“So, what’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?” a familiar voice asks me.
Buffy sits down at the barstool next to me, but she‘s on my blind side, so I can’t see her.
“Would you mind moving, Buff?” I ask her.
“Oh, sorry. I guess you want to be alone.” I can hear the hurt in her voice.
The fact is I do want to be alone. Alone, drunk, and listening to country music. But the hotel bar where the Scoobies and the new slayers have stopped is musically stuck in the 80’s. Peppy 80’s too. They don’t even have the decency to play ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’. I almost tear up as the lyrics run through my head and I think about what beautiful eyes Anya had.
Since this part of my plan is shot anyway I figure I might as well try and hide from my pain in Buffy’s. She’d been the brave little slayer all day, ever since Sunnydale was swallowed whole. But I know she has to be hurting. A person would have to be blind not to see that she had been falling for Spike ever since he got his soul, and I still have one good eye.
“No, it’s not that. I just can’t see you over there,” I tell her to reassure her.
“Oh, god. I’m so sorry. I completely forgot.”
I give her the best smile I’m capable of at the moment. “That’s okay. It’s kind of better actually when people forget. It’s like I’m just Xander again and not ‘The One-Eyed Guy’.”
The bartender comes over to see if I need a refill or if Buffy wants anything.
“Umm, I want beer. Not wimpy american beer. But umm. . . “ Buffy stammers trying to explain what she’s looking for in a beverage.
“Do you have Fuller’s?” I ask. The bartender nods, grateful he’s getting help interpreting her order. “That’s what she wants then.”
Buffy nods in agreement. When the bartender moves away she leans close to me and whispers, “What’s Fuller’s?”
“It’s a dark stout. You won’t like it. But it’s from London.”
“Oh, thanks,” she smiles, grateful that I understand that the drink’s more a symbol than a refreshment.
We sit in silence until the bartender returns. Then I lift my bottle for a toast, “A drink for those who can’t drink anymore.”
I’m surprised by the bitterness in my own voice. I meant it as a joke. But it is one of those jokes you realize isn’t funny after it leaves your mouth. Worse, it brings back memories. Memories of when Joyce died, and Anya asked us to explain mortality to her. It’s a hazy memory, all of that day is except for when I put my fist through the drywall in Willow’s dorm. But I can still remember Anya saying something about how Joyce would never drink juice again.
Buffy clinks her bottle against mine and we drink. She scrunches up her face at the bitter taste of the beer, but she immediately takes another swallow. We sit for another few minutes in silence.
“So how are you doing?” she asks me.
How can I answer her? I feel like there is this huge black hole inside of me, sucking up every emotion. A hole from which no happiness will ever escape. I feel drained, empty. And yet it’s also like I'm feeling too much all at once. Like I’m nothing but pure raw emotion. The hole inside of me is heavy. It weighs me down. It’s pressed against my insides so I feel like I can’t breathe. How can I explain all that, what words can I find?
So I lie. “I’m still numb. It hasn’t really sunk in yet that she’s gone. Really gone. I just can’t help feeling-“ I stop myself - ashamed to admit to the thoughts that have been running through my mind since I learned of Anya’s death – and take another gulp of beer.
“Angry? At her?” Buffy offers.
“No, not at her. At me.”
“Xander, there is nothing you could have done. People were going to die today, I wish. . . I wish I could have made that not true. But I couldn’t. You couldn’t have saved her. It’s not your fault. She made a decision. To be with us today, to fight the good fight. And that’s what’s important. It doesn’t matter what she did in the past. Today - and lots of times before really - she was one of the good guys. She died saving the world. That’s what matters.”
Any other time her little speech would have made me smile. Not because of it’s content, but because she is Buffy, queen of the subtext. She is trying, really trying to be there for me, but Buffy has always been rather self-absorbed. She can’t help but make my problems a reflection of her own.
In someone else I might have been annoyed, might have been angry that they couldn’t step out of their own little world long enough to pay attention to me. But this is Buffy. She has, maybe not a right to it, but at least a hell of an excuse.
Being the Slayer, the Chosen One, in a town like Sunnydale really had made her the center of things. Important things. There had been times when the sun really wouldn’t have risen if it hadn’t been for her.
Not just that, but she had given time and time again for everyone else. Her hopes, her dreams, the men she loved, so that everyone else could have the normal life she so wanted. So I think she’s allowed to be a little self-absorbed.
“There’s some of that,” I tell her. “But that’s not really it. I just keep thinking. . . Look I know you. . . the others, you’ve never understood why I left Anya, and I admit it, the timing was rotten. But it was the right thing to do. In the long run things wouldn’t have worked out.
“Except now it turns out there isn’t a long run. She’s dead. We would have been married only a little more than a year, and it wouldn’t have been enough time for things to go bad. She was so unhappy this last year, the last year of her life, and all because of me. I could have made her happy. She could have at least had what she wanted for a little while.”
