sorry about your guitar

Title: Like Soft Serve
Fandom: BtVS
Summary: Xander/Faith AU, about a month after 'Chosen' based on the song Soft Serve by Soul Coughing. Set in Marietta, TX 'cause I said so.
Rating: R
Written for germaine_pet's lynnevitational
Word count: 4,549
Disclaimer: The characters? Not mine.
Half-way mark look over by crazydiamondsue. Official (and awesome) beta'ing done by by ladycat777. Any mistakes or annoyances are mine.
A/N: This fic comes with an apology to anelith. This so not Rabble'verse. Rabble'verse hates me.
A/N 2: If you're interested you can download the song here



"It's way too fucking hot here."

After road tripping for a week they'd set up in Marietta, mostly because the vamp population was pretty high, which kept Buffy, Faith and Kennedy slay happy and kept Xander and Robin sharp. The nights were clear and lightly warm; perfect for vampires, perfect for patrolling, but Christ, the days were scorchers.

"And yet, you've decided that 'fun in the sun' translates to 'see how many miles I can run before I die of heatstroke'. And, hey, no one's making you run from here to wherever you just ran to and back here again except your own insane self. We do have vehicles, you know."

Two in fact, plus the school bus; nothing fancy, just good, solid, gas guzzling SUVs that Xander had picked out.

"I'm staying in shape. I got hundreds of slayer jailbaits nipping at my aging heels; not gonna be out done by the fresh meat when we finally decide hit up the mother country," Faith said and with a few quick bounces she cleared the steps to the porch. She leaned against the thick support beam, fingers tracing the looping grain of the wood. "I notice that you're outside in 100 degree weather yourself." She wasn't sweating hard, or even breathing hard, but she could feel that there was definitely more than a glow to her.

"I'll have you know that the radio just informed me that it is a crisp and refreshing 98 degrees today, so don’t exaggerate," Xander said, his voice sounding warmed through and lazy. "Also, note the distinct lack of running on my part. There's only sitting, lounging and the occasional bout of reclining. At least I have the sense to stay in the breezy, shady coolness that is my front porch."

It must've been one of those occasional moments, because he was on the floor of the porch, legs out and crossed at the ankles, chest back, propped up by his forearms and elbows, shoulders hovering inches above the wood planks.

"You just don’t want to get an eye-patch tan. Besides, the way I see it, I get in some exercise and I look like I spent the day out spa lazing with Her Highness and Dawn. It's a win-win and without all that surrogate sister bonding b.s." She paused to swat at a few overly interested mosquitoes. "How they found a decent spa in Nowheresville, Texas, I'll never figure out; those chicks are crazy scary when it comes to beauty crap."

Dusty sneakers on her feet, tiny shorts on her legs and a white tank undershirt that wasn't hers but that she knew was stuck to her body in all the best places. She watched as he looked away sharply because if there was a way to ogle discretely Xander Harris sure hadn’t figured it out.

"I see we're ignoring the fact that you’re wearing lipstick while jogging," he said.

"It's lipgloss, Xander. Tinted lipgloss. Fuck, you hang with nothing but females and you're still clueless when it comes to women."

"I'm not clueless, it must be the heat," he said, "Speaking of which, what would you say to a tall glass of ice cold, fresh squeezed lemonade?"

"I'd say 'hell yeah, bring it on'," she said, almost moaning at the thought of coldsweetsourwet.

"Yeah, me too," he said as he stood and dusted himself off, "Oh, well. Come get inside and I'll grab you a bottle of water."

"What? What happened to the lemonade?"

"We don’t have any," he said, a small smile playing at his mouth, "Seriously, when was the last time one of us even said they were going to the store, let alone followed through with the idea? We are currently down to the barest of the bare essentials. Thank goodness for Texas' love of the fast food restaurant."

She huffed out a dry laugh. "You seemed to be doing a lot of nothing at the moment; you could take a trip down there yourself."

"Are you thirsty or not?" he asked as he stood and opened the door for her. She could almost feel his effort to not to stare as she walked in ahead of him.

The house was a nice one; an old-fashioned five-step, porch front, wooden shuttered two-story that seem to make Xander's hands feel anti-idle, if the daily whittling was anything to go by. It was big out of necessity, but cozy enough that it didn't overwhelm her trailer living, motel hopping sensibilities. It had been obvious that out of seven people, Xander was the odd man out, so everyone else was doubled up in three of the four rooms. She still wasn't sure how Xander had scored the master bedroom while even Buffy and Dawn were sharing one of the smaller, standard issue rooms.

