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soldtoarmeniansTo: bridge.carson@fandomhigh.net
From: xharris@ucsd.edu
Subject: Happy Anniversary
"Ok, emo boy, let's go." There were hands under his arms, which was interfering with his whole delete-key stabbing project in an annoying and non-productive way.
"E-mail boy? New but not entirely inaccurate nickname, Buff," he said, trying to wriggle away from her. Except one of the hands was Buffy's, and the other hand couldn't possibly be, because she was closing his laptop with it, so apparently it was more wriggling away from them. "So if you could let me get back to mine?"
"E-mail boy, that's cute. Please continue to pretend that's what I said. It'll make this so much more challenging and fun." Buffy let go of the laptop and bodily lifted him out of his chair, while Willow slid her hand out from under his arm and pushed the closed computer away from him.
"Hey, excuse me? Working here..." he protested.
"Yeah, we can tell that from the piles of books," Willow said.
"Hello, internets? You're the one who got them to put the wireless in."
"For studying!" Willow told him as Buffy pulled him away from the table. "Not for moping over your empty inbox while you flunk Algebra."
"I believe it's called multi-tasking..." Xander struggled again, but hello there Slayer strength. "What are you doing?"
"I believe it's called an intervention. I always wanted to do one from the other side; yay me." Buffy kicked the chair back under the table. "We've got the I-statements ready and everything. For instance, I think you're being a big fat idiot. Did I do that right, Will?"
"They generally suggest you try to stay away from weight-related commentary for self-esteem reasons, but that's the basic idea, yep."
"Sorry - I think he's being a big fat-headed idiot. Better?" Buffy shifted her grip so she was just holding him by one bicep, and pulled him towards the curb.
Xander pointed a stabby finger at the table. "But --- coffee!" he said in the tones of a man who knew for a fact that somewhere a dimension away Jake Gavin was frowning and feeling a disturbance in the Java.
"Leave the coffee. They'll make more."
"Laptop!" Again with the pointy.
"Leave the--"
There was a yip from Willow almost as loud as the one from Xander.
"Fine, get the laptop."
Step. YANK.
"Willow, get the laptop."
Xander, meanwhile, was being unceremoniously dragged towards a red convertible with a familiar figure behind the wheel.
"Et tu, Giles?"
"I agreed to provide transportation and stern glances in the rearview mirror, yes. I think Buffy and Willow have everything else rather well in hand." Giles demonstrated the second part of his contribution as Buffy manhandled Xander into the backseat, then slid in next to him. Willow, Xander's laptop bag in her hands, got in on the other side, trapping him quite effectively.
"Guys, funny as...whatever you're doing... is apparently gonna someday be, I repeat, what the hell are you doing, seriously?"
Giles pulled the car away from the coffee-shop, and Buffy... dropped a piece of paper into Xander's lap.
He looked down. "What's that?"
"It's a drop-slip. See, I was contributing to the funny, there." Buffy grinned brightly. "With the 'drop' part?"
Xander picked it up. "This is for Algebra. Filled out for me. For which I, uh. Thank you? Except I can't drop Algebra, much as I might like to; it's a degree requirement."
"Tell that to Professor Reardon; he's the one who filled out the drop slip." Buffy crossed her arms and the smile magically vanished. Poof. "He asked me if you needed it signed and I said I'd check. Then he told me it'd be kind of a formality if you miss one more class."
"Fine, I get it, I'll be there tomorrow." Xander sighed. They were nearing the campus now, students lounging on the lawn in the late afternoon sun.
Willow crossed her arms too. And threw in some of the resolve-face action just in case the combined arm-foldy power wasn't working on him. "No, it's not fine. Xander, I wasn't kidding about flunking out. You were a better student than this in high school -- and I mean Sunnydale High."
Xander let his mouth settle into a straight line. "Yeah well. Maybe I'm just not cut out for college, Will. You two are the smartypants twins - I'm the guy whose biggest expectation in life used to be filling in the little stickers for grill, drive-through and counter before he's thirty."
"You are so full of shit, Xander Harris."
That earned Willow a look from Giles in the rearview mirror, but it was just a raising of the eyebrows, pretty much the same expression Xander was wearing.
"Come again?"
"I saw your grades from Fandom High, and I saw your second set of SAT scores." She pointed a finger in his face. "No, you're not in line for the Presidential Scholarship, but you're plenty able to handle college, if you want to."
