Entry tags:
Five Steps to Happiness
Author: ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
misse
Artist: I couldn’t get an artist, so I found a source of Giles/Xander icons that I liked, which was offered freely.
Link to Art: The home page of the icons
Fandom(s): Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters/Pairings: Giles/Xander
Summary: Five stages in Giles and Xander’s relationship
Warnings: Do I really need to warn for slash? It’s the PG version, no clothes were removed during the making of this fic. (sigh…)
Love at First Sight
Xander hid between the bookshelves, clutching the math book he’d been sent to the library by Willow to find. As it turned out, Willow’s wow/amazing/so cool librarian from a cool British museum (or maybe the British Museum) was Buffy’s enabler of weird and, frankly, horrific fantasies. Had to be that: they were talking about vampires for crying out loud! And dead people, and Slayers, and sucking things. (Hmm… Buffy and sucking things… Gah! Wipe the drool, and get your mind back on track.)
Oh, and now he’s talking about duty. (Dude, this is California: do we even have that word in our dictionaries?) Oh, and every horror movie and every nightmare? And all of it was real, according to Mr horrifically-British-and-dutiful. Werewolves and zombies? Needed to be back in his comics, except that all that information came in a handy Time-Life series, complete with free phone or calendar: who knew? And someone needed to get a life. Somewhere far (far!) from the D&D game board, too. Of course, both of them took off, leaving Xander alone (hopefully) in the library with his math book, which was as much horror as he was constitutionally capable of handling, thank you very much.
“May I help you?”
Xander started; the librarian was back, and – hey! – he knew that look. The screwy mouth, ‘jeez, now I have to deal with this’ look. “Uh, yeah. I, um, need to check this book out.”
The librarian scowled at him, as if to determine what breed of vermin he was. “You do not have a maths text?” he asked, raising his eyebrows in what was no doubt an elegant and adult manner.
“Uh … no. That would be why I’m checking it out now,” Xander reasoned in a tone he knew adults despised, but couldn’t quite avoid (and secretly quite liked; messing with adults could be dangerously fun.)
The librarian’s eyes slid to the whopping great big book still sitting on the reading table, but Xander steadfastly refused to look at it. Nope, no way was he going to ogle the ‘Vampyr’ book creepy stalker dude had been threatening the hot new girl with. “Well … I guess I’d better,” he waved vaguely at the check-out counter, “process that for you.”
“Would be an idea,” Xander nodded firmly, making sure to place the book on the counter, rather than in the librarian’s hands. No need to let the creepy stalker dude too close.
The process of checking the book out was relatively simple, and soon Xander was exiting the library with a speed suitable to a young man escaping a den of torture, er, place of learning. Now all he had to do was figure out whether to avoid Buffy, out her, or just ignore the whole thing. Ignoring it all had many benefits, but then he ran the risk of innocently coming up against the librarian’s enabling of teenage fantasies. Although, thinking about it, it did kind of explain the (admit it!) stake she’d dropped earlier.
Getting to Know You
“G-man, G-ster, the Big G,” Xander greeted as he strode into the library, grinning broadly.
“Dear Lord, Xander, must you call me those ridiculous names?” Giles complained, scowling bemusedly at the young man.
Xander smirked, and raised a paper bag, shaking it. “I brought your favourite doughnuts,” he offered.
Giles focused on the bag hanging in plain sight. “Oh,” he temporised, “well, I, I guess you could, uh, be forgiven for your little peccadillos.”
Xander dropped the bag in front of Giles, and dropped into a chair at the study table. “’Peccadillos’,” he tried the word out, “sounds vaguely naughty. You’re not saying naughty words in front of vulnerable children, are you?” Xander asked, aiming shocked puppy eyes at the learned educator.
Giles looked at Xander over his glasses, considering, before choosing to take the obvious bait of a distraction. “I’ll have you know, ‘peccadillo’ is a very proper word, meaning ‘small sin.’ I was accusing you of being a little naughty, not like … like,” he glanced at the book Xander had open, “oh dear, not at all like that!” he indicated an individual on the plate the book was displaying.
Xander looked at the picture, tilted his head, then turned the book around. He then turned it back. “Is that even physically possible?” he asked after a long moment.
“Not for humans, no,” Giles admitted, “though that,” he pointed at another couple on the page, “is quite a lot of fun, if you can manage it.”
