Xander opened his eyes.  He didn't really expect to
see anything different
-- Giles' living room, his friends gathered in a
circle watching him,
Graham standing beside him, his hand slipped free
during the course of the
spell.  It didn't take any time at all to notice that
he could see nothing
different.

Nothing on the outside.

He found Graham watching him, his stoic face hiding
what Xander was pretty
sure had to be nerves and worry.  Fear?  Who knew.  He
didn't.

He didn't.  He didn't know.  He was staring at
Graham's face and couldn't
read it, couldn't tell what that look meant.  He could
feel his heartbeat
begin to race and Graham lifted one hand and placed it
on Xander's cheek.

That felt familiar.

"Xander?"

That sounded familiar.  Not soul-deep, not the way it
had before, but
familiar.  Briefly, surface memory flitted through his
skin, from the touch
of Graham's hand into his mind, and it looked for
something more. "Yeah?"
he managed, his throat tight and mouth dry.  He wanted
to grab Graham and
hold him tight, and pretend nothing had changed.

"You look like you're about to pass out."  Graham's
eyes narrowed, and
Xander frantically latched onto it, recognising
something in it he
knew.  Xander tried to keep his desperation off his
face, and Graham just
said,  "Maybe you should sit down?"

Why wasn't he asking? Xander wondered.  Why doesn't he
want to know if it
worked? Why don't any of them?  He looked around at
his friends, found them
watching, still, quietly.  Buffy and Giles both looked
like they always did
in times like these.  Bad enough there had been so
many that he found
nothing surprising in their expressions -- worry,
confidence,
patience.  Quietly waiting for him to do or say enough
for them to judge
the effects of their spell.  Willow, also watching,
her expression familiar
in ways no one else's had ever been -- until Graham,
until the Robert in
Xander's head had found his long lost love.  Xander
looked away from her,
back at Graham.

He was smiling.  Xander blinked.  Smiling?

"Xander?"

"Um, yeah?"

There was a pause, then, and Graham's smile faded
slightly, and he tilted
his head just so.  Xander wanted to reach out and
touch his chin, an echo
of an intimacy he no longer felt, but that he
knew...thought...hoped would
be taken the right way.  Graham nodded, and said,
"Oh."

Before Xander could demand what 'oh' meant, Graham
pressed forward and
kissed him.
 

****************
 

No matter how he shifted, there was a beam of sunlight
glaring in his
eyes.  Maybe if he scooted his chair a little more to
the left?  Xander
glanced over to his right.  Nah.  He kinda liked where
he was, even if he
was going blind.

Graham was sitting at the table, to Xander's right.
His leg nudged
Xander's every so often, and he'd look over at Xander
and smile whenever
someone said something or someone laughed or someone
said Xander's name or
Graham's name, or -- actually, Xander realized, Graham
was pretty much
looking over and smiling at him constantly.  Only
looking away when he had
to make sure the sandwich was going from the plate to
his mouth without any
unauthorised stops in between.

"We were never this bad," he heard Buffy saying, and
Xander looked over to
see what she was talking about.  Or just to whom.  He
found Buffy, Riley,
Willow, and Willow's friend Tara all looking at he and
Graham.  Xander
glanced over at Graham to make sure he hadn't got
mayonnaise on his face or
something.  Nope, nothing.  Just a little confusion,
there, which was about
what Xander felt.

Xander looked back at Buffy.  "Huh?"

She giggled, and gestured from him, to Graham.  "You
two are so cute!  I
can't believe you won't let me get pictures."

Oddly --or perhaps not so - Riley fielded that one.
"Buffy, I already--"

"I know!  I know, I was only joking.  But you can't
deny they're being very
cute."

Riley half-grinned.  "I think I can force myself to
say I don't find either
of them cute, at all."  He got a Buffy-slap in the
stomach, for which he
gave her an obliging 'oof'.

"What do you mean you were never this bad?" Xander
concentrated on the
parts of the conversation he'd been missing, in favor
of trying to keep
from going blind from sunlight, and keep Graham's hand
on his thigh.  "I
seem to recall quite a bit of insipid mooning and
giggling and batting of
the eyelashes.  And Buffy, you were just as bad," he
added, pointing an
accusatory finger at his friend.  She laughed, and
Riley made a noise of
protest.

"You were," Graham agreed.  "For months, all you could
talk about was
Buffy's hair, and what she'd said that morning, and
where she was going to
be that afternoon."