Still, less than two months in this place, yet they'd settled in like they'd always lived here. Since they really weren't sure when the call would come from Giles that the Council was reformed and ready for them, everything they'd managed to save was unpacked and situated, replacement items already bought, comfort zones firmly established.

Sometimes, though, Faith felt like the house belonged only to Xander and the rest of them just crashed there. Two floors of randomly placed, hand-carved nick knacks and ornate boxes filled with everything from dried herbs to weapons to clothes to comic books still in their sleeves, looking so out of place and time, sitting dustless in richly stained wood.

"Only you would pack up comic books the night before a battle to make sure the apocalypse didn't get them," she said, stopping to pick one up and turn it over, forcing her hands not to remove it from the plastic sheath. It was the kind of respect that only someone who hated other people touching their stuff can give.

"And only you can manage to put sneer and affection in one sentence," he said, taking it from her before walking around her toward the kitchen.

She followed him, smile on her face that he couldn't see. "Who said there was affection?"

The kitchen was her favorite room; neutral and warm in its specification and function, unlike the designated bedrooms or the living room that had no television and was used only for meetings. Boring and useless meetings that shoved in their face the absence of those that were theirs. She understood the loss of Spike and Anya, but she couldn't actually mourn them and she didn’t pretend to. They weren't hers to miss.

She watched as Xander pulled out two bottles from the refrigerator. He threw her one without warning, trusting her to catch it the same way he’d trust Buffy or Robin, the way he keeps forgetting to trust Kennedy, the way he'd never trust Willow.

"I'm hungry. You hungry?" he asked, "I can make us some sandwiches or something."

"I can make my own sandwich."

"Hey, just trying to be polite," he said, and she could tell he was. That he had every intention of making one for himself and knew that it was bad manners not to offer. Their mothers weren't that different, but his seemed to get more of it right than hers did.

"Sure. No lettuce, though."

"What makes you think I'd abuse an innocent sandwich with lettuce?"

"Most people do. And easy on the mayo."

It was so still except for the sounds of Xander's sandwich making and she was enjoying it. It seemed like it was never quiet in this house, like her life had never been quiet. She wasn't sure how long she'd been lost in her head before the plate was in front of her and Xander was asking her if she wanted chips or leftover potato salad.

"Chips. Willow always puts hardboiled eggs in the potato salad, it's gross."

"You're awfully picky for someone that was eating prison grub a few months ago. Besides, she makes it like that because I like it that way," he said, but piled a handful of chips on his plate before tossing the bag to her.

Times like this she wished she had the ease with Xander that Buffy and Willow have, but she could never seem to find a starting point, without making it sound like a starting point. Obviously, he felt the same way, because he wasn't saying much to her either. Uncomfortable, she wolfed down her sandwich and ate chip after chip straight out of the bag.

"Is there any tomato left?"

"Yeah, there's a half wrapped in foil in the 'fridge. Middle shelf," he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. He pushed his chair back from the table and she realized that despite the directions in his answer he was about to get up and get it for her.

"Thanks," she said waving him back down as he stood. "I'll get it, you eat."

She grabbed it out of the fridge and swiped the salt shaker from the counter as she walked back to the table. She tucked it under her chin and unwrapped the tomato as she sat back down. Lifting her head, she let the shaker fall and caught it just as it rolled off the slope of her chest.

"Neat trick," Xander said, "See, just another reason why boobs should be sacred objects of worship."

"Perv," she said, salting the tomato half liberally before biting into it.

"Yup, it's my superpower," he said, eyebrow arched, leer in place; but it was contrived and benign. For the first time she felt like she was actually understanding Xander Harris.

She flipped the salt shaker around in one hand. It was beautiful, hollowed out from a single piece of dark cherry stained wood, light etchings on the surface. She flipped it over and was examining the quarter sized plastic stopper at the bottom when she saw it.

X.H.

Small and almost delicate, discreetly carved into the wood, she hadn't noticed before. She wondered if anyone else had.

"You made this?" She asked.

