Winning Vote: Xander Harris
Xander rode his skateboard through the crowd as he kept his eyes open for Willow. He hadn't done the homework for math last night, and needed to sweettalk her into helping to bail out his butt again. He wasn't a math guy. Or really a school guy. It was all dull and hard to keep up with. But hey, his friends were there! The one good thing at school, Willow and Jesse. They helped beat back all the evils of school. Or at least they suffered together.
Then he saw her. A beautiful girl he'd never seen before. Sunnydale wasn't that big. He was positive he'd have noticed someone as radiant as-Xander hit the railing on the stairs and fell. Ouch. Great entrance there. He looked up and there was Willow grinning fondly at his goofy entrance. He grinned back. "Willow! Just the person I wanted to see."
"Really?" Willow asked. That's Willow. Never really believes someone's looking for her. Not even him, and they'd been friends since Kindergarten.
"Yeah." Xander pulled himself up and grinned at Willow. "I had a problem with the math last night."
"Which part?"
"The math part." Willow gave Xander an unimpressed look. Okay, so she wasn't buying that so much. He wasn't lying! The math was hard. "Be my study buddy? Please?"
Willow never could resist him when he was doing his best to be charming. "Okay. You should check out Theories in Trig from the library."
"Got it. The library. Big ol' place with all the books." Willow smiled fondly at him. Inside they ran into Jesse and Xander perked up at seeing his other best friend.
"Jesse! What's up?"
"New girl," Jesse said eagerly.
Xander nodded sagely. "I saw her. She's a hottie! So what's the sitch? What do you know about her?"
Jesse shrugged. "Just told you. New girl." Xander sighed as Willow giggled at the banter. The trio continued back and forth soon turning into a debate about what superpowers would be best for getting through school. Xander was a firm believer in telepathy. Read the answers right out of the teacher!
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Xander had the luck to run into the girl again between classes when she spilled her stuff. He ducked down to help her and opened his mouth to talk. "Can I have you? Ah-Can I help you?" This was really off to a great start. Ah, but she was so hot. He had to talk to her. He helped gather the stuff up.
"Thanks," the girl said. Wow, even her voice was great.
"I don't know you. Do I?" Awkwardest way to ask for an introduction ever.
"I'm Buffy. I'm new," Buffy introduced herself.
"Xander," Xander told her. "Hi."
"Hi," Buffy said back with a small grin.
"Hi," Xander repeated. No wait. Stop that! "Maybe I'll see you around. Maybe at school. Since we...both go here...."
"Great," Buffy said. She gave another cute smile. "It was nice to meet you." She took her stuff and left, leaving Xander to stand in the hallway and reflect over all the ways that he was a complete moron. Really, they both went to school? That had been the best he could do? He really had to think of something better to say the next time they ran into each other. Ask how her classes were maybe. No wait, that was lame. Ah, ask what she thought of the teachers! He could rap to her about that at least. He looked down and noticed something she'd forgotten.
"Oh! You forgot your..." Xander looked at the wooden stake. "Stake?" Why would she be carrying this around? He couldn't really think of any use for something like this. Well, he had been trying to come up with a conversation starter. This could work. He could ask her what she was doing with this. No, wait, too pushy. Maybe make a joke about what she could be doing with it instead, give her a chance to explain if she wanted or laugh it off.
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"I ran into the new girl," Xander told Jesse.
"Really? What's the deets?" Jesse asked eagerly.
"Oh you know, usual. Utterly hot, completely beyond us losers," Xander joked.
"Maybe not," Jesse said. He pointed to where Buffy was in fact sitting with Willow and talking with her. Huh. Xander just might have a chance after all! They headed over and Xander dropped in.
"Hey! Are we interrupting? We're interrupting." Why did he say that?
"Hey," Buffy greeted them.
"Hey," Jesse said back with a grin.
"Buffy, this is Jesse and Xander," Willow introduced.
"Oh, me and Buffy go way back. Old friends, very close. Then there was that period of estrangement, I think we were both changing as people, but here we are and it feels like old times, I'm quite moved," Xander blabbered out.
"Is it me, or are you turning into a blibbering idiot?" Jesse teased.
"It's not you," Xander said miserably. He really was being a complete idiot. He needed to figure out how to shut up.
"Well, it's nice to meet you guys, I think," Buffy said politely. Wow, he'd made such a great impression she wasn't even sure if she'd wanted to meet them. Way to go, Xander.
"Well we wanted to make you feel welcome, at home," Jesse said smoothly.
"And to return this," Xander added in quickly. He still had the stake! He dug it out and held it out to her. "The only thing I can think is that you're building a really small fence," he joked.