“It wouldn’t have helped,” Buffy says sadly. “You wouldn’t feel any better now. Not if you’re right. Not if marrying her really was the wrong thing to do.”
“I know nothing can make me feel better about her dying, but she deserved. . .”
“I slept with Spike last night,” Buffy blurts out. As the words leave her lips she looks sheepish and embarrassed and I'm glad for that. It’s not really something I want to hear about. “We ummm. . . We weren’t really a couple. I think I wanted to be, but there was the whole end of the world thing and there just didn’t seem to be time. I know that’s not much of an excuse, not for me anyway. I mean, when’s the world not ending? But it seemed different this time. There were all the girls to think of. I mean, I know we were their age when we started risking our lives to save the world but still. . . I had responsibilities to them, you know.”
I nod, confused at where this is going, but figure Buffy’s circular way of thinking would get to the point eventually.
“So I couldn’t start a relationship, especially with him. With all the baggage, you know? It would have been too big a thing, too big a distraction. So we didn’t. I made sure we stayed just friends ‘cause I’d promised myself, a long time ago, back when we broke up, before the soul, that I’d never use him like that again. That I’d never just have sex with him again.
“But then the world was ending. And I didn’t think we’d. . . I’d make it through. I just wanted. . . I wanted him to have this one good memory of me before I was gone. So last night we did it. But we weren’t there. Not in the right place for it. It’s not that it was bad, it’s just. . . it was too soon. There was too much we never talked about, never figured out.”
She takes another swig of her drink, catches the eye of the bartender and orders a shot of whiskey to go with it. I just watched her for a bit. There is obviously something she is building up to, something she needs to say, so I give her time. She takes her shot, downs it in one quick gulp then sticks out her tongue and goes, “Blegh.”
I can't help but laugh. “Don’t worry, Buff. Ee’ll get some hair on your chest in no time,” I tease her.
She shoots me an evil look, then continues, “It backfired. He knew too. Or maybe sensed it from me, that it wasn’t the way I wanted things, because with the amulet. . . he was burning up, dying, and I had to tell him. Tell him that I loved him. But he didn’t believe me. He said,” she drops her voice and does a horrible Spike imitation, “’No you don’t, but thanks for saying it.’ I loved him, and he never knew, he’ll never know.”
She breaks down then. Begins to sob and I stand up so I can wrap my arms around her and hold her. I’m glad, and feel bad about it. Not that Spike is dead. There isn’t enough in me to care one way or the other about that now. I’m glad for Buffy’s pain so I don’t have to think about my own, even if only for a little while.
I pat her back, stroke her hair, and say all the meaningless things you say to someone when they cry. Slowly she pulls herself together.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to dump on you like that,” she apologizes. “What I was trying to say was, it wouldn’t have mattered what you did. The way you feel now, you would have felt just as bad, worse maybe, if you’d married her.”
She looks away then, finishes her beer, and orders another one.
“Sorry about all the Spike stuff. I know. . . I know he isn’t your favorite guy,” she says at last.
“It’s okay. No, I didn’t like him, but. . . I lived with the guy a couple times you know. Back when I was in my parent’s basement, he was pretty much at his worst. Not in an evil doer sense, but he was a first rate brat.”
She chuckles a little at the word brat, and I’m relived to know that I can still make her laugh. Who would I be if I’m not the funny guy?
“But the second time. . . I get that he was different. The soul, all that, I get it. It’s still hard for me to forgive him for what he tried to do to you. . .”
Horrible guilt floods through me as it always does when I think about what Spike almost did to her. I remember once saying I was the only one of us who hadn’t gone evil and tried to kill everyone. But that isn’t completely true, and I know it. It was been early on, and yeah, I was possessed by the spirit of a hyena, but I’d tried to rape Buffy. It’s never ceased to haunt me. I hate Spike because I hate myself. I know how easy it can be to step over that line.
Besides, what I’d done was worse. Hyena spirit or no, I still had my soul. And if I’d managed to rape Buffy, it would have been worse for her than if he’d done it. She could have recovered from Spike, from her mortal enemy, but her geeky best friend? Not to mention that would have been her first time. It makes my skin crawl and my stomach churn every time I think of it.
I continue, “I’m not sure I ever can, but I wouldn’t be here looking at you with one good eye if it wasn’t for him, not to mention the saving of the world thing. I guess what I’m trying to say is, he was okay, and well, I can’t hold it against you for loving him.”
“Besides,” I say, my pathological need for lighting the moment reaserting itself, “He really wasn’t that bad a roommate. Okay, there were the towels, but he kept to himself. Never complained that I was leaving the lights on and wasting money in the form of electric current, and didn’t eat scary cheese. You know except for the sex he was a better roomate than Anya.”
Then Buffy’s laughing at me and I realize what I just said.
“I don’t mean the sex was bad. Not that it was good, cause there wasn’t any. I mean sure the guy’s got a nice ass but. . . I mean. I didn’t mean that. Ye Gods!”
