After what had happened with Xander, Buffy became even more determined to find out the truth. He had avoided her all night, even remaining silent at dinner, which almost never happened. Joyce had even noticed that something was up with him and had asked Buffy about it. Buffy told her mother that Xander wasn’t feeling well, which she hoped was enough to make her mother stop asking questions. It was and Joyce didn’t press the matter any more.
She decided that her only option was to talk to Will, something that terrified her. Buffy had seen Will angry only once, but it was a scary sight to behold. She wanted to avoid any kind of outburst, so she contemplated how and when to bring it up. Buffy rarely got a chance to talk to Will alone, as he was usually with Xander.
***
“Approaching your brother’s best friend, who you’ve been pining over for years, and asking him if he and said brother are involved in a romantic relationship is not an easy thing to do,” Buffy told Willow the next day at school. They were sitting in the library during lunch in an attempt to escape the horror that was the cafeteria.
“Are you sure you can’t talk to Xander again?” Willow asked.
“Not a chance. He’s been all avoidy since last night. He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it. Hence why I think that there’s definitely something going on. That’s why I need to talk to Will about it. I just need to understand. I need to know the truth. You get that, right Will?” Buffy finished.
“I understand where you’re coming from, Buffy. I mean, who wants to be left out of the loop like that? But, maybe they just need to tell you themselves,” Willow suggested.
“I can’t just wait around and wonder! Especially after my conversation with Xander yesterday,” Buffy said defiantly.
“You do what you have to, Buffy,” Willow said, resigned to Buffy’s stubbornness.
Buffy knew Willow disagreed with her, but she needed to know.
“I just need to find a way to talk to Will alone. Who knows, maybe he’ll be more forthcoming than Xander. Will doesn’t exactly beat around the bush; he’s always been pretty straightforward with me,” Buffy told Willow. ‘It’s one of the things I’ve always loved about him,’ she thought. ‘Stop it, Buffy! He’s probably gay, remember?’
Buffy’s thoughts were interrupted by a beeping sound coming from her pockets. She reached into her jeans and pulled out her cell phone. She had a new text message.
‘Oh my god, it’s from Will!” she thought with both excitement and trepidation.
“X went home sick. Cut out early?” it read.
“Will wants me to cut out early with him,” Buffy said to Willow.
“Are you seriously gonna do it?” Willow asked incredulously. Skipping class was a heinous crime to Willow, who took school attendance very seriously, having had perfect attendance since first grade.
“I have to,” Buffy explained, “I may not get another chance to talk to him alone.”
“Ugh fine,” Willow said with annoyance. “You’d better hope you don’t get caught.”
“Will and Xander skip all the time and they never get caught, it’ll be fine.”
Buffy sent Will a reply, agreeing to leave with him after the period was over. She waited for the bell anxiously as she contemplated the second time she would have this conversation.
‘Hopefully I’ll get some answers this time,’ she thought.
***
“I knew you could be easily corrupted,” Will said with a smirk as she got into his car.
“Yeah, well, you’re very persuasive,” she couldn’t help but blush as she said this.
“I can’t help it that I’m so charming, pet”
He started to pull the car out of parking lot, and Buffy felt the words start to bubble up.
“Are you and Xander gay together?” she asked both abruptly and quickly.
Will slammed on the break, making Buffy glad she had decided to put her seatbelt on. He pulled the car over to the side of the road and put it in park.
“Not much finesse in that question, luv,” he joked.
“Sorry,” she whispered. She could hardly believe her outburst and looked down in her lap in embarrassment.
“Hey, look at me,” Will said gently. “It’s okay.”
“Wait, you’re not mad?” She had anticipated Will’s anger, not this calm attitude he had currently affected.
“Surprised, yes. Mad, no. But, we should really talk about this, don’t you think, kitten?”
“Well, duh, that’s why I asked. I just didn’t mean to be so…abrupt,” she confessed sheepishly.
