Getting Off The Griefmobile
By Annakovsky
See part 1 for all relevant info and disclaimer.
***********
CHAPTER ELEVEN
***********
Xander woke up with the sun shining in his window, his curtains blowing in a slight breeze and a cloudless, gorgeous blue sky outside. He couldn't remember why he would have a sick feeling in his stomach, like someone had tied him in a knot, or like the Hellmouth was going to open in a few minutes and all he had were his wits to protect him.
Then he remembered his two major problems. Number one: kissing Willow two nights ago while watching MTV and now being too awkward to talk to each other. Number two: having to go to a fancy dress-up party tonight and pretend that he and Willow were a couple so they could talk to this demon about stopping the apocalypse.
Angel was really crappy at setting up meetings. Bastard.
Buffy was all, oh, it all worked out great! This demon actually happened to be in town, couldn't squeeze them in for a real meeting, but if they came to this private party he could give them five minutes. And Angel was going to get them on the guest list! Well, sure, that was peachy, except that Angel listed them as Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Harris. Thanks, buddy. He said he thought it'd make them fit in more or something at this all-demon and demon-friendly party, since the fake Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Harris were now apparently the owners of a fake catering company specifically geared towards the special needs of demons, supplying them with blood-larvae, live spiders, etc.
Too bad Willow hated spiders.
And he really knew Willow too well to be having this huge awkward stupid thing with her – hadn't they passed that point in their relationship? Besides, having survived to the ripe old age of 22 by some miracle, he should know better than to have half-assed semi-affairs with her, because, if memory served, it would just end with people being impaled and horrible break-ups and mountains of guilt. Not that either of them had anyone to break up with at the moment, but still. Either kiss her in the context of an actual relationship or don't kiss her at all, but sweet merciful Zeus, skulking around kissing in secret is a plan on the level of attacking the Mayor with hummus.
He was trying to convince himself that Anya would want him to move on, but he knew that wasn't true.
"Harris! I'm barely cold in my grave, and you're already making out with her? I always knew you loved Willow more than me."
He was going to throw up any minute now.
He was also pissed off, in general, at everything. At himself for getting into this situation. At Anya for dying on him. At Giles for being gone when he really wanted to hang around him and feel like there was at least one rational, comforting person left in the world. At Buffy for not even figuring out what was going on. At Willow for kissing him when she was *supposed* to be a lesbian and then for doing that whole babbling cutesy I'm-so-rattled-thing and hardly even looking at him afterwards. At Andrew and Dawn for being happy, the lucky bastards.
He had been doing okay with things, getting through the day, whatever. Dealing. But when they kissed he had suddenly felt this huge surge of emotion - first happiness but then a colossal indefinable mass of something else. It was like every emotion he'd ever had was clawing its way up his throat, especially everything he'd been trying not to feel lately, and he almost couldn't stand the pain. He was on the verge of tears and of screaming because it was all too much; he wanted to beat something up, maybe kick God in the shins.
Why is it that when life sucks you can deal with it as long as everybody's being normal, or even mean, but as soon as anybody's nice to you, that's the chink in the armor and that's when you break down?
So he had pulled back from the kiss because he could hardly breathe, feeling like someone had punched him in the stomach. He and Willow were staring at each other and her eyes were wide – and that, of course, was when Buffy had come back and they'd watched that stupid movie. And he and Willow had not talked since then.
That was the sucky part about all this, because they'd just been getting close again after... you know, everything. Growing apart because of college, their respective girlfriends, her attempt to kill all of them and end the world. The usual stuff. But in the last few months they'd been talking again, really talking. When he was in the hospital, they had cried and reminisced and told each other things they never had before. While they were driving around on the bus, they'd spent hours just rambling about random things, getting back to being best-friends, Xander-and-Willow again.
Stupid lips. They mess everything up.
And what made it even more confusing was that he loved Willow, he really did. It's just that the boundaries between best-friend-love and *love*-love were blurring and he didn't know which side of the line he was on. And for Pete's sake, he was grieving and she was *gay*, so it should all be a moot point, right?
He got up and took a shower.
The whole problem was really "The Real World"'s fault for being so boring that you ended up super aware of your best friend's every movement sitting beside you instead of concentrating on the show. If they had been watching a Seinfeld rerun this whole fiasco wouldn't have happened.
He got out of the shower and went down to the kitchen to get breakfast. Buffy and Dawn were there, eating non-fat yogurt and giggling about the respective hotness of Heath Ledger and Josh Hartnett. Then they started talking about nail polish colors. Why the hell was Giles gone when he should be here saving him from a sea of estrogen?
Willow came in, turned bright red when she saw him, and completely avoided meeting his gaze. She grabbed the Raisin Bran and sat down with Dawn and Buffy, chattering away like he wasn't even there.
He had reached an entirely new level of frustration and desperation. He went up to his tool bench and hammered some random things for awhile, as hard as he could, then asked Andrew if he wanted to go to the comic book store.
