Chapter 8
Buffy and Cordelia had met up bright and early for breakfast. Every other Saturday, they got up at the crack of dawn for their first meal before tackling a day of power shopping at the mall. One couldn’t achieve the best results if you woke up late or if you went without the most important meal of the day: iced lattes and chocolate-dipped biscotti.
Cordelia instantly inspected every inch of Buffy when she first saw her, no doubt searching for clues as to how her date had gone the night before. Buffy simply sipped her beverage with a knowing smile, not giving any details.
“You got laid.” Cordelia said smugly, assuming she had it all figured out.
“Nope.” She chewed on a piece of biscotti.
“But…you’re glowy and your skin looks amazing.”
Buffy smiled and shrugged a little. “Just lucky, I guess.”
Cordelia was not amused. “Are you going to do this all day? Be Miss Secretive until I go crazy?”
“Probably.” Her mind wandered off to the night before, remembering how passionate William had been, how gentle at times and forceful at others and how odd it was that simply thinking of it made her body tingle. And good lord, he knew French! If they ever had sex, Buffy was sure she would explode. “Let’s just say, I’ll be seeing him again.”
“Why can’t you just say more than that? I want to know! Come on!”
Buffy giggled. “Well, I know he likes me.”
“Thank God for that. Can I assume that you will no longer be crying over Parker?”
“Who?” Buffy smiled.
“That’s my girl.” Cordelia took a sip of her latte. “William put on a coat for you. And bought flowers.”
“I know,” she said with a smile, her fingers going to the rose she had tucked behind her ear. She found that she was a little bit sappy, but didn’t really care, either. She was feeling cheerful and the rose reminded her of him and it matched her shoes. “No one has ever bought me flowers before.”
“Oh, really?” Cordelia said in mock surprise. “You’ve only said that a million times since I’ve known you. That’s why I knew you had to go on this date when I saw him clutching that bouquet as if his life depended on it. You so owe me.”
“Yes I do, Cordelia.” She sat up straight in her chair. “Thank you for telling me not to go and then telling me to go. Your confusing advice paid off.”
They both laughed at that, taking a moment to daintily chew on their respective biscotti.
Buffy looked at Cordelia thoughtfully and said, “You know, William has a friend.”
“No thank you. I mean, you can date the nerd squad and be happy, but me? I have standards.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “He has a hyphenated last name…”
Cordelia gasped. “Go on.”
Knowing that she had her interest now, Buffy said, “And he’s British. Like William.”
“Continue…” Cordelia leaned forward on the table.
“And I bet he’d watch Battlestar Galactica with you.”
“Shh!” Cordelia fanned her hands in front of Buffy frantically. “Don’t say that so loud!”
“You really should lighten up, Cordy. No one cares about that stuff in college. It’s really pretty high school.” Buffy stood up with her now empty plate and walked to the trash bin, leaving Cordy to sit alone with those words swirling around in her head.
“I am not high school,” she said to herself, folding her arms as she pouted. “I’m very mature. I can date a…a geek.” She shuddered. “Ok, baby steps, Cordelia. That just felt wrong.”
* * *
William whistled happily on his way down the hallway, carrying his shower caddy, a towel, and his clothes for the day. He pushed open the communal bathroom doors and smiled at the first person he saw, who happened to be one of the Alpha Beta fraternity brothers.
“Good morning!” he said cheerily, plunking his caddy down on the sink.
The frat boy scowled, obviously not as happy to be awake at eight in the morning as William was. “Freak.” He brushed past him and exited.
William inhaled with a smile, uncaring that he’d just been insulted, and smeared a glob of toothpaste on his brush. After he’d wet it beneath the running faucet, he shoved it in his mouth and started to clean his teeth vigorously, suddenly stopping when he caught sight of something in the mirror.
“What the…” He pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth, craned his neck and leaned forward, inspecting the large bruise over his jugular. Then he grinned.
“Nice.”
He backed up a bit to see how visible his new hickey was, smiling wider that it would be near impossible to miss unless he put on a collared shirt. He started brushing his teeth once more, humming to himself in glee.
The doors swung open and Wesley and Andrew entered, mid-conversation that had instantly come to a stop when they spotted their friend, and they hurried over to the sink.
“Tell us everything!” Andrew said, setting his caddy next to William’s on the sink counter. “Wesley and I heard Buffy screa—”
Wesley slapped Andrew on the shoulder and scowled at him in warning. Then very calmly, he said, “How did it go?” Wesley stood on the opposite side of William.
