First Day Jitters

It was Xander’s first day at CalSci and he was fifteen minutes early for his class. His foot was nervously twitching atop his knee. The smallish desk in front of him was covered in very precisely placed school-type objects. Xander didn’t really know what he was doing here. If his life were a time line, then he would have trouble with connecting to the dot he is currently inhabiting to the previous dot on the line. Things have changed so much since the fall of Sunnydale. He had changed even more after spending two years in Africa. He simultaneously felt like a new man and like he was more Xander than he has ever been.

Willow had been thrilled to pieces that he wanted to try going to college. It was no longer an option for him to fight against the forces of darkness the way he used to, but he still wanted to fight. Africa, however, had taught him that he needed to find a different way to fight. So here he was, at school, sincerely trying to learn for the first time in his life. Lacking the distraction of slaying, which had so grievously hurt his high school performance and lacking the low self-esteem that always made him think that he couldn’t do it, he finally believes that he can do something other than recklessly gamble his life in fights that he had been under-qualified. With no training and no powers, at least until very recently, it had been quite unwise of him to be physically involved in fighting evil. Now that he is older, and somewhat wiser, he can recognize that Giles plays just as crucial a role as Buffy did. Both were necessary to effectively fight evil. That said, Xander still wished that it were possible for him to be physically involved, instead of playing the truly support role that he had been forced into. However, he still wanted to contribute any way that he could, considering the change in his circumstances.

So here he was, sitting in a college class room. After an intensive summer of remedial math, he was finally ready to take a proper college level course. Xander was looking forward to getting to learn more about probability and complex systems. It was hard to change a lifetime of self-deprecation and low self-esteem, but he had finally made his peace with himself. He, at long last, felt fully comfortable in his own skin. He no longer felt like he has to prove his worth to the other Scoobies, or anyone else, really. Not after surviving seven years of fighting evil on the Hellmouth and two years of surviving Africa, entirely on his own merits (both physical and mental). That said, it was still a new thing for him to try to feel confident about his intellectual self. After slacking and feeling stupid all through grade school, it turns out that it was his low self-esteem and inability to focus that stunted his ability to learn.

Wait, what the hell is game theory, anyway? Oh right, he remembers that it deals with behaviour in strategic situations. Xander thought the class might help him with planning strategies for the Council. How very strange it is to think that Xander would start being the brains of some operations. They’d all have to see how it went. He wasn’t terrifically pleased with how mystified and incredulous all of his old friends were about his new direction. They understood that he needed to find a different of participating in the fight, they just didn’t really understand how he was growing. They had all changed after Sunnydale, but he more than anyone could have imagined or predicted.

Help!

The first class was over, and he supposed he had learned a little about game theory. However, the class had made it abundantly clear that one summer of remedial math was not quite enough for him to understand everything that the professor had discussed. Thus, leaving him hesitating outside of his professors door, somewhat feeling like he should have started in some lower level math class before attempting this class.

“So, are you going to lurk outside my door for the next hour or are you going to come in?” Professor Eppes called out. Xander blushed a little, and shuffled to just inside of the door.

“Uh, yeah…I’m in your Introduction to Game Theory class and I’m having a little trouble with the symbolic logic. I was wondering if you know anyone who would be able to tutor me?” Xander asked.

Charlie, all the while, was intrigued with his new student. In the first case, he was older than students usually were in an introductory class. Secondly, he was missing an eye, which, instead of getting a prosthetic, he covered with an eye-patch. It gave him a sort of rakish, dangerous look which contrasted sharply with his peaceful and relaxed expression.

Oops, he still needed to answer Alexander’s question, “I may know somebody who would be willing to help you, but in order to more fully and accurately meet your needs, I think that you’ll need to more fully describe where exactly you are having problems with the math being used in my class.”

“I’ve never taken a course on symbolic logic, so I could use some help with that aspect of the course,” was Xander’s reply.

“Hmm…I’m not sure how you got into the class without the pre-requisites, since you really should have taken symbolic logic before you registered in this class. In any case, symbolic logic isn’t really complex enough to require a whole semester to learn it. How about instead of proper tutoring, you take this intro textbook,” Professor Eppes grabbed a book from his shelf and handed it to Xander, “on symbolic logic and read the first two chapters for next week. Bring any questions you have to my office hours and we’ll discuss them, sound good?”

“Oh, wow, you really don’t need to do this personally, I’m sure that you have much more important things to do with your time,” Xander said, starting to feel more nervous about asking for extra help in the first place. It was unexpected that the professor himself would help Xander.

“Bah,” Charlie waved away his concerns, “at the beginning of the semester very few students come to my office hours. Indeed, few students ever come at all. You’ll be forcing me to do the sort of work I’m supposed to when I hold office hours. Plus, I always enjoy going over the basics every now and then. It can be quite helpful.”

“All right, if you’re sure. Thank you,” Xander said this with a very somber expression on his face.

“You are very welcome. You should probably go and get started since I know you have a lot of reading to do,” Charlie’s eyes twinkled as he spoke, in partly because of Xander’s serious demeanor.

Dishing the Day with Dawn

When Dawn walked into their apartment Xander was avidly reading through the first of the two chapters that he needed to read on symbolic logic. He found it fascinating that it was possible to reduce all of English to a few basic logical particles and constructions.

“Hey Xander, how did your first day of classes go?” Dawn asked with interest. She had additionally brought bribes; some sugary goodness to lull Xander into sharing - something he did not do much of anymore. Ever since Africa he had been quieter, not in a bad way, it was more that he had found a calm centre within himself, and nowadays very few things troubled him. This, in turn, made him very frustrating to speak to, since he no longer felt the need to talk over anything.

“It was good. I was nervous about being in University, because I still feel a little like fake-guy for being there. My professor is giving me some extra help so that I can catch up to the course requirements. How was your day at school?” Xander’s response floored Dawn, while miles away from his babble of old; he had spoken of actual feelings! He must have been really nervous and far outside of his comfort zone for anything to trouble the now perpetually calm and serious him. The only thing that made it bearable was that, while he was quiet, he was still the friendliest guy she had ever known and that he never, ever brooded. His quiet-y new personality seemed to be a result of the peace he had made with himself while he was away in Africa, in stark contrast to Angel’s tortured silences. Plus, he was an excellent listener these days and his advice was insanely insightful.

Dawn was studying classical languages at UCLA. She would have preferred Berkeley but Xander had gotten into CalSci, so they had to go to LA. UCLA was still good and LA was probably more fun than where Berkeley was located. It was just kinda crappy that wherever Xander went, Dawn now had to go. One of the consequences of the Sunnydale Hellmouth closing and after Xander finally left it for an extended period of time was that it turned out that the safest person for Dawn to be with was Xander. This meant that if Dawn wanted any space away from her sister, she had to take it with Xander. Xander was not only the safest person for Dawn to be with, but also one of the few people that Buffy trusted without reservation. When Dawn used to crush on Xander, she never expected that they would end up being roomies while they both went to college.

“My day was good. I managed to wow yet another professor with my pre-existing knowledge of the dead language du jour. Also, there is a really, really cute boy in my classical Chinese class. I mean, seriously cute. I think he may have noticed me too! Except, that I think he only noticed how big of a nerd I am - ‘cause I was seriously geeking out over the old-school Chinese,” was Dawn’s somewhat unfocused reply.

“Cute boys, eh? I was geeking out too much over game theory to notice if there were any in my class,” Xander commented.

“Xander! If you are going to be hetero-flexible you have to start noticing boys other than when they are hitting on you; which doesn’t happen that often because everyone thinks you’re 100% straight, with that dangerous looking eye-patch and your tendency to wear quasi-militaristic clothing. It makes you look dangerous and unapproachable. It doesn’t accurately represent your personality, you need to add some colour to your wardrobe, but not as much colour as you used to wear. Balance! It is all about balance!” Dawn was a little exasperated with Xander on this point. Now that Xander had made peace with himself, he had finally allowed in the fact that he might be partially interested in guys. Xander still mostly dated women (when he dated at all), but it was probably like every tenth person might be a guy (if the stars aligned in a certain way, it seemed). Still, just because he was serious-guy now, it didn’t mean that he couldn’t wear colours other than black, grey, or white.

“Hey, I also didn’t notice any cute girls. I am a geek, always have been and apparently always will be,” Xander said in his defense. He very carefully did not address the fashion stuff. He honestly just didn’t care anymore.

All of his shirts were the kind you found in packages of three in the underwear section of department stores. It was perfect; he could get his socks, underwear, and shirts all in one place. He pants tended to be carpenter pants or jeans (a residual effect from his construction days - they were sturdy and lasted a really long time, it reduced his overall shopping time). He wore work-boots all the time now. This was pretty much his daily uniform. It would all be fairly normal, if it weren’t for the eye-patch and somewhat longish hair (although he tended to comb his hair more neatly and often than he used to).

Instead of regular-guy, though, all of this converged to make him look a little rakish, somewhat dark and, to the right person, dangerously sexy. It was rough and tumble with him being rough and looking very tumble-able. This look contrasted sharply with the aura of serenity and kindness that he gave off. Thus, he tended to leave people feeling confused about his character, making it difficult for most to even think about approaching him. Add to the fact that he was still as clueless as he had ever been, he didn’t get to date much because few people had the sledgehammer subtlety that Anya had possessed (which was essentially what you needed to get his attention these days).

“Xander. We’ve talked about this. You are seriously hot. For real. Not only hot, but you are a decent and kind man. Loyal. With a little danger thrown in the mix. The perfect sort of guy for many girls, and a few select men. You are no longer a geek, well, I guess a little since you do tend to get a little too involved in the math. But your geek-like qualities are only on the inside. If you would just pay a little more attention you could have a girlfriend, or maybe a boyfriend, if Mercury were to align with Jupiter.” Dawn lectured, yet again, in the vain hope that he would listen.

“I know Dawn, but the numbers are just so interesting. Plus, I don’t mind being single. It really doesn’t bother me.” Dawn knew that he was telling the truth, very little bothered Xander these days. However, that didn’t stop his friends from being worried about him. Dawn, and the other Scoobies wanted to see Xander in a romantic relationship. Not because they thought he was lonely, because he had made it clear that he wasn’t, but because he deserved to have a little romance and a lot of love in his life. He was a special guy who should have a special someone.

