Shacking Up, 8
By
EntreNous
******
Chapter Sixteen: Confusing Conversations
Willow sat up and grinned at Oz. He was standing in front of the full length mirror in her dorm room, applying black liquid eyeliner.
“Oooh, it looks nice!” she said admiringly when he turned to blink at her.
“Yeah. It’s okay. We’ll see how it goes, trying out the whole glam thing. Set the Dingoes apart from other bands, you know.”
“Well, I think it’s cool,” Willow replied, bouncing slightly on the twin bed. “Want to wear some of the sparkly powder Buffy and I got last week? You put it on your cheekbones, or across your neck, or wherever.”
“Why not?” Oz smiled amiably, turning to paw through the make-up piled into the wicker basket on the dresser. He swiped some of the shimmery powder onto his collarbone and picked up a tube of something else, examining it closely. “Hey, that dented microwave you found abandoned on the quad green? I dropped it off at the crypt earlier. Clem was pretty psyched.”
“He’s a nice demon,” Willow said distractedly, licking her lips while she watched Oz streak glitter gel under his eyes.
“He’s upstanding,” Oz murmured, stepping back to take in the results. “He said something about making you microwave cookies to say thanks.”
“That’s, uh . . . that’s nice. . . Wow,” Willow breathed softly. “You look . . . hot!”
Oz merely raised an eyebrow, but Willow could tell that he was pleased. She sighed, realizing that she had class soon, and began to gather her books together.
“I’ve got Psych section at 6:30pm, so I better get going. Especially now that I’m taking notes for two, right?” She pointedly made a “hmph!” noise in a high pitch.
Oz seemed more charmed than rankled by her sound. “Yeah. Thanks. Can’t make class again. We’ve got to haul all the equipment over to the club.”
Before Willow could turn the conversation to why Oz was going to college if he wasn’t going to take his classes seriously, Oz shifted to a new topic. “Haven’t seen much of Xander lately. He caught up doing the townie thing?”
Willow reluctantly let Oz lead her to the less contentious subject of Xander’s whereabouts.
“He’s just busy. Work, and the new apartment. I thought maybe he wasn’t coming around as much ‘cause he was weirded out that we’re in school and he’s not. But I don’t think he really wants to go to college, and he seems happy that we like it here. Anyway, he hangs out with his roommate more these past few weeks. They eat dinner together and stuff.”
“Huh.”
“Huh what?” Willow pressed anxiously. Oz didn’t often make observations about Xander, so she was worried that he might have caught something about her best friend that she had somehow missed.
“Just seems strange that he and Spike aren’t living together anymore.”
“Huh,” Willow remarked thoughtfully. She hadn’t really considered that before now. “Um, I think it was strange at first, but now they’re friendly again. Anyway, it seemed like it’d be for the best, you know, them living apart.”
“Why?” Oz asked reasonably.
“Well, Giles and Buffy said,” Willow began, and then just stopped. “Maybe, uh . . . okay, I don’t really know why. But I can assure you that it all seemed very reasonable at the time,” she concluded defensively.
“Just thought they liked each other, is all.” Oz sat on the bed next to her, and pulled her in to kiss her nose.
“Well, Xander likes Davy too. So that’s good, right? I mean, he should hang out with human guys.”
“Sure,” Oz said evenly.
“Yeah,” Willow returned unhappily. Maybe Xander was all upset about Spike living elsewhere. They had seemed to enjoy one another’s company. Should they have asked him before engineering Project New Roommate? And maybe she shouldn’t have said the part about human guys being better than undead guys. Did Oz think she was prejudiced against the unliving or otherworldly or something?
“Hi Oz, hi Will,” Buffy called as she edged open the door to the room cautiously. “You’re not having wild monkey sex, are you?” The door opened fully, and Buffy looked at the fully-clothed couple with relief.
“Not at the moment,” Oz replied. Willow turned red, but she waggled her eyebrows in a daring fashion at Buffy.
