Substitution: Substitution
by Lady Moiraine
Summary: Everyone and their dog has done a different ending to ‘Seeing Red.’ Here’s mine: A leaving group has been abstracted and, when you’re so close to a nucleophile (whose other half just latched onto the leaving group), how can you not bond? When the mixture is shaken up a bit, a very fluffy precipitate forms. We always knew B/X had chemistry.
Disclaimer: Standard I’m-not-Joss-the-great-and-powerful disclaimer applies.
A/N: Written mainly because I’m now incapable of hearing the word ‘entropy’ without thinking of ‘Buffy’ - which is rather a handicap in biochem and organic classes - hey, at least they’re not making me take phys chem. With thanks to Andrew, who knows that double bonds in chains are kinky (we’re talking long-chain hydrocarbons, people; get your minds out of the gutter), and to the many, many teachers, TAs and profs in whose chem classrooms I’ve dozed, daydreamed, panicked, and wondered where the hell the methyl group went.
=> Assume that Willow didn’t come into the bathroom just when she did. Then let’s speculate as to what might have happened. ‘Kay? I may follow this up with a chapter to deal with the Geek Trio, but this was really intended as stand-alone fluff.
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“Did he hurt you?” Xander stands, still gripping the now-forgotten duster, staring at the bathroom, at Buffy, in something somewhere between shock and horror.
She lifts one shoulder - a classic Buffy emotional-defense move. “He tried - he - he didn’t.”
“Son of a bitch,” he starts to turn away, to go find Spike, wherever the sad bastard is, and to kick his undead ass, but she calls after him.
“Don’t,” it’s not that she’s afraid for him; Spike still can’t hurt anyone but her. But she doesn’t want him to go. “Please, just - don’t.”
He sighs, finally dropping the duster, and comes farther into the bathroom, kneeling to bring his face down to her level, but maintaining a safe distance. “You okay?”
She nods, sniffing a bit, and brushes a self-conscious hand over her face. “Yeah. Nothing permanent,” she tugs her robe back over her shoulder and leans back against the wall. She still hasn’t had that bath she came up here for, “I-I should - y’know - shower and stuff.”
He’s immediately on the alert. “Buffy -”
“No!” she’s known him for so long now, she can see right away what he’s thinking. “No, I - I told you he didn’t. I was about to take a bath when he came in is all.”
His heartbeat gradually slows as he forces himself to breathe. “You need anything?”
“New shower curtain?” she glances at the old one, half ripped away. “I’m good. Really.”
“I’ll be outside,” it’s a promise, and he brushes a careful hand over her hair as he stands and leaves, kicking the pile of black leather ahead of him. He’s half-thinking of dousing the thing with holy water and throwing it back at Spike, but he just kicks it down the hall and into her bedroom, under the bed, where she won’t look for awhile. He can come get it some other time, before she notices. For now, he said he’d wait.
She watches the door close behind him, hears the duster being kicked along the hall, and listens while the sound moves to her bedroom and stops there. Not til all is quiet does she stand, grimacing at the stiffness in her bruised back. She lifts the ruined shower curtain and struggles with it, finally managing to tie a knot that just might hold it up for a few minutes.
The water’s as hot as she can stand it, turning her skin pink with its heat, pelting hot and painful and somehow relaxing against the slightly swollen knot in her lower back, stinging the scratches Spike’s nails left on her ribs, and down one side of her right breast.
I know you felt it - when I was inside you.
Her eyes fly open and she shivers in spite of the scalding heat of the water, reaching for the soap to wash his touch away. The suds burn at the cuts and she hisses softly, sliding her soapy cloth down away from raw skin, to the bruise on the inside of one thigh, to the darkly wet curls that begin just where her legs meet. Nearly two years have passed since she’s felt living hands touch her there; two years since there’s been anything but cold lifelessness.
I’ve given you everything I have - my heart, my body and soul -
It’s not enough.
