I have no idea what you say in these situations. Has this situation even
happened before? I think Buffy is trying to think of something to break the
ice, or maybe test if it's really me. To work out if it's safe to step over
the boundary of the house.
Willow is just staring at me. It's like she's looking into my soul. Our eyes lock for a second and she runs out of the house and into my arms. She's talking to me and I don't even hear her. I'm just so glad that my best friend since kinder garden still feels safe around me. We remain entangled for a few moments longer before she pulls back slightly and looks into my eyes, she smiles and says "Welcome home Xander" before kissing me lightly on the cheek.
The moment reminds me of my vision quest a little too much and I step out of her embrace quickly. I can see Buffy peering at me now, like she's trying to work something out. I know that Buffy won't accept me as easily as Willow has and I find myself staring at my feet. As a result I don't see Buffy launch herself at me, I only barely remain on my feet, and as I regain my balance I find Buffy hanging from my neck, her feet a good foot from the ground. I stand there stunned for a second before returning her embrace. I know I have the biggest goofy grin plastered across my face, the two most important people in my life can accept me, and I really don't need anything else.
"I missed you." She says it so quietly that I almost miss it. I never would have believed that Buffy could sound so small and scared. "I missed you too." And words cannot describe how much I've missed them. For a while I doubted whether I would see them again, and now I have them back I'm never leaving again. Slowly Buffy let's herself down and grabs my left hand while Willow grabs my right, they slowly lead me into the house as Willow invites me across the threshold.
I sit on the couch opposite my two best friends. We're smiling, but not really talking, things are pretty awkward. Finally Buffy gets up the courage to speak. "So are you gonna show us?" "Show you what?" I ask with a grin on my face, I know exactly what she's asking. "You know, your grrr face." On the grrr she scrunches up her face and holds her hands up as little claws, I can't help but snicker, so she just scowls at me. "Ok, you win." I start to shift my face slowly. I was practicing this on the drive to LA, I've seen Spike shift into his game face much slower than regular vamps, and it just looks cool. I can feel my canines extending as my forehead starts to extend and my ears begin to point, the whole thing takes about ten seconds. They start to edge towards me, staring at my now demonesque face. Buffy gingerly touches my brow ridge while staring into my eyes.
"Your eyes are brown." She states it as a fact, trying to get me to tell her without actually having to ask. "Yup" I'm about to go on when Willow, staring intently at my mouth, prods one of my fangs. "Hey. Wif..." My attempt at my best friends name is cut short as my fang sinks in to her thumb. She snatches her hand back as I sink into myself, much as my demonic visage sinks back into my skin.
Well done Xander, two minutes inside and you've already drawn blood and managed to hurt Willow yet again. Why don't you go kill her goldfish now and be done with it?
She's staring intently at me, like she's looking into my soul. She knows what I'm thinking and I find myself amazed that there's no recrimination in her face. I shouldn't be surprised; in all the years I've known her she has never once held an action of mine against me, at least not for long. She seems to come to a decision and kneels in front of me, holding her thumb towards me and pouting ever so slightly. Buffy's looking on in confusion and slight agitation as I realise what Willow wants me to do.
I remember a day when we were about eight. Willow had come with me to the park. Willow fell off the swings. I ran over to her asking if she was alright. She just knelt there with tears forming in her eyes, ready to burst into tears. She didn't say anything, just held her grazed hand out, like I could somehow make it all better. I wanted so much to just make her smile again; even then I hated seeing my Willow cry. So I did something that I had seen so many parents do, even though neither of ours had ever shown enough interest to do it for us, I took her hand and kissed the graze. "Kiss it better" I repeated the phrase I had heard in the playground so many times before. And like magic the tears seemed to disappear, she sniffled a bit, and then smiled. It's been one of my enduring memories from childhood, it's the day I realised that making Willow smile was almost certainly the reason I existed.
And now she's holding out her bloodied thumb, letting me know that even as a vampire she trusts me, with her safety, with her life, with her blood.