Buffy held up her hand in a clear “don’t tell me” gesture.
“I’m just here to pick up my books -- coming to Psych section, Will? Or is Oz the one taking on note-duty this time?” Buffy looked sternly at the lack of books and presence of guitar by Oz’s side.
“No, that’d be Willow,” Oz said smoothly, picking up his guitar to go. “You’ll come around to the second set at the Bronze, right?”
“We’ll be there after patrolling,” Willow assured him, her smile somewhere between “aww, cute Oz! sparkly Oz!” and “you’d better have some answers about skipping class later, buster!”
“Say, Oz,” Buffy said carefully.
“Yeah?”
“How come you’re wearing my fuzzy pink sweater?”
*********
Xander snuck into the apartment. It felt a little strange, being all covert, but Spike’s remarks about Davy had wigged him out a little. He just didn’t feel prepared to respond to an overture from his roommate yet.
Yet?!? Xander cursed at himself for his train of thought. If Spike hadn’t brought it up, he wouldn’t even consider such a thing. He quit mid-curse, however, then froze in elaborate caution lest he bring forth Davy to make passes at him.
Not that Xander was so vain as to think that Davy was definitely interested. But if he was, well, then Xander would just. . . and it was because the part about what he would do if that happened seemed so fuzzy that Xander crept into the kitchen surreptitiously.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he decided that no other signs of life force were apparent in the apartment. Looked like he was the only one here. He bent over to look at the contents of the fridge and poked around at covered casserole dishes. One thing for sure, he’d definitely been eating better since Davy came on the scene.
“-- want some cookies?” a voice said, and then there was a hand on his shoulder, and Xander jumped into the air and shrieked.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Davy said, backing away with wide eyes. “If you don’t like the oatmeal-raisin kind, that’s cool.”
“No,” Xander said briefly. He let out a forced laugh. “Just thought I was the only one home. Sorry to get all screamy on you.”
Davy laughed. “You’re so funny, Xander.”
Xander frowned back. “Yeah.”
Davy paused and looked at Xander for a moment. “You okay? Something wrong?”
“No, me, I’m great. I’m as okay as okay can be. Why do you ask?” Xander shrugged frenetically and took a step back as Davy took a step towards him.
“I don’t know,” Davy responded, and stopped. He looked at Xander quizzically. “Um, did our conversation earlier, uh, upset you? The conversation about Michael and me?”
“Our . . . no! Not at all! I’m not upset!” Xander protested, but when he saw Davy’s skeptical look he sighed. “Seriously, it’s not anything that *you* said. I’m not bugged by the thing with Michael that you had going. It’s just that . . . well, I went over to see Spike, and he’s got all kinds of crazy ideas about . . . crazy stuff.”
Davy turned away to grab the tin canister with the cookies inside. He narrowed his eyes slightly, processing this information. When he turned back, he popped the top of the container, offering the contents to Xander with an easy smile.
Xander smiled a little nervously at him, and reached in for a cookie. His eyes bugged out when he bit in. “Wow. Wow!!! These are the best! You could really give Willow a run for her money, cookie-wise! Will’s a great baker, even when Buffy helps, and that’s saying a lot, because Buffy tends to forget important ingredients in cookies. Like sugar. And then she burns them. But these! These are great!”
“Thanks,” Davy said, amused once more. He reached in for a cookie himself, and munched at it thoughtfully. “You know, Xander, I’m not sure why, but I get the feeling that Spike didn’t like me too much when he met me.”
“Oh, no,” Xander assured him. “It wasn’t you he didn’t like. He doesn’t like most hu-- I mean, he doesn’t really like anybody.”
“Maybe,” Davy responded, “but I guess I don’t want *you* to feel weird about me because of him. I mean, whatever it is that you guys have, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable around me. I’m not really sure what he said today, but I think that you have to take his attitude towards me into account when you weigh your options. I also think that if he’s not living here with you anymore, that you should look to other sources for friendship and . . . whatever else you want.”
