyboarded rather than filmed and enacted.
She finished the breakfast shift ("And how many Doublemeat Hashes will that be, sir?") and came home to find Dawn rocketing around the living room, twirling Xander, trying to dip him.
"Hey," Buffy managed to say and hang up her coat before Dawn grabbed her hand and pulled her into the living room.
"Xander got me a job! A job with money and resumes and it's mine!" Dawn's hair whipped around, her smile looked big and wide enough to swallow half the Eastern seaboard, and her grip on Buffy's hand was bone-crushing, relentless, enough to make most vampires green(er).
Xander scrubbed his hand through his hair. He was being Mr. Blue-Collar Professional today, chambray shirt tucked all the way in, goony red tie with little figures of Nancy and Sluggo on it, crisp khakis.
When did Xander become a grown-up, exactly? Apparently some time when she was too busy fucking Spike.
Right, that was, with the Willow-shaped blank, numero uno no go area.
"Xander?" Buffy perched on the arm of the couch. "What's Dawn chirping and shrieking about? And since when are you the translation guy?"
He looked up at her, working the throw pillow under his head, smiling slowly. "Boss-Man's niece broke her hip."
"Your boss's niece is a senior citizen?"
"No, just accident-prone," he replied, looping his arm through hers. They had always touched a lot, all three of them, but it was only this summer that Buffy was noticing that fact. Like baby marsupials, bald and too little, huddling in some pouch of their own making. She threaded her fingers through his and tried to listen. "So he needs a new office girl for the summer."
"Job, huh?" She needed to take this slowly. This was new and improved Buffy, not so selfish, not so crazy with the depression and the darkness, not flying off the handle. "And you thought to yourself, I know someone who needs a good job. I know someone who's a girl. I know...Dawn? Really?"
"Hey!" Dawn poked her head in from the dining room. "Watch it." She stomped up the stairs, pausing at the top to yell down, "I knew you'd try to ruin this!"
Buffy rolled her eyes and withdrew her hand from Xander's. "Anyway."
He was trying to straighten up, but the couch was smooshy and too comfortable, and he didn't have the leverage. Buffy could have pulled him up, but she chose to cross her arms and wait.
"It's not like that," Xander said.
"What is it like?"
"Buff. Buffy. Buffy of my heart."
She shook her head as he trailed off. She probably should not enjoy torturing him like this, but getting up at 4:30 in the morning to fry up faux-hash browns and brew terrible coffee would make anyone cranky. Especially the girl who was out patrolling well past midnight the night before.
By pushing his fist into the seat cushion and heaving himself to the side, Xander finally managed to sit upright. He rolled his shoulders, sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. Giles's gestures looked really weird on him, but she didn't mention that.
"Well?" she asked.
"You're a, you know. A woman."
"Since fifth grade, yeah," she said, pushing herself to her feet and crossing the room.
Xander winced as she turned back around. "A grown-up, female-arranged person." He made the hourglass motion with both hands; from his point of view, apparently, Buffy was bustier than Marilyn Monroe. She wasn't sure whether to be flattered or appalled. "And Dawnie's...not." To emphasize that point, he moved his hands straight up and down.
Buffy tried not to smile. Forget ballistic, Dawn would go nuclear if she knew Xander was making fun of her non-figure. To hide the smirk she couldn't help, Buffy nodded. "All obvious statements, yes. And?"
Xander blanched for a second. Her interrogation techniques were really coming along. "It's a job on the site. Full ofyou met them. Guys. Obnoxious, asshole, never heard of Betty Freud"
"Friedan."
"Whatever." Xander closed his eyes, sagging a little, and his head dropped forward. "That's all."
"I can take care of myself." She mimed a good, efficient staking, but he wasn't looking at her. "Xander. This is me. I eat guys like that forwell, I don't, because high in carbs and gross, cannibal? No. But you know."
"I know," he mumbled. "Believe me, I know."
"So it's too dangerous for little Buffy, but you're good with exposing Dawnie to all that?"
Xander mumbled something else, knuckled one eye, and looked off to the side. Buffy sat down next to him, gently, like he was a stray that would bolt at the slightest aggression. "Say that again?"
"They won't bother Dawnie," he said and swallowed. When he looked back at her, his face wasnaked. Pale under his work-tan, lips a little parted, eyes wide and unblinking. "You know? She's a kid, they'll watch out for her."
She was trying to follow along. She really was; the anger and jealousy had drained out, flushed away. Making sense of Xander was a chancey business at the best of times. She was working on a couple hours' sleep and way too much Doublemeat coffee.
"See?" he said, apparently convinced that Buffy had worked out the puzzle for herself. "Yeah. Why would you do that?"
Buffy nodded shortly, giving up on understanding.
Which was, it seemed, the Zen thing to do, because as soon as she surrendered to the Harris Brand Special Illogic, the whole thing did make sense. Everything rushed at her, sick taste of blood from a broken lip, the hollow crack of body on linoleum, puzzle pieces screeching together and sticking. They were talking about what happened in the bathroom, about everything that happened after Spike stormed down the stairs, about her own weakness and the gun and Warren, Willowand, God.
Buffy was on her feet, making quickly for the kitchen, before her head began to clear. Making sense was way overrated. She much preferred not getting it, cribbing and bullshitting her way through things.
She poured herself a big glass of orange juice, didn't bother to do the budget-conscious thing of diluting it half with water, and guzzled it down. Acid in her stomach, sense in her mind, and as she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, she had to grab the counter with the other hand to hold herself steady.
"You want some juice?" she called to Xander. Hoped he'd play along.
"You got cranberry?" he yelled back.
Good. Play along, get back to normal, and just avoid the huge, blank areas on the map. Willow and Spike, everything else.
*
Dawn refused, however, to play along. Even when Buffy let her take the job (afternoons, minimum wage, yay for responsibility and all that). Even when she tried to joke and said, "At least it'll keep you off the streets", Dawn just scowled.
Buffy reminded herself, more times than she could count, that she ought to be grateful that Dawn was back to being, mostly, bratty. Like an algebra of gratitude, a trigonometry of relief. Brattiness was, at least, familiar. Easier to take than her silence, if not quite so easy on the eardrums, much easier to take than the closed door to Dawn's room and the scent of Tara's mint incense wafting through the house.
Too many people had been lost in this house. Mom, and Tara, even Buffy herself. The last was, okay, full of self-pity and she wouldn't ever say as much to anyone (When do you tell anyone anything, though?: The voice out of the shadows under the eaves of her mind might have belonged to Willow or Spike. Even Angel, sometimes Xander.) She lay in bed at night, unable to sleep, trying not to think about this place as a house of cards. Tarot cards, the Hanged Man and the King of Swords, blood as glue, grief as plaster.
Buffy dreamed of themghosts, victims, demons hiding in the walls, crouched behind cardboard and parchment, empty eye-sockets gazing at her reproachfully. These were not prophetic dreams. Such dreams had nothing to do with the Slayer, but everything to do with Buffy.
"I liked her better," Dawn said during one of their fights. She had her arms crossed, her face scrunched up, and she wouldn't meet Buffy's eyes. Considering they were at the Pump sharing one of those slightly-bigger-than-a-coaster tables, that avoidance was pretty admirable. Just breathing too hard or gesturing too widely was a risky prospect. "I liked her a lot better."
