Happy birthday Amy Acker! (Hurrah for IMDb)
You know what I think there should be? A librarian-who-came-before-Giles ficathon. Talk about someone who gets short-changed in canon! And in fic, he/she usually only gets mentioned in the negative. "Hey there, you're not Mr/Ms/Dr Petrie/Alexander/Peters!"
"No, for I am GILES and quite sexy and British, thank you."
Exeunt former librarian.
Moreover, Jossverse RPS:
Title: "Tipsy, Thanksgiving, Need"
Fandom: Jossverse RPS
Pairing: Alexis/Aly/Joss
Rating: R
Warnings: RPS, light bondage, light D/s, threesome
Disclaimer: This is so entirely not true. I am making this up. This never happened. Seriously.
Notes: I started writing this while waiting for my plane on Thanksgiving Wednesday. My flight was called before I'd written two sentences. I think it's a sign from God that I should write more Joss/Alexis. And, uh, apparently an AU where Alexis and Aly have a baby. I thought they did, but evidently, I'm just delusional.
Summary: Joss spends Thanksgiving with the beautiful people.
Tipsy, Thanksgiving, Need
Kai goes home for Thanksgiving. He doesn't get that, the whole family-who-loves-you thing, but Kai wants to go. He's spent holidays with her family before, but this year -- this year, he really needs to be elsewhere.
"Is it about Firefly?" asks Kai. "About Serenity being postponed?"
"No," says Joss. "It's about me."
"Joss, if I can do --"
Joss sighs and touches her hand. "You do. It's okay. I'll see you on Monday, right? Maybe I'll be able to explain better -- after." He never can, but she lets the lie slip. It's okay.
Aly and Alexis are all smiles, because of the baby, naturally. The baby is adorable, turns him absolutely to mush, so of course he says, "She looks delicious, but I thought turkey was traditional. Babies and cranberry sauce just don't taste right together."
Aly glares at him -- fake glaring, he can never make her really mad -- but Alexis grins and says, "It's California. We don't hold with tradition here -- thought we'd skip the turkey and stuffing and just go with wine and baby fingers."
"Alexis!"
"Kidding," he says, pecking at her lips.
"Alexis!" shrills Joss, falsetto. Alexis grins, a bit manic, and pecks at Joss's lips too, lightly, the kind of kiss appropriate between women friends, if not men. "If I say your name again, will you kiss me harder?" He's still in control. Tests it out. "Alexis!" This kiss is more distinctly sexual, a faint hint of tongue just parting his lips. Then it's gone.
"Boys," says Aly, laughing, but not kidding. "not in front of the baby."
"You can sleep in the guest room," Alexis tells him. "You know where."
"The one where Andy threw up all over Mere and Tim after the season three wrap?"
"That one. Night, Joss." It's so simple a rejection, so wordless. Still, a rejection, at least for now. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and Joss is beginning to wish he'd gone with Kai after all.
Thanksgiving is turkey. Turkey and Aly's family, some friends he doesn't recognize , and of the cast and crew only the three of them, plus Adam Busch, who flirts with him all through the meal as he tries to prove to Aly's grandmother that he is indeed just as funny as the characters on the shows he writes, if nowhere near as cool.
Adam quite obviously wants to go to bed with him. Which is weird, since he's told Adam, repeatedly, that he is married, and happily, and only very slightly bi-curious. Which he all still believes is true, and Adam doesn't need to know about Alexis (and Aly) even if he is at their dinner party, drinking way too much wine. He likes the kid, is glad his career is on the rise, and thinks quite frankly he's got to get his act together personally if he wants to act professionally.
Adam asks how Joss would have scripted this dinner differently, and Joss says something about aliens with flamethrowers, then devotes a happy half hour to answering the question truthfully in his head. When he's done, he discovers the company gone, the dishes cleared away, and an amused Alyson Hannigan watching him.
"Are you spending the night with us?" she asks.
"I think that depends," says Joss. "I'd hate to be taken for a stalker or a fangirl."
"You aren't our fangirl?" Aly threatens to pout.
"Hey, I'm very proud of my masculine image!" Beat. "Even if it is a complete forgery."
She smiles. "Come to bed with us, Joss." He gulps. "Please." Her smile is more convincing than an order would be. Not to mention how badly he wants this, so badly he didn't even realize it until he's about to get it. He nods, wine-enhanced bliss still on his face. "Good. Be ready, half an hour. We're having coffee, then we'll be there." She smiles at him again.