I smile as I reach out and take her hand, ignoring the tingling where her hand touches mine, and kiss the drop of blood from her thumb. As soon as I've done that she launches herself into my arms, hugging me with all her strength. Having her so close to me is almost overpowering, I can feel her heart pounding against my chest, the scent from her hair fills my nose, and the taste of her in my mouth feels like it's scorching itself into my brain. I feel like every second I've ever spent with my best friend is being condensed into this moment. I scrunch my eyes closed at the assault on my senses. I can actually feel the blood flowing in her veins. Smell the faint scent of her skin underneath the vanilla deodorant she wears. I can feel the magic within her reaching out to the now supernatural parts of my very soul. And I continue to be assaulted by the flood of images, scents, and sounds from our shared history: Willow and me at the park, Willow with her Barbie, Willow trying on her prom dress, Willow in a coma, Willow with tears in her eyes holding a broken yellow crayon, and a thousand other images reminding me who my world revolves around.
It takes me a few seconds to realise that she's pulled away from me. As my breath starts to slow down and my senses start to come back to normal I take in the appearance of my friends, who are once again looking at me with concern written on their faces. As I go to speak a thought strikes me, I can actually feel Willows blood joining with mine in my veins, I can't help but smile as I speak. "I didn't think we could get much closer." Indicating my teeth, I can tell Willow understands my meaning. "Come on, let's go see Giles." Buffy breaks me out of my thought, and I nod in agreement.
People who see me on the street probably think I'm the luckiest guy on earth, and right now I'd have to agree with them. I'm walking along with a beautiful woman on each arm, my two best friends, the witch and the slayer. We're talking, laughing, and enjoying each others company. Both my friends cling to my arms as if they think I'm suddenly going to disappear from their life again. Anybody who saw us would probably assume that we had been out drinking at the bronze, that the girls were clinging to me for support, they certainly wouldn't realise that in about half an hour I'm going to be describing this weeks apocalypse that needs to be stopped. But for now I put that out of my mind and revel in the companionship of two of the greatest people in the world. Unfortunately I can't help but be distracted by the feel of Willows body pressed against my arm and have to keep reminding myself that she's seeing Tara, a girl that seems to make Willow happy, something that I'm all for. Which I've just realised is something that I don't think I've made clear; I've never really made much of an effort to be Tara's friend, and if she's dating my Willow then I really should have made more effort, something I promise myself to correct.
I'm pulled from my thoughts by the sound and smell of a group of six vampires trying to surround us, while I can't see them yet I can tell that they've pretty much succeeded. I stop walking and mouth the word 'vampire' to Buffy and she nods in understanding as I squeeze her arm, indicating for her to wait. I turn round to face the vamp who I believe is the leader and slip into my game face.
"These two are mine, get your own dinner." I state it simply, glaring at the vampire in front of me; at this distance I shouldn't look any different from any other vampire. "You can have the red head, but the other one's ours, you have no idea what you're getting into with her anyway." So they know Buffy's the slayer, they're actually doing this deliberately. I slip out of game face and walk towards the vampire.
"You're not from LA by any chance?" The look of surprise on his face is all the answer I need, and I quickly slip a stake up through his stomach, into his heart. I don't wait for him to turn to dust as I jump the distance between me and the two nearest vamps, knocking them to the ground. I manage to stake one before he can get up, then turn to check on my friends. Buffy and Willow are dealing with the other three vampires, doesn't look like they need any help. I focus back on my remaining vampire too late and get a fist across my jaw. The next one, however, I catch in my left hand and twist round behind his back. I quickly bring my stake up to hover over his heart.
"Bosses name." I say with a fair amount of menace. "Not gonna aaaaaaaaargh!" I've broken his wrist; I think he gets the message. "Bosses name." "Linus!" I have to stop myself from laughing at that, I've got images of a vampire with a security blanket. "When's he getting into town?" "Tonight." "Does he have acathla yet?" The look on his face tells me he doesn't know anything, so I stake him and turn to my friends. Buffy's just finished one vamp, but the last one is coming up behind her, I fling my stake catching him in the back. Without turning around Buffy just says. "I knew he was there you know." "Yeh but how often do I get the chance to save the slayer?" She turns round and just looks at me, I feel a bit guilty about my comment now, as I can tell she's thinking about that night in the masters cave and a half dozen other occasions. "Ok, maybe a few times." I walk over and put my arms round the shoulders of my friends as we continue on to the magic box.