"Good to know." Buffy was determined to play it cool. Not rise to the bait, not engage. Just be cool and treat Dawn like the idiot child she insisted on being. But, still, really? It hurt. It was designed to hurt, just like everything else, and it achieved its goal. "You preferred a sexbot to your own sister. Okay."
Dawn huffed out a sigh that stirred her bangs and shifted in her seat. She was twisted at the waist, anything, any discomfort, so long as she didn't have togasp, horror, oh the humanitylook at Buffy.
Yet she continued muttering. Couldn't ever shut her up: she really was made out of Buffy, no question. "She was nicer."
"She was a robot." Buffy stirred her medium coffee and tried not to think about the cookies in the display case. Bad Buffy, no cookie. "That was her programming."
When Dawn pursed her lips like that, she looked just like Mom. Like a memory of Mom. "Duh."
"I'm just saying." Buffy's coffee had gone cold, but Dawn was still playing with the foam on her latte. "Not for nothing, just"
"If Angel came back, you'd forget all about me."
"And the prize for most dizzying change of topic goes to Dawn Marie Summers. What?"
Dawn flipped her hair back, though it wasn't anywhere near getting in her eyes, and jabbed her spoon at Buffy. Tiny table, so she actually made contact and, great. Now Buffy had mocha-latte-foam on the sleeve of her new-to-her blouse. "Not changing the subject. Just saying it's the truth."
"I wouldn't forget you," Buffy said. Patience was a virtue and she wanted to be good, she really did. "That's stupid."
"You're stupid. You so would. You'd go off with him and save the world a couple times and feel terrible because you couldn't ever really be together even though you're, like, destined for each other even though there's no such thing as destiny. And all that time, you would be together, you'd just be too angsty-emo to realize it. And I'd be somewhere else."
The power of the Summers talkativeness was enough to bring Dawn's gaze back towards Buffy. Buffy stared at her. She had no such talking-energy; her lips felt dry and scaly and useless. "Um..."
Dawn nodded to herself, like that confirmed something mysterious yet predictable about Buffy.
"Dawnie, I wouldn't"
"Don't call me that. I'm not-not-not a puppy." Dawn's lower lip trembled slightly before she nipped down on it, recrossing her arms and glancing away.
"Okay. Dawn. I wouldn't forget you." Buffy rubbed her forehead, wondering just when it started to pound and if it was actually possible to die from exposure to brattiness and teenaged melodrama. "I wouldn't leave, first of all, and even if I did" Buffy made herself stop talking. Talking led to discussing led to feeling and she didn't have the first clue what she was feeling. "So what are we fighting about again?"
"Buffybot," Dawn said promptly.
"And how I suck?" She winced when Dawn nodded. "Can't we fight about something, I don't know. Normal? Like, stealing each other's clothes."
"Your clothes are ugly."
"Okay. How aboutdoing the dishes comma how you never remember to? Or curfew? Curfew's a big topic."
Dawn poked her again with the spoon; now she had a matching stain on the other sleeve. "See, you don't listen. We fought about curfew last night."
"Boys? Can we fight about boys?" This was working; Dawn was loosening up a little, even with all the stains, and her voice had dropped from the screechier reaches of the register. "I remember boys. I think."
Rolling her eyes, Dawn flung out her arms and narrowly missed a passing waitress. "We are fighting about boys. Hello? Angel?"
"Angel's not a boy," Buffy said.
"Yes, he is. Big dumb macho ancient boy."
"Huh." When in doubt, imitate Oz: It was something Buffy had always wanted to try. Whaddaya know? It worked. "Point."
"Yeah," Dawn said. "I know. I'm not stupid."
"And I'm not a robot. Right?"
Another eyeroll, complete with a pained frown. "Exactly. What? What are you smirking at?"
Buffy could not smirk to save her life, but if that was what Dawn wanted to call it, she'd go along with that. "I'm. Just, okay. Why is life so weird?"
"Because," Dawn said, all patience and sweetness like she was hosting a show for preschoolers. Dawn the Teletubby: She'd be Screechy. "Because you're the slayer. And you're weird."
"It's all my fault?"
"Yes." Dawn nodded and pushed her latte across the table. Peace offering? Or maybe it was just cold. Either way, Buffy accepted and took a sip. "Don't worry about it. It's not a bad thing, but you are weird."
Cold peace offering. Like revenge, really, best served cold. And, whoa, oversugared. "You're pretty weird yourself."
Dawn snorted. Whoever told girls that a snort was an acceptable substitute for talking was wrong. And dead. "Whatever."
"You are," Buffy protested. "You read all the time and you know like three languages. You do puzzles. For fun."
"So?"
"Weird, that's all."
Dawn stood up from the table. Smart as she was, she still had a teeny attention span. "You're weirder. End of story."
"Maybe," Buffy said, following her through the maze of tables. "Maybe not."
"Maybe" At the door, Dawn turned around and punched Buffy's shoulder. Ow. Note to self: Don't train her so much. Girl had a hook. "definitely."
*
This was her life, then. Patrol, and training, and the Palace of Crap. Arguing, quarrelling, yelling with Dawn. Hanging out with Xander, and when he always made sure to pay for the pizza, telling her he didn't have smaller bills for her change, she pretended it was a coincidence, every time.
Videos, and pizza, and more patrolling. Always with the patrol. A subspecies of pixies, which Xander kept calling "Blue Beetle", then getting huffy when no one got his geektastic reference, moved into the site of the new high school. Giles told Dawn long-distance to try to save a specimen, but Xander and Buffy had far too much fun stomping the little bastards to pay attention. Giles and Dawn were also playing Go over the phone and by email; there was no news about Willow, but no one asked for news, either.
"She'll be all right," was all Xander would say. And Buffy tried to believe him; he'd known Willow the longest. He'd been there at the end. She'd tried to kill Buffy and Dawn, but she wouldn't, couldn't, kill Xander.
Xander knew stuff. She just had to trust that.
*
One afternoon, killing time between a split shift, she nabbed a slinky top at the Women's Exchange. Ivory, silk, halter, and only four bucks. Buffy decided against buying dinner on her employee discount and forked over all her cash for the blouse.
Tonight, she told herself, patrol could wait. Tonight, she was going dancing.
She had not been out since the winter. Since Xander's stag party, actually, as far as she could remember. She'd left that early, because his Uncle Rory was every bit as freakishly upsetting as Xander had always hinted, maybe more so, and because Spike had been skulking around outside, and because she was just so damn tired all the time.
She could remember that tiredness like an injury. Exhaustion, gritty and chilly, down to her bones, slowing her down, dragging her under. She remembered it, that is, physically, but she couldn't conjure up what it had felt like emotionally. Like she was outside herself, both in the past and in her memories of the past, watching puppet-Buffy move around slow and jerky, zombified and stupid.
She never wanted to feel like that again. However it was that she'd felt, so tired and sad, she didn't want that. She could sense it behind her, like the ragged remnants of a bad dream that followed her into the light of day, all hints and patterns, the content drained away.
Dancing. She used to dance every weekend; before she hit puberty, she'd dance with her mother, turn the radio up to full blast, whirl around and make a fool of herself.
Dancing felt as good as slaying. Better, actually, with the whole lack of violence and the changing beat.
And though the Bronze never changed, she liked that. She liked winding her way to the dance floor, shimmying past couples and clots of frat boys, keeping her eyes on the stage, letting the music jingle-jangle-throb through her.
