dulcius ex asperis

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Buffy/Blake's 7 (Place in the Universe)
Chapter Summary: Buffy expects things to get worse for her after Halloween.
Word Count: 1053
Rating: Teen

 

         Buffy had expected to be, like, double or triple exiled. And sure, it takes about a week, but then Xander just walks over and sits next to at her at lunch with absolutely no hesitation or fear. Willow and Jesse trail behind him, hesitant and pouting.
         “Sorry, I’ve basically been under house arrest. Any unauthorized exertion and I get dual-glared into submission,” he announces. Contrary to his statement, he seems perfectly impervious to the glares his words produce. He’s incredibly cheerful about it all, actually, but that doesn’t help the guilt Buffy feels. Because it had been...nice, in an incredibly screwed up way, to be Servalan. No second-guessing. No doubts. And she was allowed to be angry at the only people who even vaguely let her talk to them, allowed to not only fantasise about but act on thoughts about how she’d make them all pay.
         And now it sits between them. This weight. Because she can’t look at him without remembering Angel (who had looked very good in the uniform) and what she’d let Angel do to him. What she’d ordered Travis to do. If he’d avoided her for the rest of time, she’d understand it, but this?
         But—it’s exactly like Blake, isn’t it. To look his problems directly in the eye, and to deliberately provoke them. It is his favored method of dealing with Travis, after all. Is it Xander’s, though? She’d think so—he was pretty fond of just taunting enemies when he’d help out. But she doesn’t know, and, she realizes with a sudden sense of loss, she may never know, now.
         “It wouldn’t be necessary if you possessed some modicum of common sense,” Jesse snipes. Then again, from what Servalan had seen, if he’d considered it too much of a weight he would’ve simply walked away. For whatever reason, he actually enjoyed this, sniping at Blake. Or in this case, Xander. She has her suspicions as to why, but she’s not going to bother confronting anybody about it.
         “It’s fine,” she tells them both, and Xander smiles. It’s a nice smile. It’s probably the confidence that does it, because that charisma is new.
         “You all right?” he asks, meeting her surprise with a mild expression. “Well, Halloween was...big. Difficult. It occurred to me I should check in, see how you’re doing.”
         He’s being honest, but there’s a dual purpose here. There has to be. She can’t take it at face value. And that’s not all Servalan, either. Sure, they’d helped her with the whole Slaying deal, but they hadn’t bothered to be too friendly about it. Why now? “Dawn was starting to wonder if you’d ever acknowledge her existence again. Apparently you acted like she wasn’t real or something?”
         Xander frowns, thoughtful. “I have no idea what that’s about, honest. But hey, bright side, the next time Dawn gets kidnapped you’ll know exactly where she is. Because she can tell us with just her mind. No losing pagers.” At least the word choice is vaguely more Xander than Blake, though the amused tone in his voice leans maybe a little toward Blake. It might be the accent. It’s a little less insulting, even when it’s a little lighter.
         As the older sister, though, she feels compelled to lodge a formal protest. “Hey!”
         “What about you? Any signs of megalomania or ruthless cruelty?” ...Yep, he’s not a fan of Servalan. Given that she’d kind of let him get tortured by Angel, or, she supposes, Travis, she wouldn’t exactly expect him to be.
         She holds back her instinct to be defensive—which, in retrospect, might have been a mistake, because that’s the sort of control Servalan would have, not Buffy. Though if she thinks about it maybe that’s another unfortunate blessing—she’s pretty sure it’s killed any lingering crush Xander had on her. Maybe she should just be happy that he’s still willing to look her in the eye—but then, Xander and Blake have always, as Avon would put it, been possessed of more courage than common sense. And it means a lot, maybe more than she’ll ever say, because while she’d been feeling left out, him deliberately still sitting down next to her at lunch and talking to her shows that she’d had a place after all. “I’ve been trying to decide where’s the most ethical place to become a tyrannical despot, and I think it’s in overthrowing the current Watcher’s Council and becoming the Supreme High Well Dressed Queen. Or maybe just overthrowing Cordy.”
         “I’m in favor of either one,” Xander agrees immediately, absent-mindedly running his hands through—well.
         A couple days ago he’d had a run-in with Cordy. “Nice 70’s haircut.” She’d sneered as her entourage giggled.  She’d been a lot nicer when she’d found Buffy and actually apologized, which is so surreal Buffy’s still having a hard time believing it.
         He’d just smiled. “Or the far future; you may never know.” He hadn’t seemed upset then.
         It’d been such a change from his usual response that he’d unsettled her; she’d called him a freak and quickly moved on. She hadn’t bothered to go after his wardrobe, possibly because even Buffy is finding the billowy sleeves majorly envy-worthy.
         Apparently it had actually gotten to him, though, because she’d seen him returning a hair straightener to Jesse (from his mom), though it’s pretty obvious he had no idea what he was doing because he hadn’t quite managed to pull it off and it just doesn’t look good. She’s doing him the favor of overlooking it though. Jesse had gone along with it, but he’s been scowly all morning.
         More than usual, anyway.
         “We, um. We have a We Hate Cordelia Chase club, and kinda kicked out Jesse after he started crushing, so...you could join?” Willow offers nervously.
         Well. Why not? “Do we have t-shirts?” Jesse, startled, lets out a bark of laughter. Xander glances over, just as fond, and even Willow looks pleased. It’s not completely fixed—there’s the issue with Angel, of course. He’s still feeling guilty about it, even if he’d let Spike torture him to try to even the scales. Somehow.
         She’s...not asking about that one. Mostly because Servalan understands all too well, and Buffy really, really doesn’t want to. But this moment tastes just a little bit like absolution, and it’s delicious.