Xander turned his head away. Of course, that brought him directly into the line of Buffy's unimpressed over-the-sunglasses gaze. Fine; they weren't the only ones who could cross their arms. He had...motor-skills and stuff. "You know, you guys could've picked a better day to do this. Seriously."
"Seriously no, we couldn't," Buffy said.
"It's my--"
"Anniversary. We know." Buffy pointed at his laptop bag. "The day you specially set aside for wishing you weren't here with us for twenty-three hours in a row instead of just the usual nineteen."
"Oh, nice," Xander spat back, his voice hardening. "Excuse me if I miss my boyfriend. You may be over your random summer date guy, but--"
Giles coughed from the front seat. "Er. You were seeing someone, Buffy?"
Buffy gave the rearview mirror an oddly nervous look. "Seeing is such a strong word. There were like, two dates. That weren't really even dates. They were like...let's have coffee wow look awkward conversation hey you want to try that one more time 'cause I feel guilty about spraining your wrist when we both reached for the check. Anyway, we're talking about Xander's wallowing issues, not my not-dating-anybody."
"Wallowing?" Xander repeated. "Again with the nice. Not-dating dude aside, I'd think you of all people would get how hard this is, Buffy."
"Perspective-check, Xander. I sent my boyfriend to Hell. You can't e-mail yours."
Xander glanced down at his lap, and the drop-slip in it, then nodded. "Okay, point. But I can't e-mail mine maybe ever. Don't you think I'm entitled to wallow a little?"
Buffy stared levelly at him for a second, then her glare broke and she bit her lower lip. "Yes. You are." She sighed. "I do get it, Xander."
"Then cut me a little slack, for God's sake. Especially today."
"Wallow all you want," Willow said, not uncrossing her arms. "Just don't screw up your life because you're so mad at yourself for coming back here, you have to prove everybody was wrong about why you should, especially you."
Xander turned to her. "What, my life's not screwed up enough already, you think I'm trying to make it worse?"
"Duh." He'd almost forgotten Willow had a 'bitch, please' look. "The only person you need to worry about cutting you slack is you, Xander. I'm not the boss of you. Buffy's not the boss of you."
Buffy nodded. "Unless there's monsters."
"Unless there's monsters, then Buffy's the boss of you," Willow qualified. "You didn't come back here because I poked and prodded and told you I'd make little squeaky noises only dogs can hear if you went to college with me."
Xander blinked at her. "Well... kinda yeah."
"Baloney. You know damn well that if you really wanted to be drive-through guy, I'd be going past the Doublemeat Palace window every night...on my bike...to honk and hold up a sign that says Best Drive-Through Guy Ever."
"Your bike has a horn?"
"No, but let's talk about what I want for Hanukkah later." Willow shook her head. "My point is you didn't decide to go to college because I thought you should do it. If that worked, trust me, both of our highschool dating histories would've been vastly different. Not necessarily better, but different. And before you say it, you didn't come back here because Bridge thought you should, either."
"Actually he did." Xander shrugged. "He's got the same wacky blind spots as you; he thinks I can do anything. He didn't want me to go, but--"
"But he wanted this for you because he knew you really wanted it - you know he'd be right there in the drive-through ahead of me, otherwise."
"He'd probably be offering you a lift." Xander turned his head to look past Buffy at the passing scenery, but the gaze he caught from his own reflection in her sunglasses was somehow harder to stare down than her eyes would've been.
"And?"
"Giving me a bitch, please look right about now that totally blows yours away, which is in no way an insult to your bitch-pleasiness." Oh look, a drop-slip. On his lap.
"Xander?" Willow said after letting him stare downwards in silence for a few seconds.
"I miss him."
"I know." And a hand crept into his. Well, no, make that two, one on each side.
"It hurts. I'm not gonna just...pffft. Get over that. Not anytime soon. Sorry."
"No one would ask you to." The words came not from either of the girls, but from the front seat.
"It's okay to be sad. Or mad, or both, not that you need anybody's permission for that. Just... you know how you told me I wasn't being punished?" Willow plucked the drop-slip from his knee and held it in her other hand. "With Oz? This isn't you being punished either, Xander. You didn't make the wrong choice. It's just a thing that happened."
"I hate it." His throat hurt.
"Me too."
"Me three," Buffy said. "You think we like seeing you like this?" She lifted her sunglasses. "Or, you know, not seeing you like this, since half the time you're hiding in your room."