“How about we go to that diner in town? I’ll buy you lunch and we can have this chat.”
He had started to drive toward town before she could even answer him. Buffy couldn’t believe he was being so agreeable about this. Will pulled up outside the diner and they both got out and went inside. The restaurant was nearly empty, with the exception of a few old ladies and a man in a hard hat at the counter. They sat down across from each other at an empty booth and waited for the waitress to come to the table.
Buffy looked at Will expectantly, waiting for him to start the conversation.
“First off, pet, where did your car-stopping outburst come from?” he said with a smirk as he began to fiddle with the napkin dispenser.
“Well, I guess I’ve been wondering for a while,” Buffy began, realizing that this was going to be much easier than her conversation with Xander. “About a month ago, Cordelia Chase told me a rumor, I guess, about you and Xander.”
“That we’re a couple,” Will finished for her.
“Yeah,” she confirmed.
“And what do you think?”
“I have no idea!” she exclaimed, becoming slightly frustrated by his question. “That’s why I’m asking you!”
“Did you talk to Xander?”
“Yeah, yesterday, before you came over.”
“Hence his barmy behavior once I got there?” he question her, eyebrow raised.
“You bet. He just laughed at me. Told me I shouldn’t believe everything I hear, especially from Cordelia.”
“Well, he’s bloody right about that, luv.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t actually answer my question,” she got braver as the conversation went on. “That’s why I’m asking you,” she said confidently.
“Well, then. I guess the answer I would have to give you is no.”
“No?”
“No, Xander and I are not a couple.”
“Really, but it just seems like-“
He interrupted her, “Have I ever lied to yet, pet?”
“Well, no, but-“
“Aren’t I the one who told you Santa wasn’t real?”
“I was eleven! I already knew Santa wasn’t real!”
“Yes, but I didn’t try to lie to you about it like Xander and Joyce did” he said with resolve.
“That is so besides the point, Will!”
“Well, yeah. But, my point is that I’ve always been honest with you pet. Believe me when I say that Xander and I are not, and have never been a couple.”
She knew from the look on his face that he was telling the truth. Will was an open book, always wearing his heart on his sleeve.
“Okay,” she accepted his answer. “You know, I thought you just took me here so you could butter me up and I’d take the news better. Or maybe, so we’d be in public and I wouldn’t yell or cry.”
“No, I just really wanted pancakes,” he said, smiling with his tongue behind his teeth.
She laughed, and then paused for a moment, thinking of something else.
“You know, everyone at school talks about you guys. And honestly, after thinking about it, I can’t really blame them. I mean, just look at you two! You’re-”
“Kitten, I couldn’t give a bloody buggerin’ fuck about what everyone else says,” he said seriously.
“You really don’t care? Jeez, I thought everyone did! I mean, it is high school after all.”
“Yeah, well, at some point you have to start being true to yourself and not try to be what everyone expects you to be.”
“Easier said than done.”
The waitress came to the table with glasses of water and took their food order quickly. Will had moved on to tearing open sugar packets and pouring them onto the table, earning him scowls from the staff. Buffy began to relax, satisfied with Will’s answer to the question. Then she thought of something else.
“Wait!” she said, “that doesn’t explain why Xander was so wiggy about it. He could have just told me the same as you.”
“Well, pet, that’s for Xander to answer, not me.”
Will had begun to draw into the layer of sugar he had put on the table. He used his pinky and traced delicate lines into it, the blue tabletop showing through the white of the sugar.
Buffy opened her mouth to say something, but Will held up a finger to silence her.
“Hold still, luv.”
She realized that the lines he was drawing in the sugar were beginning to form a face, her face, to be exact.
‘Crush back on,’ she thought as she watched his fingers describe the lips of sugar Buffy. ‘I’m doomed.’
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Here's some Spuffy interaction that I hope everyone will enjoy!
Chapter End Notes:
Don't worry...the drama is far from over!
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