Willow and Buffy are trying to convince me its ok, but I'm having a hard time believing them. I'm standing outside the magic box and I've got an overwhelming sense of fear. I don't know how Giles is going to react and I'm surprised just how scared I am that he'll reject me. I don't think I ever realised how much I care about Giles's approval, for a long time I thought of him as the father that biology had denied me, and I guess a fair amount of that feeling has remained with me. The thing that finally gives me the courage to enter is my newly acquired demon senses, I can smell fear and anxiety, or I guess odours associated with them, pouring out of the door, someone in there is as anxious about this meeting as me. As I enter the shop I can see Giles standing behind the counter stirring some tea, there's no steam coming from the cup and I'd guess he's been stirring it for a while. He doesn't seem to have noticed us enter the shop.
"Um, hi." My throat is embarrassingly tight as I talk. Giles turns around uncertainly; I see a smile cross his face, which quickly disappears. He then takes his glasses off, probably to polish them, but thinks better of it and puts them back on. Next he starts to walk towards me, but stops again. I figure considering the amount of support I've had from my friends during these encounters that it's about time I took some initiative. So I stride over to my long time mentor and embrace him. "It's good to see you again." He pats me on the back, obviously uncomfortable with the public display of affection. "Quite."
I release him from my embrace and he immediately starts polishing his glasses. "I'm glad to see that you saw your death as something you could overcome. It's good to have you back." I can almost see a smile on his face now, but it's clearly competing with concern, and the concern seems to be winning. "I got a call from Cordelia, she says we can be expecting a particularly nasty vampire to be showing up soon." And so with those few words reunion time's over and I'm right back into fighting the forces of evil. I sit down at the research table and gesture for my friends to sit.
"The vampires name is Linus" I stop while Willow giggles, probably having the same Snoopy thoughts I had, I try to scowl at her but it ends up turning into a grin as she looks at me with a smirk on her face. "He's able to use magic and from what Wesley's told me he'll be pretty powerful." "What does he want?" Willows question is laced with worry, as our resident witch she'll be worrying about whether she's up to this challenge. It always surprises me how little confidence she has in her abilities. I pause before answering her question, both to let them realise it's serious, but also to give me time to gauge their reactions.
"He's going to raise Acathla." I'm surprised that Giles appears to be the most shocked, while both Buffy and Willow have gone quiet, the colour has drained from his face. "What do they need to do this?" His voice is a croak and I realise he's about to give us some very bad news. "Wesley thinks they need some rare orb and part of Acathla. What's the matter?" His face seems to fall even more, and I take a look around the magic box, noting for the first time several breakages. "They've already got them haven't they?" It's more of a statement than a question.
"There was a break in last night. They took an orb of Thessla which I had managed to acquire for..." He breaks off, we all know why he had the orb, in case I returned and went on a crazed killing spree, everyone's eyes are averted from mine as he continues. "and I had part of Acathla placed in the floor over there." He indicates a large hole in the floor, which I had somehow failed to notice up till now. "Well on the up side, he's not in Sunnydale yet, and I know where the ritual is being held. So I suggest we all get some sleep and we can go prevent the apocalypse tomorrow." "That sounds like a good idea, Xander if you come with me I'll show you where you can sleep." Giles turns to face the girls as he continues "I suggest you two get home and get some sleep." As Giles is leading me out towards the training area a thought strays through my mind and I turn to face Buffy. "Hey, are you going to do a patrol before heading back?" "I was just planning to do a small one." "Ok, if you want to wait a sec I'll come with you." With that I let Giles show me through to the training room, part of it has been sectioned off with cubicle partitioning, inside there's a mattress and some chest of draws. "Of course it's just temporary." Giles is speaking behind me. "We'll figure something a bit more permanent later." I turn round to face him. "Thank you." There's nothing else I can really say. He gives me some keys for the magic box and I head out with Buffy.