She wrenches at the hot-water tap, then nearly cries out as her skin is all but scalded. She doesn’t turn down the temperature, though. The air is so thick with soapy-smelling steam she feels like she’s about to drown with every breath, and if the water were a couple of degrees hotter, it’d raise blisters wherever it touched her, but she shivers again as a tendril of steam passes her nose carrying the faintest whiff of cigarettes and the grave.
Buffy reaches for the shampoo; it smells stronger than the soap. The suds escape her hair, run down her neck, her back, her face, threatening to drip into her eye, and their clean, perky ginger scent covers everything smoky and dead. Like that old song, the one her mother used to hum right after they moved to Sunnydale.
I’m gonna wash that man right outta my hair.
She giggles aloud, and the giggles grow to nearly hysterical laughter as she turns back to the driving water to let the shampoo rinse out. She nearly misses the knock on the bathroom door.
“Buffy?”
Xander. Of course he would have heard her. “I’m fine,” she manages to gasp, just before laughter turns to silent, salty tears that wash away with the ginger suds and leave her clean, breathing heavily through the thick steam to try and get some oxygen that’s not part of a water molecule, and feeling as drained as the bathtub while she watches the last shampoo bubbles swirl into the black hole, which, she notices vaguely, needs cleaning.
She towels off, wincing as the terry-cloth brushes over scratches and bruises, then picks up the nearly-shredded gray robe. She doesn’t want to put it back on; she’d rather leave it where she dropped it, come back later and burn the thing, but Xander’s waiting in her room, and she’s going to have to go in there for clothes.
Finally tossing the robe down, she wraps her towel around herself, and another over her hair. It’s enough for decency, at any rate, and she’s comfortable enough with Xander to show him her legs for a moment.
Xander looks up when she pads quietly into the room, blood now mostly gone from his nose and lip. “Feel better?”
“You have no idea,” she heads for the wardrobe and ducks behind the door. He knows better than to play the clown now, and simply turns around while she finds herself clean clothes. Jeans and a white turtleneck sweater. Simple, stylish, and covering her from chin to ankle. She doesn’t want sexy and revealing right now. “All clear,” she pulls the towel off her head and reaches for her hairbrush.
“Fig leaves in place?” Xander turns and sits across the bed from her. “Buffy.”
“Mmm?”
“Look at me,” he waits til she complies, then holds her gaze, “look at me and tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m -” she pauses, looks at the brush in her hand and nods, “I’ll be okay.”
“Future tense noted,” he reaches over to lay a careful hand over hers, “you know I’m not going anywhere, right?”
She glances up and he freezes at the look in her eyes. Betrayed, hurt, determined, and, above all, tired. “I know,” she crawls across the bed and sits beside him, “Xander, don’t do anything stupid, okay?”
“Stupid like tying Spike to a bed of pencils and then pushing down?”
“Exactly like that,” Buffy doesn’t smile at his bitter joke, and he blinks, “please, Xan.”
“He nearly raped you, Buffy. You think I’m gonna high-five him next time I see him?”
She presses her eyes shut. Rape. She’s always hated that word, even before she fully understood what it means. It’s clinical, cold and detached, but at the same time, so intimate, harsh and violent. She knows tears are coming, feels their sting long before her eyes actually start to water, and ducks her head to hide the weakness.
Xander shakes his head, calling himself nine kinds of moron for not keeping his mouth shut. “Oh, Buffy,” he runs a hand through his hair, wishing the Hellmouth would reach across town and grab him, “Buffy - Buffy, I’m sorry, I -” she startles him by leaning abruptly forward and resting her head against his chest.
They sit like that for a long time, Buffy stretched halfway across the bed with her cheek resting on Xander’s shirt, his arms tentatively around her, afraid of touching too much, and equally afraid of not touching enough. Her tears come quietly, rolling smooth and even down her cheeks with no sobs behind them.