"Oh," Buffy said in surprise. She grabbed the stake back quickly. "Actually that's for self defense. Everyone in LA has them. Pepper spray is so out," she joked awkwardly. Everyone let the silence linger for a moment. Xander clapped his hands to break it.
"So. What do you do for fun, what do you like, what do you look for in a man. Let's hear it." Hey, he almost sounded charming like that. Maybe still too desperate, but it was a start!
"If you have any dark painful secrets you want us to publish," Jesse ribbed. Ouch. Jesse was really rubbing in how terribly he was doing with this whole thing wasn't he.
"Gee, everybody wants to know about me. How keen," Buffy said uncomfortably. She fiddled a little with her hair.
"Well, not a lot happens in a one Starbucks town like this," Xander said trying to lighten the mood. "You're big news!"
"I'm really not," Buffy said flatly. Wow, she really just wanted to blend didn't she? Too bad she was too pretty to ever manage that.
"Are these guys bothering you?" Ah, Cordelia and her cohort! Always around to brighten the mood. Xander grinned at her.
"Oh! No," Buffy said quickly. Xander was a little surprised at that. She'd seemed so uncomfortable.
"She's not hanging with us," Willow said quickly. And that was Willow. Trying to make things better for the new girl. Willow really had a big heart. Jesse grinned at Cordelia and moved towards her. Cordelia made a mild noise of disgust and shifted away.
"I don't mean to interrupt your downward mobility. I just wanted to tell you that you wouldn't be meeting Coach Foster, you know, the woman with the chest hair, because gym was cancelled due to the extreme dead guy in the locker."
Buffy looked freaked. "What?" Poor girl. First day in a new school and a fiasco like this happens. Nothing says welcome to your new school like a dead body!
"Some guy was stuffed in Aura's locker," Cordelia clarified, clearly enjoying the attention of getting to dish out on the gossip.
"Dead?" Buffy asked.
"Totally dead," Cordelia confirmed.
"So not just a little dead then," Xander said sarcastically.
Cordelia shot Xander a snobbish look. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?"
"If you need a shoulder to cry on," Jesse offered to Cordelia. Xander had to suppress a snicker at that. Not even a dead body would get Jesse to stop chasing Cordelia.
"How did he die?" Buffy asked intensely. Odd question to ask, not what he would have focused on.
"I don't know," Cordelia brushed off.
"Did he have any marks?" Buffy was getting really agitated now. You'd think that the death was something personal.
"Morbid much? I didn't ask," Cordelia told her.
Buffy grabbed her stuff. "I gotta go." She fled leaving them all to watch her vanish in surprise.
"What's her deal?" Cordelia scoffed.
"Think she's not used to the death count of ol' Sunnydale," Xander said.
"You sure you don't need that shoulder?" Jesse asked. Cordelia shot him a glare and lead her crew off.
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Okay, he really had to stop putting this off. Xander would have rather spent his free period hanging with Jesse or reading comics, but he did have to get that textbook for studying with Willow. She would give him her saddest face if he disappointed her and didn't even bother getting the textbook. So here he was digging through the library and taking his time wandering around looking for a textbook, instead of doing anything more interesting. Ah, there it was.
A door downstairs slammed and Xander winced. Someone was about to get in trouble. Then he heard Buffy start talking, and things got...bizarre. Apparently Buffy believed in vampires. And so did the librarian. Except they were talking about it like it was real, and it was something they didn't like. Buffy was acting like it had followed her sometime, and then there was a whole thing about how she was chosen to kill vampires? Xander had no idea what to make of that. He'd have to do some serious thinking about this.
Of course he still had to get through the rest of the school day first. That was a riot. He took his time heading home after and messed around some before he realized that it was later than he'd thought and Willow would be looking for him at the Bronze. He hurried to the town's main and pretty much only club only to run into Buffy looking around wildly outside. She still looked freaked.
"Hey, leaving already?" Xander asked.
Buffy glanced at him and momentarily brightened. "Xander, have you seen Willow?"
"Not yet," Xander told Buffy warily.
"She left with a guy," Buffy said uneasily.
Wait, Willow got with a guy? "We are talking about Willow right? Scored it at the Bronze. Good for her!" He'd have to hear about how it went down for her later.
"I need to find her," Buffy said urgently. "Where would he take her?" Oh geez, Buffy was really fixating on finding Willow. Xander hoped this didn't have to do with the whole "vampire" thing.
[ ]Ask why she's so interested in finding Willow
[ ]Hint that you know about the vampire slayer thing
[ ]Outright tell her you know
[ ]Write-In
Okay that was a lot different than I expected it to be. I'll probably be posting every two days instead of every day like I originally planned if all my posts turn out like this. So let's get this butterfly flapping