Xander glanced at the older man through his eyelashes. “That’s two guys together,” he offered. “Are you, uh, going on someone’s recommendation, or…” he trailed off, blushing.
Giles started back, suddenly remembering where he was. “Oh, well, um, that is -”
“And this is where we start looking at books that won’t have us blushing like an anime schoolgirl when the girls come in and find us reading them,” Xander decided, quickly switching his book for something that looked a whole lot more boring.
“Er, yes,” Giles nodded eagerly. He continued to read for a moment then stood. “Er, tea?” he offered.
Xander looked up from his book (Ugh, Greek. Worse: Attic, not Koine.) and contemplated for a moment before making a face. “Yeah,” he sighed. “Thanks,” he added, just to show he wasn’t quite the savage certain trolls of a principal-y disposition thought him to be.
Giles returned shortly with a mug of tea, and the two of them kept at their studies until Buffy and Willow arrived, having attended to some desperately necessary shopping (Slaying was murder on clothes.) Willow immediately migrated to ‘that infernal machine’ (You have got to stop calling it that, Willow reminded him; we are right over the Hellmouth, you know) to check the morgue’s database while Buffy sat at the table, poking dispiritedly at a book until she could legitimately go on patrol.
There being no actual monster-of-the-week (it was only Monday, so Buffy was probably holding out hope) Buffy offered to walk Willow home as a prelude to her actual patrol, while Giles and Xander lingered to tidy away the books they’d been using. Everything cleared away, the two men walked out of the library, switching off the lights and locking the doors.
Chatting aimlessly, Giles drove Xander home in the Watcher-mobile. When they arrived, Xander looked at his home, then back to Giles. After a moment, he threw caution to the wind. “So, uh, what we were talking about earlier,” he began, “recommendation or experience.”
Giles froze. Xander could see the ‘inappropriate conversation alert’ flashing in his eyes, but what about their lives was appropriate? Between Bug Ladies and covering up hyena shenanigans, not much really. “Experience,” he admitted.
Xander looked at him for an endless moment then nodded. “Okay.” He looked back at his house. “So, see you tomorrow, I guess.”
“Tomorrow,” Giles agreed.
There’s Always A Conflict
“How could you do that?” Xander demanded. “She’s your Slayer, how could you abuse her trust like that?”
“Because she is my Slayer,” Giles hissed in return. “If I hadn’t done it, they would have gotten rid of me, taken her, and, and administered the test regardless, and Buffy would be dead! This way I retained a modicum of control, and, and she still lives.” He refused to consider what would have happened to the others; the Council had very firm ideas about the kind of companionship a Slayer was permitted (none) let alone the consideration of external assistance, such as the Scoobies.
Xander paced restlessly around the library, and Giles let him. It hurt his heart that he had hurt so many people, not just his Slayer. Yes, he had betrayed Buffy’s trust by administering the horrifically cruel trial, but he had also betrayed the rest of the children. How were they ever to trust him to do the right thing when he could so easily betray the person even that idiot Travers recognised as Giles’ de facto daughter? How could Xander ever trust him again?
“What would they have done?” Xander asked. “Real world, here, what would the Council have done?”
Giles sat back in his chair, and considered the ceiling. “They’re not above ‘getting rid of’ unsavoury elements,” he admitted.
“So they would’ve killed you?” Xander asked, feet planted, arms folded and jaw clenched.
“I, I don’t know if they’d have gone that far?” Giles frowned. “Certainly they could have had my Green Card revoked, and had me deported. If I had had made trouble for them, they could easily ruin me; a word here, a report there, and my reputation would have been destroyed. Someday I hope to return to academia, and a man’s reputation is really all he has. Sometimes that’s better than just killing a person, more satisfying,” he shrugged.
Xander glared at the older man, and Giles felt the weight of the years between them, the difference the full generation of life between them made. Finally, the younger man relaxed. “You stopped giving her the poison, didn’t you?”
Giles hesitated over arguing about calling the serum ‘poison’, but decided that it might as well have been. “I, I did. I couldn’t keep doing it, it was … beyond despicable.”
“It was,” Xander frowned, then sighed and dropped into an available chair. “Not exactly sure I could have done anything differently,” he admitted. “I mean, you’re the brain around here, well, you and Will. Not like I’ve got the education or the training or anything.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Xander Harris,” Giles frowned. “You may not have my years of education, but you are a good many years younger than me,” (and how many times had he regretted the many years that separated them) “and have a bloody good brain under all that hair, not to mention a heart a big as,” he smirked, and decided to use a colloquialism, “Texas, I dare say.” He smiled, having been rewarded with a half-smile.
