Roast Turkey

Title: Roast Turkey


Author: Sonya


Rating: PG


Disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns the Buffyverse characters, Laurell K Hamilton owns the Anitaverse characters, none of them are mine, I’m just playing and making no money, so please don’t sue.


Author’s Note: FFA Pairing #113, Buffy/Jean-Claude. I’ve made this a friendship fic, hopefully that won’t disappoint.



***



"Mademoiselle, I am begging you," Jean-Claude pleaded in his most heart-wrenchingly pitiful of voices. Buffy snorted.


"And I am really not believing I’m having this conversation," Buffy quipped in return, striding briskly down the corridors beneath the Circus of the Damned and trying in vain to lose one very desperate Master Vampire. "You’re pestering the wrong Slayer."


"You think Mademoiselle Faith -" he began hopefully.


"No," Buffy interrupted hastily. "Oh no. Do not even think of going there. I was more thinking of someone a little shorter, black hair, probably covered in chicken’s blood and raising the dead right now?"


"Ma petite is not a Slayer," Jean-Claude pointed out. "She is an Executioner."


"Right, Slayer, Executioner, whatever – point is, she’s just a little more likely to know what she wants for Christmas than I am," Buffy insisted. "Ask her!"


"That would ruin the surprise," Jean-Claude retorted petulantly. "This gift must be -"


"- sufficiently impressive to convince her *not* to shove a stake up your ass for answering the phone at her house and talking to her father?" Jean-Claude blinked in surprise.


"I did not think that ma petite would have .. related those events to -"


"Her least favorite of Slayers?" Buffy interrupted again, beginning to enjoy making him squirm. "She didn’t, still hates my guts and what she’d probably *really* like for Christmas is a good excuse to shoot me, but Damian told Dawn, who told me. You guys sorta suck at keeping your private stuff actually private, you know that?"


"Everyone is aware of this . . situation?" Jean-Claude asked, eyes narrowing.


"Only everyone who isn’t a threat to your power base." Buffy rolled her eyes. "Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got a serious one-track-mind problem?"


"It has been mentioned on occasion," he frowned, and crossed his arms over his silk-and-ruffle clad chest.


"Anyway, she’s not *that* mad at you," Buffy offered, taking pity on the vampire. "If anybody came after you they’d be seriously dead, courtesy of one Executioner-Slayer-Whatever. She’s just pissed off. It’s sort of a hobby with her. You must have noticed this."


"I believe I will decline to comment," Jean-Claude said carefully.


"Afraid I’m gonna tell?" Buffy teased.


"You are not going to help me, are you?" Jean-Claude pouted.


"Okay, look," Buffy sighed. "I still think this whole conversation is a bad idea, but you want to know what I think? She’s not even mad at you. She’s mad her life, and what she wants for Christmas is to be somebody else for a day or two, or better yet, for her family who actually accept who she is. And that’s just not happening – there will be no Hallmark-card Christmas dinner with scads of annoying relatives and roast turkey and eggnog, so – what?" Buffy paused warily, as Jean-Claude’s face had broken into a genuine, delighted smile.


"Thank you, mademoiselle!" he exclaimed, grabbing her hand and kissing the back of it, before hurrying away in the other direction.


"What?" Buffy demanded, stalking after him.


"You have given me the perfect idea," Jean-Claude beamed at her, as she caught up. "We cannot make her blood relations see reason, but are we not -" he gestured expansively at the Circus around and above them, "-her true family?"


"Sweet," Buffy said flatly. "And yet I am still so very scared of where your brain has taken that concept."


"Why can we not give her a traditional Christmas feast?" he asked brightly.


"Gee, let me think on that one," Buffy answered dryly, voice dripping sarcasm.


"There may be some minor obstacles -" Jean-Claude waived a hand dismissively.


" – like that half the guests won’t be able to eat solids?" Buffy suggested.


"- but I am certain it can be done," he pronounced firmly.


"I just want it clear that this was not my idea," Buffy responded. "This is the sort of idea that always turns into an apocalypse, and I want no credit. This was all your thought. Not my thought. We’re all clear on that, right? I did not have this thought."


"Where can I order a dozen roast turkeys?" asked Jean-Claude.



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