Re-Defined Roles

On the surface of things it seemed as if Dawn and Xander had been firmly relegated to the fringes of the slayer world. While they certainly knew the slayers based in L.A, they were forbidden from joining in any of the nightly patrols. Moreover, when they met with the other highly placed council members, aka The Scoobies, it always took place away from any of the head offices. In fact, they were also forbidden from actually going to any city with a Hellmouth or Watcher’s head office; essentially any place with a high amount of demonic activity.

Dawn was barred from any of these places because of her tendency to get kidnapped by various demonic factions for various nefarious purposes. Her blood was still potent. Used in the right way, with the right ritual, it could still open a portal to any dimension desired. When she occupied the fringes of the Otherworld she tended to draw a lot less attention to herself, mostly because Buffy did not try to over-protect her (the protection itself often being what drew attention to her in a kind of vicious cycle of badness). She was only allowed in L.A., which still had a high level of Otherworld presence, even after the Angel-Wolfram and Hart debacle, because Xander was with her.

Xander was regulated as fray-adjacent because his presence at any of the head offices was too disruptive. He got in the way of the smooth operations of any and every council location on the planet. Fortunately, he had found another way to contribute to the fight against the dark elements of the Otherworld. This was why he was now attending college. He contributed by providing analyses of the tactics and organization of the council. He intended to learn statistics and probability, statistics so that he could begin a project on demon demographics and probability for personal reasons. The idea was to finally create a general census and geography of demons allowing the council to actively track and monitor demon activity - essentially letting the council finally take a more proactive approach in the battle against darkness.

Dawn, for her part, was still one of the best translators. More importantly, she was able to translate faster and more accurately in the languages she knew well than any other council researcher. Her skill was such that she no longer researched herself. The council forwarded all high-priority translations to her (lower priority translation going to other members). She had essentially become the main translator of prophecies, which was ironic given that she lived with Xander.

Right now the two were sitting at a table in their apartment which had been set aside for their council work. It was oddly reminiscent of the tables at the old Sunnydale library. The table had been spelled so that people would never really pay attention to it when they were visiting the apartment, allowing them to leave their current projects out without fear of being incarcerated for being more than a little bananas.

Xander was having an argument with the heads of the North American Council over the necessity of recording accurate data about demon sightings and their locations. Every watcher and slayer on patrol was required to carry a GPS device so that they could precisely note the latitude and longitude of their demon sightings (actually they were for safety, in case anyone was kidnapped, but Xander was using them for his own needs as well, thus the argument he was currently having with Faith and Robin).

“Faith, if you don’t start recording the data I need for my project - the project that you supported and think would be very useful, especially for prolonging your lifespan or,” Xander calmly explained, and just as calmly threatened, “I’m going to start following you to make sure you are recording the data.”

“Xander you wouldn’t do that to me, would you? I mean, after all we’ve been through,” Faith started to plead in a most uncharacteristic way.

“You know my threats aren’t idle. You’ve been warned,” Xander hung up to prevent any further argument. He knew that with his latest threat that Faith would start recording his data correctly. Faith knew not to take him lightly.

Bumbling

Xander was finding that the introductory logic book was helping a great deal in understanding his class with Professor Eppes. More importantly, he was actually learning more from the extra tutorial sessions with Professor Eppes than he learned from all of his other classes. Professor Eppes has a talent for explaining the more conceptually difficult ideas with concrete analogies that truly appealed to Xander’s more hands on approach to mathematics. This was likely a consequence of Xander’s previous success in construction and carpentry. He was fully capable of doing the pure, more abstract mathematics that he needed to, but he had much easier time dealing with these things if he had some concrete example in his mind of how it worked.

Today, walking into Charlie’s office armed with several questions, he noticed that Professor Eppes was frantically writing on the chalkboard, while listening to his ipod. Not sure if he should interrupt, Xander hovered at the door for a few moments before awkwardly shuffling into the office. Soon enough, his attention was caught by the probability algorithms and calculations which practically covered every spare inch in Charlie’s office. Xander’s curiosity was aroused because it looked exactly like the sort of math that he was going to school to eventually learn. Professor Eppes still had not noticed him.

Xander, even though he couldn’t entirely follow the calculations, noticed a small gap in the data used in the probabilities detailed on the board. He tapped Professor Eppes on the shoulder, causing him to gasp and spin around to face Xander. “Xander! What are you doing here? How long have you been standing there?” Was the torrent of questions which quickly followed when Charlie recovered from being surprised.

“Office hours. Fifteen minutes,” maximum info with minimal fuss.

“Oh! I’m really sorry that I forgot, but I’m working on this case for my brother, and he really needs me to finish these calculations as soon as I can. This is really time sensitive, can I send you an email as soon as I’m finished. Or better yet, how about you email me your questions and I’ll answer them as soon as I finish.”

“That sounds good, I didn’t have many questions this week. One thing, though, I can tell you what the values are for the missing data in these calculations, if you include these values to what you have here, your margin of error will decrease,” Xander was writing the missing values as he spoke.

“What missing data?” Charlie was began to look through the files Don had given him, pausing “Wait, how do you understand these calculations? Aren’t you only in your first year of the math program? They are far above anything they teach in first year math.”

“Indeed, I am only a freshmen. However, I have something of a natural gift for probability and while doing my remedial work in summer school, I did some extra reading on probability. In fact, my relatively new appreciation for probability helped motivate me to go back to college.”

Charlie’s attention, although interested in Xander’s explanation, had moved on to the values Xander had added. He spent ten long, long minutes looking analyzing how these values changed his probability spread. None of the numbers changed drastically, but what had changed was the certainty, clarity, and accuracy of the numbers. With probability, the more data you had the more confident you could feel in the relative probability of each possible outcome. One curious matter, though, was what exactly did the values Xander provided represent? He already had included all of the data Don had, as well as some data that Don wouldn’t have thought to include but were necessary for the calculations.

“Xander, what do these values represent?” He asked, without taking his eyes off of the calculations, “Xander?” Charlie turned around and noticed that Xander had already left.

Ripples

“Charlie, thanks for your help in pinpointing our search areas, as well as narrowing the suspect list. I can’t believe how accurate your calculations were. They essentially told us exactly who to look for and where to find him.” Don was enthused with how much time had been saved on this case. Most importantly, not only did they manage to save someone, but they managed to save them before any real harm had happened to them.

“Don, I wish I could take credit for this, but you actually should probably thank one of my students. He gave me some extra data that increased the accuracy of my results.”

“What? You know you can’t discuss cases with people outside of the investigation,” Don began to chastise Charlie, “I mean Amita and Larry are one thing, because we know that they can be trusted not to leak information, but you are including students now?”

“Whoa, Don, slow down. It wasn’t like that. I didn’t say anything about the case. All my student saw were the calculations. He didn’t know what the numbers represented.”

“How was he able to give you additional data then?”

“I really don’t know. I don’t even know what the numbers he gave me represent. He just added some numbers to my calculations, and I was able to accurately identify the criminal and his current location. I think that he has a gift unlike any I’ve seen before. I mean, if he could look at my calculations and notice the missing data, it would be impressive enough on its own, but the fact that he not only noticed the missing data but knew what it was, without ever knowing what the calculations were for, demonstrates a particularly unique insight and a gift for the mathematics of probability,” Charlie, at this point, was becoming quite excited and beginning to speak a little too loud. However, the people at this FBI office were entirely used to this and paid him little attention.

“Hmm…maybe next time I’m visiting you at school I could treat you both to lunch. You guys deserve it, and I know I’m not always the easiest person to work with. Also, give us a chance to learn a little more about him. What is this kid’s name?”

“Well, first, even though he is a freshman, he isn’t a kid. I think he is in his late twenties, possibly early thirties. Even without the way his eye-patch makes him look older, his continuously calm and serious demeanor would make me think he was more mature. I’m not sure why he is only now starting college. He doesn’t really talk about himself or his life. Funny, I don’t think I realized until just now, how little I actually know about him. We’ve been meeting once a week for over a month, and the only personal thing I know about him is that he prefers to be called Xander. Strange…” Charlie trailed off musing about Xander. It was strange that he knew nothing about him. While they had a professional relationship, most people tend to let at least a few personal details about them slip through the normal course of interaction. Interesting.

“All the better to have lunch with him then. When are your office hours? Maybe, I’ll drop by after the next one.”

Lunch, Part 1

Xander and Professor Eppes were just finishing their usual session when Don walked into the office. Xander was sitting with his back to the door, nodding at the explanation that Charlie was giving about the semantics of propositional logic. Xander had been a little mystified over seemingly arbitrary nature of the truth tables for conditionals.

“Hey, Charlie, are you free for lunch today?” Don mischievously interrupted the math-speak tumbling out of Charlie’s mouth. Xander, being that he had been completely absorbed in Charlie’s explanation jumped out of his seat. Even though it was highly unlikely that anything harmful would happen to him, years of instincts honed fighting against demons meant that his adrenaline still kicked in with relative ease. He was standing in a defensive posture, with his back against the wall. The two brothers were taken aback by this reaction. Charlie had not yet seen anything that could trouble Xander’s calm reserve, and Don himself instinctively responded to the threat Xander was reacting to by quickly scanning the room for any imminent danger, hand on his gun.

“Oh, um, sorry. I was surprised, no one else usually comes to Professor Eppes’ office hours,” Xander tried, somewhat in vain, to explain away his reaction.

“Xander, I’ve told you to call me Charlie when it is just the two of us and I think this is my fault, actually. I forgot to mention that Don would be coming by to take us out to lunch today. You know how I get when we start talking about math. Don wanted to thank you for helping with his case,” Charlie quickly threw in to further diffuse the lingering tension.

“Case? What case?” Xander didn’t know what Charlie was talking about or how he might have helped Don, someone he could tell was used to seeing the darker side of the world, by his stance, his reaction to Xander, and the weary, but continuously assessing look in his eyes. Xander knew that look. He had seen it in his own eyes before Africa, and he still saw it in the eyes of some of the slayers.

“Oh. Did I also forget to mention that those probabilities you helped me refine were for a FBI case that I was consulting on? My brother is an FBI agent. I occasionally consult on his cases where math may be of some use. The values you added to my probabilities helped resolve the case far more quickly than it would have been without them.” Charlie at this point was a little sheepish, considering that Xander was getting everything dumped on him at one time, just before they were to have lunch, when he should have known all this before Don actually came.