Xander gazed back at Davy. The words were surely English, but the sentences didn’t add up. What did he have . . . with Spike? What options? Other sources?
“Look, I won’t push,” Davy continued. “I’m sure that Spike is great . . . in his own way. You’re a nice roommate, and I don’t want either of us to feel strange just because we enjoy spending time together. Whatever Spike thinks shouldn’t affect us.” Davy waited to see what Xander thought of the last pronoun.
Xander nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said gravely. He mentally patted himself on the back for seeming like he knew what Davy was talking about.
“Good. I’m glad we talked about this,” Davy concluded, and put a hand on Xander’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” Xander said dubiously. He wasn’t sure if he should step away or -- well, was this the pass, the one Spike said Davy would make? Maybe, though it just seemed friendly. Then again, Xander wasn’t quite sure how guys came on to each other. Did it start out with shoulder-holding? Should he duck out from under Davy’s hand? Or would that make Davy think he was not cool with the Davy and Michael thing? Or the Davy being gay thing? Or the Davy maybe or maybe not trying to jump his bones thing?
Davy hadn’t intended to keep his hand on Xander’s shoulder, but Xander had just stopped moving, and was looking at Davy in a wondering kind of way, a stare that was making Davy’s throat a little dry. Davy felt himself start to lean forward just a little.
Suddenly Xander caught a glance of the kitchen clock over Davy’s shoulder. 7:30 -- he was supposed to meet the gang for patrol in fifteen minutes. “Oh, yeah, uh, I think it’s good we had this talk, but . . . now . . . Um, I have to get going. Get outside for a little while. You know. Get some air?”
“That’s fine, Xander,” David replied in an understanding tone. He dropped his hand away gently, and tried not to let his disappointment show in his voice. “Take some time and some space and think about things.”
“Sure,” Xander offered. Again, Davy wasn’t making much sense. Oh, well -- he had to get going. He grabbed his backpack, and two more of Davy’s cookies, and took off.
**********
On Monday night Buffy met up with the others at Giles’ place, and quickly handed out assignments. “Will, you’re with me tonight. We’ll head down to the crypt over at cemetery #9 and check to see whether the entrance has been mojo-ed or not. Xander, you and Spike take the periphery. You see any demon muscle headed towards the entrances, just target and disable. Don’t worry about killing these guys -- for now, we’re just looking to buy a little time and figure out what’s going on. Take ‘em out, knock ‘em down. We’ll need to save our strength for the next full moon, when they’ll be able to summon their leader. And Giles, if you hang here, we’ll call you as soon as we know what’s what.”
Buffy turned to Spike, who was cleaning out his nails with a sharp spear and suppressing a yawn. “You got that, Spike?”
“No killing, just knocking out, the boy’s with me, and you’ll buy us all drinks later.”
“Right.” Buffy nodded her head definitively, but then shook it in confusion. “What? No! There’ll be no drinks -- I mean, there’ll be drinks, but I am not paying for yours!”
“Oh, come on, Slayer,” Spike growled. “It’s the least you could do when I could be at home eating onion dip with Clem. I’m not asking for dosh, just for drinks.”
“Hey, Clem makes onion dip?” Xander asked, interested.
“Yeah, he does it up well. The secret is, you use more than one packet, and then you add -- ”
“Enough!” Buffy cut in. “You two can trade recipes later. Now’s the time for beating things up! I made a promise to protect this town, and I keep my promises!”
“Yeah,” Xander nodded, and then added in a tell-tale voice. “Uh, Buffy, you realize that if you keep your promises you’ll have to buy us drinks? You already agreed, see, so --”
“Ooooohhhh!!” Buffy fumed. “Fine. Me and Will with the mojo, you and Spike with the beating, and then drinks all around at the Bronze.”
“Good work, whelp,” Spike told Xander in a low voice as they exited.
“Thanks, Spike,” Xander returned, and they grinned at each other as they galloped along to keep up with Buffy and Willow, making silly “I keep my promises” Buffy-faces at one another.
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