Willow is just staring at me. It's like she's looking into my soul. Our eyes lock for a second and she runs out of the house and into my arms. She's talking to me and I don't even hear her. I'm just so glad that my best friend since kinder garden still feels safe around me. We remain entangled for a few moments longer before she pulls back slightly and looks into my eyes, she smiles and says "Welcome home Xander" before kissing me lightly on the cheek.
The moment reminds me of my vision quest a little too much and I step out of her embrace quickly. I can see Buffy peering at me now, like she's trying to work something out. I know that Buffy won't accept me as easily as Willow has and I find myself staring at my feet. As a result I don't see Buffy launch herself at me, I only barely remain on my feet, and as I regain my balance I find Buffy hanging from my neck, her feet a good foot from the ground. I stand there stunned for a second before returning her embrace. I know I have the biggest goofy grin plastered across my face, the two most important people in my life can accept me, and I really don't need anything else.
"I missed you." She says it so quietly that I almost miss it. I never would have believed that Buffy could sound so small and scared. "I missed you too." And words cannot describe how much I've missed them. For a while I doubted whether I would see them again, and now I have them back I'm never leaving again. Slowly Buffy let's herself down and grabs my left hand while Willow grabs my right, they slowly lead me into the house as Willow invites me across the threshold.
I sit on the couch opposite my two best friends. We're smiling, but not really talking, things are pretty awkward. Finally Buffy gets up the courage to speak. "So are you gonna show us?" "Show you what?" I ask with a grin on my face, I know exactly what she's asking. "You know, your grrr face." On the grrr she scrunches up her face and holds her hands up as little claws, I can't help but snicker, so she just scowls at me. "Ok, you win." I start to shift my face slowly. I was practicing this on the drive to LA, I've seen Spike shift into his game face much slower than regular vamps, and it just looks cool. I can feel my canines extending as my forehead starts to extend and my ears begin to point, the whole thing takes about ten seconds. They start to edge towards me, staring at my now demonesque face. Buffy gingerly touches my brow ridge while staring into my eyes.
"Your eyes are brown." She states it as a fact, trying to get me to tell her without actually having to ask. "Yup" I'm about to go on when Willow, staring intently at my mouth, prods one of my fangs. "Hey. Wif..." My attempt at my best friends name is cut short as my fang sinks in to her thumb. She snatches her hand back as I sink into myself, much as my demonic visage sinks back into my skin.
Well done Xander, two minutes inside and you've already drawn blood and managed to hurt Willow yet again. Why don't you go kill her goldfish now and be done with it?
She's staring intently at me, like she's looking into my soul. She knows what I'm thinking and I find myself amazed that there's no recrimination in her face. I shouldn't be surprised; in all the years I've known her she has never once held an action of mine against me, at least not for long. She seems to come to a decision and kneels in front of me, holding her thumb towards me and pouting ever so slightly. Buffy's looking on in confusion and slight agitation as I realise what Willow wants me to do.
I remember a day when we were about eight. Willow had come with me to the park. Willow fell off the swings. I ran over to her asking if she was alright. She just knelt there with tears forming in her eyes, ready to burst into tears. She didn't say anything, just held her grazed hand out, like I could somehow make it all better. I wanted so much to just make her smile again; even then I hated seeing my Willow cry. So I did something that I had seen so many parents do, even though neither of ours had ever shown enough interest to do it for us, I took her hand and kissed the graze. "Kiss it better" I repeated the phrase I had heard in the playground so many times before. And like magic the tears seemed to disappear, she sniffled a bit, and then smiled. It's been one of my enduring memories from childhood, it's the day I realised that making Willow smile was almost certainly the reason I existed.
And now she's holding out her bloodied thumb, letting me know that even as a vampire she trusts me, with her safety, with her life, with her blood.