“Yeah, those probabilities did help a lot. Charlie is usually a big help, but this was above even what he normally does. I just wanted to take you and Charlie out for lunch as a thank you for the person you helped save; as well as the time you saved my team. I’m Don, by the way,” Don stuck out his hand for shaking, looking Xander directly in his eye while he spoke. Xander felt his face warm up a little at the direct look, since not many people held his eye nowadays. Most importantly, not many hot guys gave him the eye like Don seemed to be doing. Xander put his hand in Don’s warm grip. They shook solidly, and there was almost a caressing pressure, with the hint of promise and danger.

“Now that we all have been introduced, how about we go eat?” Charlie, at this point, was gathering things, not noticing how he killed the moment that Don and Xander were about to share. They let dropped their hands, still tingling with the promise that had almost been made.

Lunch, Part 2

The three men, after choosing their lunch from the less than inspiring cafeteria choices, settled themselves down at a table. All the while Charlie was grumbling how Don must not have been all that grateful for their help if his thank you lunch was cafeteria food.

“So, Xander, what are you studying here? I’m assuming that you’re a math geek like Charlie here, since you’re in one of his classes…” Don trailed off, eyes twinkling with his gentle teasing of the two geeks.

“Well, I’m in applied mathematics like Charlie, next year, when I have to declare my major, I think I’m going to do operations research, with a minor in geography,” Xander smiled as he thought about all the cool classes he would get to take. Operations Research was sort of a mixed mathematical bag, which fortunately included his two main interests, statistics and probability.

“OR, huh? I didn’t think you were interested in applied mathematics. From how you helped with the probabilities I was working on I thought you would be more interested in pure math…” Charlie mused aloud.

“Not at all. Pure math and me are non-mixy things. Applied mathematics suits me, because I can actually see the concrete point in it. I used to do carpentry before I lost the eye,” at the mention of the missing eye, both brothers stirred in their seats, wondering if Xander would elaborate on how the eye had been lost - albeit Don was a little more discrete in showing curiosity than Charlie, “and it was only then that any of the math we learned in school made any sense to me. Without any real world, concrete relevance, I have a really hard time understanding math.” Seeing that Xander wasn’t actually going to explain the eye, the Eppes’ brothers dropped a little in their seats.

“Okay, okay, we are not going to get into a debate about math, at least not with me here. Xander, do you like baseball?” Don asked in an undisguised attempt to avoid math talk.

“Um, not really. Was never really much for sports in high school, sorta the kinda guy that jocks tended to pick on.”

“I think the statistics side of the game would interest you Xander. Baseball is one of the most statistically driven sports out there. You should look into it, it might give you a fun, real world look at statistics in action,” was Charlie’s unhelpful remark, at least in Don’s point of view.

“Hey! Didn’t I just say that we were trying to avoid math? Why is it that every subject, no matter what it is, is actually about math for you?” Don began to jokingly tease Charlie. Who responded with a sheepish smile, he could not deny that pretty much everything to him was actually about mathematics.

“Ugh, don’t turn that glare on me! I don’t think everything is about math nor that everything can be explained by math,” Charlie shot a betrayed look at Xander, his fellow geek had turned on him.

“Oh, does that mean you are religious then? Like Larry?” Don questioned.

“Not really all that religious, though I do believe in the efficacy of religion. Who is Larry?” Xander wondered.

“Larry is a brilliant physicist here at CalSci, also my mentor. He further fulfills, single handedly, almost every professor stereotype there is. We excuse this because he genuinely looks at the world in a unique way,” Charlie spoke with a fond smile on his face.

“That sounds a little like Giles, my high school librarian, and now a close friend and quasi-mentor. He was a total cliché! British, wore tweed, a little absent minded regarding anything that wasn’t a book,” Xander’s smile was just as fond.

Don took advantage of this break in the conversation, as both Xander and Charlie were reminiscing about their respective friends, to continue prodding for some more information about the man at the table. He was intrigued by the contradictions that Xander seemed to embody. Don knew that he was battle ready from the incident in Charlie’s office, but he had none of the hardness of those involved in law enforcement. He was dressed like a working man at a university. Looked rough but was genial and easy going. Talked openly but gave very little actual information away. Was old to be starting college, but was still too young to have the look of experience that he had in his eye.

“Xander, out of curiosity, why are you only starting college now? I understand not being able to stay in carpentry after losing an eye, but that is still a long way from doing a math degree.” Xander was a little abruptly taken out of his fond reminiscence of Giles in his librarian days. It only lasted a moment, though - so quick that Don almost missed it. He would have, if he weren’t so actively scrutinizing Xander.

“It is a long, and somewhat amazing, at least to me, story of how I got to here. Too long to get into towards the end of lunch,” Xander’s reply was straightforward, and he wasn’t trying to avoid talking to Don, because he actually wanted to talk to Don, but he was trying to avoid getting into the story with Charlie there. He was saved from any further questions by Charlie jumping out of his seat.

“I forgot! I was supposed to meet Larry to run through some of his calculations,” Charlie grabbed his bag and was halfway to the door, “I’ll see you guys later.” Leaving Don and Xander sitting by themselves at the table.

“I may not have time to hear that story right now, but how about you tell it to me over dinner sometime?” Don asked right out, since he never hesitated when he met someone who interested him.

“Uh, huh?” was Xander’s eloquent reply. He was calm in most situations, but his brain always seemed to shut down when someone hit on him.

“I asked you out to dinner,” Don repeated, but this time leaning in a little, smiling. The smile melted Xander’s brain a little more, since Don got this attractive crinkling around his eyes when he smiled. Don’s smile was unexpected, since he didn’t do it often and he almost always projected this in-charge-FBI guy persona. His smile was like seeing a unicorn, beautiful and awe-inspiring.

“What?” Xander’s voice had deepened a little with the attraction he was suddenly drowning in.

“You, me, food, conversation,” Don finally took pity on Xander and put some distance between him and Xander, so Xander could actually think coherently. While Xander was putting together that coherent sentence, Don was feeling vastly amused by how easy it had been to shake up Xander’s seemingly imperturbable calm.

“Yes!” Not quite a sentence, and said with too much enthusiasm for Xander to look even remotely cool (he, fortunately, had actually given up on ever being cool).

“Maybe you should give me your number, so I can call you to make arrangements,” Don suggested, still smiling lightly. Xander, hands shaking, scrawled his number down. As soon as he finished, Don snagged it, accidently on purpose brushing Xander’s hand and sauntered off, leaving Xander blushing behind him.

Dishing the Day with Dawn, Part 2

When Xander walked in the door of their apartment he still had a slightly dazed look about him; even though some seriously sexy women had hit on him (e.g. Cordelia!), he was always surprised when someone hot thought he might be hot. However, the look he was currently wearing, shocked and dazed, was indistinguishable from the look he wore when something bad had happened.

All of this accumulated into a squeal of, “Xander!” that was heard at least as far as San Diego, “What happened?”

The slightly panicked edge in Dawn’s voice jolted Xander out of dreamy boy-land, and straight in danger assessment. He scanned around the room, thinking that Dawn might be in trouble. When he saw nothing amiss he said, “Huh? What?” What he didn’t realize was that his was almost a word for word repetition of his side of the conversation with Don.

“Xander! What happened? Why do you look like someone just kicked a puppy in front of you? You’ve totally got kicked puppy-face? Why do you have kicked puppy-face?” Dawn’s voice was quickly going from concerned to threatening (not to Xander precisely, but to any threat to him, her or puppies).

“Nothing bad happened!” Xander said defensively.

“Aha! But something did happen. Oh, I know! If nothing bad happened, and you have kicked puppy-face, someone must have hit on you. Were they cute? No, were they hot? What was he wearing? What were you wearing? Did you make out? Can I watch you make out? Are you going on a date? What’s his name? What does he do? Where did you meet him? Is he hot? Are you going to get married and have his babies? Is he going to have your babies? Xander, give me details. Quick before I die!” At this point Xander was rolling his eye at Dawn’s barrage of questions, and dramatics.

“If you would slow down and actually allow me to reply I could give you details. His name is Don, and he’s my game theory professor’s brother. We met at school when he visited to treat us to lunch for some help on a FBI case. Yes, this means he’s an FBI agent,” Xander threw the last part in when it looked like Dawn might interrupt, “it’s biologically impossible for us to have each other’s babies and we can’t legally get married in California. We were both wearing clothes, and he is really, really hot. There, happy?”

If it had been anyone else, Xander probably wouldn’t have shared quite as much, but Dawn had ways of making him talk. The ways largely had to do with timing she always seemed to instinctively know when he would be willing to share if she prodded him in just the right way.

“You didn’t say if you were going to see him again.”

“Oh, yes, he asked me on a date. I said yes. I just didn’t expect FBI agent-guy to be asking other guys out on dates. Well, I’m pretty sure it was a date. He asked me out to dinner. Dinner means date, right?” Xander looked over at Dawn to, hopefully, catch a confirmatory nod.

Yes! There it was.

Xander had a date with Don.

The Value of x

Xander and Charlie were just finishing their usual session this time for discussion symbolic logic, when Charlie suddenly remembered that he still didn’t know what the data Xander had added to his probability calculations represented.  Now, he fully intended to find out, because if Xander knew of a method to increase the accuracy of probabilities to the point where they were able to almost exactly predict events, such that they, in a way, ceased to be probabilities, then this was the sort of thing that should be formally developed.  It would be a huge breakthrough for probability. 

“Xander, I just remembered you never told me what the values you gave me represented…” Charlie trailed off, hoping that Xander would fill in the blanks.

Xander, however, groaned on the inside.  He had hoped to avoid this discussion since he knew that a curious science-guy like Charlie wouldn’t let him get away without giving some satisfactory answer.  Unfortunately, he didn’t actually have a scientifically satisfying answer. 

“Uh, would you believe that I was just guessing?” Xander asked hopefully.

“No, I really wouldn’t.  The end results were too accurate for you to have been randomly selecting numbers off the top of your head.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you what the answers represent, but I don’t think that you’ll be happy with the answer.  Especially since it isn’t something that can be formalized, or that many other people will be able to do or replicate.  What I’m saying here, is that there is no mathematical or scientific answer to this question.  Do you still want me to explain?” Xander was still hoping not to have to explain himself.

“Yes, I do,” Charlie’s reply had everything to do with the fact that he thought mathematics could explain everything.  So that even if Xander didn’t know the mathematical explanation for what he did, Charlie was sure that he could figure it out. 

“Fine.  In order for my explanation to make sense, I’m going to have to give you some background information.  This is stuff I learned over the past summer when I was trying to understand my ability myself.  Are you familiar with the philosophical notion of determinism?” Xander asked.