I bury my face in my hands. Where do these things come from? Maybe Willow secretly gayed me up and just didn’t tell me. Just to check, cause hey you never know with Will, I conjure up the image of the time I caught Spike doing naked pushups in bed when I was looking for invisible Buffy. Just like that I put two and two together and feel like a complete idoit for not figuring it out sooner. Then it occurs to me that I was in the same room with Buffy, and she was naked. I was probably looking right at her. Any doubts about my sexual oreintation are driven away by that. Yep, still straight.
Still chuckling, Buffy reaches over to hug me. “Thank you, Xander,” she whispers.
For a few moments we just hold each other, safe in the knowledge of a sure thing. This thing that has grown between us for seven years; it’s still good. We’re still okay. And for just a moment the pressure in my chest eases and I think, it’ll be okay. I’ll make it through. But just for a moment.
“It’s weird, you know?” Buffy asks me. “For the first time, I really do have my whole life ahead of me. We have choices and, I don’t know, there are things out there ahead of us, things that don’t go bump in the night. And we’ll find someone. Someone new, someone who we can be with. We’ll be okay.”
“Until then, can I buy the lady another drink?”
She smiles at me and nods. I wish it were true. What she says, but I can’t just believe it. Not now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I wake up with my head throbbing like I’d been thrown head first into a brick wall. The dry taste in my mouth tells me that my discomfort isn’t demon related, but due to alcohol. Slowly, I sit up groaning and rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
As my weight shifts on the mattress I hear a more feminine groan next to me. I freeze, and look down. There next to me is naked Buffy, lying on her stomach, and opening and closing her mouth like a fish. Obviously she’s got that day old beer taste in her mouth too.
Last night comes rushing back to me. For which I’m grateful. If I’d slept with Buffy and not remembered it, well, I don’t know how I’d feel, but remembering is definantly better, despite how weird I feel.
“Oh, man,” I say.
She tenses, squints up at me, rolls over and pulls sheets around herself.
“We. . .” her voice trails off.
“Yeah”
“Oh.”
Luckily my boxers ended up in easy reach of where I’m at on the bed. I grab them and pull them on. I get up, stuff my arms into my shirt, then gather her clothes and hand them to her. I turn around to put on my pants, and to give her some privacy to dress.
“Look Xander, about last night. . .” she begins nervously.
“It’s okay, Buffy. I know. It was just. . . It was a mist-”
“No,” she says firmly. “It wasn’t a mistake, it just wasn’t a beginning, right?”
“Yeah.”
I’m glad she doesn’t regret it. I hope she doesn’t. I wouldn’t want to do that to her. To be the night she regrets.
She puts her hand on my arm to let me know she’s dressed and I can turn around. When I do, I can see the concern in her face. She’s afraid that I’m still in love with her. That I’ve gotten my hopes up and that they’re going to be smashed. It’s kind of endearing.
“It’s really okay, Buffy. It was just what it was. For me, too. Look, I’m a guy okay. And you are. . . you’ve always been this amazing girl, a wonderful friend, and a major league hottie. But my crush, it’s long gone. That’s what it was you know. Teenage guy, all those hormones, I loved you, do love you. But not in that way.”
She smiles, relieved. “I love you too, like you said. Just not that way. We’re okay then. Nothing’s. . .”
I take her hands in mine, then crush her in a hug. “We’ll always be okay,” I promise her.
It’s not true though, the part about how I used to feel about her. I did love her that way. At least as much as you can when you’re in high school. Then I feel awful, because, I’ve been out of love with Buffy for so long, and yet, you can’t help but wonder sometimes.
Anya knew. Knew the feelings I’d had for Buffy. It was always this unspoken thing between us. I feel awful that I had to actually sleep with Buffy to really know that we weren’t meant for each other. And Anya would never know. I could never tell her how much better our quirky love that grew so deep over the years was compared to anything I’d ever dreamed of.
That’s when I broke down. The guilt, the loneliness, the loss. It all hit at once like a wrecking ball knocking me over. And suddenly I’m holding on to Buffy because if I let go, I won’t be able to stand.
She grips me tightly, and lowers me down to the floor murmuring, “It’s okay. Shhhh, let it out.”
Finally I have my tears under control and I pull back from her.
“Not very manly, huh?” I ask.
She looks at me with a sad smile and brushes the tears from my cheeks.
“To love that much? I think it’s very manly.” She waits a minute. “It’s okay you know. She’d understand. She’d want you to move on.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” I correct Buffy. Anya would be livid if she knew. “She’d want to be alive.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Are you okay, though?”
I nod to her and she thinks it over, deciding if she believes me.
“Okay,” she decides. “I have to go check on Dawn.”
“You go. See how she’s doing. She lost friends too.”
We get up and hug again, and she leaves, with one last look to see if I’m all right. I smile to let her know that I am.
But I’m not. Once she’s gone I lay back down on the bed and count the minutes until I’m through my first day without Anya.
The End
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