Work Text:
Gradual Realization
by Scorpio
Xander poked listlessly at his pudding cup with his spoon and tried not to frown at Buffy and Willow's pathetic attempts to appear friendly and happy and normal. When he'd first sat down at the table they had both broken off their intense conversation, smiled weakly at him and then changed the subject to their shared history class and the pop quiz that had surprised them all this morning. They both seemed uncomfortable and nervous. Oz was, as always, unflappable and laconic. Still, Xander couldn't shake the feeling that he had inadvertently interrupted something important and that his presence was unwanted.
Unaccountably hurt and yet oddly unsurprised by this passive aggressive treatment filled with undercurrents of 'go away', Xander cast about desperately for a way out of the tense situation. Out of the corner of his eye, Xander saw a tall blonde boy in a Sunnydale High jacket and turned his head. A slow smile slid across his face as he watched Larry walk out of the building and into the bright sunny courtyard with his lunch. Immediately, Xander stood up and began to scoop his trash together.
"Xan?"
Xander looked up at Willow and then flicked his eyes over to Buffy and back again. "No big, Wills. Just got something that I gotta go do. So...you and the Buffster here can go back to whatever big important conversation that you stopped talking about when I showed up."
Instantly, Willow looked guilty and opened her mouth to what?...apologize? Deny it? Argue? Xander cut her off with a shrug and a smirk. "Don't worry about it Wills. I'm getting used to it."
Then, without waiting for her to reply, Xander picked up the remains of his lunch and walked them over to a nearby trashcan. Turning, he quickly jogged over to Larry and then matched pace with him. The bigger boy merely looked over at him and smiled a real and welcoming smile, which was ironic since Larry had been a long time rival and bully and his "real" friends greeted him with long suffering looks and quickly changed topics.
"Hey, Xan! What's up, dude?"
Xander grinned, shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pants pockets. He opened his mouth to speak, stopped and cleared his throat, then blushed.
"Uh...I just wanted to say thanks. For, you know, letting me bitch and moan about Cordy and...my friends and stuff. I mean, yesterday in the lounge. You know?"
Larry snorted air out of his nose in a sound of dismissive amusement and waved one hand through the air as if to brush it aside as no big deal. "No problem, man. You looked like you needed someone to talk to. I just listened, that's all."
Xander smiled and nodded. Then the thought hit him that it was more than his supposed friends had done lately and he frowned again. He pulled one hand out of his pocket and scratched at his head near his temple.
"Well...uh...I wanted you to know that I did what you said and thought about everything that's been happening. I'm not normally introspective guy and all, but...looking back on it all I sort realized that I put *way* too much time and effort into my friends and I'm *so* not getting the same thing back. I
mean, I used to harp on Cordy all the time that she was too caught up in what her stuck-up friends thought and that if they said something was 'uncool' then she'd never try it or whatever." Xander shrugged and looked down in embarrassment. "The messed up thing is, the whole time I was pushing her to ignore her friends and do whatever she wanted no matter what they said, I was doing the same thing. Just letting my friends call all the shots and not making any fuss about it. Well, except for the Buffy and Angel dating thing and I'll stand by *that* opinion to the grave."
Larry chuckled slightly and lightly punched Xander on the shoulder. "Good for you, man. It's not easy to look inside your own head, especially if you aren't sure that you're gonna like what you find."
Xander grinned ruefully at that understatement of the truth. Before he could say anything, though, Larry was asking him a question. "So, you looked at your life and realized that you put too much stock in your friend's opinions. Now what are you going to do about it?"
Frowning slightly, Xander let his gaze wander over to where Willow and Buffy and Oz were still sitting at the lunch table talking intensely. He still felt hurt and anger over what they had done and were still doing, but that was tempered by the fairly new idea that he didn't need his friends to buoy him up and hold his hands.
"For one thing, I'm not going to let them dictate my self-image. They got it in their heads that without them I'm nothing and I've never done anything to stop that for far too long. I'm can't let them control my happiness and...and my actions any more."
Larry gave him a serious look and frowned. "That's pretty heavy, man. You sure about that?"
Xander paused for a long moment while he just looked across the courtyard at the three friends. Willow was looking back at him with a mixture of worry and guilt on her face. Oz was just looking intense and cool and Buffy...well, Buffy just looked beautiful and oddly aloof. Untouchable.
"Yeah. I'm sure. I mean...they don't trust me to guard their backs, you know? After all this time, they still don't get it. They don't get me. And as of a few days ago, I no longer trust them to watch *my* back."
Larry was quiet for a moment and then, "Do you really think that they'd turn you away if you came out to them as gay?"
That seemingly nonsequitur came out of nowhere and threw Xander off track for a moment until he realized that Larry had no idea about Jack O'Toole and his zombies nor did he know about the Jhe Demons opening the Hellmouth. Larry thought that the lack of trust was about the convoluted and twisted relationship mishaps that he'd recently suffered and maybe in a way, it was. After all, as far as Xander could tell, that was the catalyst for the Scoobies' current anti-Xander feelings and sentiment...no matter what they said about his penchant for getting hurt in fights. Still....
