Chapter 23

Out of The Box

The Magic Box isn't how I remember it, but then, every time I have ever set foot in the place it has been rebuilt or remodelled after something horrific has happened there. Having the unfortunate owner meet a grizzly end is bordering on a yearly town custom at this stage.

This time around it feels more spacious. This season's style has the counter on the far right and a large reading table area on the left. I walk past the now familiar mix of freaky hoodoo, spooky doodads and jumbles of mumbo.

"Sit." Anya points at the large round table piled with various magic books. I do so, and am immediately assaulted by that dusty rich tannin particular to ye olde works of forbidden lore. A scent that I strongly associate with highschool. And boredom.

I evaluate the nearest mystical tome to me the only way I know how. I press my hand down on it to ascertain how good a pillow it would make. This one is not bad.

I remember when I got caught napping on such a book as this the night Oz got out. That was when Faith was on our side. But of course, Faith never was on our side. She was just on hers. Just trying to shed that skin and become.

A snake shedding its skin is still a snake.

Faith fought Oz once. In hand to hand with nothing but a leather sleeve between her and the snapping, drooling jaws of death. A little nip was all it would take to curse her forever to be just like him. Man, imagine willingly running towards a werewolf like that? Why did she do that? For Oz? For duty? Because it was her nature?

Did she do it because of a deathwish?

I lift the book to my face and give it just a little sniff. Oz was a scooby once. The most Doo of the Scoobies. Then suddenly he wasn't. I was a Scooby. Then suddenly, I wasn't. Faith never really was a Scooby, we never really let her. And I don't know why.

Maybe The Scoobies will become an ever changing line up. The Fleetwood Mac of paranormal investigators. Now that Buffy has proven that Slayers need a team of friends to be successful, will all Slayers be assigned a Scooby Gang? Going on and on down the line until nobody knows why they got the name Scoobies? Will I even be a footnote in that history?

As I put down the book, a lump in my throat rises. I miss Giles and Oz and Willow. It's a shame how it had to end. But it had to. And it had to because of who I was.

"Xander" Giles voice comes from a memory, soft and fatherly, and ridiculously British. "Well this is a pleasant surprise." I look up to see the man himself, standing behind the counter, mug of tea in hand.

"Giles?"

The tea goes down on the counter, and we walks over to me. I stand and offer a hug, he offers a handshake. I offer a handshake, he offers a hug. We end up in a weird and awkward compromise between hug and shake. A 'shaug' or perhaps a 'huake'.

"Would you, perhaps, like some tea?

"You work here now?" I say.

"I am the, eh, proprietor." He says, glancing around warmly at the space.

"Co-owner." Anya says, returning sans burgers but with a small box, which she is peeling the plastic off. "You are paying for this too, I assume."

"Anya, you know Xander, right?" He says, reaching across the counter for his tea.

"We went to prom." She says. "Back when his ears stuck out and he was a cheapskate. Also when he had much smaller breasts. Aha." She peels away the plastic victoriously. "This was so much easier when I had long fingernails, but Willow complained every time we had sex, so…"

Giles spits his tea back into the mug and I am doing the same with air.

"Wait, you and Willow?" I manage, sounding like, well picture a female Marty Mcfly saying "you built a time machine?" and you're close. Anya nods eagerly.

"Willow. Willow Rosenberg." I say. Another nod. She opens the tiny box and Mary Poppins what Incan only describe as an huge fucking stiletto dagger out of it. It turns glassy as she approaches. "See Rupert, still fresh. I told you but noooo."

"Back up there on two points. One, where the hell are you gonna stick that thing? And two, Willow Rosenberg?"

"Giles. I think he is broken."

"Yes, well, I must say your reaction is rather similar to mine on the subject of Willow's… er… sudden shift in taste." Giles mutters and takes another mouthful of tea. A mistake.

"Oh, Willow tastes just fine." Anya says. Giles grips his nose and winces, having to silently excuse himself from the room as he goes to wash off the snorted tea.

The shopbell sounds and the girl in question saunters merrily in and it takes me about three seconds to go from 'wha?' to 'awww' as I see everything in how her eager smile positively becomes incandescent when she locks eyes on Anya.

And Willow looks like… like… my Willow again. Her face plump with a smile and eyes glittering and bright. Her short hair flicks up and is a rich, vibrant red, and she wears a small ring choker that makes her neck seem longer and more graceful. Her clothes are much more grown up, stylish and form fitting. I love Willow, but she did always look like an op shop had exploded nearby.

Willow hovers, aware that Anya is serving a customer, and after shooting her a smile, focuses on some knickknacks on the wall to pass the time.

As for me, my insides are spinning up a whirligig of emotions, which are summed up by the choking sob that issues from my mouth. Willow turns and now her eyes light up for me. This time there is no awkwardness, the embrace is well practiced, after all.