When she took a break, gulping down club soda at the bar, the inevitable happened. Big luggish guy, messy brown hair, got too close.
"Looking good out there," he said, so Rico-Suave Buffy almost laughed. "Real good."
"Thanks," she said and asked for another club soda. Rico paid for it, big spender, and he seemed ready to stick to her like glue.
"Haven't seen you around before." He dragged a stool over and offered it to her. "Wish I had."
She could do this. She could flirt and make the big guy feel good and maybe he could dance. She knew she could do this, even if she hadn't actually flirted with anyone since Riley.
God, two years. When did she get so old?
He was going on and on about his fraternal society"it's not a frat, of course, we're about service first. If we happen to throw good parties, that's just the cherry on top"while Buffy tried, at first discreetly, then blatantly, to look around for an escape.
She didn't want to flirt. Especially not with him. She came to dance and that wasn't totally pathetic, was it? Definitely not too much to ask.
At the other end of the bar, she spotted (thank God and-or Goddesses, she wasn't going to be picky, not when she was this grateful) Xander. Smoothing down his shirt and looking around with the exact same big eyes and I'm not constipated, nor terrified expression he'd always worn to the Bronze.
She slid past Rico Frat, a sudden rush of everythinggratitude, and familiarity, and affectionspeeding her step as she called Xander's name.
He hugged her back. His hugs were always the equivalent of returning from an Arctic expedition, enthusiastic and warm enough to burn, and Buffy tipped back her head, grinning. "What are you doing here?"
"What does it look like I'm doing here?"
"Skulking around the bar, working up your nerve."
He bobbed his head, his smile widening. "Basically, yes."
"Bastard." She hit him on the shoulder and before he could say anything other than oof, ow, why?, she was dragging him into the corner. "You're over here having a fine old time while I'm trying to escape from attack of the frat boys."
"I saw. Talking your ear off, huh?" Xander was rubbing his shoulder. "And may I say again, ow? Thank you."
"You saw? And you didn't do anything." That was supposed to be a question, but her voice refused to cooperate.
Xander cocked his head and rested his palms on her shoulder. When he spoke, he sounded grave, even slightly regretful, and she started to steel herself. It had been too long since they'd gotten really bad news. Just like with the Big One, they were overdue. "I'm not your wingman, Buffy. I'm my own captain, captain my captain."
"You're sloshed," she said while she tried to figure out what he meant. "Wing man?"
Xander walked backwards to the bar and picked up his beer. "Commodore, actually. I got my own fleet." He waved the bottle at her. "You want?"
And that was when the night really started to go downhill.
Maybe that was when it took off.
Or just zig-zagged.
There was beer, and more dancing, and some more beer. Xander danced like a huge freak, but he kept up with her, and that was saying something. There was another round, and then he ran into Skinny Brad from the site.
"A construction worker who's named Brad?" Buffy asked. It was the beer's fault and Brad just winked at her.
And Brad had a stash, a stash of Brad's hash, sing-song silliness looping through Buffy's brain, which was how, under its influence, she was now stumbling down Revello with Xander in tow, humming a medley of show tunes.
"Wait up," Xander said at the next to last corner. He jumped from foot to foot. "I got to"
"Eww, Xander," she said but he was already moving off into the bushes. And it wasn't as if Mr. Maclanahan's shrubbery could get any deader. "I can't believe you're"
"What?" He stepped out, zipping up, grinning. The streetlight must have hit him just right, but Buffy stared for a long moment before hugging him again. "Hey, I get hugs for peeing? Good to know."
She was so far from sober that it was possible she would circle back around any second now. So when she kissed him, she apologized at the same time, and Xander went still.
Like a statue, like a monument, leaving her sweaty, breathless, and clinging.
"Buff"
"Want to," she said and repeated it, then again, when he shook his head. "Xander."
"Buffy."
"Xander." Still gripping his hand, she pulled him along, running for her house. His footfalls slapped on the pavement, rhythmic, reassuring.
"I'm really. I'm wasted," he said, bending over at the waist on the porch while she attempted to slay the evil overlord of her keyring.
"Me, too," she said. The key went in, the lock turned, and she tumbled inside. "But I still want to."
"Dawnie?" he stage-whispered, loud enough to wake the dead.
Buffy grinned at the expression. "At Janice's. I think."
Xander started to frown. He looked like he was considering a frown, but trying to remember how. His hair was getting longer again, licking over his forehead, and he did not shy away when she reached up to brush it to the side. "But Dawn hasn't spoken to Janice since that whole thing went down."
"What thing?"
"Something about..." He was following her upstairs, they were both weaving, and she had to keep moving. Had to keep feeling.
Dawn said she was a bad robot, all movement, no feeling, and it was only now that Buffy understood she'd been right. Feeling was beyond her. It came to her in flashes and glimmers, out on the dance floor, hugging Xander, but it was like starlight. Millions of years and miles away, older than she was, dead before she saw it.
Xander started to laugh when she pushed him back onto her bed. Then he froze again, staring up at her.
Buffy had frozen as soon as she did that. As soon as she'd touched him, her hands went heavy as concrete and dropped to her sides. First rule of pre-kindergarten was no hitting. Especially not Xander. She couldn't hurt Xander. Not anyone, not him.
"I'm sorry" Words ground out, more cement, and she tried to back away when Xander caught her wrists. She looked down at his hands. Big, darkly-tanned, huge on her chopstick-skinny arms. Warm, too (two years, she thought, two years since a warm body) and gentle, like they were cupping a butterfly. A baby bird. Something tiny, about to escape, that was her. Falling back, jumping forward.
Her hands moved around to the nape of his neck as Xander hugged her around her waist. Now would be the time to cry, to just let go and let everything out, sob and sob until she was dry and shaking. But the thought of crying was as abstract as everything else, as grief and death and duty. The single warm, palpable thing here was right in front of her. Was Xander.
"I don't want to use you." She should have choked on the words, but he wasn't Spike. And she wasn't that girl, the one who pushed and pushed and let him break her. "Xander."
His hair was damp, chilly to the touch, but his scalp was hot as her hands slid up his head. He looked up at her. "Not using." Licked his lip, flicker of pink, then smiled. "Promise."
A passing car, headlights through her blinds, threw the room into silver and black, bars and cages. Xander held her more tightly, pressed a kiss on her stomach, then again, and it was ticklish and gentle all at once. Buffy giggled, three notes, then laughed.
She didn't want to cry. She wanted this, rocking back unsteadily on too-high heels, helping him with the buttons on her skirt, gazing down, hiccuping. Giggling and squirming, but not stopping, never moving. Watching, swaying, wavering as he pulled her hips forward, burying his face against her crotch.
He was breathing. And warm and alive. Breathing her in, holding her up, nudging open her legs and Buffy was giggling, getting a stitch in her side, feeling like kelp caught in the current, a flag against the sky, flapping and flying high.
Xander's mouth was the warmest thing she'd felt since the showers at the ice rink after morning practice. Hot like that, smooth, tongue over her clit, lips on her labia, pulling her in, down, closer. She knotted fingers in his hair, pushed against him, threw back her head at his answering grunt. He wanted this, gave her this, kept giving. Time was a current, a river, a sigh and soliloquy, passing her by, carrying her in place, and he kept going, mouth and tongue, harder then softer, sending pennants and gusts of heat up through her, describing her skin from the inside out, all heat and fullness.