Xander laughed tiredly. "I'm guessing no, or you wouldn't be dragging me to-- where are you dragging me?"
"A...meeting?" Willow told him.
"What, My Boyfriend's In Another Dimension and I May Have Flunked Myself Out Of College Anonymous?"
"You not gonna flunk out of college." Willow opened her hand and let the drop-slip fly out of the car. It fluttered away in the breeze. For... about two seconds. Then she looked pleadingly in the rear-view mirror. Giles hit the brake, and Willow unbuckled her belt and jumped out, picking the paper up from the street and dropping it in a trash can. She shot Giles a thumbs-up as she slid back into her seat.
"That in no way undermined the dramatic gesture," Xander assured her as Giles drove on.
"Thank you."
"You're taking me to have your Wicca group put a de-dumbass spell on me?" he guessed.
"Those never work, trust me." Willow made a noise like air escaping from a badly-made balloon animal. "Anyway the Wicca group's a bust. Total magic-free zone. Amy and I are fine working on our own; I'm not even sure why I'm still going."
"Cute Shy Girl," Buffy said immediately.
"Uh! Like I would use something like that to pick up women?" Willow protested. Then she looked down at her own lap and smiled slightly. "I don't even know if she's into girls. I mean the thing at Hogwarts just happened; not like I know how to pick up women. I'd need lessons." She looked up. "Does anybody give lessons on how to pick up women?"
"It was on Bridge's sex ed final, yeah. Sort of."
"I need gay lessons, though. You think they'd add that to the course catalog at UCSD? If I approached the administration with a solid plan and some flowcharts? I mean obviously not a full major, but independent study or something?"
"Or you could just go to the group for that, maybe?" Buffy suggested. "The gay BLT thing? They do meet in our dorm."
"Well sure, but it's not the same without grades and also Icouldmaybeusesomebodytogowithmemaybe?"
Xander blinked at Willow. "Please tell me that's not where you're taking me? I mean if you want me to go with you I will, but it's a little late for an intervention on that one."
Willow looked up at him and grinned. "You will?"
Xander shrugged one shoulder, maybe a little uncomfortably. "I guess. Sure. As long as nobody's looking to fix me up." Then he narrowed his eyes, and gave her a thumbs-up. "Nice distraction job, Will. Very smooth."
"I try."
"So where are we really going?"
The car slowed down and pulled into a parking lot. "We're there."
There was... "Um. Sunnydale High? Great, my friends' idea of an intervention involves dangling me over the Hellmouth and pointing out that seriously, school could be worse. Trust me, I got that memo too."
Willow patted his arm as they got out of the car. "Sweetie, that was the intervention. You missed it because you were too busy acknowledging your dumbassitude."
"There were less I-statements than I was expecting." Xander let Buffy and Willow lead him through the front doors and down the empty hallways, Giles bringing up the rear. "So what are we doing here, then?"
Buffy pulled open the door to the gym, and gently -- sort of -- pushed him through it. "Celebrating."
Lights. Music. Balloons.
People.
Lots of people.
Familiar people. Jonathan Levinson gave them a nervous grin from beside the punchbowl, where he was ladle-ing out drinks for Dawn and Joyce. Larry waved from the middle of the dancefloor. Beyond him, under the disco ball, Xander spotted a pair of bare, tanned shoulders that could only belong to Cordelia Chase, dancing with...somebody from the basketball team.
"You invited almost everybody we went to high school with to celebrate a successful intervention? I'm...touched. Also slightly embarrassed."
"Also slightly full of yourself, in quirky yet loveable ways." Buffy pointed to the sign strung across the stage where a little over a year ago at the Prom, she'd accepted the award for Class Protector. CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATES it said, in about seven colors worth of glitter. On the edge of the stage beneath it sat several boxes of ribbon-wrapped scrolls.
"Giles' apartment turned out to be a little too small for the party."
___
To: bridge.carson@fandomhigh.net
From: xharris@ucsd.edu
Subject: Happy Anniversary
It's turned out to be... not so bad of a day, but it'd be better if you were in it. Sunnydale High finally gave us all our diplomas, even though we didn't graduate here. Buffy and a couple of other people set up a party at the school, which was nice but... it's a bit much. Thus sneakage away to what used to be Ms. Calendar's computer lab.
