Xander Harris, lying in bed with a pile of X-Factor comics on one side, and his dozing girlfriend on the other, reached for another handful of cheese-flavoured peanut-butter covered crackers and pushed them in the general direction of his mouth, scattering crumbs across the bedspread, the sheets, and occasionally on his girlfriend, who brushed them off and mumbled in her sleep something resembling "God damn it, Xander, eat on the couch..."
Xander gingerly picked up another comic (trying with near impossibility to not get peanut butter on the pages), frowning slightly when he noticed the title. "How'd this get in there?" he muttered to himself, emitting a fine spray of cracker-like particles over the cover. He carefully wiped off the cover (realizing after the fact that he had used Anya's favorite silk nightie), and stared at the cover some more. Yep, that was an pre-issue 70 issue of X-Factor carefully tucked between copies of post-issue 70 X-Factor. A fanboy faux pas, and one that Jesse, if Jesse was more than a pile of dust, would have never let him live down.
He carefully opened up the comic and began reading, chuckling occasionally at the wardrobe and bad dialogue. "Bobby, no!" he mimicked in a high pitched voice. "He's not the murderer! He's not a bad guy!" He giggled quietly to himself, grabbed another handful of crackers, and flipped back to the beginning.
"Forgot he was a mutant...how in the hell do you do that?" Xander mumbled to himself. He flicked the comic, right at the badly-dressed bulky-shoe wearing girl on the page. "You must be a mutant with hair like that...oh yeah, I see your evil plan....stealing Bobby away from the X-Men with your mutant powers of bad taste and lack of fashion. Oh yes indeed..." He looked at the page, leaning his head in slightly closer to get a better look. "Poor... attractive... muscular.... Bobby..." He paused for a second. "Did I just say he was attractive?"
He looked at his sleeping girlfriend, then back at the book. Yeah, Anya had been getting at him to experiment more, something a little different than the ol' wham-bam-thank you, Xander, but something like this? Fantasizing over a comic book character? Well, okay, back when he was 13 and he had a big Psylocke poster on the wall, but, you know, that was then, he was older now — he wasn't such a fan — and, well, it was Iceman.
A guy. And not just a guy, a joker, a kidder, someone who Xander always respected and modeled himself upon. Well, him and Multiple Man, but after that whole Legacy thing, it just sort of got weird, and 'sides, Bobby was there first.
His hand, still sticky with peanut butter, had slid underneath the blanket and was slowly stroking his cock as he pondered the situation. Yes, it was a fictional pen and ink character. But that was nothing new. Yes, it was incredibly nerdy, but that was nothing new either. It was a male character, and that made all the difference in the end.
Yep, Xander Harris, was digging on a M-A-N. Y-chromosome and all. And, maybe it was because he was jerking off at the same time, but it felt like a good thing.
He felt Anya shift next to him, and a sleepy brown eye look at him through the hair falling into her face. "Are you touching yourself again?" she asked, in a vaguely detached curious tone, much as if she was asking "Are we having pizza or chicken for dinner tonight?" or "Are you going to wear green socks with that orange shirt?"
"Um...yes, why?"
She lifted her head and looked at the book spread out on his lap. "I hope you're looking at the blonde man who turns into that white stuff instead of that ugly girl..."
"He turns into ice," Xander said as he closed the comic, carefully setting it on the pile before turning to his girlfriend. "And she was ugly, wasn't she?"
"Horrible hair. But he was cute."
"Mm-hmm..." Xander said as he leaned in for a kiss.
This Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer story was written by Kate Bolin. If you liked it, there's plenty more at http://www.dymphna.net/fanfic/. And you can feedback her at dymphna@dymphna.net.