TITLE: Maybe He's Canadian, 5: Hurling Disk *
AUTHOR: Otsoko
E-MAIL: otsoko@hotmail.com
SUMMARY: Xander and Graham meet up again, not quite by chance, and Graham begins to say a few things he's been holding back.
RATING: PG-13
CONTENT: SLASH: Graham/Xander People think bad words. People throw a frisbee.
SPOILERS: All of seasons 1-4, especially one and four.
CATEGORY: Maybe He's Canadian #5
FEEDBACK: you betcha! If you flame me, I will just assume that you are a really ugly closet case with no life, and feel really sorry for you.
DISTRIBUTION: any place slash-friendly who lets me know
*DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to Joss Wheedon, Fox and the WB. I am just playing. Aknowledgements: Damn! Everybody who gave me feedback on the earlier chapters. Thanks! Especially Soane, who's work I really like, and who knows that Graham and Xander belong together.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
1. If you haven't seen all of season 4, large parts of the story will make no sense, but it will nonetheless spoil it for you.
2. Despite all my efforts to Americanize it, there are still probably Canadianisms in the story, which strikes me as apporpriate.
3. A stylistic switch to present tense to highlight, like, the immediacy of the action.

Maybe He's Canadian, 5: Hurling Disk In which Xander makes a slight detour, and meets up with Graham again.

Xander is walking over to see Willow. He's basically bored and figures that if he just shows up at Willow and Tara's dorm room, and Will's not there, at least he's gotten a walk out of it. On an impulse, he makes a slight detour. He decides to swing past Lowell house, now sitting atop major amounts of concrete. He cuts across the quad facing Lowell House and sees a bunch of guys playing. Graham is there with some fratboy types tossing the disc, all of 'em shirtless, enjoying the summer sun. Xander stops for a sec to watch.

Damn, but Graham is well built! Xander looks at the barechested hunk standing there in the sun. If he thought Angel was buff, then he had to come up for another word for Graham: hyper-buff guy, maybe, or Adonis guy, or built-like-a-brick-shit-house guy. Xander looks at him and figures that Graham could probably get pretty much anybody he wanted: straight girl or gay guy. The guy can't be hurting for action.

Graham sees him and shouts "Harris! Heads up!", and hurls the disk at him.

Xander manages to catch the Frisbee, and tosses it back to Graham. Who catches it and grins at him, and then tosses the disk to one of the frat guys. Graham jogs over to Xander and shakes his hand.

"How ya doing, Harris?"

"Good. You?"

"Good. What ya up to?"

"Heading over to see Willow, do some extremely important hanging out."

Graham nods and looks around to see they are out of earshot of the other players. He flashes Xander a brief but genuinely worried look.

"Harris, I gotta ask: did I freak ya the other night?"

Xander shakes his head and grins a bit sheepishly, "No, not really. When Larry the football player came out to me, that gave me the complete wiggens, but when Willow came out, that only surprised me. I guess I'm sort of getting used to it."

"Yeah," Graham grins, "We're everywhere."

"So it seems." Xander grins back.

"So we're cool?"

"Totally cool." Xander assured him.

"Good! Cause you're a pretty cool guy, besides being saved-my-ass guy."

Graham winks at Xander and turns to catch the disk & hurl it back underhanded.

What was going on here! Xander wonders. Was that a wink? Xander bit the bullet. He says in a low voice, barely above a whisper, "Graham, Are you *flirting* with me?"

Graham doesn't look at him. There's a second's pause, then, "Yeah. Guess I am. You mind?" Graham flashes Xander another worried look and returns his attention to catching the Frisbee.

"Uh, I guess not -- kind of complemented, actually." Xander looks at Graham as he catches and tosses the Frisbee again. "Uh, Graham?"

"Yeah?" Graham watches for and catches the disk and hurls it back.

"Why?"

Another catch and toss

"Why what, Harris?"

"Why are you flirting with me?"

Graham throws him a significant glance. Then returns his gaze to Frisbee throwing. "Guess I go for the hero action guy type."

Graham throws Xander another glance, this time with a sly grin.

Xander tries to mumble something. He is working hard not to blush.

Graham continues, "Especially one who looks hot in uniform."

Xander blushes.

Graham stops. He looks at Xander, wondering if he's gone too far.

"Still cool?"

"Still cool.. " Xander nods. He has to grin, "Hot, huh?".

Graham looks at him and nods. "*Definitely* hot," he repeats with emphasis, and a slaightly embarrassed smile. Graham returns to the game, afraid that if he stays, he'll say something else, that he'll say too much. He's already said more than he thought he would, or could.

Xander, with a sort of a silly pleased smile on his face, repeats 'Hot, yeah, I'm hot! I'm hot guy!' to himself and starts to head towards Willow and Tara's.

Graham sees him walking off. Damn! Don't let him get away, idiot! He calls out, "Harris!"

Xander stops and Graham runs over to him. Runs over to him with the grace of a jungle cat, sunlight gleaming off his sweat-covered chest.

"Hey, Harris. Buy you another beer some time?"

"Sure, give me a call." Xander hesitates, "Uh, just one thing though."

Shit, here it comes, thinks Graham, the one thing that he dreads the most, more than 'let's not', more than 'fuck off', more than 'back off, faggot':

The 'let's be friends' speech.

"Yeah?" He says, wearing a well-practiced stone-face, expecting the worst.

Xander gives him a serious look. "Call me 'Xander', OK?"

Graham gives him the big smile, "You got it, Xander." He nods at him, and runs back to the game. Xander watches as Graham runs for the Frisbee and jumps three feet in the air to catch it. He tosses it back to a fellow player before he hits the ground. He jumps up and runs for another toss.

Thing of beauty, that guy. Xander smiles and turns and heads towards Willow and Tara's. He likes this guy even more: laughs at all his jokes, keeps buying him beer, *and* tells him he's a hot guy.



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