Honolulu, Calcutta
"If you could go anywhere, where would you go?"
"Honolulu," he said without hesitation, wondering when he'd decided that. It couldn't have been too long ago. The last time anyone had asked Wesley where he wanted to go, he said, into the field with a real Slayer, and that had barely been eight months ago.
Of course, the smoking rubble of a high school forty-five minutes north and the comatose girl in the hospital bed spoke to the success of that little venture. But Honolulu? Wesley was not the sort of man who enjoyed tourist traps, and he'd seen enough of the sunny parts of the world to last a lifetime. There was no reason why he'd want to go there more desperately than say, Omaha.
"I'd go to Toronto," his companion said. "Or maybe Austin. There's good chili in Texas. Also large belt buckles. I was going to get one of those on the trip. Swagger back into Buffy's with a dinnerplate-sized belt buckle that said, 'Chili-Lord of the West' or something like that. They'd be impressed--wouldn't they be impressed?"
Wesley laughed. "I don't know. If there's one thing I do not know, it's how to impress Buffy Summers," he said. "QED."
"Fair enough," Xander said with a grin. "But hey. You're impressing me."
"I am?" Wesley said, almost stuttering. "How on earth am I doing that?"
Xander laughed and ruffled--yes, it was definitely a ruffling, Wesley's Aunt Millicent had been a ruffler and Wesley knew when he'd been ruffled--his companion's hair.
"First, you're playing anywhere but here with me, which is pretty cool, and second, you walked into the fabulous Ladies' Night, saw me, and bought me a beer after my--my thing--and didn't even say, 'Hey, Xander Harris, guy I don't like, when did you become male stripper to the ladies of Oxnard? Because I am British and hot and was totally all over your ex-girlfriend, and thus I mock you to no end' like other, less mature people would have in your place," Xander said, well aware he was babbling.
To his credit, Wesley looked big with the not-minding. He even looked kind of happy to hear Xander babble.
"If you're speaking about Cordelia, well--" and Wesley turned the most interesting shade of beet-red. "Thatdidn'tgowell."
"Really?" Xander said, perking up. "I mean, sorry, Wesley."
"No, it's quite all right," Wesley said vaguely, thinking that Aunt Millicent had been much less attractive than Xander. It wasn't nearly so bad to have Xander touching his hair. Much less pudge on Xander, and no false fingernails creeping against his scalp and yes, he was thinking far, far too much. "So, Xander?"
"Yes?" Xander asked, momentarily distracted by a preview of the next Dragon Ball Z. Yay, Vegeta! Because nothing was better than an angry little Super-Saiyan with a massive Napoleon complex. Vegeta reminded Xander of Angel for many small and petty reasons, and every time Vegeta got his ass kicked by big, goofy Goku, Xander was reminded to keep reaching for the rainbow. Of course, Trunks was a problem--the idea of Angel dealing with his magically grown up son from the future just gave Xander the wig--but yes. Vegeta-Angel made Xander-Goku happy.
"Do you like stripping?" Wesley asked, a tiny little smirk on his lips as the dark-haired boy choked on his Dr. Pepper. "Because those fabulous ladies certain seem to like you."
"You!" Xander choked, Dr. Pepper streaming through his nose. "With the snark and! You! That was! You!"
"Yes, it was me," Wesley said. "Is there a problem with that?"
"You're not supposed to be snarky," Xander complained, setting the soda on the coffee table in his slightly skeezy temporary abode. "That's not in the Wesley job description."
"There's a Wesley job description?" the Englishman asked bemusedly, leaning back against the couch and running his hand across his head. "Strange. I never got the memo."
"You know what I mean," Xander said, recovering from the Dr. Pepper in his sinuses. That'd singe your nose hair and no doubt about it. "You're supposed to be--"
"Prissy? Frightened? Singularly humorless?" Wesley asked, adjusting his glasses slightly. "A bit of a big girl's blouse?"
"Well--yeah," Xander said. "You're not a butch man. You're more a damsel-in-distress man. And I should know. We can smell our own."
Wesley, who had been preparing to look quite put-out and offended, suddenly chuckled ruefully, his preternaturally uptight shoulders relaxing. Xander, who was still big with the impression, wondered what it was about Cordelia that attracted--well. Okay, he knew what it was about Cordelia.
Now Xander just had to figure out if he knew what it was about Wesley. He wasn't exactly the type of guy Xander swore he didn't fantasize about on occasion. Xander was more an Angel guy, though there'd been a couple of Oz moments, and one scary Spike one that gave Xander the screaming willies any time he--
"Xander, are you quite all right? You've been quiet for well over sixty seconds," Wesley said, waving his hand in front of his face. "That might be a world record."
"Just wondering," Xander said, idly getting himself a barbeque potato chip. Mmm, KC Masterpiece Mesquite goodness.
"About what, precisely?" Wesley asked, looking at him quite intently.
"Are you more an Angel man or a Giles man?" Xander asked. "Cuz on the one hand, Angel is the definition of hot man. On the other hand, Giles is tweedy and older and has the dark scary past. I don't know you so well. So--Angel or Giles?"
Wesley choked for a good minute, and Xander enjoyed every second.
"Not so funny now, is it?" Xander asked, chortling. "Who's the man now? Oh yeah. It's me."
"You're quite mad," Wesley said, his head tilted up at Xander. "Did you ever have this conversation with Cordelia?"
Xander snorted. "It's not really a convo you have with your girlfriend," he pointed out. "She said she was a Xander man at the time, which kind of leads me to think, well--I don't want to say fag hag, but there's no good way to end that sentence."
Wesley, leaned against Xander's nasty couch with this indolent, hungry look in his eye, nodded. "It doesn't say good things about either of us, I'd imagine," he said. "Though as I am about to make a pass at you, it's probably not untrue."
Xander blinked. "Well, okay," he said. "And I'm going to receive that pass with good humor and a big fat yes. But before that happens--Giles or Angel?"
"Oh, I don't know," Wesley said, leaning toward Xander and initiating a slow kiss that heated up as Xander's hand mussed Wesley's hair again and Wesley's tongue tasted the salt-sweet taste of soda and chips that was Xander's mouth. Finally, he pulled back, his glasses fogged. "There are worse things to be than a Xander man."
Xander nodded, stunned into silence by the actuality of kissing another guy. "That was--that was not unhot," he finally said, putting his fingers against his mouth. "I wouldn't be against another one."
Wesley obliged. For the next five minutes, Tenchi Muyo (popularly known as "Tenchi and the Hos" to Willow and Buffy, and familiarly referred to as "my life in a nutshell" by Xander) went unwatched as the two men got tangled on the couch. Very tangled. Tangled enough that only the commercial break's noisiness brought them back to awareness of what they were doing.
"Xander?" Wesley said hoarsely.
"Yeah?" Xander asked.
"How do you feel about Honolulu?"