He loves their bed, big and sproingy, room for more than three, although they've never tried it, nor does he want to, really. Preparing physically is easy --heck, he spends half his life naked; stripping isn't hard. Unlike other things, which are -- hardening. So physically, not a problem. It's the mental stuff. Being silent is always most difficult, because he needs words. They earned him a living, earned him a livelihood, earned him this. He always wants to talk in the middle of things, to rattle off a quip likes he's in a sit-com. That's why they established the rule in the first place, although Aly was hesitant. Still, he likes it this way, once he gets past the fear.
He's lying on his back, eyes closed, when they come in. "Good boy," mutters Alexis, and when Joss feels a thrill creep up his spine, he knows he's in good head space. He knows they must be getting undressed, because he can hear them, laughing softly to each other. A loud kiss, for his benefit. Someone -- Aly probably -- ties something soft around his eyes. Alexis begins to touch him, fingers gentle but very firm. Because he is blindfolded, he cannot see Alexis's maleness, but it is evident in every touch of his fingers, every confident stroke. Aly is softer, though no more timid -- she touches him like his breakable. Aly, he thinks, is a bit scared of him like this.
"You're thinking too much. Aly, handcuff him." Alexis's tongue is in his mouth. There is no mistaking that for friendship, although, really, that's all it is, for them. Alexis is kissing him, fucking his mouth with his tongue, gentle, harder --he moves his tongue and feels Alexis's pleasure. Aly's hand is inching down his chest.
The pretty people. He turns off every other sensation, even sheer physical pleasure, and feels the joy that the pretty people have deigned to make love to him, to Joss Whedon, loner and loser and geek.
Alexis comes, and Aly comes, but neither of them get him off, because this is not about getting off. It is, as he told Kai, about him.
They sleep with him between them, and he's not quite comfortable here, as sleeping seems far more intimate than sex, but Alexis insisted on that point. His arm is draped over Joss's chest, like it belongs there, just for the moment.
On Friday morning, Alexis sleeps in and Joss goes shopping with Aly, which is really just an excuse, because they need to talk as soon as possible, before the emotions fade into memories. So while he picks out jewelry for Kai, Aly asks him, "Why did you come this weekend?"
"To see some dear friends, to get a bit tipsy on wine, to be fucked."
"Was it good for you?" she asks, conciliatory.
"It always is," he says, and knows he's pushing her out -- at least, he's trying. "When you're as old as I am you'll be glad to get any touch. Well, nah, I suppose people you like will never want for lovemonkeys. Listen to me. I'm your slave. You know I'm your slave. I --"
"Joss, she says, softly. "Did we do you right? Did it feel okay? How do you think it worked?"
"Aly..." he hates this part.
"If we can't talk about it, Alexis won't. You know that."
"Good. It felt good."
"Joss." Her voices has a threat in it, and you better believe Alyson Hannigan can threaten when she needs to. "Should I start?"
"Yeah, go ahead." Uh oh --bitterness. He is starting to feel the aftershocks. That's very rarely good.
"I love touching you. I love you. We owe you -- everything. Our careers, our acting, our popularity -- each other. We can't give you -- you know we can't give you everything. But we can give you this, and we want to."
Joss muses on that for a minute, still trying to figure out how to put into words what he felt Thanksgiving night. He loves them utterly, their fingers, their kindness, their beauty. He was blindfolded; that was new, and he'd been perplexed, because, well, beautiful people. Why wasn't he supposed to see them?
"You're sexy in more ways than one," he says.
Aly nods "How else?"
"Touch," he says. "Your voices -- not your singing voice, but --"
"Hey!"
"The way Alexis's voice gets low and growly, the way you smile through your kisses..." Aly smiles. "I love you -- both of you."
"All of us?"
"What?"
"The whole cast," she says, and he nods.
"You're very special to me in a way that no other actors could be."
"But Alexis is especially special."
He doesn't like that she knows, but since she does, he might as well try to talk about it. But Aly doesn't let him. Says, "You're in love with him." Says, "We know, and it's okay."
It's always been there, every time they've done anything, that unevenness, the unbalance. His love for Alexis is the reason he's there, the core of their interaction. It's not supposed to be, but it's real.
"Yeah, I'm in love with him," he says, desperately trying for coolness, knowing that there is no coolness possible between them, that Aly is sympathetic, but will never again see him as a godlike director and writer, because his love for her husband makes him something less than human, less than perfect.
The thing is, nothing's changed, and nothing will change, and last night was one night in a long string of nights when he's submitted to them. He will go back home. He always does. They will go back to their lives, and this is not a love affair but a protracted one-night stand. Alyson knows that, Alexis knows that, God knows Kai knows that, or she wouldn't allow him to run off like she does, always sympathetic.
And yet he, whose idea it was in the first place, he is the one who keeps wishing it were different.