Prompt# 178 - Mischievous - Gift of Love (1/1) – BtVS - spikesdeb

[spikesdeb.livejournal.com]

Title: Gift of Love
Fandom: BtVS
Pairing/Characters: Willow/Xander friendship
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me except the pleasure of continuing this wonderful 'verse. Joss is all, and ever shall be.
Summary: Pre-series; Xander and Willow meet at kindergarten and a wonderful friendship is made. Their first Christmas. Warning of extreme schmoop!
Prompt: #178 - mischievous
Word Count: 1054
Thanks to seductivembrace for editing and helping with the voices; forgive any errors because I can't help but fiddle before posting.

Willow shook her head, her pigtails whipping wildly as she shook harder. She hissed at Xander, “No! It's naughty. Mommy doesn't like it when I'm naughty.” She resumed her vicious sucking of her thumb while hopping from foot to foot, her eyes wide with fear.

Xander Lavelle Harris giggled and continued swapping the labels on the gifts beneath the Christmas tree in the kindergarten class. His daddy said he was made of naughty, so carrying on with his mischief seemed the natural thing to do. It was fun and even if he was caught, his mommy and daddy would be asleep when he got home because of the magic drinks, and they never wanted to speak to the school ladies no matter what he'd done. His daddy called them bad words and said they should mind their own business, and that was fine with Xander.

He stood up when all the labels had been mixed up and turned to his best friend with a wide grin on his face. It faded as he saw her bottom lip wobble.

“What's the matter, Willow? Are you hurt? Show me.”

Willow sniffled and shook her head again, her thumb coming out of her mouth with a pop. “Not hurt.”

Xander put his arm around her and squeezed hard. “Not hurt? Then what? Why are you sad?”

Willow didn't know where to start. She always felt so left out at this time of year. There was no tree at home, no gifts, no carols. Her parents didn't subscribe to the 'celebrating other cultures' religions' point of view. From the end of Hannukah, all other festivities were ignored, and given that Willow was one of only two Jewish children in the kindergarten class, she knew that there wasn't a gift for her under the tree.

She mumbled, almost incoherently, as she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Santa won't know me.”

Xander licked at his chapped lips, testament to the fact that he slept with his mouth open and snored because of his permanently blocked up nose, and fixed her with an earnest look. “Will, he does know you! He knows everybody. He's like...a spy or something.”

Willow shook her head, hugging herself, her bottom lip quivering.

“He does! You'll see! In two days, on Christmas Day, you'll wake up and there'll be a stocking and gifts and his reindeer will have bit the carrot and the milk and cookies will be gone and you'll have lots of presents to open!”

Willow sat down and hugged her knees. Her green eyes were heavy with tears, the poster-girl for dejection. “He's never found me before, Xander,” she lisped. “Maybe I'm just bad.”

Xander felt sad for his friend, sitting on the floor at her side and hugging her silently, but he soon grinned as he knew exactly how to cheer her up. He sprung to his feet and told her to wait where she was and he'd be right back.

Willow rocked and wondered if Santa would mind if she had her gifts left at Xander's house, or whether that would be cheating. If her mommy and daddy found out that she was even thinking about Santa she'd be in big trouble, but she didn't want to be the only one with no Christmas story to tell when school started after the holidays. School was a new thing for her and she was finding it difficult fitting in. She seemed to know so much more than the other children and it was hard playing dumb just so that they didn't point at her and call her names.

Xander wasn't like that. Xander loved that she knew stuff he didn't. She liked the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled and the way he snorted milk down his nose when she made him laugh. He was her best friend in the whole world and she loved him.

She was getting nervous about being caught in the classroom when she shouldn't be in there and was about to run outside when Xander came crashing in, falling over his feet and sprawling on the floor in front of her. He was clutching a brightly wrapped parcel in his hands and Willow tilted her head and knelt down beside him as Xander righted himself and grinned, holding the garish gift out to her.

“For me?” Willow asked, breathless with surprise.

Xander nodded and pushed it further towards her. He was grinning, excited for his friend and impatient for her to open her first Christmas present ever. So, it wasn't Christmas Day yet, but he was sure Santa wouldn't mind if Willow got her gift early.

“Open it,” he urged, “before Mrs. Salter comes in and we have to sit in the naughty corner, 'cause that bench hurts your B. O. T. T. M.” Xander spoke with the voice of experience, having spent most of his kindergarten year gracing its surface due to his mischievous ways and lack of fear.

Willow hurriedly crossed her legs and sat, ripping at the wrapping paper, darting excited glances at Xander from beneath the curtain of her rich, red hair. There were layers and layers of wrapping, and what seemed an entire roll of sticky tape, but eventually Xander's gift tumbled into her lap and she clutched it to her, tears in her eyes. Earlier in the day she'd broken her yellow crayon and had cried silently as she tried to fit it back together to no avail. Her sunshine picture remained unfinished at the end of class and she'd been unable to eat her lunch as she felt as if she'd failed, the first time ever that she'd not been able to stand proudly at the front of the class and feel the warm praise of her teacher.

And even though she hadn't said anything, Xander knew. And so he must have raided the store cupboard for the entire stock of yellow crayons, and now they were hers.

Willow hoped that no matter what happened and where she was, she would always have Xander to mend her broken crayons and dry her tears.

“Merry Christmas, Willow,” Xander whispered as he hugged her close and felt his heart almost burst with love when she laid her head on his shoulder and whispered it back.