Choco_cherries Challenge: Lessons in How to Live
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Title: Lessons in How to Live
Author: Lirazel (penny_lane_42)
Fandoms: Supernatural/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters/Pairing: Jo Harvelle/Xander Harris
Wordcount: 299
Prompt:
Summary: He isn’t Dean, and that’s the first strike against him.
She learns quicker than any of the rest of them do: they were schoolgirls, not so long ago, concerned about boyfriends and softball games and nail polish. None of them have seen real darkness, not like she has: it all seems so exciting to them when it’s so nightmarishly familiar to her.
She sees that same familiarity shining—no, not shining: darkening—in his eye, and she hates that she recognizes it, feels it tugging at her. He, at least, has seen the real world and knows it.
And that’s what she hates most about him, more than the other things combined. He’s seen everything there is to see, and he still smiles. Still makes lame jokes, most poking fun at himself, and there’s no desperation lurking behind them like there was in Dean’s devil-may-care attitude. The brokenness Dean tried to hide—that she could understand; it fit neatly into her world. But Xander…he really means the jokes, the encouragement, the hope. She can’t understand how to live like that, and it frightens her.
But she lets him kiss her in the dark in Highgate Cemetary one night, and it isn’t so bad.