“Yeah, but still,” Xander shrugged self-consciously.
“‘Yes, but’ nothing,” Giles countered. He took his glasses off and fidgeted with them for a moment, before looking up warily. “Do you think you will be able to forgive me?”
Xander looked at him, wide-eyed. “I’m not the one that needs to forgive you,” he blurted out. “Buffy’s the one you need to talk to.”
“Buffy’s not the only one I betrayed,” Giles shook his head, “my betrayal of her was simply more obvious.”
Xander shrugged away the tacit apology, stood, walked over to the older man, and rested a hand on Giles’ shoulder. “She’ll get over it,” he assured him, “just don’t do it again.”
Giles looked up into brown eyes. “Thank you,” he said simply.
Overcoming Challenges
“Buffy -”
“Will deal.”
“You’re so young!”
“I’ll get older.”
“And I’ll get older still!”
“And we’ll deal.”
“I feel like a dirty old man,” Giles pouted.
Xander leered. “That’s kind of what I was hoping for.”
A single, sardonic eyebrow was raised. “Oh, really?”
Shoulders were straightened, and Xander stood tall, confident. “Really.”
~~~~~
The first Scooby meeting after Giles and Xander had settled their differences on the viability of their relationship, and their secret was out. Of course, the only one to know was Oz, and Xander only realised he knew when the werewolf sneezed, and raised his eyebrow at Xander. Xander blushed a little, and grinned, earning a discreet thumbs-up.
With that first sign of acceptance out of the way, Xander approached Willow. His best friend since childhood heard the news with wide eyes and a dropped jaw, then launched into a titanic babble about true love and how it was proof that Xander was as smart as she’d always said, and how happy she was that they’d both found someone to make them happy, only to stop abruptly mid-babble to smack him.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were having happy-naughty thoughts about other guys?” Willow demanded.
Xander flushed a vivid red. “Uh, because that’s not something guys talk about?” he suggested in a strangled voice. “I mean, sure I’m going to tell you I think Oz is a good catch, ‘cause he’s kind of hot in a cute, ‘fold him up and put him in my back pocket’ kind of way; that’d go down so well.”
“Xander!” Willow squeaked. “No perving on my boyfriend!”
“Please,” Xander huffed, “I have my own boyfriend now. Man-friend. Adult male sexy-fun-times type person,” he frowned, trying to decide on a description.
“Lover,” Giles announced, setting a mug of tea down in front of the two young adults. “I refuse to be referred to by any of those phrases.”
Willow wriggled in her seat, and grinned at Xander. “You have a lover!”
~~~~~
Xander tumbled to the ground, rubbing his ear. “Easy, Buff,” he remonstrated. “I need my ears; how else am I going to hear my boss fire me?”
“Clothes!” Buffy demanded.
Giles stood, and extended a hand to help Xander to his feet. “We were both fully dressed,” he explained sourly. “You, however, need to learn to knock.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Buffy assured him fervently. “I never want to walk in on that again!”
“We were just sitting on the couch,” Xander argued. “You know, together, and there may have been kissing, but it’s not anything you haven’t seen before.”
“You were macking on my Watcher,” Buffy shot back, eyes wide and horrified, “and since when were the two of you getting it on together?” she added, the pitch of her voice reaching painful heights.
Xander and Giles exchanged glances. “Um, about two months?” Xander suggested.
Giles hummed thoughtfully. “A little over that,” he nodded.
Buffy’s jaw dropped. “You’ve been … doing … that for two months? But he’s old!” she whined at Xander.
Xander turned to consider Giles. “Well, older, anyway. And I like him,” he added, smiling slightly.
Buffy frowned. “You like him,” she repeated, as if the concept was foreign.
Xander smiled, and stepped closer to his lover, running a hand down his arm to take his hand. “I like him.”
‘Happily Ever After’ Is For Fairy Tales
Xander groaned, frowned, and opened his eyes. And promptly decided something was very wrong. The mere fact he was opening his eyes was the first clue there; he hadn’t had two eyes for … decades. In fact, he’d had only one eye for some two-thirds of his life, now, and there had been no indication that would ever change; his socket had been too badly scarred by the time a working prosthetic was available. He stood up and looked around; wherever he was was certainly pretty, he’d give it that.