"Nope, different guy, same initials. What're the odds, huh?" He was staring at it sadly and she wondered what the big deal was. "Anya," he said, answering her unasked question. "She packed it. She wanted to save it from the Hellmouth. Most of the little things around the house are from her bag. Actually, unless I made it here, it's from her bag." She watched as he stood and placed his plate in the sink. "I'm gonna head upstairs, there's some manly things that I need to take care of."

She quirked her eyebrow and grinned.

"No, no, nothing like that!" he said, hands up and head shaking. "I mean, not that it's broken or anything, but that's not what I meant and even if it was, I wouldn't tell you that I was going to do that and I do have things to do and I'm gonna shut up now."

"Go. You do your manly things and I'll do some womanly things." She watched as his eyebrow did an impressive impression of her own. "Get your mind outta the gutter, I'm gonna wash the dishes."

"You don't have to. Washing dishes can be a manly task for later."

"Don't worry about it. You made the food, I'll clean the mess. It's that team work thing everyone was always bitching at me to learn." She looked straight at him. "I don't mind."

She watched him walk out before she turned to toward the sink. She turned on the hot water tap, letting the water come to temperature while she listened to his steps fade up the stairs and rummaged under the sink for the dish detergent.

She managed to wash the knife and one plate before her curiosity got the better of her.

*******

She was quiet as she climbed the stairs and headed toward his room. She stood in the doorway and took the time to take a long look. He was sitting on the floor, back against his bed, legs pretzled, his almost too long hair hanging around his bent head; he had a full page of newspaper laid across his lap, a chunk of wood in one hand and shallow hooked whittling knife in the other. The newspaper was covered with small curls of shaved wood.

"You think you're a stealth maven, Faith? Please." He lifted his head and shook the hair off his brow. "I've been best friends with a slayer for almost eight years, a slayer that not only dated the most unobtrusive vampire that ever stalked and shadowed this green and fertile land, but also an army guy with secret ops training. Not to mention I lived with my very own vampire. Twice."

"Your very own vampire? Somethin' you wanna share?" she said, as she crossed her arms under her breasts.

"Shut up. The point is that sneaking up on me isn't as easy as you would think."

"Hey," she said, "I was damn silent and you know it."

"I never said I heard you. I smelled you."

"Harris, you better think real quick if you wanna tell an escaped murderer with super strength that she stinks," she said, turning her head slightly to sniff herself, "which I don't, by the way."

He put the carving knife down and brushed at the wood with his thumb. "I never said you smelled bad. I did, on the other hand, get a sudden whiff of lemon Palmolive."

"Wow," she said, "That's actually impressive. Wait, don't tell me that you lost an eye and now your other senses are getting better."

"Maybe. I've been waiting for some quality over compensation to happen since eye-less day one."

"I heard that stuff's bullshit."

"I guess you'll just have to take my word for it." He grabbed at two opposite corners of the newspaper, bringing them up a bit with a slight shake. She watched as his movements forced the shavings to pile into the center before he crumpled it up into a tight ball.

"Look, I was wondering if we, me and you, could… I don't know, do that thing that you, Buffy, Willow and Dawn do?" she asked. She was still leaning against the doorjamb and was cleaning the fingernails of one hand with the nails of the other.

"Um, Faith," he said, nervousness edging his voice, "Buffy's seriously just a friend and Dawn, Dawn's very young and Willow's very gay. It's not that I don't find you attractive, you know that I do, but-"

"Xander!" she snapped, "Calm down and stop being a guy for two seconds. I meant the sharing and caring stuff you do with them."

"Oh, yeah, sure. You need a shoulder, Xander Harris can easily provide you with two to choose from."

His tone was open but his expression was wary, like he wasn’t sure how big of a bomb she was going to drop on him. Funny thing was is for him it'd be tiny, laughable, but to her it was the biggest. "Robin thinks he loves me," she said, walking fully into the room. She leaned against the sturdy table pushed up blunt to the wall, the edge digging into her uncomfortably.

"Well, that's great. Completely flying in from the right side of left field, but great. You know, love, it's a many splendored thing," he said and Faith could see that he was genuinely happy for her. "You wanna tell me why you look like you may puke or bolt, or possibly do both at the same time? Which please, if you are, leave now."

"Shut up. He thinks he loves me, he says it all the time… but he doesn't know me. He doesn't know anything about me." Her voice was getting gravely, deep and cracked, wet and dry at the same time. She hated when that happened.