I smile as I reach out and take her hand, ignoring the tingling where her hand touches mine, and kiss the drop of blood from her thumb. As soon as I've done that she launches herself into my arms, hugging me with all her strength. Having her so close to me is almost overpowering, I can feel her heart pounding against my chest, the scent from her hair fills my nose, and the taste of her in my mouth feels like it's scorching itself into my brain. I feel like every second I've ever spent with my best friend is being condensed into this moment. I scrunch my eyes closed at the assault on my senses. I can actually feel the blood flowing in her veins. Smell the faint scent of her skin underneath the vanilla deodorant she wears. I can feel the magic within her reaching out to the now supernatural parts of my very soul. And I continue to be assaulted by the flood of images, scents, and sounds from our shared history: Willow and me at the park, Willow with her Barbie, Willow trying on her prom dress, Willow in a coma, Willow with tears in her eyes holding a broken yellow crayon, and a thousand other images reminding me who my world revolves around.
It takes me a few seconds to realise that she's pulled away from me. As my breath starts to slow down and my senses start to come back to normal I take in the appearance of my friends, who are once again looking at me with concern written on their faces. As I go to speak a thought strikes me, I can actually feel Willows blood joining with mine in my veins, I can't help but smile as I speak. "I didn't think we could get much closer." Indicating my teeth, I can tell Willow understands my meaning. "Come on, let's go see Giles." Buffy breaks me out of my thought, and I nod in agreement.
People who see me on the street probably think I'm the luckiest guy on earth, and right now I'd have to agree with them. I'm walking along with a beautiful woman on each arm, my two best friends, the witch and the slayer. We're talking, laughing, and enjoying each others company. Both my friends cling to my arms as if they think I'm suddenly going to disappear from their life again. Anybody who saw us would probably assume that we had been out drinking at the bronze, that the girls were clinging to me for support, they certainly wouldn't realise that in about half an hour I'm going to be describing this weeks apocalypse that needs to be stopped. But for now I put that out of my mind and revel in the companionship of two of the greatest people in the world. Unfortunately I can't help but be distracted by the feel of Willows body pressed against my arm and have to keep reminding myself that she's seeing Tara, a girl that seems to make Willow happy, something that I'm all for. Which I've just realised is something that I don't think I've made clear; I've never really made much of an effort to be Tara's friend, and if she's dating my Willow then I really should have made more effort, something I promise myself to correct.
I'm pulled from my thoughts by the sound and smell of a group of six vampires trying to surround us, while I can't see them yet I can tell that they've pretty much succeeded. I stop walking and mouth the word 'vampire' to Buffy and she nods in understanding as I squeeze her arm, indicating for her to wait. I turn round to face the vamp who I believe is the leader and slip into my game face.
"These two are mine, get your own dinner." I state it simply, glaring at the vampire in front of me; at this distance I shouldn't look any different from any other vampire. "You can have the red head, but the other one's ours, you have no idea what you're getting into with her anyway." So they know Buffy's the slayer, they're actually doing this deliberately. I slip out of game face and walk towards the vampire.
"You're not from LA by any chance?" The look of surprise on his face is all the answer I need, and I quickly slip a stake up through his stomach, into his heart. I don't wait for him to turn to dust as I jump the distance between me and the two nearest vamps, knocking them to the ground. I manage to stake one before he can get up, then turn to check on my friends. Buffy and Willow are dealing with the other three vampires, doesn't look like they need any help. I focus back on my remaining vampire too late and get a fist across my jaw. The next one, however, I catch in my left hand and twist round behind his back. I quickly bring my stake up to hover over his heart.
"Bosses name." I say with a fair amount of menace. "Not gonna aaaaaaaaargh!" I've broken his wrist; I think he gets the message. "Bosses name." "Linus!" I have to stop myself from laughing at that, I've got images of a vampire with a security blanket. "When's he getting into town?" "Tonight." "Does he have acathla yet?" The look on his face tells me he doesn't know anything, so I stake him and turn to my friends. Buffy's just finished one vamp, but the last one is coming up behind her, I fling my stake catching him in the back. Without turning around Buffy just says. "I knew he was there you know." "Yeh but how often do I get the chance to save the slayer?" She turns round and just looks at me, I feel a bit guilty about my comment now, as I can tell she's thinking about that night in the masters cave and a half dozen other occasions. "Ok, maybe a few times." I walk over and put my arms round the shoulders of my friends as we continue on to the magic box.