“Of course. Most mathematicians are, in their way, determinists.  I know that I, at least, do believe that the world can be completely understood in terms of mathematics.  Unfortunately, we simply don’t know all of the numbers yet.  So that, although the world is entirely rational, it often doesn’t appear that way because we haven’t discovered the right numbers underlying all of reality.”   “So, you believe that given a situation, if all information was known about it, and represented by some numerical value, we would know exactly what would happen next?”

“Basically, yes.”

“So taking that as a given.  Let us consider a situation involving human beings.  Most of the opposition to determinism is due to the fact that most people believe that humans have free will. Such that if a situation excludes humans, determinism would hold.  But if you include humans, then it becomes impossible to know, in advance, what results from a given situation.  This is essentially the ongoing debate between humanists and scientists.” Xander looked to Charlie for confirmation, since he was still not entirely comfortable speaking about things in this way.  He was known amongst his friends as the guy who most fervently opposed fate or destiny, but he had never really thought about it in any systematic way until the past summer, when he had researched it to better understand his current situation.

Charlie nodded, so Xander continued, “So, how about we suppose that both are right? That there is both an element of chance, or free will, and that situations are entirely determined by their pre-existing conditions?”

“But that’s contradictory, situations can’t be both determined and undetermined,” Charlie began to protest, since he really couldn’t accept a contradiction. 

“Well, think about it in this way; situations are determined, but we will never be able to quantify free will, which, in turn, actually does exist.”

“Wait, this sounds like you are going to argue for a concept of fate or destiny, that determinism would only be comprehended by some supernatural being or higher power, and is beyond human comprehension,” Charlie was beginning to get suspicious, since he didn’t like including God in his math. 

“Not exactly, I never said that we couldn’t understand it, but that we would never be able to quantify it,” Xander offered as a counterpoint.

“That seems to be splitting hairs.”

“It is only splitting hairs if you buy the initial idea that the world can be understood entirely in the terms of mathematics,” Xander, of course, knew for a fact that there were things in the world that couldn’t be explained with math. Things like magic or demons.  “In any case, the values I gave represent the human, free will aspect of the probabilities that you were working on.  That’s why they increased in accuracy.  You already had the values for the other conditions of the situation. I simply added values for the unquantifiable element.”

“Okay, supposing that your argument is true, how did you quantify the unquantifiable?” Xander already knew that Charlie was perceptive and almost always asked difficult questions, but he had still hoped not to be asked this question.

“Well, I’ve always been perceptive when it comes to people.  My ability to quantify free will is something of a genetic ability.  It’s comparable to how a necromancer is able to speak to the spirits of the dead.  I was just born this way.  Except that my perception, like any skill, needs to be developed for it to be of any real use.” At the mention of necromancers, Charlie frowned.  He really didn’t know how to take all of this.  He had known Xander for a little while now, and had never really thought that he was so superstitious or that he believed in all this woo-woo stuff. 

However, he couldn’t really deny the fact that Xander’s added values really had improved the accuracy of his equations.  Xander, of course, was mistaken.  Charlie would have to make sure to spend some time working on this ‘ability’ so that they could actually develop some formal method - thereby improving the mathematics of probability for everyone. 

Chance

Xander had been on edge these past few days waiting to see if Don would call…so far he hadn’t. He wasn’t hurt, because he figured that Don was handling a case that required all or most of his attention and Xander, knowing what that was like, would not want Don splitting that attention. While he could think all of this it didn’t change the fact that he really, really wanted Don to call.

Dawn had managed to circulate the news amongst the other council members about his potential date with Don, and everyone had been gently teasing him since. Fortunately, no one had to worry that Don was secretly evil or a supernatural being intent on sacrificing Xander for the black ritual du jour. Stuff like that didn’t happen to Xander anymore, not since he had left the Hellmouth. Which meant that this thing with Don might be the real thing. They would have to see. So far, all Xander had to work on was a spark of attraction. He didn’t even know if he liked Don.

Xander was sitting at his favourite coffee shop ‘studying’, when he was really just staring out the window and daydreaming about Don. He was more focused and determined on studying these days, but one doesn’t break years of slacking and procrastination with a snap. Xander was so focused in his daydreaming that he failed to notice the presence looming over him.

“Hey,” this was almost purred into his ear. It was the ‘hey’ of someone talking to their lover, the ‘hey’ of someone signaling their refuge and asking for comfort, the ‘hey’ that promised lots of dirty, naughty sex but with cuddling afterwards. Xander, being who he was, responded by jumping out of his seat, spilling his coffee, and blushing furiously enough that he looked vaguely tomato like.

Don stepped back and chuckled. The crinkling of his eyes, again making Xander even more flustered than he had been. Grabbing a napkin he started to dab at Xander’s chest, allegedly to wipe up spilt coffee, but Xander suspected that he was copping a feel.

“Hey, no naughty touching before you at least buy me dinner!” Xander exclaimed which in turn caused Don to go from chuckling straight into laughing.

“You assume there is or will be naughty touching? I was only helping a guy out, and dinner was only a ‘I’m going to convince you that baseball is awesome, and you’ll be my new buddy’ sort of thing, not a date.” Don, while saying this hadn’t, in fact, stopped ‘moping’ up the coffee on Xander’s chest and was now, in fact, gently stroking one of Xander’s nipples. Xander was confused and his brain befuddled. He was making several aborted attempts to talk, but each time he opened his mouth, a sort of half-groan, half-whimper would emerge, causing him to blush harder and become more embarrassed.

Don, for his part, was feeling the stress of the past few days fall away due to his teasing Xander. He had been busy working a grueling case, extremely time sensitive because it had been a kidnapping, which meant he had only slept six hours in three days. It was an around the clock sort of case, and he was in this coffee shop getting a coffee to last him through writing his reports. They had saved the victim, and the combination of the stress and relief was seriously taking the wind out of his sails. This interlude with Xander was exactly the pick-me-up that he needed to get through the rest of the day. It was far more rejuvenating than coffee could ever hope to be.

He stopped teasing Xander and stepped back, because those reports were still waiting and he really did need to get home to sleep. Xander was still more or less non-functional, as he allowed his arousal to ebb away and coherent thoughts began to form in his brain (however, most of them communicated the idea of ‘huh?’ or ‘what?’).

Don stepped back but leaned in, “So, it was great running into you. I’ve had a case eating my attention these past few days, but I still got your number. You’ll be hearing from me as soon as I get some sleep. Sound good?”

Xander, finally losing his blush but still in a mostly non-word stage, only nodded. After he got confirmation, Don smiled dazzlingly, turned and sauntered out of the coffee shop, without stopping for coffee. Perceptive people around the coffee shop did not fail to notice either the subtle flirting or the new bounce in Don’s step.

Phone Tag

1

“Hi, you’ve reached Xander, I’m not here right now, so please leave a message. If this is a council emergency, you should be calling my other line, however, if this is a prank call from one of the girls (you know who you are), please be informed that retaliation will be swift and sure. Have a nice day,” Don listened for the beep, while being bemused by Xander’s message. His curiosity was also aroused, for who or what was the ‘council’, and why would they have emergencies? What was Xander’s other number, the one he hadn’t given to Don and was likely for these ’emergencies’? How many prank calls did the man get?

“Hey, Xander, this is Don Eppes. I’m calling regarding the possible time and location of our date. I got a free evening this Friday night, and I wanted you to know that I’d be coming to your place around 7:00. Be prepared to be wined and dined. There may even be dancing, but only if you’re good,” Don, during his rare insecure moments, wondered whether or not he was being too forward. He didn’t know if Xander would appreciate being told when and where their date was going to be but Xander hadn’t complained when he’d been forward in the past, so Don was taking a chance. Plus, considering how he tended to fluster Xander, trying to make a consensus decision was a little hazardous. In any case, Don was also open to Xander taking the lead, but that would likely have to wait for Xander to be more comfortable around him. Don smiled at all the blushing Xander did around him, it was endearing.

2

Xander had listened to Don’s message around fifty times before he worked up the courage to call back. He was happy that Don was so unambiguous about his attraction, which was surprising considering his dating history. It was also a comfort, because when you grew up thinking you were dorky and unattractive, it was hard to notice or believe the more subtle signs of attraction, Xander tended to write them off as a consequence of the other person’s flirtatious nature. With Don, though, he was pretty sure the guy wanted him.

“Eppes. Leave a message,” Xander gulped, since he had been hoping for more time to get mentally prepared for leaving his message.

“Uh, hi Don, it is Xander. Um, I’m free Friday night, so 7:00 isn’t a problem. I’ll be waiting. Wined and dined means I should dress up, right? I’ll let my room-mate dress me, she’s much better at that sort of thing than I am. I would end up wearing bright, clashing colours, and my clothes wouldn’t fit me properly. Oh, you probably didn’t need to know that…” Xander paused and tried to collect his thoughts. He hadn’t babbled like this for quite some time. “…anyway, I’ll be ready at 7:00, wearing some sort of appropriate clothing,” was Xander’s lame finish. He quickly hung up, before he could say anything else embarrassing.

3

Don patiently waited through Xander’s overly long greeting. He began talking when he heard the beep, “Xander, wear what makes you comfortable. I’m sure you’ll look good enough to make me want to skip the date, and head to the nearest bed,” Don smiled as he imagined Xander’s blush at the last remark, “I’m glad you’ll be there when I come to pick you up, since I’m FBI and I would find you. Hmm…that could be fun, but we’ll save that for another date,” with that, Don hung up.

4

Xander debated calling back, but figured Don would already know where he lived. Plus, he didn’t really want to send another stream of babble (Xander was still clinging to the futile hope that he could pass himself off as cool). He had listened to Don’s message while Dawn was in the room, and his bright red blush made her squeal with glee. She had mocked his coolness for hours afterwards, and then congratulated him on getting a guy who left such hot messages.

Upon hearing that Xander needed to dress up a little, her resulting squeal had reached new registers that must have been beyond the hearing of ordinary men. She was already plotting his outfit, and the day of shopping that would be needed. The only regret was that Buffy or Cordelia wouldn’t be there to participate.

Oh, what the hell, Xander knew he wasn’t cool. He’d given up any hope of being cool the moment he’d become a math major. He picked up the phone.

“Eppes. Leave a messaage.”

