Pick Your Poison

Author: Lucinda <lucindasiverling[at]hotmail.com>

rating: pg13

main characters: Xander, mention of Cordelia and Faith

disclaimer: I hold no legal rights to any characters or concepts from 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' which was created by Joss Whedon.

distribution: Twisting, Paula, anyone else please ask first.

note: this is in response to Jinni's Weekly Poetry Challenge #4 Set season 3.


Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-'Fire and Ice' by Robert Lee Frost

 

Xander sat in his gloomy bedroom, contemplating what he already knew was an arrogant, presumptious Bad Idea. He was running a mental comparison between Faith and Cordelia; something that he already knew would somehow cause trouble. Cordelia, the person that he'd sort of been involved with for a while, and Faith, the person that he had enjoyed a night of amazing fabulous sex with. Of course, Cordy hadn't wanted any of her friends to know they were... anything, and Faith had used him and thrown him right out of her motel room before he'd even been able to get his clothing back on, but...

Well, nothing was perfect, right?

As he sat there alone in his room, Xander was certain of one thing, well, maybe two if you included the feeling that he was somehow going to pay for this. He didn't like to be alone. He didn't like not having a pretty girl to smile at, to wrap his arms around, and to dance with. He wanted to have someone that he could smile at again, someone who's hand he could hold.

Cordelia or Faith? He could probably only try to win one of them over, convince one of them to appreciate his Xander-ish charms. And he had to choose wisely. If he fumbled this, either one was capable of making his life miserable. And assuming she didn't, trying with one and failing would almost certainly guarantee failure if he tried with the other one. No pressure here, no, none at all...

Sometimes, the life of a guy sucked. And the fact that he was still a teen only made it worse. Was it really worth all that potential pain to try for Cordelia or Faith? Maybe it would be simpler to just try to pick up someone else?

Except that every time he tried to pick up a girl, she ended up not safe. Do not forget the lessons of Miss French and Ampata. Although the whole thing with the evil giant bug lady wouldn't be a problem anymore... He realized that he had that sort of distracted grin on his face again. The same one he got every time he thought about that night, with him and Faith in the motel room.

Faith had been... well, they'd... wow. Sex. Yeah. Just thinking about it left him using little bitty words. That had been something that had seared itself into his memory. But the tossing him out before he'd even finished putting his clothing back on had to be a sign that all was not good.

Cordelia had never tossed him out naked onto the streets of Sunnydale. They'd never had really fantastic wild sex, just nearly explosive arguments that had led to passionate kisses. And there was the down side that she acted like she was almost ashamed of him, as if he was definitely a few steps down the social ladder from her. He really didn't like that feeling.

The ending with Cordelia had been loud angry shouts, furious rage and betrayal. Granted, he did sort of deserve that, but... Couldn't he grovel enough to convince her to give him a second chance? He could grovel, really. On the other hand, Faith.... that ending had been cold. She'd just handed him the rest of his things, shoved him out the door, and shut it firmly behind him. Very cold.

Maybe he should just decide if it would be better to die from fire, or from ice?

END