Xander watched as Buffy's expression got all soft, and
she turned to
Riley.  "You did?  Months?"

Riley shrugged.  "Well, it might not've been...yeah,
maybe months."  He'd
obviously recognized the look Buffy was giving him,
and was going for all
the romantic brownie points he could get.  Wise man,
Xander thought, and
turned his own attention back to Graham, who still had
his hand on Xander's
thigh.

The conversation on Buffy and Riley's side of the
table grew quiet and
incomprehensible to any outsiders, so Xander felt he
was safe in ignoring
them.  He rubbed his foot against Graham's, and looked
over at Willow.  She
was giving him that smug, happy, maternal smile that
always made him want
to ask her where his allowance was.  He'd actually
done so when they were
six, and she'd given him a quarter.  He'd made
thirteen dollars off her
that way, before he'd realized that she was giving him
*her* allowance, and
had given it all back.  Well, most of it back -- he'd
already eaten the ice
cream or he'd had given her that, too.

"Yes, mom?" he asked.

"You *are* cute.  I'm so glad everything worked out."

Xander was about to respond when he noticed where
Willow's arm was, and how
it was disappearing under the table at just the same
sort of angle....  He
narrowed his eyes.  "Willow? Is your hand in a chaste
place?"

She blinked at him, and grew instantly pure, sweet,
never me
Willow.  "No.  Why?"

"I'm just wondering why any of us bothered to show up
for lunch, if all
we're gonna do is play around with our respective
respectives."

She laughed, and Graham rolled his eyes.  Tara ducked
her head, but Xander
thought she was smiling under the curtain of her hair.
Xander looked more
carefully around the table, and raised his hand.  "I
vote we call it a
draw, and each go our separate ways.  We've been
social, we've eaten most
of our lunches, and we'd all like to be behind doors
with the person whose
hand is on our leg.  All in favor?"

There were four "ayes", and something which looked
more like a blush than
agreement from Willow's girlfriend.  Xander figured
she'd get over it soon,
if she kept hanging around the Scoobs.  Xander,
however, had other things
to worry about.

Graham's hand was no longer exactly on his thigh.
Xander was about to
gather up the remains of his lunch, when he eeped and
jumped up out of his
chair.  He grabbed Graham's hand - the same one that
had strayed much too
close to things he shouldn't be touching in front of
Buffy and Willow --
and pulled him after.  "Lovely seeing you all, must do
it again soon, ta,
ta!"

Xander pulled, then pushed Graham away from the table
and in the vague
direction of his house.

Graham didn't need to be anywhere for an hour.  Plenty
of time.
 

**************
 

He kept looking at his hands.  Xander wasn't exactly
sure why -- he
couldn't remember anything in particular about
Graham's hands.  Nothing he
remembered from remembering Robert's memories -- and
following that train
of thought had grown easy, in the days since the
spell. It would have
worried him, but Xander had labelled it and put it in
the same mental box
as everything else that had happened to him since he'd
discovered he lived
on a Hellmouth.  He didn't have Robert's memories,
anymore, but he could
remember what he'd noticed -- he knew Graham liked
diet coke, and knew he
knew it because of Robert.  But he couldn't remember
the details anymore.

So Xander looked at Graham's hands, and tried to
notice whatever it was
that made him look.  Right now they were resting on
Xander's chest and
stomach, while Graham was sitting half-beside and
half-behind him, legs on
either side of Xander.  His arms and bare chest
pressed against Xander's
bare back, clothed legs pressed against clothed legs.
Graham kissed the
back of Xander's neck.

Xander shivered.

"Too much?"  Graham asked.  He'd been asking that a
lot in the last couple
of weeks.

"No.  I don't know why...."  He shivered again as he
felt Graham's lips
touch his shoulder.

They'd had sex exactly three times, since the spell.
The first time had
been fast, frantic, running home and tearing away
clothes to follow up on
that first kiss.  The kiss which had answered the
first most important
question on his mind.  They'd been frenzied and rough,
reassuring
themselves, perhaps, that some things would never
change.

Afterwards Xander had thought that anyone that way
inclined would want to
get fucked by someone that looked like Graham.  His
doubts and worry had
squirreled their way into his brain, until four days
later, when Graham had
finally asked him what the problem was.  They'd
resumed their pattern of
dating -- which meant Thursday mornings, occasional
afternoons, and
weekends, and they'd simply not seen each other much
at all for four
days.  Talked on the phone, though, and Xander
realized that'd he'd said
enough for Graham to know there was more Xander wasn't
saying.