"I'm not gay, Larry."
Larry just gave him that pointed look of disbelief and snorted air out of his nose. Xander blushed, shoved his hands deeper into his pants pockets and looked down at the ground, certain that his cheeks were glowing hot.
"Although...maybe I'm a little...bisexual?"
Larry looked at him for a moment before rolling his eyes and chuckling. He lifted his fist and gave Xander another of those soft punches to his arm and snorted again, "Well, it's a start in the right direction, so I'll let it go Mr. Bisexual."
Xander rolled his eyes back and quipped sarcastically, "Thanks, muchly. So big of you."
Larry chuckled again and then got an oddly speculative look in his eyes. Then he blushed.
"So...um. Ah, if you're still not hanging with your...uh, friends and all, then...um, what are you doing tonight?"
Xander blinked in confusion. "What? I mean...I'm not really sure. I hadn't actually thought about it."
Larry fidgeted nervously for a moment and Xander wondered what was wrong with the guy when the bigger boy suddenly blurted out, "Okay, then would you want to go out?"
When Xander just sort of gapped at him in astonishment, Larry blushed even harder and babbled in embarrassment, "I mean, bowling. Tonight. With, uh...with me and Carl and his girlfriend Bev. You know Carl, right? He's on the team with me. And we're all going bowling tonight, so if you don't have anything to do, than you can. Come with us I mean. To go bowling."
A slow smile slid across Xander's face and he held up one hand to try and stop the flow of Larry's words. "Larry? Did you just ask me out on a double-date?"
Larry blushed again and shifted his weight from foot to foot while looking embarrassed. "Yes? I mean, no? Okay, um...sort of? I mean, it can be a date if you want it to be, but if you don't, than it's not. A date, I mean. So...do you wanna go?"
Slightly stunned and amused and definitely flattered, Xander looked over his shoulder to see his three friends still deep in conversation. Willow was actively frowning at him now. Then, Xander turned his head and looked over his other shoulder and saw Cordelia sitting with a group of her stuck-up friends only to notice that she was glaring at him with derision in her eyes. Then, he looked back to see Larry patently waiting and blushing at him. Xander's smile grew wider.
"It's a date, then."
Larry let out a huge sigh of relief and then positively *beamed* at Xander. "Great! We'll, um...stop by at your place and pick you up around...say 7:30?"
Xander nodded. "Sounds good."
Larry began shifting his weight from foot to foot again, but this time it was obviously from excitement and not nerves. "Well, uh...I better go and tell Carl. He's um...he's waiting for me over there." Larry gestured to the table that most of the football team gathered at.
With another nod and a bright smile, Xander said, "Okay. I'll talk to you later, then."
Larry beamed at him again. "Right. Okay, um...bye."
And then the bigger boy turned and jogged over to the table where his friends were all sitting. Xander stood there grinning stupidly for a few minutes before the rush of panic hit him in the gut. What in the name of the Hellmouth was he doing making a date with the only openly gay student in the school? And just how long would it take before word got around? With a quiet whimper, Xander figured that by the end of the school day everyone would know that he was gay...or bisexual...or something.
Xander turned around in the hopes that he could get away and find a nice dark quiet corner to have a minor panic attack and private freak-out when he nearly walked over top of Willow. The short red-haired girl was standing in front of him and trying hard to make the forced smile on her face look natural. And *wow* was this so not a good time for this because Xander really really wanted to go find an empty room to go insane in.
"Um, Xan?"
He forced a fake smile onto his own face. "Yeah, Will?"
She shuffled her feet a bit and hitched her school bag up higher on her shoulder before grinning shyly up at him. "Oh! Well, we all were wondering if, you know, you wanted to Bronze it tonight with us? Oz's band is playing there and since there's nothing on the slaying agenda, we thought..."
Willow's voice trailed off in a question and she shrugged up at him.
A flare of anger surged through him at the thought that it was okay for him to be around them to support Willow in her quest for Oz worship, but it wasn't okay for him to be around them when there was something important going on, like say, when the Hellmouth was under attack. His fake smile fell away and he frowned at her.
"Nope, sorry Will, but I've got plans."
A flicker of confusion washed over her face and then she offered him a tiny frown complete with just a touch of hurt. "Oh. Well, um...are you sure? I mean, cause..."
His anger flared up again at her. Was she trying to make him feel guilty for having previous plans? Did she expect him to sit at home waiting for her personal okay to go out and do something?
"Don't. Just...just don't, Willow. I have plans. You and the rest of the gang made it pretty clear that you didn't want me hanging around. Fine, I'm not going to. I'll go be useless and pathetic with other people. You all can be shiny heroes without me. It's not like I'm *needed*, right?"
Willow gasped, a look of *real* hurt and guilt on her face. "No! That's not what we meant! How could you think that?"
Xander just snorted air out of his nose the way that Larry had, only with a lot less amusement. "How could I not, Willow?"
Then he shrugged off his anger and offered her an insincere smile. "Look, I gotta go. I'll talk to you later." And then he walked away.
END: Gradual Realization
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