zeppo-with-one-eye:

Xander sat at Bob’s Burgers, munching on a fry and waiting for Buffy to show up. He’d gone ahead and ordered food – a large basket of fries, two burgers with everything on them, and two Cokes. Food and fun was on the menu today. Absolutely stress-free goodness with his best friend.

With the crazy post-time-warp activities, it’d been a while since Xander had spent any good quality time with Buffy. There had been other things going on, Willow and Faith and then the Halo night with Andrew and the daily grind of construction work. No good excuses for neglecting to hang out with her, of course, but time was a tricky thing. Nonetheless, he felt guilty for it. She’d been busy too, he supposed, busy with Dawn and whatever else Buffy had been up to, so their free-time schedules hadn’t meshed up.

Still, he should’ve made time before this. How many nights had he spent on his own, watching television and unlocking achievements? It’d be good to see her again. His last memory, hazy as it was, was her jumping from the tower again and then her body cold and unmoving on the ground. Not exactly a great mental image. Seeing her alive and vibrant would be much better, scrub the unpleasant images from his mind. 

Not to mention he missed her a lot.

This would be good. Fun and easy and just two best friends hanging out with each other. He wished Willow could be there too, complete the Golden Trio and make it feel like old times again. He missed those times, missed hanging out with both of them at the same time. But that wasn’t an option right now. Things were tense between Buffy and Willow. Understandably so, everything was so messy and bad, but he still wished they could fix things and go back to being non-avoid-y friends. Someday.

He noticed Buffy enter Bob’s Burgers, a smile covering his face at the sight of his best friend. Standing up, he waved to get her attention.

Buffy made her way to Bob’s Burgers to meet Xander. It felt like an eternity since they’d actually seen one another in person, and she had yet to see him since the whole time travel situation (still very mind-boggling if you asked her). So technically, it had been years. Life had been so much easier in those days and she almost found herself wishing them back.

Sure, there were some horrible moments she’d relived, but even with those moments it was all simpler. At least in those days she and Willow and Xander were still best friends. She’d only died one time, which would be one time too many for any normal person, but seemed like child’s play in comparison to all that she’d been through between then and now. But those times were long gone and she had to live the life that had been dealt to her, it was the only way she could cope; just keep trucking forward, it’ll all be okay in the end. If all this drama and mortal peril ever did end, that is.

And things with Willow… Well she wasn’t really sure how they were. The next big problem had come along and so they’d have to start talking again. She knew this much. They’d started talking again on the computer, she wasn’t really ready just yet for face-to-face. But she didn’t actually end up having to worry about that since Willow went chasing after Faith and left the rest of them in the thick of a media storm that Buffy wasn’t so certain she could whether alone. Even if Willow had to be in hiding, it seemed like she’d be more of a help than if she was gone. But away she went, and Buffy could understand why. They’d talked about it and Willow had assured her she’d be back, which Buffy trusted was true. And yet, she found herself feeling pissed off.

But today wasn’t supposed to be about that. Today was about meeting up with her best friend and just being Buffy. Not slayer Buffy, not angry Buffy, and definitely not media spokesperson Buffy. Today she was just Buffy. She and Xander would have a good time and there wasn’t a force in the world that would stop it from happening, not if she couldn’t help it. Buffy’d been lucky enough to make it out of her apartment without a single reporter or cameraman following her with an onslaught of questions or flashes, which she was eternally grateful for. She ended up arriving at the restaurant—Bob’s Burgers, a perfectly normal locale for a perfectly normal day—about five minutes late which she hoped wouldn’t bother Xander. They had allowed for a lot of hours to hang out so she doubted a few minutes would be too detrimental.

She walked into the restaurant and scanned the room for her one-eyed friend. She couldn’t ever get over Xander and his eye; he’d been so great about it. He was making jokes about it before anybody else had even dared go there. That was something she honestly loved about him, the way that he could see light in the darkest of situations. But even now when she laid eyes upon the black patch that made him look like some sort of modern pirate, she felt a pang of guilt. This pang of guilt was immediately replaced though by a little chuckle that bubbled up when she finally found him. True to form he had a grin about a mile wide plastered onto his face and was waving his hands around like a dork. She walked over to where he was sitting in a hurry, she had to stop him before he embarrassed himself. It was just the right thing to do, though she would have loved to fake looking around for a moment more just to watch as people’s heads turned toward him. But she didn’t.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said in sincere apology as she plopped down into the booth seat across from him. She gave him a smile and reached across the table, ruffling his hair for no other reason than to annoy him. She was feeling surprisingly playful and she couldn’t pinpoint why. Maybe she’d needed this more than she thought. She’d definitely missed him, that much she was certain of.

“Loved the arm wave you had going on there Xander! A neon sign would have worked too.” She said jokingly as a sly smile spread across her face. She kidnapped one of his French fries before he could say anything about it and bit into it deliberately, flaunting the fact that she’d stolen. She had her own food but taking his was just more fun!