The First (and Last) Time Willow Said the F-word, part I
By anyjay for Octoberfest at gilesxander
Pairing: Giles/Xander
Spoiler up though the first part of “Something Blue” after which this goes seriously AU.
Rating FRT, for one use of the actual f-word, and lots of references to m/m sex.
Summary: What if Willow had said something different during “Something Blue”? Xander’s POV.
750 words

And he didn’t want to know that. Not yet.

It had seemed so real, though there was no way it could have happened. For one thing, Xander was Not Gay. For another, there was no way Giles really looked that mind-meltingly hot when you got him out from underneath the big baggy sweaters he’d been wearing lately.

Remembering the hotness and, uh, expertise that was Dream Giles made Xander wonder if maybe he was only Slightly Not Gay. Or, okay, maybe even Slightly Gay But Only For Giles. Because THAT wouldn’t make things awkward at the next Scooby meeting, no.

But Xander wasn’t going to worry about real life right now. He was going to think about the dream.

It had started with Willow coming to see him here in his parent’s basement. She needed Xander to cheer her up. Since Oz left, she’d been falling apart—not literally, although anything was possible on the hellmouth. She told Xander about how Buffy was more interested in recapturing Spike than helping Willow, how hard it was for her without Oz and how Giles had been totally unsympathetic. She’d sounded about eight when she’d made that comment about Buffy marrying Spike. She sounded a whole lot older later when she’d said if Xander really agreed with Giles, ‘you two can just go fuck yourselves.’

That was proof it was a dream, because Will never used the f-word. Never. And because suddenly, he was running. He was running as fast as he could to get to Giles. Giles, who was feeling his way through the courtyard of his apartment complex. Giles, who wanted Xander just as desperately as Xander wanted him. Giles, who was completely blind. You didn’t have to be a shrink to get the symbolism there. But again, clearly a dream because Giles? Definitely among the sighted.

He and Giles had begun frantically kissing each other right there by the fountain. Xander had kind of steered them back to Giles’ apartment, paying more attention to getting their belts unbuckled than to anything else. He’d been heading for Giles’ couch, because the bedroom was way too far away. But Buffy had been there, making out with Spike. Xander wasn’t sure exactly what Freud would say about that, but clearly Xander was a sick, sick, demented man who needed repeated applications of bleach to the brain.

At the time though, the only effect of seeing Buffy and Spike locking lips had been to make Xander head for the bedroom after all. Giles, though, had been kind of impatient. Xander was pretty sure their clothes were scattered all up and down Giles’ stairs. Or would be, if it hadn’t been a dream.

And once they reached the bed, Wow! If Xander’s imagination could come up with that, he should so get a job writing gay porn. Except he had no idea how to spell some of the things they’d done last night. And that one thing, he didn’t even know a name for that. But it had been great. It had been better than great. It had been so much better than great, that great should slink away in shame and embarrassment. Xander wanted to do everything all over again, as soon as possible.

Except he’d hadn’t done it the first time.

It was a dream. And that was Good. Think of all the trouble Xander would be in if it weren’t a dream, if Xander had been unfaithful to an ex-vengeance demon, if Xander had to tell his parents he was gay, if Xander opened his eyes and found himself lying next to Giles in Giles’ bed with no idea what to say or do.

So it was a Really Good Thing that it had only been a dream. The weird sore and yet happy way that his body felt had nothing to do with Giles and that was a whole world of trouble-avoiding goodness. Just because Xander was going to lie here with his eyes closed and pretend, did not in any way mean he wished it hadn’t been a dream.

The bed shifted next to him. Xander tensed. In a moment, Anya would speak, and reality would return full force.

But the voice that said “Xander?” in surprised tones was much too British and male to be Anya’s.

Xander opened his eyes, and his heart lifted. Oh, he was in so much trouble.