And Buffy was coming, was here, soon, feeling-thinking-being, here and now and ever.
[end]
Feedback is loved; as usual, comments here are screened until/unless you say not to.
Characters: Buffy, Dawn, Xander
Pairing: Buffy/Xander, unshippy, I promise. Mention of canon pairings.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: ME, not me.
Summary: "It's not a Sunnydale summer without a funeral to kick it off." After "Grave".
Notes: Happy buffy_love month! Beta (and alpha) by thenotoriousg. Title from "Crusoe in England" by Elizabeth Bishop.
Giles wired them the money for Tara's funeral. The Council only paid for a slayer's pine box, not those of family members or comrades, or whatever Tara had been. In the bank, Buffy stared at the number on her receipt, amazed and overcome. With that kind of money, she could fix the roof, pay the reglazer who had replaced the window in Mom's old bedroom. She could buy Dawn jeans that fit, and food for longer than a week, and supplies for the first-aid kit.
With that kind of money, she could live.
Other than Dawn, Buffy, and Xander, only a few people showed up. There were three girls from the campus Wiccan group, gothed-out hippies who blinked at the bright daylight like it was something they had previously only heard about; the old lady from Women's Exchange charity consignment shop, who luckily did not recognize Buffy from her skulking visits; and two professors, one of whom kept referring to Tara as Daria.
Her other family, the blood one, told Buffy that Tara had made her choice. It was no business of theirs how she was buried.
Cousin Beth did not say good riddance, but she might as well have.
The other professor said some words in Gaelic at the grave. Brown dirt, emerald-green grass, blank blue sky: the day was too clear, too beautiful, to be here. Doing this.
*
No one ever used this balcony much. That was strange, now that Buffy thought about it, since along with the ceiling fan, the balcony had been one of the big selling points to Xander's apartment. She remembered Riley joking about bringing over his standard-issue hibachi and having a grill-off with Xander, taste testing charcoal versus gas, and Anya chiming in about fire regulations and lease violations.
The balcony did not have the greatest view, admittedly. Just a stripe of lights from Sunnydale Heights directly ahead, a stand of trees to the left (west? East? She got easily turned around), and murky sky overhead. Not a spectacular view, but nothing to sneeze at, either, and it was quiet.
Buffy sat with her legs crossed, stretching out the skirt of her black dress, rubbing the blisters on her right foot. She had worn her mother's old black pumps all day, her arches complaining, the blisters blossoming as the hours passed. Temporary discomfort, however, was still cheaper than new shoes, even at Payless.
"Cold?" Without waiting for her reply, Xander handed Buffy a sweatshirt, followed by a bottle of beer. Or, really, he dropped the sweatshirt, a maroon and gold memento from Sunnydale High, then pushed the bottle into her hand. As he dropped down next to her, he clinked his own, half-empty bottle, against hers. "For what ails you."
"Thanks."
"Nice night." Shivering slightly, Xander drew closer, his elbow first knocking Buffy's waist, then moving back until finally his arm circled her back.
"Is it?" she asked.
"Well, that's what you're supposed to say. Like, 'come here often?' or, later, 'want to see my etchings?'."
"Oh, right," Buffy said. "It's just a night, though."
"True." Xander went quiet then, taking a long swig of beer and sighing out after he swallowed. Buffy twisted a little, in order to see him, smiling as Xander turned his head the same time. He sort-of smiled and said, "Okay. Night. I'll leave it at that." Frowning, he bobbed his head. "Sounds wrong." He drew a breath. "Nice night."
"Nice night," Buffy echoed. She tasted the words, weighed them, heard them in a voice not quite her own. "Nice night. Is there such a thing?"
"No, I already told you that." Xander drained his beer and set the bottle between his feet. "But it's what you say."
"All right." Buffy remembered the sweatshirt in her lap and handed her beer to Xander in order to pull it on over her head. When she had pulled it down and pushed up the arms, Xander was drinking the beer. "What else do you say? Help me out here."
Xander was silent. He drummed his fingers on Buffy's shoulder, hooked his other arm around his knee, and rested his cheek there. When his eyes drifted closed, his face started to relax. His mouth loosened, curving a little, and his cheek, smushed out on his knee, crinkled up his eye. Buffy wondered if that was what he looked like when he was asleep.
"It's like I always say--" Xander opened his eyes and tightened his arm around Buffy. It was just a gentle pressure, friendly, but for a split second, she fought the instinct to shove him away, to duck down, to *fight*. He did not notice, or, at any rate, he gave no sign. "Like I always say, it's not a Sunnydale summer without a funeral to kick it off."
The beer dangled from his first two fingers, swaying a little. The green glass caught and reflected the safety light over the driveway next door. Behind Buffy's lids, the reflection moved like a bright comma. "I've never heard you say that," she said without opening her eyes.
"Sure, all the time." Xander's hand slid up her arm. Through the thick fleece of the sweatshirt, she could no longer feel its warmth; it might have been any weight, any random pressure. "Gotta have the funeral, or it's no summer at all."
Buffy did not answer. The poured-cement floor of the balcony burned dull and cold through the flimsy fabric of her dress; when she wriggled, tugging the sweatshirt's hem down to sit on it, Xander leaned away, making room. When she stilled, he moved back.
"...first summer I knew you, had a funeral for the Master," he said. "Giles went all out, big drama queen that he is, robes and incense, whole nine yards. Next summer, okay, no funeral, but --"
"I was gone again," she said for him. He spoke as if these were stories they both knew, frequently told each other, ritually, campfire tales to keep away the dark.
"Yeah," he said, and drew a long rattling breath. "Next summer, hoo-boy. Bonanza of funerals, thanks to me, world's worst general since Benedict Arnold. Larry's was cool, though. Speaking of incense."
"What about the one after that?"
Xander shook his head shortly. "Exception to the rule. The one after that, well. You weren't there. Or, you were, but --" His eyes widened. She patted his hand and he nodded, relaxing. "Which brings us here."
"Could've been all our funerals, if it wasn't for you," she said. "Hey, Dawn and I were already in the ground."
Xander's smile was quick, more than a little insincere, but it was the effort that counted, and she returned the smile, more widely.
"Have you noticed, Miss Summers, that this is going to be our first summer together?" he asked. When he called her anything but by her name, she knew he was teasing.
"You don't say, Señor Harris," she replied, before her thoughts caught up. "Wait, what about that summer after Adam?"
He pointed at her, grinning a little. "Like I said, exception."
"Oh." It had been a good summer; she was with Riley, and he was out of the military, and Xander and Anya were togetherstill, always, a little freakish and irritating, but not scary any longerand a lot of the time, Willow brought Tara along when they went to the beach or the movies or the free theatre in the park. "I had fun, though."
"It was all...couple-y, not friendly." When he frowned, a fold of skin formed between his eyebrows, plump as a raisin. "No, it was friendly. But notfriendian? Friendish. Of the friend."
"I know what you mean. Heavy on the pairs."
Xander nodded rapidly, a grin spreading fast across his face. "Big time with the pairing-off."
"Two by two, yeah," she said.
Her mother held a Fourth of July picnic that year and Buffy remembered her handing a glass of lemonade to Giles and, as she looked around, saying something about all the children looking so happy. Giles hadn't wanted to come, had hemmed and hawed about the colonials and how the revolution was no such thing; her mom wore a yellow sundress and her hair kept blowing in her face as she laughed.