“He didn’t, you know,” she says finally, voice thick, “he tried, but he didn’t.”
“I know.”
“I fought him.”
“That’s good.”
“Broke his nose, almost.”
“That’s better.”
“Is it?” Buffy pulls back, frowning. “I didn’t listen to him. He wanted to talk, and I told him to get out, and he went - crazy. I don’t think he even knew what he was doing til I threw him off.”
“Buffy,” Xander sits bolt upright, squeezing Buffy’s shoulders so hard she winces, “hop off the guilt train right now. Let’s try the Spike’s-an-evil-twisted-vampire line of thought. Remember soulless deadboy trying to kill you practically the first time he saw you?”
She tries for a grateful smile. It comes out wan and watery, but it’s a smile nonetheless. “Thanks, Xan.”
“‘S what I’m here for,” he brushes a still-damp curl off her forehead and she closes her eyes briefly. How long since warm hands have touched her like - Xander? When did she start noticing the gentle, friendly touches Xander’s given her practically as long as she’s known him?
She’s tired suddenly, tired and confused and shivering through her sweater. “It won’t kill anyone if I sleep for a bit, will it?”
She didn’t sleep last night; he knows she didn’t, and it’s close to midnight again now. “Lie down. We’ll try not to let the world end while you’re out,” he pulls the comforter and sheets back to let her slide underneath.
His words would be a joke anywhere but in Sunnydale. Here they just might be serious. “I don’t need long.”
“As long as you want,” he makes a show of tucking her in, even finding Mr. Gordo the stuffed pig and settling him on the pillow with just his head poking out from under the comforter, “I’d offer a lullaby, but we both know that’s the stuff nightmares are made of.”
Buffy giggles a bit at that. “Xan?” he looks up, still with a bit of laughter in his eyes. “Sleep with me?” Total silence falls while Xander tries to scrape his jaw off the floor and Buffy’s eyes widen, cheeks flushing furiously. “I - I didn’t - mean that - like it sounded. Just - don’t go? Please?”
Xander slowly starts breathing again, carefully avoiding Buffy’s eyes. “Yeah. Sure,” he stretches carefully out beside her, hoping she’s too tired to have noticed the absurd disappointment that flashed across his face a moment ago. It’s stupid, really; he’s always known Buffy’s out of his reach, and he pretty much got over her years ago, he thought. But, at the same time, when a beautiful woman asks you to sleep with her, then immediately takes it back, there’s bound to be a bit of disappointment.
“Tha’ks,” she’s half asleep already, turned on one side and nestling under the comforters and against Xander’s shoulder.
He’s surprisingly tired as well and, though he holds himself stiffly, resting a single hand on Buffy’s shoulder, he’s comfortable. “Sleep tight,” he mutters as he begins to drift off himself.
Willow passes the door maybe half an hour later, stops, stares, and runs back to her room to call Tara. “Look,” her eyes are dancing as she watches her best friends sleeping, Buffy under the covers, Xander on top of them, curled up with their foreheads resting together.
Tara slides her hand through Willow’s. “Took them long enough.”
They close the door quietly, the small click disturbing Buffy. She doesn’t open her eyes for a moment; she’s comfortable and snuggled close to someone warm, whose breath brushes her cheek regularly. Riley? No, no, Riley’s long gone. She’s so used to waking up alone, or with Spike’s cold skin pressed against hers. Opening her eyes the tiniest crack shows Xander’s nose, so close she jerks back from it in surprise. Xander’s mouth mutters something and his shoulders shift a bit, and Buffy watches him and wonders if she’s been looking between blinders for the last six years.
Xander. Xander who stumbled over his own tongue when he tried to help her pick up the spilled contents of her bookbag, the first time she met him. Xander, who’s been mad at her plenty of times, but who’s always been the first to forgive, the first one to be there with a goofy smile, a box of doughnuts and a shoulder to lean on.
Buffy smiles a little and lets her head fall back where it was.
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