“Hi Don, Xander again. Your message was, uh, very flattering. I’ll still get Dawn to dress me, especially since she is already cackling with glee and jumping up and down at the thought. I learned a long time ago, that one doesn’t get between a lady and her shopping. So, I’ll see you Friday. Hope your day hasn’t been too stressful,” There, that message wasn’t so bad, Xander thought. Not super babbly, almost cool, even.

Shopping with Dawn

Xander woke that morning with slight tremblings of trepidation. Today was the day that Dawn took him out to get date ready. Xander was like most guys, in that his fashion choices were largely determined by comfort and convenience. He had never been a clothes horse, and probably never would be. Everyone had breathed a sigh of relief when his post-Africa wardrobe had been blue-collar utilitarian, instead of his high school colour explosion. Africa had taught him the value of wearing sturdy, yet comfortable clothing (he had never known when he would have a chance to replace old clothes, or even change the ones that he was wearing).

Shouldn’t he not have to worry because he was going on a date with another man? Logic dictated that this other man should care as little as Xander did about clothes. However, that didn’t seem to be the case in the gay community (not assuming that Don was gay or anything, but he had been wearing that nice dress shirt at lunch, Hmm…maybe he was. Or maybe he wore those clothes for work. FBI guys did have wear suits, didn’t they?).

“Xander! Are you up yet? What is taking so long? Hurry! We have so much to do today!” Dawn bounced into his room as she shouted at him. Xander, fortunately knew the ways of women, and had showered and dressed already. He was ready to go.

When they got to the mall, Dawn, Xander swore, actually pulled out a detailed itinerary and a map; as if she had been planning an incursion into a nest of vampires.

“Okay, first we’re doing pants. Then we move to shirts. From there we will go on to ties. After ties, the most crucial element, shoes. We’ll get you a belt with the shoes. After this, you have an appointment with a hairstylist at three. A facial at five, and you should be ready to go. I would suggest a manicure, but I don’t want to push it,” Dawn was listing things mostly for her own benefit, but Xander’s feelings of trepidation were increasing. It was ten in the morning, right now.

As they entered the first store, Dawn turned to him, “Xander, go get a change room. Since you’re already wearing an undershirt, keep it on, you should always wear an undershirt with dress shirts. This way we’ll know if it fits properly.”

“You have to wear an undershirt with dress shirts? Since when?” Xander wondered. He had never done so before.

“Since forever, especially since we’ll be getting you a nice shirt. You don’t want sweat stains or anything, do you?” Xander shook his head ’no’ at Dawn’s question.

“Wait, just a minute, that undershirt you are wearing won’t work, it looks like it is a size or two too big. It should fit like a second skin. Xander! Only you could make undershirts unattractive. Get into the change room and wait,” Xander having no desire to disobey any woman using that tone of voice, got into the change room and waited.

A package of the shirts he usually wore, but a size smaller, with a v-neck were tossed over the partition. “Put one of those on, then come out, the sales lady needs to measure you.” Xander changed shirts and stepped out of the change room.

“Xander!” Dawn squealed, “how come you’ve been hiding that lean and muscley figure?” Xander looked bewildered. Dawn seemed to want an actual answer, while he had been hoping that the question was rhetorical.

“Uh, I didn’t eat all that regularly in Africa, and the junk I used to love wasn’t in steady supply. So, um, I lost most of the weight I gained during the year before Sunnydale collapsed.” Dawn was looking at him appreciatively; Africa really had done a body good. Xander before the collapse had started to fill out like any man does when he drinks beer, eats junk, and doesn’t really exercise. His position as foreman meant that he hadn’t done as much labour as before, so he had filled in quite a bit. Now, however, it seemed that Africa had made Xander really lean. He still had the construction muscles, but even those had tightened, essentially combining the leanness of his teenage years, with the broader shoulders of his more adult body. All in all, with him standing there in a tight v-neck undershirt, his work boots, and jeans, he looked like a cola advertisement. All he need was the drink, a little sweat, and he could possibly stop traffic, especially if he smiled.

The salesperson, also being momentarily taken aback (since Dawn had made it sound like he was practically a troll) recovered her composure; after all, she had dealt with movie stars. She measured Xander, and once Dawn had the measurements, she pushed Xander back into the change room. Shirts began to appear over the top of the partition, and Xander dutifully put one on. He considered a moment in the mirror, then was taking it off to try another on when Dawn yelled.

“Xander! You have to show me how they look! You aren’t a competent judge of your own clothing.” So began Xander’s grueling day of shopping.

At the end of the day, Xander was exhausted. He had managed to get out of wearing a tie, but only by promising Dawn that he would shave the ‘weird tuft of hair that grew on the hollow of his throat’. Xander hadn’t known that it was weird. It was hair; it just grew where it wanted to, right? No, not right, according to Dawn. He was also told to trim his chest and pubic hair. His blush had been epic the moment Dawn had mentioned pubic hair. His protests were brushed away, because men who date men were actually expected to do this.

All in all, though, he guessed it could have been worse, clothing wise. He had ended up with a pale green shirt, the green so pale it was almost white, but it showed nicely against his tan. Dawn had paired this with chocolate brown wool pants, no pleats, and cut with a straight leg. His shoes were brown, square toed ankle boots (which he admitted were surprisingly comfortable, but it had hurt his eyes to look at the price). This was topped off with a slim cut suit jacket in the same colour of his pants. Xander had to admit, the outfit, altogether, made him look casual and elegant. It also made him look slim and tall, but emphasized his broad shoulders.

The experience at the saloon had been different. The stylist had loved his hair, and had, thankfully, not cut much of it off. It was still long, but it seemed to curl a little more and it was definitely softer and shinier. His facial was like torture. He had been plucked within an inch of his life. His skin looked glowy and his eyebrows were definitely shorter and shaped. It didn’t really look all that different, it was the overall effect that really made an impact. He guessed that Dawn really did know what she was doing.

A Date with Don

“Dawn, are you sure about what I’m wearing?” Xander was worried about being over-dressed.

“Xander, did you just question my fashion knowledge?” Was Dawn’s very even toned reply, the tone she got before she became angry. She had been putting up with Xander’s nervous and anxious questions for hours. She had been placating and stroking his ego, helping him feel comfortable about his first date with a man. Lines, however, had to be drawn.

“Um, what? No, I would never! I just meant, that maybe I look too fancy. I feel too fancy.”

“Xander, do the clothes fit? Are the comfortable?”

“Yes.”

“Then why worry about it? I mean, why start caring about what you’re wearing? I picked them so they would be comfy and you wouldn’t notice wearing something other than your working slob’s uniform.”

“Huh. I guess you are right. Nothing feels tight or pinched, not how like wearing dress shirts used to,” Xander didn’t realize that someone with fashion knowledge could pick appropriate cuts and fabrics, such that he could be comfy and stylish.

There was a knock at their door, but Xander was still dubiously looking at himself in the mirror. He decided to take Dawn’s advice, he didn’t notice that much difference from what he normally wore, and he really didn’t care about clothes, so he resolved to forget about it. He heard the door open.

“Hi, you must be Don! I’m Dawn, Xander’s room-mate and surrogate sister,” Dawn stuck out her hand for shaking. There was a squeal of epic proportions building within her, Don was seriously hot. Xander had totally hit the jackpot with him.

“Yes, I’m Don. Very nice to meet you Dawn,” Don said this with a slight smile, amused by the similarity of their names. The attractive crinkling of his eyes put Dawn over the edge. She squealed.

“Xander! Oh my god, he is totally hot!” Dawn, herself, wasn’t really known for being super-cool girl. Xander came out of his room blushing. This caused Don to smile more, which in turn made Dawn squeal again and Xander blush harder. For a moment it seemed that they may be trapped in a vicious cycle from which they would never escape, when Don took charge by cupping Xander’s elbow, like a gentleman would, and escorting him out of the apartment.

In the car, on their way to the restaurant, Xander tried to covertly observe Don. He noticed that his clothing was similar to Don’s, meaning that Dawn really had picked his outfit well. In reality, Xander was being completely obvious and amusing the hell out of Don. Don, for his part, kept up a steady chatter about nothing, hoping to get Xander relaxed enough for some productive dinner conversation.

When they arrived at the restaurant Don’s plan had been executed. Xander seemed to be relaxing in his company. They entered and were seated in one of the more private, secluded tables. To Xander’s pleased surprise, Don had taken him to a steakhouse. Sure it was fancier and more expensive than anywhere Xander would have thought to go, but it was still a steakhouse. He didn’t have to worry about embarrassing himself over food he didn’t recognize or know. They ordered, and Xander let Don choose their wine (since Xander still was mostly a beer man).

“So, Xander, I know what you’re doing in school, but do you work too?” Was Don’s opening question, since he did want to know more about Xander.

“Yes, I do actually. I’m on the board of directors for an international charity organization. It’s called the New Watcher’s Council, or NWC.”

“Hmm…can’t say I’ve ever heard of it. What do you do for them? What kind of charity is it?” Don’s curiosity only intensified. While Xander seemed a little old to be starting college, he definitely seemed too young to be on the board of directors of anything.

“Well, they’re essentially an international school and scholarship. They give special young women around the world the opportunity to get a great education, without paying. My first real job with them was recruiting for the school. I worked in Africa for two years. Nowadays, I help a little with logistics, but mostly they’re paying for me to go to school.”

Suddenly, things made a lot more sense to Don. If Xander hadn’t had money straight out of high school to go to college, it only made sense that he would be going now if the NWC was footing the bill. But, wait, something didn’t entirely make sense, “I remember you saying you were a carpenter? How do you go from being a carpenter to a board director?”

Xander smiled, since FBI guy was fully present, “After losing my eye, I had to find something else to do. A few of my friends had been involved with the NWC before, and they just sort of offered me a job after the eye and the collapse of Sunnydale.”

“Huh, you were from that town that collapsed a few years back?”

“Yes, I was one of the last out before it sunk into the earth. It was where I grew up. I had a hard time leaving it.” This was a little misdirection on Xander’s part. He hoped Don would assume that what made it hard to leave were emotional attachments, Xander wasn’t quite ready to get into the whole ‘Slayers and Vampires’ thing, “Tell me a little about your work Don, I guess you can’t talk about cases, which is cool ‘cause I don’t need to hear any gore stories, I saw enough of that in Africa, do you like it?”

“Yes, I love working for the FBI. It is tough to continuously see all the shitty things people do to each other, but my team usually makes up for that. They’re a pretty competent and dedicated group.” Don smile a little as he thought of his team.