Xander rolled his shoulders and set about working out what else was different. He rolled up his left sleeve and began to feel his forearm, trying to find the spot where his prosthetic hand had been joined to his body. Prosthetics had come a very long way in his lifetime, and when he’d lost his hand, they’d been able to replace it with an incredibly lifelike bionic limb; the only way anyone could tell it was artificial was the hard ring just under the skin where the prosthetic was attached to the flesh. No matter how he pressed, however, he couldn’t find the link.
He looked around, and took in the clean air and peaceful setting, and contrasted it with his last memories: a violent battle, at night, against a mixed group of demons and black magic users. On the apocalyptic scale, it didn’t actually rate too highly, but it had been a dark and nasty business, and had to be dealt with.
He was beginning to add things up: Onward and upward, then.
Xander chose a direction, and set off. He walked for what felt like hours, yet didn’t feel at all tired. In fact he didn’t feel any of his sixty-eight years, no joints nagging at him, no worn muscles twinging to remind him of their presence. Yes, he was certain of what had happened, now, but he was still unsure about quite where he was. He had his hopes, but was wary of jinxing himself.
Finally, he rounded a tree to find someone sitting on a picnic blanket, looking out over a tumbling stream. He recognised well-loved and well-missed shoulders, and quickened his pace, grinning.
“You took your time,” Giles smiled up at him.
Xander dropped down onto the blanket, and raised a hand to caress that beloved face. “Sorry I couldn’t get here any quicker; you know how work is.”
Giles caught Xander’s hand, and pressed a kiss into his palm. “I honestly didn’t want you here any sooner than necessary. But I knew when you arrived, and I’ve been waiting rather impatiently ever since,” he grinned.
Xander grinned, and leaned forward to kiss Giles; their first kiss in twenty-two years. “I missed you so much,” Xander whispered, and if tears seeped out of his eyes, he was sure no one would mind. He sat back. “So I’m dead?”
“You’re dead,” Giles nodded. “Welcome to your rest.”
Xander looked down to where their fingers were interlocked. “And the others?”
Giles smiled. “They’re all here, somewhere or other. We shall go see them soon enough, but I rather wanted to welcome you home, first.”
Xander grinned. “Yeah. I think we have time, now.”
Giles laughed, and pulled Xander into a hard embrace. “Yes. Time is something we have, now.”
misseArtist: I couldn’t get an artist, so I found a source of Giles/Xander icons that I liked, which was offered freely.
Link to Art: The home page of the icons
Fandom(s): Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters/Pairings: Giles/Xander
Summary: Five stages in Giles and Xander’s relationship
Warnings: Do I really need to warn for slash? It’s the PG version, no clothes were removed during the making of this fic. (sigh…)
Xander hid between the bookshelves, clutching the math book he’d been sent to the library by Willow to find. As it turned out, Willow’s wow/amazing/so cool librarian from a cool British museum (or maybe the British Museum) was Buffy’s enabler of weird and, frankly, horrific fantasies. Had to be that: they were talking about vampires for crying out loud! And dead people, and Slayers, and sucking things. (Hmm… Buffy and sucking things… Gah! Wipe the drool, and get your mind back on track.)
Oh, and now he’s talking about duty. (Dude, this is California: do we even have that word in our dictionaries?) Oh, and every horror movie and every nightmare? And all of it was real, according to Mr horrifically-British-and-dutiful. Werewolves and zombies? Needed to be back in his comics, except that all that information came in a handy Time-Life series, complete with free phone or calendar: who knew? And someone needed to get a life. Somewhere far (far!) from the D&D game board, too. Of course, both of them took off, leaving Xander alone (hopefully) in the library with his math book, which was as much horror as he was constitutionally capable of handling, thank you very much.
“May I help you?”
Xander started; the librarian was back, and – hey! – he knew that look. The screwy mouth, ‘jeez, now I have to deal with this’ look. “Uh, yeah. I, um, need to check this book out.”
The librarian scowled at him, as if to determine what breed of vermin he was. “You do not have a maths text?” he asked, raising his eyebrows in what was no doubt an elegant and adult manner.
“Uh … no. That would be why I’m checking it out now,” Xander reasoned in a tone he knew adults despised, but couldn’t quite avoid (and secretly quite liked; messing with adults could be dangerously fun.)
