“On the office desk, for chrissake!” Xander growled as he slammed the back door of his house. Buffy looked up, surprised that he was back so quickly.
“What?” the blonde Slayer said, surprised.
“The bastard was going down on her in the office!” He slammed the car keys down on the table and crossed to the refrigerator. Pulling out a takeout box from the local Chinese restaurant, he opened it and began to eat. “They might as well have just stayed in there and fucked, those animals.”
“Wow.” was all Buffy could muster. “Any more of that in the fridge?”
Xander nodded. “Help yourself.”
************
Willow was dabbing the blood off of his chin when Giles came to. “How?” he asked simply.
“Xander.”
“Oh?”
“He heard us.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Do you think he’ll --”
“Turn us in?” Willow sighed. “I doubt it. He’s still my best friend in the world.”
“Good. I think, though, given the circumstances of this evening, it’s best I just take you home.”
“No.” Willow said, red hair swaying with the adamant shake of her head.
“Beg pardon?”
“I refuse to allow Xander to ruin this --” she waved her hands in an inclusive gesture “-- us thing.”
“I’m afraid,” Rupert said, looking ruefully at his fly, “that he already has.”
************
“So Buff, banking day tomorrow.” Xander said, supressing a belch from his overstuffed tummy and holding up his mother’s car keys. “Liquor cabinet key.”
“Parents out of town.” she smirked. “Party?”
“We don’t have that many friends.” Xander grunted.
“Oh, yeah.” Buffy didn’t let that stop her, though. “Us party?”
“Definitely.” the dark-haired boy wiggled his eyebrows at her lasciviously. “Get me drunk and take advantage of me?”
Buffy rolled her eyes, grabbed the keys from his hand, and went into the living room.
“Hey Xander,” she called as he dumped the last of the take out containers, “Got any shotglasses in there?”
“Yeah...I got them. What did you find?” he asked, coming into the room with the glassware and a 2-liter of white soda.
“Whiskey, I think, and some Black Haus, whatever that is.” She rolled her eyes. “And, like, three kinds of tequila, four different flavors of brandy, and two flavors of vodka. Doesn’t anyone believe in plain booze anymore?”
“Please. In the Harris household?” Xander joked. “Look, I get my ass kicked on a regular basis by my friends, not to mention the Hellmouthy stuff. Of course I’m gonna have sissy booze, too.”
“Good point.”
************
Willow sat silently the whole way to the librarian’s house, her right hand buried in her red hair as she leaned back on the headrest. She stared off into space, eyes unblinking. A soft sigh escaped her lips, and she turned to look out the window.
“Something wrong, love?” Giles asked. Pausing to shift gears, he reached over for her other hand.
She smiled wryly. “Something isn’t?”
“He’ll learn to live with it,” he replied, his knuckles tensing on the wheel. “He’s more man, now, than boy. And as soon as we explain---”
“No.” The redhead said sharply. “There will be no explaining. Whatever is happening between us can stay between us.” She turned her head and let her hand fall out of her hair to rest in her lap. “As much as possible.”
His lips quirked up into a wry smile, then he winced.
Willow looked over. “You’ll have a bruise.”
“It was worth it.”
Willow rolled her eyes, and then began to laugh at the absurdity of her situation.
************
Buffy hiccoughed.
“Xander (hic) do you (hic) have any water (hic)?”
Her friend whacked her on the back, and began to chuckle. “You’re drunk, Buffy.”
“Yep.”
“But you have, like, super strength.” He continued. “Shouldn’t you have a big tolerance?”
“Probab--ba-bab--bab...(hic)uh. Yep.” She giggled. “But I’m a girl. I’m petite.”
“You are.”
“A girl or (hic)petite?” She asked, adjusting the hem of her shirt.
Rolling his eyes at her, he said, “Buff, come on, quit joking around.”
“Oh, fine, Mister No Fun Boy. I have to pee. You stay here and catch up.” She stood, wobblingly, and looked down at her companion. “Is the ground crooked, or is it (hic)just me?”
“It’s you,” Xander replied, taking a swig of the nearest bottle. The tequila burned on the way down and he winced.
“(hic)Wimp.” Buffy said as she waltzed away.
He watched her butt wiggle, ignoring her comment.
************
“What’s so funny?” Giles asked.
Willow’s laughs deepened to a low rumble, then faded to a chuckle. “It’s absurd.”
“What is?” the librarian replied, furrowing his eyebrows.
“Look at us. An eighteen-year old high school senior, making out in a not-kidding way on the desk in the library office with the librarian, a forty-three year old Englishman with the appetite of a high school sophomore--”
“Hey...”
“--And the skill of...um....something, well, skillful...were just busted in flagrante delico by the man she’s been in love with most of her life.”
“This is a problem, I take it.”
She was incredulous, hair flapping around her head as she gestured. “It’s not? How can it not be, Giles? What the hell is going on here?”
“Between us?”
“Yes!”
************
“Buffy, you’ve been in there forever!” Xander shouted, pounding on the bathroom door. “Are you okay?”
The toilet flushed, and he heard water running, and Buffy gurgling, and then the fan coming on as she opened the door and shut off the light. She caught her toe on the bathroom carpet, falling forward into Xander’s arms.
“Well, hello there.” he said, tightening his grip around her, his face inches from hers.
She tilted her head up. “Hi.”
Their breath mingled as they stared into one another’s eyes.
************
“I don’t know what’s going on between us.” Giles said slowly as he pulled into the underground lot underneath his apartment building. “It’s...an odd thing.”
“Odd doesn’t even begin to cover it.” The redhead said wryly. “It’s more than odd...it’s almost Hellmouthy.”
“Hellmouthy? I don’t understand.” He said, guiding the car into its designanted parking space and shutting it off. “Explain.”
“Why would you,a grown-up, adult Librarian with a side job as a Watcher, be interested in a girl like me?” She murmured as she got out of the car, adjusting her sweater for the fifteenth time. “What is it that you want?”
“You, love.” he smiled at her, taking her arm and guiding her up the stairs to his home. “All I want is you.”
“What about the wild monkey sex?” She grinned, managing to look both relieved and impish.
“It doesn’t hurt.”