They'd met again, and Xander had finally admitted what
he'd been worried
about.  Sex that morning had shown him that his body
didn't care what his
mind thought.  It liked this guy and wanted more of
him.

By the third time, Xander decided that lust wasn't a
bad way to go -- die
young from too many orgasms in the shower.  In the
last week, they'd fallen
into the rhythm they'd established a month ago.
Sometimes they'd go out,
sometimes they'd stay in.  Sometimes with friends,
sometimes alone.  They
watched football and played basketball and talked
about history and classes
and things Xander really wanted to do with his life.

There was a whole realm of things they didn't discuss.
Xander knew someday
-- soon -- they would have to.  But right now he was
still pretending that
his boyfriend didn't know what monsters really were
and that the government
wasn't digging holes throughout the underground of
Sunnydale.  Buffy and
Riley and Giles could worry about it, and when they'd
decided waht to do,
they would let Xander and Graham know.  Good little
soldiers like they were.

Xander closed his eyes and leant back against Graham.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't-- nothing.  Nothing's wrong."  He expected
Graham to call him on
the denial, but Xander was suddenly realising he was
right.  Nothing was wrong.

"And that's bad?"  Graham asked, sounding like he was
smirking, just a little.

The knowledge made Xander relax, a little, even as he
demanded, "Hey, leave
me alone!  I've had a hell of a time, the last couple
of months.  Last few
years!  I'm not used to nothing being wrong."  He
grinned, but he turned
around in Graham's arms, and looked at him.

Graham was looking back, serious expression in his
eyes.  Xander was still
learning how to read that, again, but he could tell,
now, that Graham
understood.  Xander gave him a kiss, and thought about
spinning back around
so they could get on with the being naked and having
sex in forty minutes
or less.  But he didn't.  Not yet.

"I keep expecting something horrible to happen, I
guess.  I feel like I'm
walking around on eggs, hoping I don't break something
that turns out to be
a Horta egg and I get eaten by a pissed off momma
alien."

There was a pause.  Then, "Have you ever--"  Graham
cut himself off with a
tiny shake of the head.

"No.  Well, sorta.  But -- mostly no."  Xander didn't
feel like trying to
explain.  "All I mean, is, that I...was so ready for
the spell not to
work.  For something to go wrong.  I...was so afraid I
was going to lose
what I felt for you.  Now...I'm just waiting for the
catch.  You
know?  Things so rarely stay good."

Graham hugged him, and pulled Xander close, leaning
them both back against
the back of the pulled-out couch.  He ran one hand up
Xander's arm and down
again.  Xander watched it.  "You said you can't
remember him anymore."

"Yeah."  The spell had worked.  He'd come out of it
with nothing more than
his own thoughts and feelings.  "No more
field-stripping an M-60 for me."

Graham chuckled, then continued, still seriously.
"You still like me."  It
was not quite questioning.  It had been the only thing
on their minds, at
first.  Did Xander still want to see Graham?  The lust
was the easy part to
answer.  The rest had taken some time.  He'd thought
he'd answered it,
though, a week ago.  But he still keep thinking.... He
watched as Graham's
hand rested on his wrist, then moved slowly back up,
again.

"Yeah.  I still like you."

"Still wanna hang out with me."

"And hang in," Xander leered, quietly.

"And nothing's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong," Xander agreed.

"So what are you thinking?"

Xander didn't answer right away.  He was still
watching Graham's hand,
rubbing his arm, tracing an invisible line up, down,
back and forth like
tracing the path of a lazy brook.  He could feel
Graham's fingers on his
skin as though there were nothing else in the room
touching him, but he
couldn't tear his eyes away.  He loved watching
Graham's hands.  It was the
first thing he'd noticed about Graham, the first thing
he'd....

Xander sat upright, and stared at Graham.  Graham just
looked back,
calmly.  Xander wasn't so sure it was completely calm,
but it wouldn't
matter for much longer.  He quickly pressed a kiss to
Graham's lips, which
immediately grew more demanding as Graham opened his
mouth and invited
Xander in.  Xander kissed him, harder, and deeper, and
felt Graham's hands
running up his back and holding him close.  The first
thing he'd ever
noticed, the first thing he'd fallen in love with.
Graham's hands.  He loved.

"I love you," Xander whispered as he kissed Graham
again.

Thirty minutes would just be time enough.

The End