Willow, the Vampire slayer, chunk 2:

After I left Giles' apartment, I went to visit Xander. The written schedule for training with Giles (fighting with weapons Mondays and Fridays, fighting without Tuesdays and Thursdays, nighttime graveyard retcon and supervised patrolling on Wednesdays, and all weekend to research) was folded snug in my pocket.

I heard things crashing and people shouting as Xander opened the door. It wasn't even five yet, but his parents liked to start early. He smiled apologetically as he caught my eye; after 11 years, he knew me too well to have to make the half-joke he would give anyone else. Xander never wanted to talk about what happened at home. I think he thought that bad as living it was, talking about it would be worse. We were each other's respite.

Without saying anything, we fell into step with each other. I knew where he was going; since we were about 8 or 9, we'd pooled my allowance and the change from the cash Xander's parents gave him to buy them smokes and ice and hit Nick's Arcade almost every summer afternoon. I played skee-ball, collecting the tickets for a huge stuffed animal each summer, and learned the cheats to ace Ms. Pacman; Xander moved impatiently from shoot-'em-up to shoot-'em-up, Jesse sometimes at his heels, occasionally pausing to mock my girly game (even though my initials, WDR, took up the entire top 10 on my game, and Xander's ALH had only been listed one day for one game, when Double Dragon was new.). When we needed a break, we got chips and soda and sat at a sticky table.

My mom would have killed me if she knew I was doing something so violent in such a male-oriented space. She wouldn't even let me have a joystick for my computer because she said they were phallic symbols encouraging male dominance. I think that made it even more fun.

But that day, we didn't go near the games. Xander got cans of Coke and sat down beside me at the same sticky table as last week.

"So what did the G-man have to say?" His tone was light, but the look in his eyes wasn't. He was making this harder than it needed to be. Someone had spilled fruit punch on the floor; I stared at the sticky red stain. I looked up, into his dark eyes. "I'm her. Or, she's me. Xander, I'm the slayer. I had that dream with Buffy and the stake, and, and Giles checked with a seer, like I told you, and I'm the slayer now." I was awed all over again.

Xander drummed his fingers slowly on the table. "Oh-kaaaaay. Wow. You think you know a girl, and then she comes out with this ability to fight demons. You aren't gonna fall in love with a vampire now, are you?"

A flash of anger shot through me. This was the best thing that had ever happened to me; it made me special and strong, instead of a little weakling computer nerd girl. And my best friend couldn't even pretend to be happy about it. He's jealous, I thought. Can't handle that I'm special now. I glared at him.

"I just figured you should know." I slammed down some change for the soda and walked out of the arcade.

He'd already left a message on the machine when I got home.

Hi, Will, it's me. Um, I know I wasn't exactly Mr. Sensitive at the arcade. Sorry 'bout that. It was just … kind of a lot to take in. I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay? And if you wanna go kill things that go bump in the night, you have my full support.

Normally, I would have called him back, chirping out that, oh, no, it was okay, I was expecting too much, and by the way did he have any homework I could do for him? But he said tomorrow; I decided to let him wait while I did some Internet research on vampires. I went to bed late, engrossed by a hidden section on the NIH web site about caring for humans with supernatural wounds.

The next month flashed by. Studying with Giles was fun; I couldn't beat him in a fencing match yet, but I could flip him over my shoulder and smash him into the mat, which kinda made up for it. And the books he had me reading about demons were way more interesting than the wildflower manuals I had been studying earlier that summer.

He mentioned Buffy only once, late one Sunday as I came to return the five books I'd borrowed for the week.

"I've never seen a Slayer this eager at the books. Buffy-" and he stopped himself, but I knew what he would have said; Buffy hated the research part. I could picture her roaming the library, reading a page than standing to do a backflip, polishing her silver cross necklace, examining her fingernails, and occasionally asking if we knew what she had to kill yet.

Xander … Xander was still being kinda weird about the whole thing. He came to a few training sessions, acting as a sparring partner after Giles was winded. But he didn't seem to want to patrol with us, or go to the arcade, or even just hang out at the Bronze, and he was never home when I called. He told me he'd found a job at Hot Dog on a Stick in the mall so he could save money to buy a car, which had been his obsession since he had turned 16 that April.

I started hanging out with Amy Madison instead. Even though she wanted to spend waaay too much time in the weird shop that sold herbs and pipes and Grateful Dead posters, at least I was pretty sure she wouldn't freak about the slayer thing, though I didn't exactly tell her.

I could picture her roaming the library, reading a page than standing to do a backflip, polishing her silver cross necklace, examining her fingernails, and occasionally asking if we knew what she had to kill yet.

This made me choke up.

Oh, re the SO or anyone reading anything I write? I hand it over immediately. I have no hidden writing, fic, slash, original fiction, anything at all. You want it, here, I want inputinputinput.

No issues at all on that one. Just the reverse.

That's a great sentence, but now you've quoted it, I notice a "than" that should be "then".

Yup - then.

But it's so very much my girl Buffy in her innocent days that it made me tear up.

Yeah, I noticed that when you quoted it. Is fixed now.

Any other feedback? I'm not trolling for praise, I swear -- I'm just a bit nervous about what I'm doing with Xander, and if I'm making Willow sound Willow-like enough in the narration.

Lyra, her voice is quite Willowy to me - but I expect it will likely evolve, alter a bit, as she grows into Slayerdom.

Xander - he's not my character, but his voice sounds true to me.

It's a bit of a tangential question, but how do y'all feel about your SO's reading your fic? Not allowed? Same way you'd feel about them reading non-fan fic? Somewhere in between?

My husband reads everything - or, wait, I suppose he didn't read Fangs - but I like him to read my stuff for grammar, clarity, etc. He really doesn't much enjoy the m/m stuff, but what can you do...

This morning I forgot the word 'nautical' and instead had to use 'seafaring stuff'. Do you guys often forget words like that?

Lyra, Xander is my character - is my character - is MINE - sorry. Xander is a voice that I can easily hear in my head. I haven't seen enough of your Xander to comment. (I know you dislike the character and/or actor, so it'll be interesting to see how you manage. I, myself, dislike Willow t waits for sounds of shock and horror .. .. .. .. .. .. . ... .. .. . . gets tired of waiting and goes for ice cream but because I understand her I think I did a creditable job of writing her)

This,

My mom would have killed me if she knew I was doing something so violent in such a male-oriented space. She wouldn't even let me have a joystick for my computer because she said they were phallic symbols encouraging male dominance. I think that made it even more fun.

though, is pretty damn perfect. And I like how you're keeping Willow's desire to be special (no matter what the cost?) even in these changed circumstances.

Do you guys often forget words like that?

I lost the word "shelf" once in 1988 and Misha still occasionally mocks me for it.

Xander is a voice that I can easily hear in my head. I haven't seen enough of your Xander to comment. (I know you dislike the character and/or actor, so it'll be interesting to see how you manage. )

Actually, I've come to realize that what I dislike is what ME did with the character after S3. He's still a hard voice for me, though.

But as long as you aren't pissed off Xander's kind of doing an abandon-y thing rather than deal with Willow at this point in the story (which strikes *me* as true to the character's fears about being left behind and the fact he is a 16-year-old boy, but I feared might read like bashing), I'm happy.

I also wrote the scene where Angel comes back. I just need to come up with the bits in the middle...

I can see how Xander would not be able to quite deal. He's used to being able to at least best Willow physically, and he doesn't have that anymore. She was always smart and clever, but this really throws off the dynamic of their relationship.

And, seriously, is there anyone who thinks that Xander was served well of late? Because, man, so much they could have done and didn't, so much they did that they shouldn't. So much gone.