TITLE: Flipside
AUTHOR: Wyvern
EMAIL:
RATING: G. Smoochies.
DISTRIBUTION: Of course, just ask. But please pair it up with "Perfect" or it’ll get lonely
SPOILERS: None
SUMMARY: Xander ponders as he waits for Giles to come home.
DISCLAIMER: These characters remain the property of their original
owners and no copyright infringement is intended. Once I wipe them down with paint stripper they’ll be fine… please don’t sue, I have no money!
NOTES: I broke of decorating my study to write this and its partner. First time I’ve ever been inspired by anything other than sheer terror at the top of a ladder…
DATE: January 2002
I really don’t know what he sees in me.
There’s a lot of stuff in my head that I can’t get across and in a way I think that’s a good thing because part of me thinks that to say it would be to jinx everything and I don’t think I could handle that; life’s been too good recently and that isn’t normal, at least, not for me.
Part of me wants to ask him, why me? But, on the other hand I keep asking myself, why him? I mean, it’s not like I ever set out to be this way. In fact, I always kind of hoped I could be some kind of babe magnet – though when I was, it was kind of scary – but now I remember Larry telling me that he could recognise something in me that he also saw in himself and even that gives me a little bit of a wiggins. To think that he could see something in me that I couldn’t, or maybe wouldn’t, see in myself – sheesh! But here I am, starting out making a home for the two of us. If anyone had so much as suggested that this was where I would end up, I’d have said "Hello – we’re talking about the guy with the intimate knowledge of Cordelia Chase’s tonsils here", and made a joke of the whole thing. I do that a lot, it’s always helped me to protect myself from things I wanted to ignore. God knows, there have been enough of them over the years.
But things have changed, and the world is finally making some kind of sense to me. I’m finding something I haven’t known before here with him. Contentment. That, and security also. Not something that was ever high on the agenda in the Harris household. Sometimes I watch him sleep and I wonder why of all the people he could have chosen, he ended up with an idiot like me. He says I have a self-esteem issue; I can’t think what he means… He’s so much wiser than I am, he knows all these big words, and stuff I can’t even imagine is like a regular thing to him. And yet he’s been through so much, too. He’s loved and he’s lost and his journey here must have been every bit as painful as mine. So I’m trying to be the best that I can for him, to grow beyond the guy who didn’t win the title of Sunnydale High Class Clown and become worthy of him. I’m trying to expand my horizons – not so long ago, I wouldn’t even have thought about trying – and I’m putting my heart into everything I do for him. Because, for all the things he knows, and all the clever mojo he’s done, he’s hell on wheels when he gets a paintbrush in his hand. See, that’s where we’re different but we fit. He’s great with the book learning; I’m more of a manual labour type of guy. And his taste in music is kind of eclectic. Who are the Bay City Rollers, anyway? But this CD of his I found today is pretty mellow, and I remember my mom singing a lot of these songs in the days before everything went bad. Funny to think there was ever a time like that…
I sing along. I dance. I paint. Life doesn’t get much better than this; a pack of Peanut Butter Cups and it would be damn near perfect.
And then I hear him laughing. I didn’t even hear him come in, I’ve no idea how long he’s been here, smiling that little smile of his. Not the scary Ripper smile, the sweet little smile he saves just for me. He looks tired and I want to make it better. I run to him and I hug him and I can’t resist dabbing paint on his nose. It’ll wash away, and I’m careful to avoid doing any permanent damage to his clothes. I wish he’d take them off…
We laugh and we end up together on the sofa. I kiss him, he kisses me, we laugh and I ask him how his day went. But it doesn’t really matter. Because we’re together, and that makes everything else right.