They never got a summer where it was just the three of them.
Buffy swallowed now and nudged Xander. He still held her beer, and it was nearly empty. Waggling his brow, Xander ostentatiously drained the bottle and set it down.
"Oh," he said, "sorry about that."
"Sure you are."
He reached across and dragged over a six pack, the bottles rattling. "Help yourself. Not like either of us is driving."
"True," she said and twisted off the cap to the new bottle. She and Dawn were staying here for at least another few days until the cops gave the all-clear to her house.
Xander lifted his own bottle and clinked it against hers as she went to drink. "Here's to the summer, then."
"Summer," she said.
"Back together again for the first time."
Buffy nodded. They weren't going to talk about Willow; she knew that much. If this were a real summer, a friendian-friendly summer, it would be her and Xander and Willow. They'd be in high school and Angel would be lurking around somewhere doing his Mr. Mysterioso thing and she'd be hanging out with her friends.
She was sitting right next to XanderXander who, despite everything, had saved the world, go, Team Xanderbut Willow wasn't here. Willow was a big blank space, elsewhere, away, in witchy jail or whatever it was that Giles was doing to her.
When she sniffed, trying to clear her sinuses, Xander misinterpreted the sound and moved closer. His arm was heavy, not too heavy, and warm. That was Xander: right here, no pressure, and she didn't have the first clue about what he might be thinking.
She shook her head. No gloom. Not this summer, not any more.
Cracking her neck, which she knew would make him wince, just like that, Buffy said, "Thanks, Xander."
Slowly, he lifted the bottle to his lips. Before drinking, however, he said, "Glad you're"
"Not dead?"
Xander squeezed his eyes shut and gulped down the beer. Wiping his mouth, he said, "That, too. Glad you're here. Is where I was going. With that."
Her mind did not want to settle on any one thought, not for too long. Settling meant really thinking, and thinking meant remembering, and there was too much to remember. Mom in a sundress, Tara in her coffin. Funerals, and Riley; the Master and the look of wonder and hope on Angel's face when she killed him; summer after summer. "Larry's funeral was kind of weird, wasn't it?"
"Yes, ma'am," Xander said. "But the reception was a blast."
Buffy nodded. Mrs. Blaisdale hired the Dingoes to play, throwing open their big house to everyone who wanted to come, and there were poster-size pictures of Larry everywhere, in his football uniform, his baseball uniform, his referee jersey for when he coached Pee-Wee soccer, in his prom tux with Freddy Iverson on his arm, looking squirrelly and handsome all at once. That was the first time she had ever seen Xander actually drunk, when he stormed the makeshift stage, tackling Oz, rolling around with him. Oz's guitar was never quite the same afterward. When the party broke up, she and Crazy J Wheeler had found Xander in the middle of Mrs. Blaisdale's rose bushes, crying his eyes out. They each took an elbow and helped him to his feet while he muttered about getting an early start in the morning. Hitting the road, leaving this town in the dust.
"We're coldhearted callous asses, aren't we?" she asked now, tipping back her head and looking at the three visible stars. "Talking about funerals like this."
Xander rocked against her. "Nah, I don't think so."
With the clarity of half a beer and the strong desire not to think, Buffy said, "No, we really are. Like, if you recorded us right now, and a stranger listened? Callous. Cold."
"That applies to everything, though," Xander said. They were sitting so close now that he was able to slide his hand into the big patch pocket on her sweatshirt. "No context."
She tried to think about it, but the words would not quite come. "I guess so," she said finally.
Xander harrumphed. "You guess, but I know so. So, you know. There."
Her reactions were less-than-stellar lately; it was like her muscles had permanently cramped up and refused to loosen for man, beast, demon or deity. So when the door opened behind her, Buffy should have ducked low and whirled around, leading with her fist, to knock the intruder off-balance.
Not what she did do, which was fall forward when the door hit her in the back and give out a little squeak.
"Guys?" Dawn asked.
Buffy straightened up, surprised and relieved to see that her beer had not spilled. Not a drop: Take that, reflexes. She still had her priorities. "You okay, Dawnie?"
Too bright back there; Buffy buried her face against Xander's shoulder.
"Are you" Dawn's voice came closer. "What are you guys doing?"
Without even looking at each other, with instinct kicking in, she and Xander raised their bottles over their heads. Single, fluid motion that left Buffy grinning loonily at the night sky.
"Oh, God," Dawn said. If a voice could roll its eyes, hers just did. Buffy hoped, though, that that was as impossible as it sounded. "Are you drunk?"
"Negatory," Xander said. "But we're more than halfway to maudlin and we ain't looking back."
Dawn nudged Buffy's shoulder. "Shove over."
She should tell Dawn to go back to bed. Teenagers needed their sleep. All the magazines said so. On the other hand, Dawn's eyes had been bright red, fire-engine-red, all day long and she'd shut herself in Xander's bedroom as soon as the funeral over.
She would miss Tara more than anyone. Probably even more than Willow.
Although there was room, Buffy shook her head and opened her legs. Dawn sighed. "Fine."
With Dawn settled between her legs, Buffy's arms around her waist and Xander's arm around Buffy's shoulders again, they formed a tight, warm little bundle. No one spoke for a long time. Xander's breath was sweet and yeasty, mingling with guy-sweat and aftershave; Buffy rested her cheek on top of Dawn's head, silky hair stirring with her breath.
Sirens sounded across town; closer to, a cat screeched and yowled and a dog started barking. Another few stars winked in and out of the sky.
Buffy wondered what they would look like to someone passing by. If the balcony railing was see-through, that is, and there were a light on them. Who would they be? In someone else's eyes, from a stranger's perspective? They could be, if you squinted and unfocused your eyes, mother and father and daughter, but otherwisewho were they?
She didn't know. She wasn't sure how to ask the question in the first place.
*
Things were normal. For a given definition of normal, that was. She worked her shifts, plus any extras she could get, at the Palace. Now that it was summer, though, and Bitchy Laurene had inexplicably become night assistant manager, the extra shifts were harder to nab. Dawn studied like a demon (metaphorical) for her finals, going paler and tighter in the face until her anxiety broke out over forgetting to push start on the washing machine, after which she cried for three hours and ate two bags of Chips Ahoy ($1.29 on sale; Buffy had been saving them for the expected PMS attack).
She patrolled, she trained, she tried to take up yoga but got bored.
A rogue strega came to town, decked out in knock-off Armani, intent ondoing whatever it was that Etruscan fertility cults and bad Italian accents would be interested in. World domination, mastery of the climate, something like that. Without Giles or Willow, the whole analytical point of the operation kind of fell by the wayside.
"Analyze this": It wasn't one of her better jibes, but Xander cracked up, the witch-bitch scowled at being interrupted, and that gave Buffy enough time to swing the flat of her axe at the strega's head.
Buffy knocked her out, Xander stole her ugly pentagram ring ("Totally Hot Topic, jeez," Dawn said and Buffy really had to agree), and they dumped her outside the town limits.
It wasn't shaping up to be a good summer, necessarily, but it was a summer. And she wasn't dead or a runaway, so maybe she should chill.
*
She fought once with Xander. It wasn't nearly as horrible as it could have been. It was more like a pseudo-fight. An approximation of a fight, blueprints and lots of pencil erasures, storyboarded rather than filmed and enacted.