Took a picture of the three of us, me and Buffy and Willow, before I bailed, though. Well, Buffy's mom took it with my phone. She's going in for tests - we're all worried about her, but I told her what Dawn - our Dawn - told me. I'm hoping we can cheat the future just a little without blowing up the universe.
Wee-Dawn here is kind of freaked out about her mom, I think, though they're trying not to scare her too much. I keep being afraid I'll slip and talk about something the way I remember it without her there, but it hasn't happened yet. If this gets through, tell Dawn I could really use some pointers, though. Just a rundown of her life from say, age ten to fourteen? Bullet points would be cool.
Classes are--- not so great. I've been kind of a dumbass about them, but Willow's going to help me catch up.
The dumbass thing... I miss you like crazy, and I hate that I can't talk to you. Kind of been taking that out on... anything I can take it out on. It's been brought to my attention by more carefully-styled heads than mine that as ways to make you proud of me go, that one's got some flaws. They're right - I know you don't need me to prove anything, but *I* do. I want you to be the *first* thing I didn't fuck up, not the only one.
And... I guess I *can* talk to you, sort of, since, well, I am. Maybe it's a little nuts to pretend you're listening, but I'm okay with nuts.
Fine, stop giving me that look. Okay's a couple miles down the road. But I'll get there sooner or later.
Hope you're there when I do.
love you,
Xander
P.S. Pet the frog for me. But no kissing OMG. You don't need a purple prince on your hands.
Attachment: 46201.jpg
From: xharris@ucsd.edu
Subject: Happy Anniversary
| Dear Bridge: College is great, Sunnydale's...Sunnydale, and I'll be back to see you guys before you know it. The Watchers' Council says we're completely cut off, but Willow's working on a spell with our friend who's been a rat for the last two years so I'm sure-- |  |
| Dear Bridge: I don't even know if we're doing the anniversary celebratey thing. Are we? "See how things go" sounds pretty good when you think you'll be coming back in a month for Homecoming, but things aren't exactly...going, right now, are they. Except I want to. Do the celebratey thing. I just wish there was something to cele-- | |
| Dear Bridge: Things are okay here, or as okay as they ever get on a hellmouth, except for the whole no you part. And the part where Buffy and Dawn's mom really is sick, I think. And the part where I punched out my roommate. And the part where Willow and Buffy seem to be over *their* end-of-summer breakup things, so they think I should just be able to-- | |
| Dear Bridge: Things are okay here, but I miss you. And everybody, but, you know. You most. Miss having you to talk to, not just the boyfriendy. I'm worried about Mrs. Summers, and it's hard to keep track of what I'm supposed to know or not about Dawn, and I can't *tell* anybody about it, except people who can't even read what I'm sendi-- | |
| Dear Bridge: Why didn't we build a fort again? | |
| Dear Bridge: Classes are-- | |
| Dear Bridge: This suc-- | |
"Ok, emo boy, let's go." There were hands under his arms, which was interfering with his whole delete-key stabbing project in an annoying and non-productive way.
"E-mail boy? New but not entirely inaccurate nickname, Buff," he said, trying to wriggle away from her. Except one of the hands was Buffy's, and the other hand couldn't possibly be, because she was closing his laptop with it, so apparently it was more wriggling away from them. "So if you could let me get back to mine?"
"E-mail boy, that's cute. Please continue to pretend that's what I said. It'll make this so much more challenging and fun." Buffy let go of the laptop and bodily lifted him out of his chair, while Willow slid her hand out from under his arm and pushed the closed computer away from him.
"Hey, excuse me? Working here..." he protested.
"Yeah, we can tell that from the piles of books," Willow said.
"Hello, internets? You're the one who got them to put the wireless in."
"For studying!" Willow told him as Buffy pulled him away from the table. "Not for moping over your empty inbox while you flunk Algebra."
"I believe it's called multi-tasking..." Xander struggled again, but hello there Slayer strength. "What are you doing?"
"I believe it's called an intervention. I always wanted to do one from the other side; yay me." Buffy kicked the chair back under the table. "We've got the I-statements ready and everything. For instance, I think you're being a big fat idiot. Did I do that right, Will?"
"They generally suggest you try to stay away from weight-related commentary for self-esteem reasons, but that's the basic idea, yep."
"Sorry - I think he's being a big fat-headed idiot. Better?" Buffy shifted her grip so she was just holding him by one bicep, and pulled him towards the curb.