Willow and Buffy are trying to convince me its ok, but I'm having a hard time believing them. I'm standing outside the magic box and I've got an overwhelming sense of fear. I don't know how Giles is going to react and I'm surprised just how scared I am that he'll reject me. I don't think I ever realised how much I care about Giles's approval, for a long time I thought of him as the father that biology had denied me, and I guess a fair amount of that feeling has remained with me. The thing that finally gives me the courage to enter is my newly acquired demon senses, I can smell fear and anxiety, or I guess odours associated with them, pouring out of the door, someone in there is as anxious about this meeting as me. As I enter the shop I can see Giles standing behind the counter stirring some tea, there's no steam coming from the cup and I'd guess he's been stirring it for a while. He doesn't seem to have noticed us enter the shop.
"Um, hi." My throat is embarrassingly tight as I talk. Giles turns around uncertainly; I see a smile cross his face, which quickly disappears. He then takes his glasses off, probably to polish them, but thinks better of it and puts them back on. Next he starts to walk towards me, but stops again. I figure considering the amount of support I've had from my friends during these encounters that it's about time I took some initiative. So I stride over to my long time mentor and embrace him. "It's good to see you again." He pats me on the back, obviously uncomfortable with the public display of affection. "Quite."
I release him from my embrace and he immediately starts polishing his glasses. "I'm glad to see that you saw your death as something you could overcome. It's good to have you back." I can almost see a smile on his face now, but it's clearly competing with concern, and the concern seems to be winning. "I got a call from Cordelia, she says we can be expecting a particularly nasty vampire to be showing up soon." And so with those few words reunion time's over and I'm right back into fighting the forces of evil. I sit down at the research table and gesture for my friends to sit.
"The vampires name is Linus" I stop while Willow giggles, probably having the same Snoopy thoughts I had, I try to scowl at her but it ends up turning into a grin as she looks at me with a smirk on her face. "He's able to use magic and from what Wesley's told me he'll be pretty powerful." "What does he want?" Willows question is laced with worry, as our resident witch she'll be worrying about whether she's up to this challenge. It always surprises me how little confidence she has in her abilities. I pause before answering her question, both to let them realise it's serious, but also to give me time to gauge their reactions.
"He's going to raise Acathla." I'm surprised that Giles appears to be the most shocked, while both Buffy and Willow have gone quiet, the colour has drained from his face. "What do they need to do this?" His voice is a croak and I realise he's about to give us some very bad news. "Wesley thinks they need some rare orb and part of Acathla. What's the matter?" His face seems to fall even more, and I take a look around the magic box, noting for the first time several breakages. "They've already got them haven't they?" It's more of a statement than a question.
"There was a break in last night. They took an orb of Thessla which I had managed to acquire for..." He breaks off, we all know why he had the orb, in case I returned and went on a crazed killing spree, everyone's eyes are averted from mine as he continues. "and I had part of Acathla placed in the floor over there." He indicates a large hole in the floor, which I had somehow failed to notice up till now. "Well on the up side, he's not in Sunnydale yet, and I know where the ritual is being held. So I suggest we all get some sleep and we can go prevent the apocalypse tomorrow." "That sounds like a good idea, Xander if you come with me I'll show you where you can sleep." Giles turns to face the girls as he continues "I suggest you two get home and get some sleep." As Giles is leading me out towards the training area a thought strays through my mind and I turn to face Buffy. "Hey, are you going to do a patrol before heading back?" "I was just planning to do a small one." "Ok, if you want to wait a sec I'll come with you." With that I let Giles show me through to the training room, part of it has been sectioned off with cubicle partitioning, inside there's a mattress and some chest of draws. "Of course it's just temporary." Giles is speaking behind me. "We'll figure something a bit more permanent later." I turn round to face him. "Thank you." There's nothing else I can really say. He gives me some keys for the magic box and I head out with Buffy.