She finished the breakfast shift ("And how many Doublemeat Hashes will that be, sir?") and came home to find Dawn rocketing around the living room, twirling Xander, trying to dip him.
"Hey," Buffy managed to say and hang up her coat before Dawn grabbed her hand and pulled her into the living room.
"Xander got me a job! A job with money and resumes and it's mine!" Dawn's hair whipped around, her smile looked big and wide enough to swallow half the Eastern seaboard, and her grip on Buffy's hand was bone-crushing, relentless, enough to make most vampires green(er).
Xander scrubbed his hand through his hair. He was being Mr. Blue-Collar Professional today, chambray shirt tucked all the way in, goony red tie with little figures of Nancy and Sluggo on it, crisp khakis.
When did Xander become a grown-up, exactly? Apparently some time when she was too busy fucking Spike.
Right, that was, with the Willow-shaped blank, numero uno no go area.
"Xander?" Buffy perched on the arm of the couch. "What's Dawn chirping and shrieking about? And since when are you the translation guy?"
He looked up at her, working the throw pillow under his head, smiling slowly. "Boss-Man's niece broke her hip."
"Your boss's niece is a senior citizen?"
"No, just accident-prone," he replied, looping his arm through hers. They had always touched a lot, all three of them, but it was only this summer that Buffy was noticing that fact. Like baby marsupials, bald and too little, huddling in some pouch of their own making. She threaded her fingers through his and tried to listen. "So he needs a new office girl for the summer."
"Job, huh?" She needed to take this slowly. This was new and improved Buffy, not so selfish, not so crazy with the depression and the darkness, not flying off the handle. "And you thought to yourself, I know someone who needs a good job. I know someone who's a girl. I know...Dawn? Really?"
"Hey!" Dawn poked her head in from the dining room. "Watch it." She stomped up the stairs, pausing at the top to yell down, "I knew you'd try to ruin this!"
Buffy rolled her eyes and withdrew her hand from Xander's. "Anyway."
He was trying to straighten up, but the couch was smooshy and too comfortable, and he didn't have the leverage. Buffy could have pulled him up, but she chose to cross her arms and wait.
"It's not like that," Xander said.
"What is it like?"
"Buff. Buffy. Buffy of my heart."
She shook her head as he trailed off. She probably should not enjoy torturing him like this, but getting up at 4:30 in the morning to fry up faux-hash browns and brew terrible coffee would make anyone cranky. Especially the girl who was out patrolling well past midnight the night before.
By pushing his fist into the seat cushion and heaving himself to the side, Xander finally managed to sit upright. He rolled his shoulders, sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. Giles's gestures looked really weird on him, but she didn't mention that.
"Well?" she asked.
"You're a, you know. A woman."
"Since fifth grade, yeah," she said, pushing herself to her feet and crossing the room.
Xander winced as she turned back around. "A grown-up, female-arranged person." He made the hourglass motion with both hands; from his point of view, apparently, Buffy was bustier than Marilyn Monroe. She wasn't sure whether to be flattered or appalled. "And Dawnie's...not." To emphasize that point, he moved his hands straight up and down.
Buffy tried not to smile. Forget ballistic, Dawn would go nuclear if she knew Xander was making fun of her non-figure. To hide the smirk she couldn't help, Buffy nodded. "All obvious statements, yes. And?"
Xander blanched for a second. Her interrogation techniques were really coming along. "It's a job on the site. Full ofyou met them. Guys. Obnoxious, asshole, never heard of Betty Freud"
"Friedan."
"Whatever." Xander closed his eyes, sagging a little, and his head dropped forward. "That's all."
"I can take care of myself." She mimed a good, efficient staking, but he wasn't looking at her. "Xander. This is me. I eat guys like that forwell, I don't, because high in carbs and gross, cannibal? No. But you know."
"I know," he mumbled. "Believe me, I know."
"So it's too dangerous for little Buffy, but you're good with exposing Dawnie to all that?"
Xander mumbled something else, knuckled one eye, and looked off to the side. Buffy sat down next to him, gently, like he was a stray that would bolt at the slightest aggression. "Say that again?"
"They won't bother Dawnie," he said and swallowed. When he looked back at her, his face wasnaked. Pale under his work-tan, lips a little parted, eyes wide and unblinking. "You know? She's a kid, they'll watch out for her."
She was trying to follow along. She really was; the anger and jealousy had drained out, flushed away. Making sense of Xander was a chancey business at the best of times. She was working on a couple hours' sleep and way too much Doublemeat coffee.
"See?" he said, apparently convinced that Buffy had worked out the puzzle for herself. "Yeah. Why would you do that?"
Buffy nodded shortly, giving up on understanding.
Which was, it seemed, the Zen thing to do, because as soon as she surrendered to the Harris Brand Special Illogic, the whole thing did make sense. Everything rushed at her, sick taste of blood from a broken lip, the hollow crack of body on linoleum, puzzle pieces screeching together and sticking. They were talking about what happened in the bathroom, about everything that happened after Spike stormed down the stairs, about her own weakness and the gun and Warren, Willowand, God.
Buffy was on her feet, making quickly for the kitchen, before her head began to clear. Making sense was way overrated. She much preferred not getting it, cribbing and bullshitting her way through things.
She poured herself a big glass of orange juice, didn't bother to do the budget-conscious thing of diluting it half with water, and guzzled it down. Acid in her stomach, sense in her mind, and as she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, she had to grab the counter with the other hand to hold herself steady.
"You want some juice?" she called to Xander. Hoped he'd play along.
"You got cranberry?" he yelled back.
Good. Play along, get back to normal, and just avoid the huge, blank areas on the map. Willow and Spike, everything else.
*
Dawn refused, however, to play along. Even when Buffy let her take the job (afternoons, minimum wage, yay for responsibility and all that). Even when she tried to joke and said, "At least it'll keep you off the streets", Dawn just scowled.
Buffy reminded herself, more times than she could count, that she ought to be grateful that Dawn was back to being, mostly, bratty. Like an algebra of gratitude, a trigonometry of relief. Brattiness was, at least, familiar. Easier to take than her silence, if not quite so easy on the eardrums, much easier to take than the closed door to Dawn's room and the scent of Tara's mint incense wafting through the house.
Too many people had been lost in this house. Mom, and Tara, even Buffy herself. The last was, okay, full of self-pity and she wouldn't ever say as much to anyone (When do you tell anyone anything, though?: The voice out of the shadows under the eaves of her mind might have belonged to Willow or Spike. Even Angel, sometimes Xander.) She lay in bed at night, unable to sleep, trying not to think about this place as a house of cards. Tarot cards, the Hanged Man and the King of Swords, blood as glue, grief as plaster.
Buffy dreamed of themghosts, victims, demons hiding in the walls, crouched behind cardboard and parchment, empty eye-sockets gazing at her reproachfully. These were not prophetic dreams. Such dreams had nothing to do with the Slayer, but everything to do with Buffy.
"I liked her better," Dawn said during one of their fights. She had her arms crossed, her face scrunched up, and she wouldn't meet Buffy's eyes. Considering they were at the Pump sharing one of those slightly-bigger-than-a-coaster tables, that avoidance was pretty admirable. Just breathing too hard or gesturing too widely was a risky prospect. "I liked her a lot better."
"Good to know." Buffy was determined to play it cool. Not rise to the bait, not engage. Just be cool and treat Dawn like the idiot child she insisted on being. But, still, really? It hurt. It was designed to hurt, just like everything else, and it achieved its goal. "You preferred a sexbot to your own sister. Okay."