"Faith, seriously, he knows, ok? Everyone knows. The Potentials, excuse me, the Actuals, they weren't exactly the non-gossiping types. You, murder one, escaping, all of it. They knew, they told. And if it wasn't them, then he heard it directly from the source. Andrew."

She shook her head, "He knows the basics. But all the details? Kinda fuzzy. He has no idea how I can get; doesn't know that I beat Wesley with my bare fists until I heard his bones crack, that I nicked him with tiny shards of glass. That I licked the thin lines of blood that ran from them." She paused, pulled the band from her hair and ran her fingers up through the sweaty dampness at the base of her skull. "He doesn't know any of that. He doesn't know that I liked it."

"So you tell him." Xander said, reassuring as always, "I mean, I didn't know any of that and you just told me."

There was a moment of quiet, uncomfortable and heavy, where she was just trying to figure out how to say what she needed to say.

"It's different. There're certain things that you can only admit to someone that you almost choked to death." Xander opened his mouth and she knew, just knew, he was going brush it aside like he did everything else. "I'm not going to apologize," she said, "because it'd just come out lame, like every other apology I've ever tried to make. Just know that I'd take it back if I could."

She looked him in the eye, pleading for him to let it go without being compassionate or flippant or anything else Xander Harris did to make everyone else's pain more important than his. He seemed to understand and simply nodded.

"The thing is," she sighed, "is that I want to tell him, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid he'll leave. I'm afraid he'll stay."

"Willow said she can give me my eye back."

He said it so softly she was sure she'd heard wrong. "Ok, that was way more outta nowhere than mine was."

"I just figured you needed me to share something I wouldn't tell anyone else," he said, watching his own hand as he tapped his fingers against his thigh. "You know, like a balance of sharing."

"So, I don't get to make anymore Captain Hook or Dangermouse jokes? That sucks."

"Captain Hook has both eyes."

"Captain Hook is fictional. Whatever, Captain Ron jokes then," she said. She sat down on the floor across from him and immediately realized that he was right. The minute he'd told her about his eye, she'd relaxed, come more into the room with him. Part of her hated him for that.

"I'd say touché, but Captain Ron's also fictional." He reached up and played with the rounded edge of his eye-patch and Faith wondered if he even knew that he was doing it. "Besides, I told Willow thanks, but no thanks."

"What? Why?" She was truly confused. "You have a mega powerful witch for a best friend that tells you she can fix you and you tell her no? You're kind of an idiot."

He smiled at her; a real smile, the kind that showed a flash of teeth and crinkled the strap of his eye-patch. The kind of smile that Dawn saw all the time, the kind Buffy and Willow got from him in almost equal doses, the kind she knew hadn't been directed at her in over four years. The kind that felt really good.

"I just got used to this new lack of depth perception. Can you imagine the headaches I'd get if I suddenly had to readjust again? And I'd probably run into things for at least a week. How am I supposed to patrol with a severely stubbed toe injury? No and thanks."

"Xander-"

"If she puts it back, it's like it never happened," he said, cutting her off, "I need, we need the reminder. It reminds me that I'm not super or mega and that I can be hurt. It reminds Buffy and Willow. If it was back I really think that they'd forget again. Not on purpose, but it'd be like back in sight, out of mind." He took a deep breath and let it out swiftly, huffing it up toward his bangs. "Seven years, Faith. Seven long damn years. And in seven years, I've had one broken hand and this. No vampire bites, no dying, no power-crazy dark siding, nothing that didn't heal into oblivion within four to six weeks."

All this time Faith had thought she was the only one that had learned a thing or two about herself and others, but she was wrong. Xander saw himself, knew how everyone else saw him, and instead of wallowing in it he understood it for what it was. Neither bad or good, just fact. He was normal, something that none of his friends or acquaintances could boast, and while almost everyone in his circle envied it or dismissed it, Xander simply accepted it.

"Can I see it?" she asked, rising to her knees and leaning forward, hand on his cheek, the tips of her fingers sliding up under the strap.

"No."

She hadn't expected that. She assumed Xander would give in and show her. Show her the scarred flesh, the droop of an empty eyelid. She'd known a woman in lock up that had lost an eye. He husband had thrown her against the kitchen wall and she'd landed right on a hand towel peg. She waited a year before adding sleeping pills to his beer and butchering him while he slept, so her self-defense plea hadn't held up. She never wore a patch and Faith hadn't really even noticed after the first few days.