The librarian’s eyes slid to the whopping great big book still sitting on the reading table, but Xander steadfastly refused to look at it. Nope, no way was he going to ogle the ‘Vampyr’ book creepy stalker dude had been threatening the hot new girl with. “Well … I guess I’d better,” he waved vaguely at the check-out counter, “process that for you.”
“Would be an idea,” Xander nodded firmly, making sure to place the book on the counter, rather than in the librarian’s hands. No need to let the creepy stalker dude too close.
The process of checking the book out was relatively simple, and soon Xander was exiting the library with a speed suitable to a young man escaping a den of torture, er, place of learning. Now all he had to do was figure out whether to avoid Buffy, out her, or just ignore the whole thing. Ignoring it all had many benefits, but then he ran the risk of innocently coming up against the librarian’s enabling of teenage fantasies. Although, thinking about it, it did kind of explain the (admit it!) stake she’d dropped earlier.
“G-man, G-ster, the Big G,” Xander greeted as he strode into the library, grinning broadly.
“Dear Lord, Xander, must you call me those ridiculous names?” Giles complained, scowling bemusedly at the young man.
Xander smirked, and raised a paper bag, shaking it. “I brought your favourite doughnuts,” he offered.
Giles focused on the bag hanging in plain sight. “Oh,” he temporised, “well, I, I guess you could, uh, be forgiven for your little peccadillos.”
Xander dropped the bag in front of Giles, and dropped into a chair at the study table. “’Peccadillos’,” he tried the word out, “sounds vaguely naughty. You’re not saying naughty words in front of vulnerable children, are you?” Xander asked, aiming shocked puppy eyes at the learned educator.
Giles looked at Xander over his glasses, considering, before choosing to take the obvious bait of a distraction. “I’ll have you know, ‘peccadillo’ is a very proper word, meaning ‘small sin.’ I was accusing you of being a little naughty, not like … like,” he glanced at the book Xander had open, “oh dear, not at all like that!” he indicated an individual on the plate the book was displaying.
Xander looked at the picture, tilted his head, then turned the book around. He then turned it back. “Is that even physically possible?” he asked after a long moment.
“Not for humans, no,” Giles admitted, “though that,” he pointed at another couple on the page, “is quite a lot of fun, if you can manage it.”
Xander glanced at the older man through his eyelashes. “That’s two guys together,” he offered. “Are you, uh, going on someone’s recommendation, or…” he trailed off, blushing.
Giles started back, suddenly remembering where he was. “Oh, well, um, that is -”
“And this is where we start looking at books that won’t have us blushing like an anime schoolgirl when the girls come in and find us reading them,” Xander decided, quickly switching his book for something that looked a whole lot more boring.
“Er, yes,” Giles nodded eagerly. He continued to read for a moment then stood. “Er, tea?” he offered.
Xander looked up from his book (Ugh, Greek. Worse: Attic, not Koine.) and contemplated for a moment before making a face. “Yeah,” he sighed. “Thanks,” he added, just to show he wasn’t quite the savage certain trolls of a principal-y disposition thought him to be.
Giles returned shortly with a mug of tea, and the two of them kept at their studies until Buffy and Willow arrived, having attended to some desperately necessary shopping (Slaying was murder on clothes.) Willow immediately migrated to ‘that infernal machine’ (You have got to stop calling it that, Willow reminded him; we are right over the Hellmouth, you know) to check the morgue’s database while Buffy sat at the table, poking dispiritedly at a book until she could legitimately go on patrol.
There being no actual monster-of-the-week (it was only Monday, so Buffy was probably holding out hope) Buffy offered to walk Willow home as a prelude to her actual patrol, while Giles and Xander lingered to tidy away the books they’d been using. Everything cleared away, the two men walked out of the library, switching off the lights and locking the doors.
Chatting aimlessly, Giles drove Xander home in the Watcher-mobile. When they arrived, Xander looked at his home, then back to Giles. After a moment, he threw caution to the wind. “So, uh, what we were talking about earlier,” he began, “recommendation or experience.”
Giles froze. Xander could see the ‘inappropriate conversation alert’ flashing in his eyes, but what about their lives was appropriate? Between Bug Ladies and covering up hyena shenanigans, not much really. “Experience,” he admitted.
Xander looked at him for an endless moment then nodded. “Okay.” He looked back at his house. “So, see you tomorrow, I guess.”
“Tomorrow,” Giles agreed.
“How could you do that?” Xander demanded. “She’s your Slayer, how could you abuse her trust like that?”
