Nusac

Chapter 30
Faith’s POV

Xander is getting married. They told me like half an hour ago and I’m still reeling. What’s more he’s getting married to an ex vengeance demon. But I guess I can’t say anything I tried to kill all of these people once.

“Sorry we couldn't do the big fancy. You kinda caught us with our parties down.” Buffy apologises to Anya and Xander.

I look around the room, Buffy hasn’t said more than two words to me since the whole hug thing happened.

“Oh, that's okay. This is just the first premarital celebration. There'll be lots more. With gifts.” Anya replies with a large kinda goofy grin, I guess Xander has rubbed off on her. Tara and Willow appear with some chips in bowls, I take the one off Tara before anyone else gets any.

“Sure, maybe we’ll even have time to decorate for the next one.” Tara adds.

“Why wait?” Willow says before she mutters a few words in another language, I didn’t understand a word of it so I am guessing it wasn’t Latin. I survey the room and the people in it, Dawn seems pleased, as do Anya, Xander and Buffy. Giles, Tara and for some reason Namine look rather pissed off or something.

I shrug my shoulders at myself and head into the kitchen in search of soda… do you know how long it has been since I drank soda? I open the can and take a large gulp before almost choking and spraying some of the stuff out of my nose… yeah I seem to have forgotten about proper fizz drinking… not too fast.

“Smooth.” Pike says from the doorway.

I give him a raised eyebrow look and look down at his shirt; his eyes follow mine before he tries to wipe away the stains from his same mistake.

“I think I saw they had pretzels in there.” Pike says before trotting off, I follow looking for other food I have missed out on, on the way.

The party is still in full swing, well… okay it’s a really tame party but I haven’t been to even a tiny one since leaving… and I have food so I’m all good. I look around in search of Namine but don’t see her so I head over to Pike.

“Seen Nam?” I ask before taking a slow, small swig on a coke.

“Said she went to go change clothes or something.” Pike manages to say through a mouthful of Doritos.

Oh Doritos. How did I miss those? I dip my hand into the bowl pulling out three or four triangular chips. Mmm powdery cheesy goodness. There is powder still over my fingers. Finger licking good. I’m in the process of pulling my thumb out of my mouth when Nam appears from around the doorway. She looks at me strangely “Here was me thinking you’d grown out of sucking your thumb.”

“Meany.” The teasing was worth it. “Thought you were getting changed?” They are defiantly the same clothes she was wearing earlier.

“That was the idea. I need your help with something.” Up is down and left is right. She needs my help.

“What?” She’s the one who always helps me. Granted that it’s always with some sort of injury but that is beyond the point right now. “What with?”

“I need to go.” What? Go where? She must get that I don’t understand because she carries on. “Look just point me to the woods okay?”

Ohhh I get it. She needs to go to the bathroom. “There aren’t any.” She looks horrified. I have to bite my two lips together so I don’t burst out laughing. “Come with me.” I take her by the hand and lead her upstairs and straight to the bathroom. I present her with the toilet bowl. At her raised eyebrow she thinks that I have actually gone crazy. “You take a seat. Do your business and flush it away.” To prove my point I flush the toilet.

“You do this in the house? Upstairs.” She asks and I nod. “That’s disgusting.”

“There’s a sewer system and everything.” That’s another story for another day. “This is just how things are here.” I’m so getting my own back.

She rolls her eyes at me. “Fine.” And I’m quickly shooed out of the bathroom and she slams the door behind me. In my minds eye I can actually see her deciding if she needs to go that much to take a seat on the toilet. After five minutes or so I hear it flush. Apparently she did need to go that much.

I have to shake my head. There’s no way I can understand how she sees things. Party time. I make my way downstairs and I’m instantly hit by tension. It’s all radiating off Xander who is standing next to Anya talking to his friends. I can’t hear what they are saying but with every word I can see the Xand-man going steadily greener.

Screw that there is no way I’m going in there. I make my way to the front door and I suddenly feel very sorry for the guy. Leaning against the doorframe I poke my head into the living room. “Hey Xan. I’m going for a smoke, want to get some fresh air?”

“Wh…What?” He looks like he’s just been jolted to the present. “Yeah.” He didn’t even make fun of the having a smoke and getting fresh air thing. Damn he must be drowning. He’s at the door and outside before I can even turn around. It would be mean to leave him out there on his own. I’m not that mean… any more. So I quietly close the door behind me. He’s busy flapping his hands around his face. “Air. Sweet air.”

“Getting pretty tense in there?” I place the palm of my hands on the railing along the porch and pull myself up to sit on it as he takes a seat on the swing seat. “Commitment getting you down?”

He smiles at this and runs his hands through his dark hair. “It’s not the commitment. I mean I asked her to marry me.”

“End of the world situation?” He gives me a ‘how did you know’ kind of look. “It always is with you people.”

“Giles started talking about getting a house. You know the ones you live in.” What else do you do with a house? “Spending the rest of our lives together. That’s a long time. I mean what if…”

“You spend all your time always thinking about the what ifs and it’s bound to fail.” I’m really not helping matters. “Xander.” That got his attention. When was the last time I used his whole name? I think this might actually be the first time. “I’m in a relationship.”

Both his eyes widen at this admission. “Now I know you’re just poking fun.”

I smile at him and shake my head, should have seen that one coming. “Seriously.” I say to him. “And I have been for roughly, well… it’s kinda hard to tell exactly how long but I guess pretty much the whole time I was gone.”

I wait for his laughter to subside, giving him a hard look. “No way, you? In a serious relationship… for two years.”

“Don’t sound so surprised!”

“Oh my god, it’s not that Pike guy is it?!” Xander asks suddenly mortified.

A roll of the eyes and a few seconds later I tell him. “It’s Namine.”

I think if he had been drinking at that moment in time he would have spit it out in shock. “You’re gay? When did this happen?”

I push myself off the railing and walk about a bit. “I don’t know, I don’t think I’m gay… not sure really. I just know that I like her and she likes me and we get on, we live together… spend most of our time together… and I like it.” I snap myself out of my little fuzzy girlie daze before adding. “And if you tell anyone I said any of that I will kick your ass.”

Xander holds his hands up in surrender, he wont tell anyone… we always had this sort of connection… maybe it’s the whole coming from a broken home thing or being the dumb one thing… not sure. “So you in a serious relationship. Kinda puts things in perspective.”

I raise my eyebrows in agreement as the door opens and B slips out from inside. “Hey B.”

She sees me outside alone with one of her friends and a small amount of panic crosses her features. Not sure if she’s worried that I’m going to murder them or tell them about where she’s been. Either way the panic passes quickly. She must see the smile on Xander’s face. How obvious can he be that he’s hiding something? “Hey.”

“Once more into the breach Buff?” He’s so picked that up from Pike.

“Oh. I think my breaches are wearing a little thin.” What she means is she needs to escape into the night and get her slay on. “I'm gonna take Spike up on that offer to patrol. Gotta be something out there cruisin' for a smack down.” See I told you.

She doesn’t take any more time to converse with us and takes the porch steps two at a time. I can see in her shoulders she’s itching for something to kill. “Have fun.” She doesn’t turn as she waves over her shoulder acknowledging me. I’m really surprised that I’m not itching for a fight that much. Not quite sure if my body clock isn’t used to the demons coming out at night yet or if being in Nusac has just mellowed me.

“To the breach Faith?” Xander asks already opening the front door.

I smile and nod at him. “Beam me up Scotty.”