Dawn huffed out a sigh that stirred her bangs and shifted in her seat. She was twisted at the waist, anything, any discomfort, so long as she didn't have togasp, horror, oh the humanitylook at Buffy.
Yet she continued muttering. Couldn't ever shut her up: she really was made out of Buffy, no question. "She was nicer."
"She was a robot." Buffy stirred her medium coffee and tried not to think about the cookies in the display case. Bad Buffy, no cookie. "That was her programming."
When Dawn pursed her lips like that, she looked just like Mom. Like a memory of Mom. "Duh."
"I'm just saying." Buffy's coffee had gone cold, but Dawn was still playing with the foam on her latte. "Not for nothing, just"
"If Angel came back, you'd forget all about me."
"And the prize for most dizzying change of topic goes to Dawn Marie Summers. What?"
Dawn flipped her hair back, though it wasn't anywhere near getting in her eyes, and jabbed her spoon at Buffy. Tiny table, so she actually made contact and, great. Now Buffy had mocha-latte-foam on the sleeve of her new-to-her blouse. "Not changing the subject. Just saying it's the truth."
"I wouldn't forget you," Buffy said. Patience was a virtue and she wanted to be good, she really did. "That's stupid."
"You're stupid. You so would. You'd go off with him and save the world a couple times and feel terrible because you couldn't ever really be together even though you're, like, destined for each other even though there's no such thing as destiny. And all that time, you would be together, you'd just be too angsty-emo to realize it. And I'd be somewhere else."
The power of the Summers talkativeness was enough to bring Dawn's gaze back towards Buffy. Buffy stared at her. She had no such talking-energy; her lips felt dry and scaly and useless. "Um..."
Dawn nodded to herself, like that confirmed something mysterious yet predictable about Buffy.
"Dawnie, I wouldn't"
"Don't call me that. I'm not-not-not a puppy." Dawn's lower lip trembled slightly before she nipped down on it, recrossing her arms and glancing away.
"Okay. Dawn. I wouldn't forget you." Buffy rubbed her forehead, wondering just when it started to pound and if it was actually possible to die from exposure to brattiness and teenaged melodrama. "I wouldn't leave, first of all, and even if I did" Buffy made herself stop talking. Talking led to discussing led to feeling and she didn't have the first clue what she was feeling. "So what are we fighting about again?"
"Buffybot," Dawn said promptly.
"And how I suck?" She winced when Dawn nodded. "Can't we fight about something, I don't know. Normal? Like, stealing each other's clothes."
"Your clothes are ugly."
"Okay. How aboutdoing the dishes comma how you never remember to? Or curfew? Curfew's a big topic."
Dawn poked her again with the spoon; now she had a matching stain on the other sleeve. "See, you don't listen. We fought about curfew last night."
"Boys? Can we fight about boys?" This was working; Dawn was loosening up a little, even with all the stains, and her voice had dropped from the screechier reaches of the register. "I remember boys. I think."
Rolling her eyes, Dawn flung out her arms and narrowly missed a passing waitress. "We are fighting about boys. Hello? Angel?"
"Angel's not a boy," Buffy said.
"Yes, he is. Big dumb macho ancient boy."
"Huh." When in doubt, imitate Oz: It was something Buffy had always wanted to try. Whaddaya know? It worked. "Point."
"Yeah," Dawn said. "I know. I'm not stupid."
"And I'm not a robot. Right?"
Another eyeroll, complete with a pained frown. "Exactly. What? What are you smirking at?"
Buffy could not smirk to save her life, but if that was what Dawn wanted to call it, she'd go along with that. "I'm. Just, okay. Why is life so weird?"
"Because," Dawn said, all patience and sweetness like she was hosting a show for preschoolers. Dawn the Teletubby: She'd be Screechy. "Because you're the slayer. And you're weird."
"It's all my fault?"
"Yes." Dawn nodded and pushed her latte across the table. Peace offering? Or maybe it was just cold. Either way, Buffy accepted and took a sip. "Don't worry about it. It's not a bad thing, but you are weird."
Cold peace offering. Like revenge, really, best served cold. And, whoa, oversugared. "You're pretty weird yourself."
Dawn snorted. Whoever told girls that a snort was an acceptable substitute for talking was wrong. And dead. "Whatever."
"You are," Buffy protested. "You read all the time and you know like three languages. You do puzzles. For fun."
"So?"
"Weird, that's all."
Dawn stood up from the table. Smart as she was, she still had a teeny attention span. "You're weirder. End of story."
"Maybe," Buffy said, following her through the maze of tables. "Maybe not."
"Maybe" At the door, Dawn turned around and punched Buffy's shoulder. Ow. Note to self: Don't train her so much. Girl had a hook. "definitely."
*
This was her life, then. Patrol, and training, and the Palace of Crap. Arguing, quarrelling, yelling with Dawn. Hanging out with Xander, and when he always made sure to pay for the pizza, telling her he didn't have smaller bills for her change, she pretended it was a coincidence, every time.
Videos, and pizza, and more patrolling. Always with the patrol. A subspecies of pixies, which Xander kept calling "Blue Beetle", then getting huffy when no one got his geektastic reference, moved into the site of the new high school. Giles told Dawn long-distance to try to save a specimen, but Xander and Buffy had far too much fun stomping the little bastards to pay attention. Giles and Dawn were also playing Go over the phone and by email; there was no news about Willow, but no one asked for news, either.
"She'll be all right," was all Xander would say. And Buffy tried to believe him; he'd known Willow the longest. He'd been there at the end. She'd tried to kill Buffy and Dawn, but she wouldn't, couldn't, kill Xander.
Xander knew stuff. She just had to trust that.
*
One afternoon, killing time between a split shift, she nabbed a slinky top at the Women's Exchange. Ivory, silk, halter, and only four bucks. Buffy decided against buying dinner on her employee discount and forked over all her cash for the blouse.
Tonight, she told herself, patrol could wait. Tonight, she was going dancing.
She had not been out since the winter. Since Xander's stag party, actually, as far as she could remember. She'd left that early, because his Uncle Rory was every bit as freakishly upsetting as Xander had always hinted, maybe more so, and because Spike had been skulking around outside, and because she was just so damn tired all the time.
She could remember that tiredness like an injury. Exhaustion, gritty and chilly, down to her bones, slowing her down, dragging her under. She remembered it, that is, physically, but she couldn't conjure up what it had felt like emotionally. Like she was outside herself, both in the past and in her memories of the past, watching puppet-Buffy move around slow and jerky, zombified and stupid.
She never wanted to feel like that again. However it was that she'd felt, so tired and sad, she didn't want that. She could sense it behind her, like the ragged remnants of a bad dream that followed her into the light of day, all hints and patterns, the content drained away.
Dancing. She used to dance every weekend; before she hit puberty, she'd dance with her mother, turn the radio up to full blast, whirl around and make a fool of herself.
Dancing felt as good as slaying. Better, actually, with the whole lack of violence and the changing beat.
And though the Bronze never changed, she liked that. She liked winding her way to the dance floor, shimmying past couples and clots of frat boys, keeping her eyes on the stage, letting the music jingle-jangle-throb through her.
When she took a break, gulping down club soda at the bar, the inevitable happened. Big luggish guy, messy brown hair, got too close.