“Because she is my Slayer,” Giles hissed in return. “If I hadn’t done it, they would have gotten rid of me, taken her, and, and administered the test regardless, and Buffy would be dead! This way I retained a modicum of control, and, and she still lives.” He refused to consider what would have happened to the others; the Council had very firm ideas about the kind of companionship a Slayer was permitted (none) let alone the consideration of external assistance, such as the Scoobies.
Xander paced restlessly around the library, and Giles let him. It hurt his heart that he had hurt so many people, not just his Slayer. Yes, he had betrayed Buffy’s trust by administering the horrifically cruel trial, but he had also betrayed the rest of the children. How were they ever to trust him to do the right thing when he could so easily betray the person even that idiot Travers recognised as Giles’ de facto daughter? How could Xander ever trust him again?
“What would they have done?” Xander asked. “Real world, here, what would the Council have done?”
Giles sat back in his chair, and considered the ceiling. “They’re not above ‘getting rid of’ unsavoury elements,” he admitted.
“So they would’ve killed you?” Xander asked, feet planted, arms folded and jaw clenched.
“I, I don’t know if they’d have gone that far?” Giles frowned. “Certainly they could have had my Green Card revoked, and had me deported. If I had had made trouble for them, they could easily ruin me; a word here, a report there, and my reputation would have been destroyed. Someday I hope to return to academia, and a man’s reputation is really all he has. Sometimes that’s better than just killing a person, more satisfying,” he shrugged.
Xander glared at the older man, and Giles felt the weight of the years between them, the difference the full generation of life between them made. Finally, the younger man relaxed. “You stopped giving her the poison, didn’t you?”
Giles hesitated over arguing about calling the serum ‘poison’, but decided that it might as well have been. “I, I did. I couldn’t keep doing it, it was … beyond despicable.”
“It was,” Xander frowned, then sighed and dropped into an available chair. “Not exactly sure I could have done anything differently,” he admitted. “I mean, you’re the brain around here, well, you and Will. Not like I’ve got the education or the training or anything.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Xander Harris,” Giles frowned. “You may not have my years of education, but you are a good many years younger than me,” (and how many times had he regretted the many years that separated them) “and have a bloody good brain under all that hair, not to mention a heart a big as,” he smirked, and decided to use a colloquialism, “Texas, I dare say.” He smiled, having been rewarded with a half-smile.
“Yeah, but still,” Xander shrugged self-consciously.
“‘Yes, but’ nothing,” Giles countered. He took his glasses off and fidgeted with them for a moment, before looking up warily. “Do you think you will be able to forgive me?”
Xander looked at him, wide-eyed. “I’m not the one that needs to forgive you,” he blurted out. “Buffy’s the one you need to talk to.”
“Buffy’s not the only one I betrayed,” Giles shook his head, “my betrayal of her was simply more obvious.”
Xander shrugged away the tacit apology, stood, walked over to the older man, and rested a hand on Giles’ shoulder. “She’ll get over it,” he assured him, “just don’t do it again.”
Giles looked up into brown eyes. “Thank you,” he said simply.
“Buffy -”
“Will deal.”
“You’re so young!”
“I’ll get older.”
“And I’ll get older still!”
“And we’ll deal.”
“I feel like a dirty old man,” Giles pouted.
Xander leered. “That’s kind of what I was hoping for.”
A single, sardonic eyebrow was raised. “Oh, really?”
Shoulders were straightened, and Xander stood tall, confident. “Really.”
The first Scooby meeting after Giles and Xander had settled their differences on the viability of their relationship, and their secret was out. Of course, the only one to know was Oz, and Xander only realised he knew when the werewolf sneezed, and raised his eyebrow at Xander. Xander blushed a little, and grinned, earning a discreet thumbs-up.
With that first sign of acceptance out of the way, Xander approached Willow. His best friend since childhood heard the news with wide eyes and a dropped jaw, then launched into a titanic babble about true love and how it was proof that Xander was as smart as she’d always said, and how happy she was that they’d both found someone to make them happy, only to stop abruptly mid-babble to smack him.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were having happy-naughty thoughts about other guys?” Willow demanded.
Xander flushed a vivid red. “Uh, because that’s not something guys talk about?” he suggested in a strangled voice. “I mean, sure I’m going to tell you I think Oz is a good catch, ‘cause he’s kind of hot in a cute, ‘fold him up and put him in my back pocket’ kind of way; that’d go down so well.”