***********
TBC...
By Annakovsky
See part 1 for all relevant info and disclaimer.
***********
CHAPTER ELEVEN
***********
Xander woke up with the sun shining in his window, his curtains blowing in a slight breeze and a cloudless, gorgeous blue sky outside. He couldn't remember why he would have a sick feeling in his stomach, like someone had tied him in a knot, or like the Hellmouth was going to open in a few minutes and all he had were his wits to protect him.
Then he remembered his two major problems. Number one: kissing Willow two nights ago while watching MTV and now being too awkward to talk to each other. Number two: having to go to a fancy dress-up party tonight and pretend that he and Willow were a couple so they could talk to this demon about stopping the apocalypse.
Angel was really crappy at setting up meetings. Bastard.
Buffy was all, oh, it all worked out great! This demon actually happened to be in town, couldn't squeeze them in for a real meeting, but if they came to this private party he could give them five minutes. And Angel was going to get them on the guest list! Well, sure, that was peachy, except that Angel listed them as Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Harris. Thanks, buddy. He said he thought it'd make them fit in more or something at this all-demon and demon-friendly party, since the fake Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Harris were now apparently the owners of a fake catering company specifically geared towards the special needs of demons, supplying them with blood-larvae, live spiders, etc.
Too bad Willow hated spiders.
And he really knew Willow too well to be having this huge awkward stupid thing with her – hadn't they passed that point in their relationship? Besides, having survived to the ripe old age of 22 by some miracle, he should know better than to have half-assed semi-affairs with her, because, if memory served, it would just end with people being impaled and horrible break-ups and mountains of guilt. Not that either of them had anyone to break up with at the moment, but still. Either kiss her in the context of an actual relationship or don't kiss her at all, but sweet merciful Zeus, skulking around kissing in secret is a plan on the level of attacking the Mayor with hummus.
He was trying to convince himself that Anya would want him to move on, but he knew that wasn't true.
"Harris! I'm barely cold in my grave, and you're already making out with her? I always knew you loved Willow more than me."
He was going to throw up any minute now.
He was also pissed off, in general, at everything. At himself for getting into this situation. At Anya for dying on him. At Giles for being gone when he really wanted to hang around him and feel like there was at least one rational, comforting person left in the world. At Buffy for not even figuring out what was going on. At Willow for kissing him when she was *supposed* to be a lesbian and then for doing that whole babbling cutesy I'm-so-rattled-thing and hardly even looking at him afterwards. At Andrew and Dawn for being happy, the lucky bastards.
He had been doing okay with things, getting through the day, whatever. Dealing. But when they kissed he had suddenly felt this huge surge of emotion - first happiness but then a colossal indefinable mass of something else. It was like every emotion he'd ever had was clawing its way up his throat, especially everything he'd been trying not to feel lately, and he almost couldn't stand the pain. He was on the verge of tears and of screaming because it was all too much; he wanted to beat something up, maybe kick God in the shins.
Why is it that when life sucks you can deal with it as long as everybody's being normal, or even mean, but as soon as anybody's nice to you, that's the chink in the armor and that's when you break down?
So he had pulled back from the kiss because he could hardly breathe, feeling like someone had punched him in the stomach. He and Willow were staring at each other and her eyes were wide – and that, of course, was when Buffy had come back and they'd watched that stupid movie. And he and Willow had not talked since then.
That was the sucky part about all this, because they'd just been getting close again after... you know, everything. Growing apart because of college, their respective girlfriends, her attempt to kill all of them and end the world. The usual stuff. But in the last few months they'd been talking again, really talking. When he was in the hospital, they had cried and reminisced and told each other things they never had before. While they were driving around on the bus, they'd spent hours just rambling about random things, getting back to being best-friends, Xander-and-Willow again.
Stupid lips. They mess everything up.
And what made it even more confusing was that he loved Willow, he really did. It's just that the boundaries between best-friend-love and *love*-love were blurring and he didn't know which side of the line he was on. And for Pete's sake, he was grieving and she was *gay*, so it should all be a moot point, right?
He got up and took a shower.
The whole problem was really "The Real World"'s fault for being so boring that you ended up super aware of your best friend's every movement sitting beside you instead of concentrating on the show. If they had been watching a Seinfeld rerun this whole fiasco wouldn't have happened.
He got out of the shower and went down to the kitchen to get breakfast. Buffy and Dawn were there, eating non-fat yogurt and giggling about the respective hotness of Heath Ledger and Josh Hartnett. Then they started talking about nail polish colors. Why the hell was Giles gone when he should be here saving him from a sea of estrogen?
Willow came in, turned bright red when she saw him, and completely avoided meeting his gaze. She grabbed the Raisin Bran and sat down with Dawn and Buffy, chattering away like he wasn't even there.
He had reached an entirely new level of frustration and desperation. He went up to his tool bench and hammered some random things for awhile, as hard as he could, then asked Andrew if he wanted to go to the comic book store.
***********
TBC...