“Calm down, girls,” William said with a smug grin as he spit out his toothpaste. Then he picked up his shower caddy and headed for the shower stalls. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Kiss! He said kiss!” Andrew clapped his hands in delight, following after William, who seemed a lot taller that day. “And dear God, look at the size of that sucker!”
Wes let out a frustrated sigh as Andrew tried to get a closer look at William’s hickey. “William, the whole bloody floor heard her wailing your name so just spit it out already!”
William wished this day would never end. He closed his eyes and smiled as his hand reached up to grab the shower curtain of the first available stall. “Well, if you heard, then I don’t need to tell you anything, do I? Excuse me gentlemen, but I must take a shower. My lady likes a clean man.”
Wesley rolled his eyes as William stepped into the shower, ignoring Andrew’s appraisal of the situation and going to the sink to brush his teeth.
“What if William is like some sort of bionic gigolo?” Andrew said reverently as he stood beside Wesley. He looked up at the ceiling, his mind wandering to the extreme. “I mean, you heard her. That was a porno yell.”
“We heard her because we were standing outside the fucking door,” Wesley said. He was terribly grumpy, uncharacteristically so, and he spit angrily into the sink before he shoved his brush in his mouth again.
“As an experiment! You were just as curious to hear so don’t put the blame on me.”
“I’m not blaming you,” he said evenly. “I’m tired of talking about it. Going to pop in the shower.”
Andrew had his arms folded as he stared off into space, a dreamy smile on his face, not noticing that Wesley had left for the shower stalls. “William Pratt was once a boy, untainted by the passions of love. His talents were undiscovered until one fateful day…when the rogue princess Buffy came into his life. And now he is a man. With robot arms.” He quickly turned around to face his own reflection, arms stretched forward as if he were holding a large gun. He cocked one eyebrow and aimed. That’s when he noticed that Wesley had left and that someone else had taken his place at the sink.
Andrew lowered his imaginary gun, slowly, and smiled nervously, adjusting the hem of his tee shirt. He leaned casually against the sink as the newcomer tried to brush his teeth in silence. “I’m working on a…a movie.”
The stranger didn’t reply. He merely sped up his task.
“It’s got lasers and stuff and, y’know…gotta make sure the scene…” he trailed off when the stranger walked past him. “Looks right.” He cleared his throat.
* * *
Wes, William and Andrew were all showered and dressed and ready for the day, lounging in William’s room. Wesley had been quiet and pensive for the majority of that morning, something that was bothering William immensely. Andrew was busy distracting William with a multitude of questions, so he hadn’t the time to ask his friend what the problem might be.
“You didn’t wear the RoboCop outfit, did you?” Andrew looked horrified.
“No, I didn’t wear the RoboCop costume. You ruined it when you borrowed it last year for the San Diego Comic Con.
“That wasn’t my fault! The Terminator poured his milkshake on me.” Andrew might never recover from that day. He had been talking with Æon Flux, impressed that the girl had made her own costume and didn’t seem to be bothered by the fly she’d glued to her eyelashes, when the Terminator—outfit fashioned from the sequel, the travesty!—rudely interrupted and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Leave the girl alone,” he’d said, laying on the Arnold accent a little too thick, right before he sucked his chocolate milkshake through a straw with a loud slurp.
“I was just talking latex!” Andrew had said defensively, squaring his plastic-covered shoulders and brandishing his Auto-9 gun.
“I think you want me to teach you a lesson.” He robotically moved his head to the side to look at the girl who didn’t seem to care, then he moved to the other side—Andrew could hear him making the sound effects with his mouth, please!—to the group of convention goers that were suddenly in awe of the sight and huddling around them.
“RoboCop versus Terminator!” One nerd squealed, clapping his hands.
“No! Not versus anyone!” Andrew said in horror, not prepared to show what a terrible fighter he was.
The Terminator threw his head back in hearty laughter. “Foolish machine!” And that’s when he emptied the contents of his Styrofoam cup over Andrew’s head, thus ruining William’s costume, his pride, and his underwear when the chocolate milkshake seeped through the cracks of the armor. He would never look at cyborg assassins the same way ever again.
“So which ones did she make you put on?”
William sat down in his desk chair as he thought it over, counting them off on his hands. “First Spock, then Han Solo. She rather liked that one,” he noted with a grin.
“Ooh, which Han Solo?” Andrew also liked William in the Han Solo costume, but he’d never say. Totally not gay.