Xander pointed a stabby finger at the table. "But --- coffee!" he said in the tones of a man who knew for a fact that somewhere a dimension away Jake Gavin was frowning and feeling a disturbance in the Java.
"Leave the coffee. They'll make more."
"Laptop!" Again with the pointy.
"Leave the--"
There was a yip from Willow almost as loud as the one from Xander.
"Fine, get the laptop."
Step. YANK.
"Willow, get the laptop."
Xander, meanwhile, was being unceremoniously dragged towards a red convertible with a familiar figure behind the wheel.
"Et tu, Giles?"
"I agreed to provide transportation and stern glances in the rearview mirror, yes. I think Buffy and Willow have everything else rather well in hand." Giles demonstrated the second part of his contribution as Buffy manhandled Xander into the backseat, then slid in next to him. Willow, Xander's laptop bag in her hands, got in on the other side, trapping him quite effectively.
"Guys, funny as...whatever you're doing... is apparently gonna someday be, I repeat, what the hell are you doing, seriously?"
Giles pulled the car away from the coffee-shop, and Buffy... dropped a piece of paper into Xander's lap.
He looked down. "What's that?"
"It's a drop-slip. See, I was contributing to the funny, there." Buffy grinned brightly. "With the 'drop' part?"
Xander picked it up. "This is for Algebra. Filled out for me. For which I, uh. Thank you? Except I can't drop Algebra, much as I might like to; it's a degree requirement."
"Tell that to Professor Reardon; he's the one who filled out the drop slip." Buffy crossed her arms and the smile magically vanished. Poof. "He asked me if you needed it signed and I said I'd check. Then he told me it'd be kind of a formality if you miss one more class."
"Fine, I get it, I'll be there tomorrow." Xander sighed. They were nearing the campus now, students lounging on the lawn in the late afternoon sun.
Willow crossed her arms too. And threw in some of the resolve-face action just in case the combined arm-foldy power wasn't working on him. "No, it's not fine. Xander, I wasn't kidding about flunking out. You were a better student than this in high school -- and I mean Sunnydale High."
Xander let his mouth settle into a straight line. "Yeah well. Maybe I'm just not cut out for college, Will. You two are the smartypants twins - I'm the guy whose biggest expectation in life used to be filling in the little stickers for grill, drive-through and counter before he's thirty."
"You are so full of shit, Xander Harris."
That earned Willow a look from Giles in the rearview mirror, but it was just a raising of the eyebrows, pretty much the same expression Xander was wearing.
"Come again?"
"I saw your grades from Fandom High, and I saw your second set of SAT scores." She pointed a finger in his face. "No, you're not in line for the Presidential Scholarship, but you're plenty able to handle college, if you want to."
Xander turned his head away. Of course, that brought him directly into the line of Buffy's unimpressed over-the-sunglasses gaze. Fine; they weren't the only ones who could cross their arms. He had...motor-skills and stuff. "You know, you guys could've picked a better day to do this. Seriously."
"Seriously no, we couldn't," Buffy said.
"It's my--"
"Anniversary. We know." Buffy pointed at his laptop bag. "The day you specially set aside for wishing you weren't here with us for twenty-three hours in a row instead of just the usual nineteen."
"Oh, nice," Xander spat back, his voice hardening. "Excuse me if I miss my boyfriend. You may be over your random summer date guy, but--"
Giles coughed from the front seat. "Er. You were seeing someone, Buffy?"
Buffy gave the rearview mirror an oddly nervous look. "Seeing is such a strong word. There were like, two dates. That weren't really even dates. They were like...let's have coffee wow look awkward conversation hey you want to try that one more time 'cause I feel guilty about spraining your wrist when we both reached for the check. Anyway, we're talking about Xander's wallowing issues, not my not-dating-anybody."
"Wallowing?" Xander repeated. "Again with the nice. Not-dating dude aside, I'd think you of all people would get how hard this is, Buffy."
"Perspective-check, Xander. I sent my boyfriend to Hell. You can't e-mail yours."
Xander glanced down at his lap, and the drop-slip in it, then nodded. "Okay, point. But I can't e-mail mine maybe ever. Don't you think I'm entitled to wallow a little?"
Buffy stared levelly at him for a second, then her glare broke and she bit her lower lip. "Yes. You are." She sighed. "I do get it, Xander."
"Then cut me a little slack, for God's sake. Especially today."