She lowered her hand, still keeping it pressed to his face, feeling the roughness of the stubble on his chin. Without thinking she leaned in pressed her mouth to his. He pulled back from her. "Fai-" he started, but she didn't want to hear the rejection, the hesitation, the 'maybe we shouldn't' and stopped his words with a firmer push of her lips.

"Don't tell me no." She bit at his lip lightly and licked the small indent underneath his bottom lip. "Don't."

"Honestly, I really wasn't gonna," he said. She could feel the calloused tips of his fingers on her skin, felt the goose bumps break out as he lifted the back of her tank up and the air conditioned breeze hit her, felt his palm on her back pushing her closer against him. "I was going to ask you if you were sure, because I'm a gentleman."

She laughed, deep and throaty, into the curve of his neck before backing off and getting up.

"See, now I knew I shouldn't have said anything. Now you're not sure and you're gonna go to your own room. Fine, leave, but on your way out could you turn the lock and shut the door please?"

"I'm not leaving," she said, kicking off her running shoes and toeing off her socks, "I'm getting more comfortable."

"Wow, you call yourself a vixen? Cheesy, Faith, very cheesy."

She grinned and pulled her tank and sports bra off together. "Shut up and watch me get naked," she said, pulling off her shorts. She watched as he licked his lips, staring at her. "Oh, yeah, I still got it."

She dropped to her knees and crawled toward him, stopping at his bent legs she stretched up to kiss him again. She pulled at his clothes, tearing his t-shirt a bit at the neck and undoing the buttons of his jeans. It was fumbled and awkward and when he was finally in her it wasn't home or perfection, there weren't any answers or epiphanies, but it was good.

She was so caught up in how small his hands on her hips made her feel, the thick and calloused feeling of them so different from the pampered elegance of Robin's, that she almost didn't realized that they were stopping her.

"Sorry, Faith, you're not running the show this time. I've got a rep to maintain."

"You? A rep? This I gotta-" Her words stopped as his hands slid around her, one to the base of her back the other around to her belly and up between her breasts, fingers spread wide over her heart. He was pushing her, pulling her and she let him, gave him the control until it made her skin feel tight and hot. She was shuddering and gasping, tightening her thighs against his, when she felt him pull his legs up underneath and stand up with her, her weight cradled in slight bend of his lap and braced by his hand at her back.

He gave her a grin. "How ya doin' Faith?" he said as he laid her down on the bed.

"I'm good," she said, surprised at how breathless her voice sounded, "fiv-"

"If you say five-by-five, I'm walking out the door and straight into comforting quiet of the shower," he said, pulling back from her.

"And will that be a hot shower or a cold one?"

"Huh, really," he said playfully, "I hadn't decided yet."

"I'll make it easy. I won't say it and you come back." She stretched her leg out, trying to hook him back to her.

He shifted away from her. "Y'know, I've been hanging out with slayers for a long-"

"I thought we were busy here? We gonna have another moment or are we gonna have another moment?

"You're right. Why tell you, when I can show you?" He grabbed her hip and turned her over, kissing his way up her back until he was completely laid over her, he slid back into her and it clicked. She got it.

No one understood slayers the way he did.

That on occasion a slayer needed grounding. That, to survive, a slayer needed things to be taken away from her and held safely by someone else. Needed to be pinned in place; in Buffy's case it was metaphoric, in hers physical, but then again she was always more of a hands on kind of girl.

It was something that Robin had claimed he understood and had failed to come through on.

The weight of him on her back, the pressure of his body, the push of his thighs against the back of hers, how small -weak- she allowed it to make her feel. It was too much, but when she felt herself crumbling apart under him, felt him as he came with a low sound and a sharp nip at her shoulder, she wasn't sure if it had been enough. He rolled off her taking her along until she was next to him on her back.

"Better than last time?"

"Don't you know you're not supposed to ask a girl?" She laughed, "We're obligated to lie when asked."

"Then lie to me," he said, yawning widely.

"Typical male. Hit it and crash out. Beautiful." She sat up and brushed her hair away from her face. "I'm heading for the shower."

"And I'm the typical one?"

"Shut up and get up. I'm stealing a sheet." He rolled further and she tugged the sheet off the bed.

Wrapped in cheap cotton that was almost soft enough, she headed out the bedroom door. She paused and without turning called out. "Hey Xander?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for today. No lie."