“Original, of course. Vest and tunic with the holster and everything.”
“Classic.” Andrew smiled dreamily.
“I did show her the Doctor Strange outfit which got a giggle out of her. She thought I was some super hero Dracula.” William chuckled at the ignorance of women who couldn’t possibly understand the Marvel Universe.
“This is all very entertaining,” Wesley said, finally speaking for the first time since they’d arrived at William’s dorm, “but could we please speak of something else?”
William frowned. “What’s with you?”
Wesley, for his part, actually winced. “I’m sorry. I’m just…having a bad morning.”
Andrew cupped the side of his mouth as he whispered, “He’s jealous because he no longer can hold the title of sensei.”
“I can hear you, Andrew,” Wesley grumbled. “And I’m not jealous!”
William smiled a bit and leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together over his chest. “We could play truth or dare if you’d like, Wes. Could bump you back up to the top of the totem pole,” he said jokingly.
“Ha ha. Aren’t you hilarious?” Wesley cuddled a pillow to his chest as he leaned against the bed frame, pouting. He was the suave one! And not only had William snagged a date with a hot chick, he’d scored, too. In costumes! If it weren’t for him, William never would have gone out with Buffy at all. “So now that you’ve lost your virginity, you think you know everything, is that it?”
William swallowed and looked at the ground. “I uh…I didn’t lose my virginity.”
Andrew and Wesley sat up straight on the bed as they stared at him incredulously. “But, the shrieking!”
“The ‘Oh God, William’ shouting!”
“The weird banging noises against the wall!”
William blushed and sank into his swivel-chair. He shrugged and said, “I uh…well…didn’t really get that far. In fact, she never even took her clothes off.”
Wesley might have been a virgin who’d only touched three girls on the boobies, but he knew a thing or two about anatomy. And no girl would make those kinds of noises without something being exposed to the ether. “But…how?”
William cleared his throat and lifted his left hand in the air, shyly wiggling his fingers as he smiled awkwardly.
“Ohhh…” the boys replied in unison, nodding slowly when it started to make sense.
But something was still bothering Wesley. “Wait, wait, wait. You mean to tell me that she had an orgasm from that?”
“Twice,” William said proudly, stretching his arms high above his head.
Wesley sighed. “Unfair. Unfair!”
“What’s unfair?”
“You know, I could have asked her out and I didn’t. I defended her honor,” Wes said angrily. “I’m the one who orchestrated the whole thing in your dorm room the other night. And I’m the one who got you the bloody date! Unfair!”
William leaned forward and tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. “What do you mean you defended her honor?”
“At the bloody video store! Parker was there and being an asshole to her and making her cry and I told him to apologize but he just left! That’s when I told her to come and hang out with us.”
William was suddenly very angry. “What did he say to her? Who’s Parker? Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“Because we were preoccupied. And I didn’t hear all that he said, just that he’d taken advantage of her somehow. I don’t fucking know.” Wesley stood up and huffed. He needed to calm down. But it wasn’t fair that he’d done all that work, work he’d never been brave enough to attempt with a girl before, and William was reaping the benefits. She liked Empire Strikes Back for fuck’s sake! Unfair!
“Parker?” Andrew asked warily. “Tall guy, dark hair, caterpillar eyebrows and perfect teeth?”
Wesley nodded. “That’s him.”
“She dated him?” Andrew looked horrified, agape, and on the verge of shouting.
William didn’t know who Parker was, but he was starting to think he should find out. “You know him, Andrew?”
A dark shadow flitted over his eyes and he glared into the distance. “Oh I know him. He’s a nerd wolf in bionic sheep’s clothing, that’s who!”
Wesley had forgotten all about his jealous rage in the wake of Andrew’s voice of vengeance. “How do you know him, Andrew?”
“Chocolate milkshake!” was all he could manage to say because he was trembling with the need for revenge.
“Parker was the Terminator?” William said.
“What an asshole!” Wesley said with a need to seek retribution.
“You know what this means?” William stood slowly and put his hands on his hips.
Wesley stood as well. “I think I do.”
Andrew leapt to his feet. “I’ve never been more ready for anything in my entire life.”
“It’s time to show Parker how I won those blue ribbons.” William smiled evilly and stuck out his fist. Wesley slapped his hand over it with a proud smile. Andrew’s hand landed on the top of theirs and he lifted his chin.
“Gentlemen, this means war.”