“Tell me about them.”

“There’s Megan, who’s a profiler and tough but sensitive. David who is kinda like boyscout but very capable. Colby, who served in Afghanistan and really is like your all-America GI Joe kinda guy, but solid. We all work really well together, they are my other family,” the fondness in Don’s eyes was evident to Xander.

“I know what you mean; the board of the NWC really is my family. I lost mine in the collapse, and the other board members are some of my oldest friends.” Don and Xander’s eyes met in a moment of understanding. They felt a certain kinship.

After that the meal went along quite smoothly. They got off the heavier topics and kept things light. Don teased Xander, and Xander blushed. However, Xander relaxed enough in Don’s company to tease back, causing Don to choke on his wine. When dinner was over, Don took Xander to a jazz club, reminding him that he said there might be dancing. Xander protested, saying he didn’t really do dancing, but Don was adamant - he wanted a slow dance.

So, they claimed a table, not too close to the band, so they could talk, and Don ordered some fancy drinks for them. Here it was noisy, and they didn’t talk much. They leaned back in the plush booth and enjoyed their drinks. Don was feeling more relaxed than he’d been for quite some time. It was really comfy sitting here, half leaning into Xander. A slow song came on.

“May I have this dance?” Don asked Xander.

“If you’re sure, I’ll probably step on your feet.”

“I’m not worried. We won’t be going fast, so the damage will be minimal.”

They stepped onto the dance floor and Don put his arms around Xander’s waist, forcing him to put his arms around Don’s shoulders. Xander was pleasantly surprised; he thought Don would have wanted to lead, considering that he was all in charge FBI guy. He understood, since a guy didn’t always want to be in charge. They were dancing now, sort of high school style, shuffling from foot to foot and slowly turning in a circle (Xander really wasn’t much of a dancer).

Don rested his head on Xander’s shoulder, and felt the tension of the past few months drain out of him, only to be replaced with different tension. Their bodies were close, and Don could smell Xander, it was a warm, alive, and masculine smell. Suddenly Don was very, very hard.

Xander felt something poking him, and when he was younger he probably would have made the joke ‘Is that your gun or are just happy to see me?’, but all he could focus on was Don’s thumb stroking his back. On how different it felt to hold a hard, masculine body close to him, instead of a softer, feminine one. Xander was also pretty sure that he had never been this turned on before. It was like they had stepped on a live wire while dancing and he felt like the cascading sparks might blind him.

The song felt like it lasted forever, but was also over too soon. They both reluctantly pulled back. Standing still and looking into each other’s eyes, they made a promise. Xander tilted his head and dropped a small kiss on Don’s lips. Don opened his mouth for more, but they were jolted by a vibration. A groan, not of the good sort, escaped from Don’s lips. It was his work. Xander smiled, because he was familiar with late night emergencies. He stepped back and led Don back to their booth, so that he could talk more privately.

“Xander, I got to go. I just got called into work for a case,” Don’s smile was apologetic and sheepish. He hadn’t been ready for the date to end.

“Don, don’t worry. One thing I learned in Africa was that unexpected things happen. Go, I’ll take a cab home.”

Don smiled his gratitude and put on his coat. He stuck out his hand for Xander to shake, when Xander’s hand met his, he pulled him up and gave him a fierce kiss. A kiss that contained his barely leashed passion and his regret of having to go. Just as abruptly, Don let Xander go. Xander dropped into the booth panting slightly and more than a little dazed. Don strode off, leaving Xander facing the looks at the interested faces of the other club patrons (it wasn’t everyday that you got to see two hot guys kiss). He smiled weakly and blushed deeply.

The Dread Curiosity of Eppes

“So, Xander, I’ve been thinking about how to test your innate ability for probability, and I’ve designed a series of questions that should give us a better idea about what exactly this skill is and how we should go about cultivating it,” Charlie’s face was a dreadfully earnest as he spoke, which only increased the dread Xander felt in his stomach.

Even though Xander was now college-guy, he still didn’t like taking the tests. They always made him feel inadequate. He was doing much better than he had in high school, but he felt like the tests told him that no matter how hard he tried, he would never be as smart as Willow (or whomever). While he actually knew that he wasn’t as smart as Willow, or as dumb as he used to think, he still wasn’t a genius. The saying that “Even C’s get degrees” was very comforting to him (even though he was doing a little better than that).

“Do we have to?” Xander was the very picture of resigned reluctance, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to escape Charlie, but hoping that he might.

“Yes, don’t worry, this isn’t a pass or fail sort of thing, just a diagnostic. I just want to see where your skills are, so that I know what we need to work on to improve them.” Xander wasn’t comforted by this.

“Fine. But I wanted it noted that I do this under protest.”

Charlie chuckled and handed Xander what seemed to be a very, very long test.

Xander spent a grueling two hours writing the test, two hours being as long as he was able to try. He didn’t finish writing the test, because a good deal of the latter questions were far beyond his current level in math, which only confirmed, in his brain, his un-gift with math. He handed it over to Charlie with his head down.

After Charlie spent about five minutes looking it over, all the while making these little ‘Hmm…’ sounds, he smiled and looked up, “So, it seems that your overall math skills are just about where one would expect for a freshman. They are a little disheartening in regards to your skills in calculus or linear algebra, but the stats and probability are a little better than freshman, maybe sophomore. You really have been doing some extra study there. What I do find absolutely fascinating, is that, of the advanced problems, while you couldn’t always distinguish between the different kinds of math and sometimes used the wrong kind to try and solve the problem, you always recognized the probability questions. You couldn’t answer any of them, but you always recognized them,” Charlie was looking super thrilled at this. Xander really was no math genius, but he did have some aptitude for probability.

“On that note, I have another test, but this time just for probability. I was thinking about our conversation the other day about free will, and have a set of probability questions for you. Some are at your level, but most aren’t. However, I’ve only given you the numbers, without any information about what they represent. Some of the numbers have been derived from old, solved FBI cases and others are from things like particle physics or casinos. What I’m looking for is to see whether or not your skills for probability relate to some unique insight about free will, or whether your skill is broader than that. Basically, in the absence of concrete data, can you tell the difference between one set of numbers and another?” Xander was groaning at this point for mercy. Two texts in one day? Two tests designed by Charlie in one day? He had actually arrived in hell without noticing it. He was sure that he used to have nightmares about this exact scenario in high school.

Since Xander was too defeated to put up more than a token resistance, he started the test. This one went much, much more quickly, since he didn’t know how to answer the majority of questions. It was quickly returned to Charlie.

Charlie again spent about five minutes looking it over, “Fascinating. You really do seem to know when the numbers relate to human activity or not. Most of the questions are unanswered but, for the questions dealing with old cases, you provided extra data that has a noticeable impact on the accuracy of the results, where in most cases your added data allows us to exactly identify who the criminal was. How truly interesting. Since it seems you were correct about the nature of your gift, I have another test…” Charlie trailed off as he noticed that he was talking to Xander’s back. Xander was about halfway to the door by this point, and walking quite briskly. Not running, because Xander was manly now, but definitely going at a good clip.

Chance, Part 2

Xander had only received one quick phone call from Don in the past week after their semi-aborted date. The phone call hadn’t been much, just an ‘Busy with a case, call when done’. Xander wasn’t troubled by this because he, perhaps better than most people, understood the time consuming nature of saving lives. In any case, midterms were next week and Xander was pretty occupied with reviewing. A strange thing, considering usually before midterms he would be cramming, but this time around he had actually done the assignments when he was supposed to and read the readings when they were assigned. He was continuously surprised at the impact just doing that had on his comprehension and grades. It was becoming clear that diligence and hard work really could make up for his lack of genius level smarts.

Xander was waiting to cross the street, today; he was hitting up his second favourite coffee shop for studying. His first choice had been super busy and there weren’t any tables. As he stood there, somewhat distractedly thinking about what he was going to review and trying to work out a few tricky problems in his head, he felt a hand caress his ass. Startled out of his reverie, he jumped a little. Considering that he was standing on the curb, the jump made him teeter precariously on the edge, almost putting him into traffic. He felt strong arms wrap around him and pull him back.

“Hey.” It was that ‘hey’ again. Again it was said directly into his ear, where it travelled down his spine, causing a shiver, and went to his knees, which became a little weak. This only served to press him closer into Don, who responded by giving Xander a little kiss under his ear, right around where his jaw ended and neck began. This started another chain reaction whose conclusion was weak knees. Xander was terrified that Don would only escalate the situation, but also kinda hoping that he would. This time Don just chuckled and turned Xander around, but still holding him steady.

“Hey, there handsome, funny running into you here, this your usual corner?” Don asked with a smile.

“What? Uh, no not my usual corner. Hey, wait! I’m not a hustler, I don’t have any corners!” Xander protested, a little indignant.

“Now, now, don’t be offended, I was just teasing. Just seemed a little too good to be true, bumping into a hot guy, who I’d swear, was looking for a ride,” Don’s smile only got bigger.

“Hey! I’ll have you know that I’m totally a respectable gentleman, I don’t go for rides with just anyone guy who comes by,” Xander was getting his equilibrium back, and decided to get some payback, “I follow more the Goldilocks approach to rides.”

“What is the Goldilocks approach?” Don was not following Xander’s reference.

“Well, you know, ’not too big, not too small, just right’?” Xander punctuated the last with a gentle thrust of his hips, putting him groin to groin with Don, “I’d have to take a test drive before I could possibly know if I want a ride.”

Don, not being prone to blushing nor to getting flustered, just barely managed to avoid doing either. His eyes did widen and his pupils dilated with lust. Xander felt Don’s response in his own groin, and his smile widened. It became that full blown Xander-smile, wide and full of mischief. The addition of the smile caused Don’s breath to grow uneven.

This moment was interrupted by Don’s cell ringing, which he had to answer because he was still neck deep in a case. Before he did, though, he gave Xander one quick, fierce kiss. The look Don gave Xander before he answered his phone and walked away was so heavy with lust that Xander gulped. As soon as Don disappeared around the corner, Xander’s legs gave out and he had to lean against the street lamp. It had taken a lot to maintain some semblance of cool and flirt back, leaving him feeling pleasantly exhausted, like he had just worked out or had sex.

Dishing the Day with Dawn, Part 3

“Dawn, I think the universe is trying to tell me something,” after Xander had recovered, he decided that today would be a no-studying day. While he was more focused than before, he still enjoyed procrastinating on occasion.

