The Shipwreck Dialogues: Xander
by Mediancat
So many people live in my town
And mind to my business and none of their own
They’re all so happy now that I’ve done wrong
I’m surprised they don’t trouble to thank me
So if you have moral advice
I suggest you just put it all away
‘cause my mood to burn bridges
Is not unlike my mood to dig ditches
Don’t cross me on either day
-- “Mood to Burn Bridges,” Neko Case
.
“How dare you.”
“ ‘Hello, Cordelia. How are you?’ “
“Don’t give me any shit, Cordy. I’m not in the mood right now.”
“Well, then, Xander, since you’re not much on pleasantries, what’s got your boxers jammed up your behind?”
“You know damn well what. How dare you do what you did with Buffy.”
“You mean tell her the truth?”
“No, I mean run that line of bull past her. You know. When you told her it wasn’t her fault. When you told her I was confusing her and my problems with our relationships.”
“Like I said, I told her the truth. And you know, I’ve got my own problems here and a lot better things to do than listen to you give me a hard time. So lay off the attitude or you’ll be talking to a dial tone.”
“Well, how the hell do you expect me to be when you’ve told her I essentially have no clue what I’m talking about? Happy?”
“No, but I expect you not to start off screaming at me. Could you possibly get any MORE incoherent or were you hoping to keep this above the level of grunting and hitting people over the head with clubs?”
“Look. I’m not going to be happy. I did my best to try to help her –“
“Odd way to show it.”
“You know as well as I do that Buffy almost never responds to calm, logical arguments. She needs to be hit over the head with a sledgehammer.”
“I’ll go along with that. That doesn’t mean that your PARTICULAR blow to the skull was well-deserved.”
“But it was.”
“Okay, you’ve got your chance here: Convince me and I’ll apologize.”
“Okay then. First off, Riley’s seeing the vampire babes? I’ll agree that was sick. Once I can barely understand, but over and over again meant he liked it. So I’ll give you that one.”
“I don’t see how even once is understandable, even barely, but keep going.”
“That’s not the important part. The important part is Riley was convinced Buffy didn’t love him before her mom’s troubles even started, over a month back. When I was moving into my new apartment Buffy and Riley were helping me move my stuff, and Buffy had just left when Riley went into a rapture about how Buffy made him feel. And he ended it up with, ‘But she doesn’t love me.’”
“That is information I didn’t have before.”
“I thought that might make you change your mind. Something else was that, while Buffy and Dawn were with Joyce in the hospital Riley and the rest of us scoobies tried to do the Slaying. We went after a group on a graveyard – one of ‘em had caught Buffy with her own stake earlier in the day, so I get why they ticked Riley off so much. We said we’d come back and get ‘em later, they were too much for us, and Riley simply went back and chucked a grenade in there to wipe ‘em out.”
“And this little Rambo act is supposed to impress me with his sanity?”
“No, with how much he loved Buffy, and how the stress of the relationship was getting to him.”
“What stress? So far all you’ve told me is that Riley SAID Buffy didn’t love him, and a stress release that I’m fairly sure Freud would not approve. Riley loved Buffy? I’ll go along. Buffy said so, and you say so –“
“If you’d heard the way he described being with her in the basement, you’d have no doubts. You’d have thought he was with a goddess. To him, she was.”
“Okay, I don’t doubt you. He loved her. So why do you think he was convinced that Buffy didn’t love him back?”
“The way she used him. The way she expected him to be there when she needed him, and take off when she didn’t. The way she stopped relying on him in the fighting when he lost his superpowers.”
“Struck a little close to home, did it, Zeppoboy? You saw what you thought happened to you way back when happening to Riley now and you sympathized with him.”
“Apart from the Zeppoboy slam, yeah.”
“You identified with him.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe so much so that you saw something that wasn’t there?”
“No, she wasn’t using him for backup except when she had no choice. That was there.”
“But he felt useless. Like Buffy didn’t need him anymore. Exactly like the way you felt. But you got past that.”
“I proved I could do things on my own. No thanks to you.”
“Let’s not go there at the moment. Anyway, you proved you could do things on your own – and you got better. Riley proved he could do things on his own, and went off to pay vampires to suck on him. Not exactly the work of the most balanced gymnast on the beam.”
“I’ve already given you that.”
“You’re not getting it. You accept that Riley’s mental state was off. But you sympathize with him so much that you’re ignoring that maybe his brain was a little whacked well before he lost his superpowers. You get me? I’m betting the only evidence you saw of Buffy not wanting to love Riley happened after he made his confession to you. Right?”
“Right. But I did see it.”
“And wasn’t most of Buffy’s time taken up then by something that kinda had the right to dominate it? Her mother’s brain tumor?”
“Yeah –“
“So was that really the best time to be objective about it?”
“Maybe not.”
“Good as I’m going to get.”
“Okay, Cordy, what’s this about me projecting? If I was identifying with Riley I can hardly have been seeing my own problems in Buffy’s. You don’t get it both ways.”
“Why? What’s so ridiculous about it?”
“It – it just is, that’s all.”
“You realize that’s one of the lamest POSSIBLE arguments in the history of mankind, don’t you?”
“No it isn’t.”
“For God’s sake, Xander, don’t make me sound like I’m channeling Frasier Crane. Your mind, yes, even yours, is certainly big enough to hold two thoughts at the same time without you even realizing it; for you to be able to identify with both Riley’s situation as a so-called victim and Buffy’s as the one who allegedly used someone for their own convenience, when it was YOU you were seeing both times.”
“Damn, Cordy, why do you do this?”
“Do what?”
“Make so damn much sense. I called here ready to rip your head off and now – well, I can’t say I buy everything you’ve told me, but you’ve definitely given me something to think about.”
“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to bed.”
“Cordy, it’s ten in the morning.”
“Yeah, I know, but if I’ve made you start thinking then obviously there’s no point in staying awake any longer because that HAS to be the highlight of my day.”
“Had to get in another shot, didn’t you?”
“Would I be me if I didn’t?”
“I guess not.”
“Damn straight.”
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