“Xander!” Willow squeaked. “No perving on my boyfriend!”
“Please,” Xander huffed, “I have my own boyfriend now. Man-friend. Adult male sexy-fun-times type person,” he frowned, trying to decide on a description.
“Lover,” Giles announced, setting a mug of tea down in front of the two young adults. “I refuse to be referred to by any of those phrases.”
Willow wriggled in her seat, and grinned at Xander. “You have a lover!”
Xander tumbled to the ground, rubbing his ear. “Easy, Buff,” he remonstrated. “I need my ears; how else am I going to hear my boss fire me?”
“Clothes!” Buffy demanded.
Giles stood, and extended a hand to help Xander to his feet. “We were both fully dressed,” he explained sourly. “You, however, need to learn to knock.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Buffy assured him fervently. “I never want to walk in on that again!”
“We were just sitting on the couch,” Xander argued. “You know, together, and there may have been kissing, but it’s not anything you haven’t seen before.”
“You were macking on my Watcher,” Buffy shot back, eyes wide and horrified, “and since when were the two of you getting it on together?” she added, the pitch of her voice reaching painful heights.
Xander and Giles exchanged glances. “Um, about two months?” Xander suggested.
Giles hummed thoughtfully. “A little over that,” he nodded.
Buffy’s jaw dropped. “You’ve been … doing … that for two months? But he’s old!” she whined at Xander.
Xander turned to consider Giles. “Well, older, anyway. And I like him,” he added, smiling slightly.
Buffy frowned. “You like him,” she repeated, as if the concept was foreign.
Xander smiled, and stepped closer to his lover, running a hand down his arm to take his hand. “I like him.”
Xander groaned, frowned, and opened his eyes. And promptly decided something was very wrong. The mere fact he was opening his eyes was the first clue there; he hadn’t had two eyes for … decades. In fact, he’d had only one eye for some two-thirds of his life, now, and there had been no indication that would ever change; his socket had been too badly scarred by the time a working prosthetic was available. He stood up and looked around; wherever he was was certainly pretty, he’d give it that.
Xander rolled his shoulders and set about working out what else was different. He rolled up his left sleeve and began to feel his forearm, trying to find the spot where his prosthetic hand had been joined to his body. Prosthetics had come a very long way in his lifetime, and when he’d lost his hand, they’d been able to replace it with an incredibly lifelike bionic limb; the only way anyone could tell it was artificial was the hard ring just under the skin where the prosthetic was attached to the flesh. No matter how he pressed, however, he couldn’t find the link.
He looked around, and took in the clean air and peaceful setting, and contrasted it with his last memories: a violent battle, at night, against a mixed group of demons and black magic users. On the apocalyptic scale, it didn’t actually rate too highly, but it had been a dark and nasty business, and had to be dealt with.
He was beginning to add things up: Onward and upward, then.
Xander chose a direction, and set off. He walked for what felt like hours, yet didn’t feel at all tired. In fact he didn’t feel any of his sixty-eight years, no joints nagging at him, no worn muscles twinging to remind him of their presence. Yes, he was certain of what had happened, now, but he was still unsure about quite where he was. He had his hopes, but was wary of jinxing himself.
Finally, he rounded a tree to find someone sitting on a picnic blanket, looking out over a tumbling stream. He recognised well-loved and well-missed shoulders, and quickened his pace, grinning.
“You took your time,” Giles smiled up at him.
Xander dropped down onto the blanket, and raised a hand to caress that beloved face. “Sorry I couldn’t get here any quicker; you know how work is.”
Giles caught Xander’s hand, and pressed a kiss into his palm. “I honestly didn’t want you here any sooner than necessary. But I knew when you arrived, and I’ve been waiting rather impatiently ever since,” he grinned.
Xander grinned, and leaned forward to kiss Giles; their first kiss in twenty-two years. “I missed you so much,” Xander whispered, and if tears seeped out of his eyes, he was sure no one would mind. He sat back. “So I’m dead?”
“You’re dead,” Giles nodded. “Welcome to your rest.”
Xander looked down to where their fingers were interlocked. “And the others?”
Giles smiled. “They’re all here, somewhere or other. We shall go see them soon enough, but I rather wanted to welcome you home, first.”
Xander grinned. “Yeah. I think we have time, now.”
Giles laughed, and pulled Xander into a hard embrace. “Yes. Time is something we have, now.”