![[I saw three ships]](3shipsicon.gif)
Now that he thought about it —
Now, his brain, or possibly his libido, complained, with Willow looking at us like that and Oz doing that, that thing with his hands, now you want to think? Yeah, thanks a lot. Where the hell were you during the SATs?
— it kind of made sense. In that weird, non-sense-making way. Him and Willow, they’d always worked in threes. With Jesse, for a long time, and Buffy after that, and maybe part of the it couldn’t have worked out with Cordy was that they could never have been Xander-and-Willow-and-Cordelia.
Xander and Willow and Oz. The rhythm worked, that lions and tigers and bears tempo. So the names were okay, this being three people was okay, and the fact that Oz was a guy was… still freaking him out a little, but approaching okay.
This was still, unquestionably, the strangest thing that had ever happened to him. And that was including today’s Mayor-ascension-big-freaking-snake shenanigans.
Oz was unbuttoning his shirt. Xander’s shirt. He was having a little trouble figuring out the pronouns because, hey, this was pretty new. "Uh," he said.
He’d noticed this problem with language, how he’d been dropping syllables since Willow had said, "We think we should… the three of us." The three of us should what? Play Parcheesi? Form a marauding band of oh dear god and Willow had kissed him and he’d thought the top of his head was going to come off, because Oz was right there watching them and because she’d never kissed him that way before. Certain and strong; he’d wonder if she’d been taking lessons from Cordelia, but that was a fantasy for some whole other time.
Willow sat back on the bed, smiling hopefully at them both. Oz leaned forward, and Xander’s pulse was suddenly going eight thousand beats a minute and he didn’t care that Will’s parents were in another state, they were gonna hear it, and then there were lips and warmth and pressure and prickly-scrape of stubble across his chin and jaw and oh, God. Again.
Which was just about the point where things stopped making sense, but by then he didn’t care.
He didn’t know what time it was. Early, he guessed, since it was getting light outside, but Willow’s clock was way at the other side of the bed, and even if he’d been wearing a watch he would have had to free himself from the crush of sleeping people to look at it.
Either he’d blocked a lot of fun memories or sleepovers had changed a lot since he was a kid. Back then it was movies and microwave s’mores and pillow fights, him and Jesse in their sleeping bags on the floor, Willow starting off in the bed but always between them by morning.
Maybe that part wasn’t so different.
The sleepovers had been Friday night ritual till Junior High, when Jesse’s mom and Mrs. Rosenberg had decided it wasn’t appropriate. Xander’s mom hadn’t cared, but there’d been that time when he was thirteen and she’d asked which one of you’s she dating, anyway? Doesn’t she get sick of having a third wheel around?
Xander had always wondered what was so bad about having a third wheel. Sounded a lot more stable than just two.
"Don’t let the sharks play dodgeball," Willow moaned, snuggling closer to his side. "The sharks! They cheat!"
"Gotta watch those sharks," Oz said. His eyes hadn’t opened.
"Hey. Didn’t know you were awake."
"I’m stealthy that way."
"A stealth werewolf. Good to know."
Xander kept his voice low, didn’t move too much — didn’t want to wake Willow, unless it looked like the sharks were getting too scary — but he stretched across her to touch Oz. No big contact, his hand barely skimming Oz’s wrist, but the connection was there. He waited to panic, to have some cold light of day reaction, but if there was one it was swamped beneath the sleepiness and the feeling that came with being alive after another apocalypse. Although he hadn’t felt this good after the Master, so maybe it was really a feeling that came with waking up in bed with two pretty amazing people.
Two people who were a couple.
Oh, there was the cold light thing.
"Not that I want to bring down the post-sex party mood," he said, "just wondering why."
Oz was looking back at him, now. "Me and Willow talked. Before the fight. Said that if we made it out okay…" He shrugged. "Something we wanted to think about."
So between blowing up the school and Willow saying "my parents are out of town, you want to sleep over with me and Oz?" and the sudden kissing — five, maybe six hours.
"You think fast," he said. "Seeing the hotness of smart people."
Willow’s fingers stroked the back of his hand. Her eyes were still closed, she hadn’t moved, but when he looked closer there was that twitch around her lips that meant she was about to giggle.
"Hey, a stealth witch, too," he said with mock surprise, and then he was yanking the pillow from beneath her and dropping it on her face. She shrieked, already grabbing the pillow to smack him around the head. Oz, obviously not the seasoned veteran they both were, didn’t have ammo yet but he was reaching for it.
He couldn’t start to list the ways this could all go wrong. Jealousy, and what other people were going to think, and he was supposed to be spending the summer doing his great American odyssey anyway.
But right now, with no apocalypse on the horizon and no more high school ever, and the sun coming in the windows and Willow laughing and Oz really smiling, he decided that they were going to work out okay.
Just so long as he won this fight.