"I missed you " somes a muffled, emotional voice. "I missed you too." Comes the reply. "I didn't know if I should call or..or..if you needed space or… I was… so worried… I was going crazy." "Clearly. You're dating Anya." Comes the final muffled sentence before we break for air.

"You look… look at you." Willow says, teary and blush red. She is holding my face and it isn't in a bizarre way. "What happened, where did you go?"

"I just needed some..." I say and sniff up the threatening deluge, "Sorry. I just needed some time."

"Why what happened?" Willow says, her face filled with concern.

"A My Will Be Done spell, apparently" Anya says, looking at the crystal daggery thing, which is now flecked with green waves. She shakes it like a thermometer. "Huh, I was wrong about it being divine, it's just elemental, but in my defense, this was one super powerful Witch casting this."

"What are you talking about?" Willow says, looking back and forth between us.

"Xander bribed me with food stuffs because she wanted to find out how exactly he became a she."

"No, no, the foodstuffs were the apology for me being a complete dick to you" I correct.

"Oh that's right. You were a dick. So I guess you owe me eighteen fifty." She says. "Plus services, let's call it twenty five."

"Fine. Here." I pay Anya, who seems strangely delighted by the bills I hand over. My attention then falls on Willow, who is frozen to the spot, brow furrowed, eyes flicking back and forth.

I know that look.

"Willow, can we talk?" I say. "Outside?" I say firmer. "Now."


"I am sorry." Willow says as she follows me out into the street. I nod, and remain silent. "Like… really sorry."

"Mmmm hmmm"

"Xander… I… can't even begin to..."

"No. You can't."

I stop, trying to vent some of the heat in me in a long breath out through my teeth. One isn't enough. I aim this breath at the sky, and then have to press both my hands very firmly against the wall and make a growling noise. I fold my arms against the wall and let out a long strangled sort of a growl.

Human coping strategies are weird that way.

"Xander, you have to believe me, it was an accident. I am sorry." She says squatting down beside me, looking up. "Please don't be angry at me."

"Just." I hiss "Tell me why."

Willow slumps down so she is sitting against the wall. She looks off into space while I form this sort of red faced human arch against the wall next to her, contorting myself to stop from exploding.

"Remember when Anya and I met? She needed me to get her amulet back and it sort of went squiffy and we ended up summoning vampire me?"

"Keep. Going."

"It got me questioning stuff." She sighed. "And I realised that, I wasn't kinda gay. I was gay." She sighs, her lip trembling so that she bites it still for a moment. She swallows, and then shrugs. "And I was in love… with Tara."

A sort of hot laugh bursts from my mouth, just one, and I have to step away from the wall and draw air deeply into me. My ribs ached but it had to be done.

It is my turn to slump against the wall and slide down, palms to the brick work, ending my journey of discovery crumpled up beside her.

"We met at the Wicca group and she just… she is the real deal. We worked magic together, and talked for hours. Buffy would hang with us and they clicked too, so it was like this whole dynamic of her fitting in with everything in my life. She became… my world.

"One day, I just… I wanted to tell her, how I felt, but it is such a big leap. So, I, did a little spell to give me courage. To make me able to…

"And I felt great. Confident. Proud of who I was. I put my chin up and went over to her dorm and you know what I discovered?"

I closed my eyes, letting my skull thud pleasantly against the brickwork. She sighed and shrugged.

"Buffy and Tara. In bed together." She said, drawing her reddened face into something like her brave little soldier one. "All that time, I thought she liked me. Me. But she and Buffy had secretly been together for over a month. She was my world, Xander… my..."

I sigh and settle, the emotional steam is dying away leaving me heavy limbed. Still, I am simmering on the edge.

"It was a stupid, stupid little comment. I thought… I can never find someone like Tara. Nobody gets me like her. I just said to myself, no. Xander does. Xander gets me. I forgot about the My Will Be Done spell. A-a-nd i-It just slipped out."

"If only Xander were a girl." I growl, my lips forming a tight little smile.

We sit there, her and I, slumped against that wall, for some time as people walked on by. But as my numb mind clears, I think of Faith, and worry that she may oversleep her next round of pills. So I get up, and pick up my satchel and jumbo roll of toilet paper and dust off my damp ass.

"I can undo it." She says.

"Don't you dare, dare so much as think of me anywhere near another spell."

"I can, I promise. It's only one line I have to say, just one little line and..."

"Stop! Willow, just stop, okay. No. I said no. The very least thing, the most infinitesimally small thing that you can do for me, right now, or ever, is that. No magic. No charms. No counter spells. Nothing! No more meddling in my life Will. You can't imagine what I have been through because of… raaaaaah…. you so much as… I swear I will…"

"Xander… please." She sobs.

I claw the air in my rage, violent and terrible things rushing through my mind. I think of vampires wailing as I ram their heads into metal so hard it crumples, of stakes slamming home and punchbags torn from their chains.

"Xander…"

"No." I say, shaking. "Not one more word. Ever."

And that is that.

I just walk away.