"Wallow all you want," Willow said, not uncrossing her arms. "Just don't screw up your life because you're so mad at yourself for coming back here, you have to prove everybody was wrong about why you should, especially you."
Xander turned to her. "What, my life's not screwed up enough already, you think I'm trying to make it worse?"
"Duh." He'd almost forgotten Willow had a 'bitch, please' look. "The only person you need to worry about cutting you slack is you, Xander. I'm not the boss of you. Buffy's not the boss of you."
Buffy nodded. "Unless there's monsters."
"Unless there's monsters, then Buffy's the boss of you," Willow qualified. "You didn't come back here because I poked and prodded and told you I'd make little squeaky noises only dogs can hear if you went to college with me."
Xander blinked at her. "Well... kinda yeah."
"Baloney. You know damn well that if you really wanted to be drive-through guy, I'd be going past the Doublemeat Palace window every night...on my bike...to honk and hold up a sign that says Best Drive-Through Guy Ever."
"Your bike has a horn?"
"No, but let's talk about what I want for Hanukkah later." Willow shook her head. "My point is you didn't decide to go to college because I thought you should do it. If that worked, trust me, both of our highschool dating histories would've been vastly different. Not necessarily better, but different. And before you say it, you didn't come back here because Bridge thought you should, either."
"Actually he did." Xander shrugged. "He's got the same wacky blind spots as you; he thinks I can do anything. He didn't want me to go, but--"
"But he wanted this for you because he knew you really wanted it - you know he'd be right there in the drive-through ahead of me, otherwise."
"He'd probably be offering you a lift." Xander turned his head to look past Buffy at the passing scenery, but the gaze he caught from his own reflection in her sunglasses was somehow harder to stare down than her eyes would've been.
"And?"
"Giving me a bitch, please look right about now that totally blows yours away, which is in no way an insult to your bitch-pleasiness." Oh look, a drop-slip. On his lap.
"Xander?" Willow said after letting him stare downwards in silence for a few seconds.
"I miss him."
"I know." And a hand crept into his. Well, no, make that two, one on each side.
"It hurts. I'm not gonna just...pffft. Get over that. Not anytime soon. Sorry."
"No one would ask you to." The words came not from either of the girls, but from the front seat.
"It's okay to be sad. Or mad, or both, not that you need anybody's permission for that. Just... you know how you told me I wasn't being punished?" Willow plucked the drop-slip from his knee and held it in her other hand. "With Oz? This isn't you being punished either, Xander. You didn't make the wrong choice. It's just a thing that happened."
"I hate it." His throat hurt.
"Me too."
"Me three," Buffy said. "You think we like seeing you like this?" She lifted her sunglasses. "Or, you know, not seeing you like this, since half the time you're hiding in your room."
Xander laughed tiredly. "I'm guessing no, or you wouldn't be dragging me to-- where are you dragging me?"
"A...meeting?" Willow told him.
"What, My Boyfriend's In Another Dimension and I May Have Flunked Myself Out Of College Anonymous?"
"You not gonna flunk out of college." Willow opened her hand and let the drop-slip fly out of the car. It fluttered away in the breeze. For... about two seconds. Then she looked pleadingly in the rear-view mirror. Giles hit the brake, and Willow unbuckled her belt and jumped out, picking the paper up from the street and dropping it in a trash can. She shot Giles a thumbs-up as she slid back into her seat.
"That in no way undermined the dramatic gesture," Xander assured her as Giles drove on.
"Thank you."
"You're taking me to have your Wicca group put a de-dumbass spell on me?" he guessed.
"Those never work, trust me." Willow made a noise like air escaping from a badly-made balloon animal. "Anyway the Wicca group's a bust. Total magic-free zone. Amy and I are fine working on our own; I'm not even sure why I'm still going."
"Cute Shy Girl," Buffy said immediately.
"Uh! Like I would use something like that to pick up women?" Willow protested. Then she looked down at her own lap and smiled slightly. "I don't even know if she's into girls. I mean the thing at Hogwarts just happened; not like I know how to pick up women. I'd need lessons." She looked up. "Does anybody give lessons on how to pick up women?"
"It was on Bridge's sex ed final, yeah. Sort of."
"I need gay lessons, though. You think they'd add that to the course catalog at UCSD? If I approached the administration with a solid plan and some flowcharts? I mean obviously not a full major, but independent study or something?"
"Or you could just go to the group for that, maybe?" Buffy suggested. "The gay BLT thing? They do meet in our dorm."
