Fic: Cold Feet, Warm heart
Slash Wedding Ficathon entry
For maybedarkpink
Xander/Jesse
PG
Disclaimer: So not mine. Do I even have to say it? There is no Joss but Joss and Marni is his Writer. Me, I'm just a librarian.
Bear with me, it's the first Buffy fic in YEARS.
Spoilers: Welcome to the Hellmouth, but AU'd.



Cold Feet, Warm Heart
Dec 2004 Angel

It all started, Willow decided as she twisted her hair into a chignon, that first day Jesse came to playgroup. She
and Xander had been playing with trucks on the Road Rug when the new boy came over. Xander had given Jesse
his very favorite red car to play with that day.

Through grade school, they’d played together at recess. Xander had spent nights at both their houses when his own
got too bad. The other kids called the “the Three Musketeers” or “mouseketeers” when they thought no one was
listening. They’d been the “We hate Cordelia” Club, and there had been crayons and popsicles and A Charlie Brown
Christmas and skinned knees and the playground.

In Junior High, things hadn’t changed. The school had its designated slut, and most kids thought Willow was just a
dedicated slut. Rumor had it she only put out for Xander and Jesse, and only when they were together. There had been
homework and movie night and slipping out to the playground at all hours, but no more sleepovers.

She pinned her corsage on the shoulder of the seafoam green dress and remembered the night everything had changed.
They were sophomores, just moved up to the big high school Buffy was new in town. They’d all been at the Bronze,
and the bleached blonde had set her sights on Jesse. She’d danced with him, cutting him out of the triad, and whispered
to him.

Xander had kept them close to Jesse and stranger. It was, after all, Sunnydale. People disappeared or died with frightening
regularity, and the wariness of strangers was second nature. When the strange girl had tried to convince Jesse to leave with
her, Xander had cut in.

“Sorry, sugar, he’s mine.” With that, Xander had kissed Jesse on the dancefloor at the Bronze. It had shaped the next three
years in uncountable ways. There had been Buffy and the scoobies and vampires and magick and Oz but always, there were
Jesse and Xander and she wasn’t part of it any more.

She was close enough that Larry, Cordelia and the other sheeple taunted “faghag” after her in the halls. They made the boys’
lives hell, until Buffy let it be known that she would deal with any assaults personally. Xander was Jesse’s. They both loved
her, Willow knew, but they loved each other in a way neither would ever love her. She dealt, and they stayed friends.

College had been a revelation and a nightmare all in one. But they had survived, as always. She looked herself over in the
mirror once more, and realized that was what this was really about. It wasn’t just two men joining their lives, it was a celebration
of hope and survival for all the Scoobies. Even for Buffy, who had died a time or two.

She tapped at the door of the men’s room. “Xander? Are you almost ready?” He didn’t answer, so she called “I hope
everyone’s decent because I’m coming in.”

Xander was sitting, mostly dressed, on one of the toilets, his head in his hands.

“Cold feet?” Willow asked.

“Somewhere around Absolute Zero, Will. I mean, my God, what am I doing? I have no business getting married. Look at my
dad. I’ll just foul it up.”

“Xander.” Weillow pulled him to his feet and tied his bowtie. “Do you love Jesse?”

“Yes, but–“

She helped him into his jacket, interrupting him. “Have you been living together for the last six years?”

“Yes, but-“

She fastened his cummerbund. “Didn’t you put up with 3 years of high school hell for him?”

“Literally, but–“

She pinned his boutonniere on his lapel. “What difference does making him your legal next of kin make? It’s not going to be
any different except you’ll file your taxes jointly.”

“But Willow–“

“Go out there and get married before I have to get Giles in here to give you a man-to-man talk.” She fastened the cufflinks
and shirt studs.

Xander looked at himself, dressed and ready, and combed his hair quickly.

A knock at the door was followed by Oz’s voice, “Are you ready? We’re ready.” Oz had agreed to stand up with Jesse,
his closest friend among the Scoobies..

The Community Hall was not exactly packed. Some of Jesse’s friends. The few Slayerttes that weren’t involved.  A few
guys from Xander’s construction job. No family anywhere. Willow waited on the left side, standing beside Xander, the ring
tightly clutched in her fist.

He looked so handsome in his tuxedo. She had dreamed many times as a little girl of standing beside him. In the dreams, her
dress was white. In her dreams, he had looked at her with what she thought of as the “I can live without you, but I wouldn’t want to”
look he was wearing now as he watched Jesse and Oz came in from the other side of the hall. She would be adult about this. And
they would always love her now.

Dawn, who had finagled a ministerial certificate from an internet church and a notary license by taking the exam, flipped pages in a
little book. She was more nervous than the grooms, especially since they didn’t appear to be nervous at all. Her first wedding. The
first for all of them.

“Dearly Beloved,” she began, but Xander glared at her.

“Get on with it!” he insisted.

“We are here today to join these men in holy matrimony.”

“Dawn, just say it,” Jesse ordered.

“All right. You know what? Forget the book. Folks, we’re here because Xander and Jesse are doing what it’s finally legal for them
to do. We’re here to help them celebrate this transition from members of a group to members of a family. There’s a lot of folks who
won’t be pleased, and there’s going to be a lot of trouble for them. But together, and with us beside them, they’ll make it just fine. So,
knowing all this, Xander, do you?”

“I do.” Xander took the ring from Willow. “With this ring, I take you to be my husband. For better or worse, richer or poorer, sick or
well. You’re mine, and I love and adore you.”

“Jesse, do you?”

“I do.” Jesse got his ring from Oz and put it on Xander’s hand, repeating the ancient words of the promise.

“I say you’re married. Kiss your husband.” They did, to thunderous applause.

They walked out to a vaguely classical recessional, and in the lobby of the Community Hall, kissed again.

“Can’t believe we did it, Harris. After all these years.”

“You and me, Jesse, forever. And it’s all going to be worth it from here on out.”