“Why’s that Xander?” Dawn had her patient face on, since he was clearly interrupting her while she was working.

“I keep running into Don. It’s a little strange. I mean once is a coincidence, but twice seems to be something more…” Now Dawn had her serious face. In the world Dawn and Xander lived in, there never seemed to be any real coincidences. They may be fray-adjacent now, but it did not mean they had no contact with the supernatural.

“Maybe, it does seem to stretch coincidence, but we know that Don isn’t evil or a demon, so what do you think it means?” Dawn asked.

“I’m not sure. The timing of the chance meetings is a little too convenient. I mean, every time I haven’t seen him for a while and I’m busy, but feeling a little lonesome, there he is. I get that being FBI-guy he’ll get busy and not being able to hang, so it isn’t like I’m pining away after him. But when I get to missing him, he bumps into me wherever I am.”

“Oh Xander, I know you aren’t used to good things happening to you, but maybe it’s time to get over it. Your hellmouth bad luck is a thing of the past. You know you are going to have good fortune for the rest of your life. This is just another aspect of that. In fact, it is probably the best kind of fortune a person can get. Oh my god, Xander!” Dawn’s squeal was sudden and surprising.

“What? Dawn? Is there danger?” Xander was on high alert, since nothing in their conversation seemed to be that alarming.

“You know what this might mean? I’m so excited for you! Yes!” Dawn was openly crowing now, but Xander was still mystified.

“Come on already, what is going on in that hyper-active brain?”

“Do you think he might be your soul-mate?” Dawn was a little pensive as she asked, but she already thought that Don might be and her excitement showed.

“Dawn, you know I don’t believe that stuff. He’s a good, seriously hot, guy and all, but love isn’t fated, we both know that,” Xander reminded Dawn, and her face fell a little. Xander was right, but it was still nice to dream.

Bumbling, Part 2

Xander was talking a little walking break around campus. He had been studying in the library for a few hours, and decided that he needed a little sunshine and air. He was just strolling along when someone crashed into him.

“Sorry,” it was Charlie, but Charlie hadn’t noticed that it was Xander.

“No worries, Charlie. Where’s the fire?”

“Oh, no fire, but I’m working on some time sensitive math for my brother. Actually, this is the sort of thing that could possibly benefit from your special skill. Do you have time?” Xander nodded, since he didn’t have anything to do that was nearly as important as any case that Don was working.

“Good, I’ll fill you in on the details I can share on our way over to the FBI offices,” Charlie by this point was tugging Xander along. Xander hustled after him, since he really understood that when a case was time sensitive, it was usually a matter of saving lives.

During the ride over, Charlie outlined that he was helping on a kidnapping case for Don. Which explained why it was so time sensitive, and that it was truly important. Charlie didn’t tell him any details about the case because he knew that all Xander needed to see were the numbers, but all of the numbers were at the office. He essentially wanted Xander, after being given the probabilities that Charlie had designed to predict a possible location for the kidnapped child, to add his ‘free will’ values so that they could have the smallest area possible to search.

What they needed from the FBI office was the data pertaining to the suspects and victims. Charlie had already designed the general probability matrix, he just need to input the specifics from this case. He had high hopes that his matrix could be used in future cases to identify search areas. The weakness of the matrix was that it relied mostly on statistical data from past kidnappings and kidnappers. While these were useful for locating a general area, the area was usually too large to be very useful without a clearly identified suspect, with whom the probable location could be crossed checked.

Their arrival the FBI office was rather a blur, since Charlie was intent in providing this information to Don as soon as possible. He didn’t notice that look Xander had gotten after giving his name at the front desk for his visitor’s pass. He also didn’t notice that Xander had been given a special security pass for visitor’s from other agencies. The sort of thing that a US Marshall or something would be given when visiting.

Charlie was busy converting the data from the case files to values for input into the matrix, with Xander watching with great fascination. This was exactly the sort of thing that Xander was hoping he’d be able to do after he graduated for the Council. Watching it done by a true genius left him feeling a little awed, the speed and precision of Charlie’s work was amazing. What he was doing would probably take a day or so for Xander, even at that mysterious future point when he might actually understand everything that Charlie was doing.

They were so engrossed in the work that the didn’t notice Don walk in.

“So, Charlie, do you think you’ll have the search area for me any time soon?” Don was asking as he walked in, but he was looking through a file as he entered, so he hadn’t notice Xander either.

Xander gasped, which startled Charlie and caused Don to snap his head up.

“Xander, what are you doing here?” Don’s tone was full of surprise, but very little anger, since he did trust his brother.

“Oh, Don, I should have a search area in a about ten minutes. Xander is here to give a little help. I haven’t told him anything about the case. He just has a special talent which should tighten the search area and increase the probability of finding the child in that location,” Charlie hadn’t looked up because he was still furiously working away. Xander smiled a little nervously and shuffled his feet, feeling suddenly very out of place in his blue collar uniform around all these guys in suits.

Don gave him a small smile. He was being all cool and professional, which gave Xander little butterflies in his stomach. Don was really hot when he was being in-charge guy. Don was noticing the visitor’s badge that Xander was wearing. His smile turned into a small frown. Xander shouldn’t have a badge like that, it indicated that had Charlie given him information about the case, it wouldn’t cause Don any problems. Strange.

Xander noticing the frowning, felt even more nervous and out of place. He also didn’t realize that he had received a special badge. He was totally okay with not knowing anything about the case.

“Xander, okay we are ready for your values. Please enter them here,” Charlie moved away from the computer. Xander spent five minutes looking through the calculation, not entirely understanding but more getting feeling for the other information. He entered in the values.

“Don, don’t leave, Xander press enter and our search area should appear on the screen,” Charlie stopped Don from leaving the room, he was about to call the security desk and ask about Xander’s badge. Xander hit the enter key, and a very, very small section of the map appeared on the screen.

“Wow, Charlie, that is a really small area. I mean, there are only about ten buildings in that grid. Are you sure it is right? The search areas you give us are usually a lot larger,” Don asked before taking the information for cross checking with their suspect list.

“Don, my numbers are never wrong. You know that. The increase in accuracy is why I asked for Xander’s help,” Charlie said with his usual perfect confidence. Don took his word for it, since Charlie usually was right.

“Good, thank you. We might actually save this child. Thank you, Xander,” Don this time gave Xander a full smile. The one that Xander loved, and his anxiety about being in the office fled, “You guys can go on home, since the search area is so small, we’ll probably be rolling out of here in an hour. I’ll call to let you know how it goes.” Don walked out as he said this.

After the Math

It was a few days later when Don had the time to remember the curious business with Xander’s visitor badge. He placed a call to security.

“Hey, this is Agent Eppes; I wanted ask about the visitor badge given to Alexander Harris last Tuesday.”

“Oh, yes, I remember Agent Harris. He tried getting a visitor’s badge, but I figured that he was just too embarrassed to admit that he had lost his id, at least in front of others. I gave him the visiting agent’s badge while processing his new id,” was the bomb the security agent dropped.

“Wait, are you telling me that Alexander Harris is an agent of the FBI?”

“Yes, he is, at least according to our records.”

“Can you give me his badge number?” This gave Don a great deal of pause because Xander had never even hinted that he might work for the government. Perhaps it was a disability thing, where he’d lost his eye in the line of duty and, while no good for fieldwork, was going to school for re-training. He went to his computer and pulled up the record for Alexander Harris. Or at least he tried. All he actually got was Xander’s basic information, and nothing else, no employment record, actually no records of any kind. He decided to place a call to records.

“Hi, this is Agent Eppes, I would like the file on Agent Alexander Harris; here’s his badge number.”

“Sorry, but your security clearance isn’t high enough to access Agent Harris’ record.”

“Huh, thanks anyway,” now Don was really curious. He knew that Charlie had a higher clearance than him because of his work for other agencies, but it was strange that Xander did and that his file was beyond Don’s clearance. As he sat there thinking, about five minutes passed, then his phone rang.

“Eppes.”

“Special Agent Eppes, this is Director Anderson. Could you tell me the nature of your enquiries about Alexander Harris?” This situation only got curiouser. The director of the FBI calling? About an agent?

“Oh, he was involved in a case earlier this week, but didn’t identify himself as an agent. I was only making sure of his status.”

“Well, I can let you know that Alexander Harris is an Agent of the FBI. Furthermore, if there is any case that he is interested in, he should be granted full access to any and all information he wants or needs regarding to the case. His security clearance is the highest possible and he has the authority to take over any case. However, he is not to be investigated by the FBI for any reason, is that clear?” The Director wasn’t joking. His tone was very, very serious. Which only made Don all the more curious.

“Crystal,” Don wondered what to do. He could ask Charlie to see if he could access Xander’s records. He didn’t really want to do that, though. Calling downstairs to ask about the visitor’s badge was one thing, going all out to investigate Xander another. He was really enjoying Xander’s company and really didn’t want it to go down that way. Perhaps, he should just ask Xander. Xander had never seemed to be the super secretive type. Don decided to call Xander.

“Hey, Xander, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, of course you can.”

“Are you aware that you are an FBI agent? Security called to say that your replacement badge is ready.”

“What? I’m an FBI agent? Really? Cool! I totally have to get a suit and be FBI-guy for a day,” Don noted that while Xander was surprised, he wasn’t very surprised. As if, while he didn’t know, the circumstances were not completely unexpected.

“You don’t seem too surprised. I’ll have you know the Director of the FBI just called me to say that you can take over any case you want and have total access to any information you want. This is a more than a little surprise for me,” Alan had taught Don that honesty really was the best policy.

“Really? So, if I wanted to, whatever case you are currently working, I could just walk in and take over?”

“I guess, I hope you won’t do that,” such a thing might kill their relationship.

“Of course not! I don’t know anything about solving crime.”

“Really? How did you become an FBI agent then?” Don’s voice was pure curiosity. He didn’t doubt that Xander was telling the truth, which made this situation even stranger.

“Oh, I’m not sure why I’m suddenly FBI guy. I bet you, that if I wanted I could probably get a badge for every agency in the country. Actually, you know, maybe I should. You know, I sort of badge collection. It would be rare…” Xander trailed off into geekboy collector’s land. Don, however, noticed that his questions weren’t really being answered. There was long pause on the phone, “I guess you want some real answers, huh? It’s related to my work for the council, you remember me telling you that I member of the board of directors for the NWC? Well, they do other things, occasionally for the government. My involvement was mostly what I told you, recruiting in Africa. But because of my seat on the board, I do have the full security clearance that goes with it. Perhaps the FBI badge is just something to make my life easier. I can’t tell you about the other activities of the NWC, but you could ask your boss about it.”