"Well sure, but it's not the same without grades and also Icouldmaybeusesomebodytogowithmemaybe?"
Xander blinked at Willow. "Please tell me that's not where you're taking me? I mean if you want me to go with you I will, but it's a little late for an intervention on that one."
Willow looked up at him and grinned. "You will?"
Xander shrugged one shoulder, maybe a little uncomfortably. "I guess. Sure. As long as nobody's looking to fix me up." Then he narrowed his eyes, and gave her a thumbs-up. "Nice distraction job, Will. Very smooth."
"I try."
"So where are we really going?"
The car slowed down and pulled into a parking lot. "We're there."
There was... "Um. Sunnydale High? Great, my friends' idea of an intervention involves dangling me over the Hellmouth and pointing out that seriously, school could be worse. Trust me, I got that memo too."
Willow patted his arm as they got out of the car. "Sweetie, that was the intervention. You missed it because you were too busy acknowledging your dumbassitude."
"There were less I-statements than I was expecting." Xander let Buffy and Willow lead him through the front doors and down the empty hallways, Giles bringing up the rear. "So what are we doing here, then?"
Buffy pulled open the door to the gym, and gently -- sort of -- pushed him through it. "Celebrating."
Lights. Music. Balloons.
People.
Lots of people.
Familiar people. Jonathan Levinson gave them a nervous grin from beside the punchbowl, where he was ladle-ing out drinks for Dawn and Joyce. Larry waved from the middle of the dancefloor. Beyond him, under the disco ball, Xander spotted a pair of bare, tanned shoulders that could only belong to Cordelia Chase, dancing with...somebody from the basketball team.
"You invited almost everybody we went to high school with to celebrate a successful intervention? I'm...touched. Also slightly embarrassed."
"Also slightly full of yourself, in quirky yet loveable ways." Buffy pointed to the sign strung across the stage where a little over a year ago at the Prom, she'd accepted the award for Class Protector. CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATES it said, in about seven colors worth of glitter. On the edge of the stage beneath it sat several boxes of ribbon-wrapped scrolls.
"Giles' apartment turned out to be a little too small for the party."
___
To: bridge.carson@fandomhigh.net
From: xharris@ucsd.edu
Subject: Happy Anniversary
It's turned out to be... not so bad of a day, but it'd be better if you were in it. Sunnydale High finally gave us all our diplomas, even though we didn't graduate here. Buffy and a couple of other people set up a party at the school, which was nice but... it's a bit much. Thus sneakage away to what used to be Ms. Calendar's computer lab.
Took a picture of the three of us, me and Buffy and Willow, before I bailed, though. Well, Buffy's mom took it with my phone. She's going in for tests - we're all worried about her, but I told her what Dawn - our Dawn - told me. I'm hoping we can cheat the future just a little without blowing up the universe.
Wee-Dawn here is kind of freaked out about her mom, I think, though they're trying not to scare her too much. I keep being afraid I'll slip and talk about something the way I remember it without her there, but it hasn't happened yet. If this gets through, tell Dawn I could really use some pointers, though. Just a rundown of her life from say, age ten to fourteen? Bullet points would be cool.
Classes are--- not so great. I've been kind of a dumbass about them, but Willow's going to help me catch up.
The dumbass thing... I miss you like crazy, and I hate that I can't talk to you. Kind of been taking that out on... anything I can take it out on. It's been brought to my attention by more carefully-styled heads than mine that as ways to make you proud of me go, that one's got some flaws. They're right - I know you don't need me to prove anything, but *I* do. I want you to be the *first* thing I didn't fuck up, not the only one.
And... I guess I *can* talk to you, sort of, since, well, I am. Maybe it's a little nuts to pretend you're listening, but I'm okay with nuts.
Fine, stop giving me that look. Okay's a couple miles down the road. But I'll get there sooner or later.
Hope you're there when I do.
love you,
Xander
P.S. Pet the frog for me. But no kissing OMG. You don't need a purple prince on your hands.
Attachment: 46201.jpg
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 03:20 pm (UTC)...FH got some big ol gender-confusion whack we do, yo.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 05:03 am (UTC)No, I have no idea *how* other than that she would be able to give Xander many hugs like I want to right now. :(]
no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 03:49 pm (UTC)Okay I'm a guy and I'm getting sniffly again.]
no subject
Date: 2006-09-14 09:25 am (UTC)