"Looking good out there," he said, so Rico-Suave Buffy almost laughed. "Real good."
"Thanks," she said and asked for another club soda. Rico paid for it, big spender, and he seemed ready to stick to her like glue.
"Haven't seen you around before." He dragged a stool over and offered it to her. "Wish I had."
She could do this. She could flirt and make the big guy feel good and maybe he could dance. She knew she could do this, even if she hadn't actually flirted with anyone since Riley.
God, two years. When did she get so old?
He was going on and on about his fraternal society"it's not a frat, of course, we're about service first. If we happen to throw good parties, that's just the cherry on top"while Buffy tried, at first discreetly, then blatantly, to look around for an escape.
She didn't want to flirt. Especially not with him. She came to dance and that wasn't totally pathetic, was it? Definitely not too much to ask.
At the other end of the bar, she spotted (thank God and-or Goddesses, she wasn't going to be picky, not when she was this grateful) Xander. Smoothing down his shirt and looking around with the exact same big eyes and I'm not constipated, nor terrified expression he'd always worn to the Bronze.
She slid past Rico Frat, a sudden rush of everythinggratitude, and familiarity, and affectionspeeding her step as she called Xander's name.
He hugged her back. His hugs were always the equivalent of returning from an Arctic expedition, enthusiastic and warm enough to burn, and Buffy tipped back her head, grinning. "What are you doing here?"
"What does it look like I'm doing here?"
"Skulking around the bar, working up your nerve."
He bobbed his head, his smile widening. "Basically, yes."
"Bastard." She hit him on the shoulder and before he could say anything other than oof, ow, why?, she was dragging him into the corner. "You're over here having a fine old time while I'm trying to escape from attack of the frat boys."
"I saw. Talking your ear off, huh?" Xander was rubbing his shoulder. "And may I say again, ow? Thank you."
"You saw? And you didn't do anything." That was supposed to be a question, but her voice refused to cooperate.
Xander cocked his head and rested his palms on her shoulder. When he spoke, he sounded grave, even slightly regretful, and she started to steel herself. It had been too long since they'd gotten really bad news. Just like with the Big One, they were overdue. "I'm not your wingman, Buffy. I'm my own captain, captain my captain."
"You're sloshed," she said while she tried to figure out what he meant. "Wing man?"
Xander walked backwards to the bar and picked up his beer. "Commodore, actually. I got my own fleet." He waved the bottle at her. "You want?"
And that was when the night really started to go downhill.
Maybe that was when it took off.
Or just zig-zagged.
There was beer, and more dancing, and some more beer. Xander danced like a huge freak, but he kept up with her, and that was saying something. There was another round, and then he ran into Skinny Brad from the site.
"A construction worker who's named Brad?" Buffy asked. It was the beer's fault and Brad just winked at her.
And Brad had a stash, a stash of Brad's hash, sing-song silliness looping through Buffy's brain, which was how, under its influence, she was now stumbling down Revello with Xander in tow, humming a medley of show tunes.
"Wait up," Xander said at the next to last corner. He jumped from foot to foot. "I got to"
"Eww, Xander," she said but he was already moving off into the bushes. And it wasn't as if Mr. Maclanahan's shrubbery could get any deader. "I can't believe you're"
"What?" He stepped out, zipping up, grinning. The streetlight must have hit him just right, but Buffy stared for a long moment before hugging him again. "Hey, I get hugs for peeing? Good to know."
She was so far from sober that it was possible she would circle back around any second now. So when she kissed him, she apologized at the same time, and Xander went still.
Like a statue, like a monument, leaving her sweaty, breathless, and clinging.
"Buff"
"Want to," she said and repeated it, then again, when he shook his head. "Xander."
"Buffy."
"Xander." Still gripping his hand, she pulled him along, running for her house. His footfalls slapped on the pavement, rhythmic, reassuring.
"I'm really. I'm wasted," he said, bending over at the waist on the porch while she attempted to slay the evil overlord of her keyring.
"Me, too," she said. The key went in, the lock turned, and she tumbled inside. "But I still want to."
"Dawnie?" he stage-whispered, loud enough to wake the dead.
Buffy grinned at the expression. "At Janice's. I think."
Xander started to frown. He looked like he was considering a frown, but trying to remember how. His hair was getting longer again, licking over his forehead, and he did not shy away when she reached up to brush it to the side. "But Dawn hasn't spoken to Janice since that whole thing went down."
"What thing?"
"Something about..." He was following her upstairs, they were both weaving, and she had to keep moving. Had to keep feeling.
Dawn said she was a bad robot, all movement, no feeling, and it was only now that Buffy understood she'd been right. Feeling was beyond her. It came to her in flashes and glimmers, out on the dance floor, hugging Xander, but it was like starlight. Millions of years and miles away, older than she was, dead before she saw it.
Xander started to laugh when she pushed him back onto her bed. Then he froze again, staring up at her.
Buffy had frozen as soon as she did that. As soon as she'd touched him, her hands went heavy as concrete and dropped to her sides. First rule of pre-kindergarten was no hitting. Especially not Xander. She couldn't hurt Xander. Not anyone, not him.
"I'm sorry" Words ground out, more cement, and she tried to back away when Xander caught her wrists. She looked down at his hands. Big, darkly-tanned, huge on her chopstick-skinny arms. Warm, too (two years, she thought, two years since a warm body) and gentle, like they were cupping a butterfly. A baby bird. Something tiny, about to escape, that was her. Falling back, jumping forward.
Her hands moved around to the nape of his neck as Xander hugged her around her waist. Now would be the time to cry, to just let go and let everything out, sob and sob until she was dry and shaking. But the thought of crying was as abstract as everything else, as grief and death and duty. The single warm, palpable thing here was right in front of her. Was Xander.
"I don't want to use you." She should have choked on the words, but he wasn't Spike. And she wasn't that girl, the one who pushed and pushed and let him break her. "Xander."
His hair was damp, chilly to the touch, but his scalp was hot as her hands slid up his head. He looked up at her. "Not using." Licked his lip, flicker of pink, then smiled. "Promise."
A passing car, headlights through her blinds, threw the room into silver and black, bars and cages. Xander held her more tightly, pressed a kiss on her stomach, then again, and it was ticklish and gentle all at once. Buffy giggled, three notes, then laughed.
She didn't want to cry. She wanted this, rocking back unsteadily on too-high heels, helping him with the buttons on her skirt, gazing down, hiccuping. Giggling and squirming, but not stopping, never moving. Watching, swaying, wavering as he pulled her hips forward, burying his face against her crotch.
He was breathing. And warm and alive. Breathing her in, holding her up, nudging open her legs and Buffy was giggling, getting a stitch in her side, feeling like kelp caught in the current, a flag against the sky, flapping and flying high.
Xander's mouth was the warmest thing she'd felt since the showers at the ice rink after morning practice. Hot like that, smooth, tongue over her clit, lips on her labia, pulling her in, down, closer. She knotted fingers in his hair, pushed against him, threw back her head at his answering grunt. He wanted this, gave her this, kept giving. Time was a current, a river, a sigh and soliloquy, passing her by, carrying her in place, and he kept going, mouth and tongue, harder then softer, sending pennants and gusts of heat up through her, describing her skin from the inside out, all heat and fullness.
And Buffy was coming, was here, soon, feeling-thinking-being, here and now and ever.
[end]
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