TITLE: Vying For Your Touch
AUTHOR: Rebecca Parker
EMAIL:
LaVelleBelle@aol.com
RATING: R (language, sex talk)
SUMMARY:
Xander gets a shock.
SPOILERS: Really only up to "Into the
Woods"
FEEDBACK: Yes please!
DISCLAIMER: Joss and Mutant
Enemy own all.
DISTRIBUTION: At my site (http://www.ourowndestiny.com)
and FINNatics. All others, please ask.
DEDICATION: To Jenfr, who
inspires me.
NOTE: The title is from a lyric in Ani DiFranco's song
"Untouchable Face" Also, this is just a rambling little ficlet. I'm evil.
Did you ever notice that something that has the ability to
make you incredibly happy also has the ability to rip you to shreds?
It's one of God's funny jokes. What's that saying? If you want proof of
God's sense of humor, just look at the platypus?
I say just look at
love. It's fucking hilarious.
So when I stood there and watched as
Anya kissed Giles in the backroom of the Magic Box, I couldn't help but
laugh.
They looked at me, that familiar shock/shame thing on both
of their faces and I cringed inside remembering being on the other end of it. I
imagined I looked something like a mixture of Cordelia and Oz right about now. I
wasn't cool enough to be...well, cool like Oz, and I wasn't as comfortable with
my feminine side to look as shocked and destroyed as Cordelia. But I was
somewhere in-between and so I laughed.
"Xander," Giles said,
pulling out of his embrace with my girlfriend and I couldn't help but notice
that his hand was still on her arm, lingering there as if waiting for me to
leave so they could begin again. "This can be explained."
"Ah," I
said, the laughter still sitting in the bottom of my throat waiting for another
occasion to let it loose. "An explanation," I repeated, looking down. I really
needed new shoes.
I could hear Anya trying to think of something
to say; she has this low breathy way of pre-forming her words when she's in a
new situation. I heard her make the same sound once when I asked her what she
thought of anal sex and I laughed then too. Whoever thought that I could shock
Anya?
"Don't," I said, my voice harsh as I still kept my eyes on the
ground. I don't want to hear what she has to say although I'm sure I'll find it
amusing. At the very least, ironic. I mean, she spent 1,100 or so years
punishing cheaters and here she is- one herself. Of course, if you look at it
from another angle, this is the ultimate vengeance. Maybe D'Hoffryn will give
her her powers back now that she finally "got" me. Cordelia, wherever you are-
congrats. You won.
"I'm just gonna turn around," I said, looking
up at them and my eyes automatically transfixed on his hand still on her damn
arm like he owned it. I touched that arms plenty of times, Giles. I've touched
places you'd need months to find.
"I'm gonna turn around," I
continued, feeling my hands curl into a fist, "and I'm going to leave." I want
to add words like "scream, beat and pummel" to that sentence but five years of
being the good guy is a hell of a thing to get over in the space of 5
minutes.
5 minutes. That's how long she usually lasts before she
comes the first time. 5 minutes. That's how long it takes me to get ready before
I go to work. 5 minutes. That's how long Buffy was dead before I brought her
back.
I have to snap out of it. I'm just standing here like an
idiot, watching that hand run up her arm in an odd form of
comfort-seduce-massage and I want nothing more than to rip that hand off and
beat him with it.
But it's Giles. The guy who's been like a father
to me and now here he is, in the first stages of foreplay with my girlfriend. My
girl. Mine. I hate to sound possessive, but damnit, she's mine. She's been
everything to me for the last year and a half, and as far as I knew (which,
staring at the two of them "together", wasn't very much) I was everything to
her.
So all of the sudden there's this kink in this plan. This
in-his-40's-watcher-kink in the plan. All of the sudden, everything I had
thought would happen between Anya and I was just some cheap dime novel where
everyone lives happily ever after.
Fiction. False. Not real. Like
me standing here, feeling myself begin to laugh again. I watch as Giles shoots
Anya a glance as if they're half scared for me, and half scared of me, and I
turn around.
I'm going to leave now. One foot over the other. I've
been doing this for years- it should be a perfected art, damnit, but I can feel
myself stumbling a bit as I walk out into the shop.
"Xander?"
Willow asks, looking up from the books. She gives me this odd look as if I came
out of the backroom in a girdle and flippers.
"Gotta go Will," I
hear myself say, and I hold down another burst of laughter. I know if I come out
looking like I do and THEN laugh, there will be no getting rid of her. I might
as well have walked out of the room with a sign saying "Hey, Wait 5 minutes and
you can watch my girlfriend fuck the old man."
I'm not really good
at hiding things.
Anya and Giles are.
As I walk out
of the Magic Box, I wonder just how long this has been going on for. I wonder
how it started. I wonder if he's made it between her legs yet and found out how
great she tastes. I wonder if he's a better lover than I am and if I'm going to
have to spend the rest of my life competing with him.
I'm about
two blocks down now, and I finally stop, leaning against a wall and taking a
deep breath. I wonder if this is what Buffy felt like when she found Riley with
that vampire. I wish I had slayer powers right about now. Maybe then I'd be able
to hit something as hard as I want to and not break my hand in 32 places.
I look up at the house in front of me and grimace as I read the sign
dangling from the front porch. "Home is where your Heart Is."
In
that case, I should go home. Now if only I could find directions to the bottom
of Anya's shoe.
I'm sure Giles could give them to me.
Before I know it, I'm laughing again as I start to walk back to my
apartment, my mind already pouring that glass of whiskey I so desperately
need.
Giles drinks whiskey.
"Damnit," I say,
stopping in the middle of the street. I frown as I watch a few people look up at
me as if I'm some freak Glory's brain-sucked. "Sorry," I mutter, sticking my
hands in my pockets and continuing on my trek home. I try not to think about
what just went down and so I go back to my usual avoidance-train of
thought.
Buffy in a red dress. A nice slit up the side, showing
her tanned muscles.
Buffy in a bikini. Not one of those trampy
ones Britney Spears or whoever trounces around in, but a tasteful one. A sexy
one. It's green. Not pine tree green. Green like her eyes.
Now
she's looking up at me and I breathe a sigh of relief as I relive the moment.
"Xander," she says, and I run my thumb across her forehead, pushing back the wet
strands of hair that had affixed themselves to her forehead. I brought her
back.
See. I can do something right.
Let me get
something straight. It's not like I'm still into her. I'll always find her sexy,
yeah. I mean- she's Buffy. The girl's fit and can kick your ass. There's just
not much sexier than that.
She's just constant. There'll always be
Buffy. I need to clear my mind- Buffy in a bikini gets it done every single
time.
A few more Buffy thoughts and I'm back in my apartment. Our
apartment. Anya and my apartment.
I wonder if Giles wants to move
in. Really, we could do some hip swinger thing.
But not.
I've got that damn bottle of whiskey in my hands in 5 seconds flat and,
of course, I fumble with the cap. A few more seconds of cursing and twisting,
and I have the bottle to my throat, the warm liquid sliding down my
throat.
I'm determined to get through this night. Forget about the
fucked up thing I just saw, concentrate on Buffy in that green bikini and just
deal with it tomorrow.
I wonder if his hand is still on her
arm.
Enough.