Don guessed that it made sense. He had never heard about the NWC, but he wouldn’t have if they were black ops. Which is exactly what it was sounding like. Moreover, no one would actually know or be able to tell him anything about them if they were black ops.

An Eppes Family Dinner

Don and Xander were having a quick coffee break on campus. Don had just visited to ask Charlie for some help with a case and he had run into Xander, who was on a hour long break between classes. On seeing Xander, Don had been convinced that it was time for him to eat lunch. Well, he certainly had been hungry for something.

They were doing their usual thing, essentially have a cold war of flirtation. They kept one upping the other, each flirtation getting more and more audacious, while still keeping it in reasonably good taste (Xander’s taste was always questionable). It was the case, though, that their activities were unmistakable to all observers (and there were quite a few interested observers). Unfortunately, one of those observers was soon Amita, who easily recognized Don.

“Don, how are you?” She called out, further away than usual, just to give them time to collect themselves. Xander, while he was now relaxed with Don, still didn’t fair quite so well with strangers, so he blushed. This, of course, amused Don, who began to laugh. Amita, however, was getting closer and both men forgot about the hand that Don had in Xander’s back pocket.

“Amita, hey, I’m good. How are you?” Don, being super cool FBI guy, was able to give a coherent response.

“I’m good Don; it is nice to see you. What brings you to campus? Is it a case? Should I get Charlie?” Amita said this last with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek. It was quite apparent what Don was doing on Campus, and it look suspiciously like a pirate pretending to be a student.

“I, uh, have already talked to Charlie. Thank you, though. This is Xander; he’s actually one of Charlie’s students. Xander, this is Amita, she’s Charlie’s girlfriend.”

“Oh, hey, Charlie’s mentioned you before, it’s very nice to meet you,” Xander was good at quick recoveries, and so managed a coherent response, but was still a little flustered because he still hadn’t remembered that the hand in his back pocket wasn’t actually his.

“Yes, Charlie has mentioned you as well. I understand you are a whiz with probability. You’ve gotten Charlie pretty excited. It’s nice to meet you at last.”

“Hey, guys, what’s going on? Amita I was just looking for you, if you have time I could use some help with Don’s case,” Charlie had strolled up from behind Xander and Don. He definitely noticed that the hand in Xander’s pocket was someone else’s. He was a little hurt that neither Xander nor Don had told him that they were seeing each other.

“Of course, Charlie, I have some time. I just bumped into these two and was being introduced to Xander.”

By this point, Xander was dying a little inside from the embarrassment. It seemed like he was being caught necking at school by anyone who could possibly recognize him or Don. One would think that after Anya he would be entirely desensitized to embarrassment, but not so. How he wished that were true.

“Don, Charlie, Amita, here you guys are! I’ve been looking for you. I had some plans that I would like your mathematical opinion on, well at least Charlie and Amita’s opinion,” this time it was Alan. By this point, even Don was getting a little embarrassed. Getting a little more self-conscious made him realize just where his hand was. Unfortunately, by this point it was too late and his father was giving him a look.

“Hey Dad, this is Xander,” Don introduced Xander to his father.

“It’s nice to meet you Mr. Eppes.”

“Very nice to meet you to, Xander. Please call me Alan. Anyone whom my son is seeing gets a free pass to call me by my given name,” Alan, as always, was perfectly cordial.

“It’s good that you’re all here, because there was one other thing I wanted to ask all of you. You should all come over for dinner tonight, I’m making something special. Xander, that means you too.”

“Oh, um, sure. Don, are you free?” Xander asked, unsure if he should accept.

“Oh, yes, Don is free and he’ll pick you up at seven,” Alan assured Xander while giving Don that parent look that always makes you feel guilty.

“Of course, I’ll come for dinner and pick you up Xander.”

“Uh, thanks. And thank you for inviting me over for dinner, Alan,” Xander’s parents may have been disasters but he had had Willow to teach him manners. After this, everyone went their own way, leaving Xander and Don alone.

“You didn’t tell them about us?” Xander, however, did know how to pout effectively.

“Uh, I mean, well, we’ve only been on one date,” Don tried to make it seem reasonable.

“You’ve just given me another weapon!” Xander crowed and grinned widely. Don responded by growling and bringing him in for a kiss.

Dinner:

Xander hadn’t done the whole ‘meet the parents’ thing since Cordelia. Even then it was easy, since they had disliked him the moment they had heard about him. In this case, he knew that Don was very close to his family. It was actually important that Don’s dad liked him. He knew that Charlie already liked him, so that was good. Alan was a different case, though, since he had seemed a little surprised that Don was dating him. In fact, Charlie seemed a little surprised too. Did Don not date guys? Was this news? He seemed so good at it.

All this was going through Xander’s head as Don drove them to dinner. It did not escape Don’s notice that Xander was being quiet and fidgety.

“Okay, Xander. I realize I have a little explaining to do. I’m sure you realized that my Dad and Charlie were a little surprised that we were dating. Straight up, I don’t usually date guys. In fact, you’re the first guy since college. It seems like it’ll be one in a million guys who catch my eye, and even smaller odds that they seem worthwhile to date. So, I never said anything about it. The chances were small that I’d find a guy that I have a future with. Yet, here you are. I like you a lot, Xander. Every time I see you, I feel lighter and happier for days. You ease my troubles.”

By this point Xander was feeling a little shocked. Don didn’t really seem like warm and fuzzy guy. He was cool and seriously hot, yet not so much with the emotive heart to heart talks. It was making Xander feel vaguely goo-like inside. He didn’t realize it, but the smile on his face was affecting Don in much the same way. This is when they pulled up to the house. Since it seemed like a good way to start the evening, Xander didn’t say anything to ruin the mood.

“Good, you guys are here. I’m just laying out the table. Come sit down and dinner will be ready in a few minutes,” Alan called out when he heard Charlie and Amita greet the two men. Within moments, everyone was sitting and there was the best food on the table that Xander had smelled since Joyce had died.

“Alright, everyone help yourselves and dig in,” and so everyone did, “Xander, Charlie tells me you are a student of his? That’s all I know since Don hasn’t said anything.”

“Fine, fine, Dad consider me rebuked. Xander and I only had our first date last week. There hasn’t been time to say anything to anyone. His name is Alexander Harris, though he prefers ‘Xander’, he grew up in Sunnydale, California. He goes to CalSci, wants to study Operations Research. Is a whiz with probabilities. He works for an international charity called the New Watcher’s Council; they provide scholarships for under-privileged women with great potential. He also has the most charming blush,” here Xander indulged Don by blushing, “happy?”

“Why, yes I am. Was that so hard Don? Xander, Don didn’t say anything about your family.”

“Well, the rest of my family is the other board members of the NWC. There’s Giles, my high school mentor, and the guy responsible for me turning out as good as I did. My best friend, Willow who has been my friend since kindergarten. Buffy, a high school friend, and Dawn, her sister and my room-mate. There are few others that I’m not as close to, but those are my people,” Xander had the fond smile he always wore when talking of his family.

“What about your parents? Do you have any siblings?” Alan’s curiosity was piqued by Xander having created a non-blood family. Most didn’t have the courage to do so.

“That’s a little more complicated. I lost my mom in the collapse of Sunnydale,” everyone at this point recalled this event but didn’t realize that Xander meant the same place. Alan started feeling a little bad about pushing for an answer and was going to interrupt when Xander started talking again, “it is okay, Alan. I don’t mind talking about it. I wasn’t really close to my parents. It also turns out that my dad isn’t actually my biological father. I only learned this after they died. So, there isn’t really any way to find out who actually is my bio-dad. This also means that I may have siblings that I don’t know about. What matters, though, is that even before my parents died, my friends were more family to me than they were,” to the Eppes family this was unimaginable since they were so close. Don knew, from the FBI, how a group of people could become family. It made him wonder a little more about Xander, considering the mysterious FBI business and it strengthened the possibility that the NWC was a cover for black-ops. Don still had questions about that because, well, the situation was odd. He also hadn’t failed to notice that Xander hadn’t really given him a satisfactory answer to his question. Don still wanted to see Xander’s file, enough so that he had contacted an old friend with a higher security clearance to get it for him. He was still waiting for a reply.

Alan, still feeling a little bad about bringing up such heavy business at the dinner table, directed the conversation to a lighter topic, mostly by teasing Charlie. The dinner went smoothly after that point. There was a great deal of laughing and teasing by the Eppes brothers. Xander learned that Amita was really cool. Alan respected Xander for making the best of what sounded like a bad situation. Amita thought Xander introduced some much needed youth to the group. Don, mostly, was feeling happy about the warm welcome that Xander was receiving by his family.

Post Final Celebrations

It was the last day of finals, for Xander, and Dawn was taking him out to celebrate the successful end of his first semester. She, of course, had the whole evening planned. Xander had wanted to see Don, but he was busy at work. It had been a few weeks since the Eppes family dinner, and between Xander’s end of the term papers and exams and Don’s work schedule, they had only been able to get together for some smaller scale dates. A coffee here and a lunch there. A quick dinner or two. They seemed, from a lack of choice by either party, to be taking things slow. Like glacier slow. Xander, at this point, was near bursting with the desire to ravish Don or be ravished by him. While it was nice that he was getting to know Don, he was a guy and he wanted Don, like yesterday.

He shrugged his shoulders and continued to wait patiently for Dawn to finish getting ready. He had long accepted that waiting for women to get ready was his lot in life (and his own fault for knowing so many). Dawn walked by to get her shoes, and stopped dead when she saw him.

“Xander,” yikes, that was an unhappy squeal, “what do you think you are wearing? This is supposed to be a special night of celebration for our newly minted college guy. We can’t have post-final fun with you looking like you do everyday. Go back to your room and come back looking special, or else,” this threat was accompanied by a poke the chest and a glare.

Xander hustled back to his room. Always with the women and their clothes!

“On second thought, since you already failed to dress yourself once tonight, I’ve decided that you are wearing,” Dawn had followed him into his room and was now going through his closet, “this and this, with your usual boots. Come to my room in five minutes and I’ll do your hair.”

Xander could only sigh, and start putting on the clothes. He felt a little dubious about her choices, since it appeared that he would be wearing his oldest jeans (the ones he wore on laundry day when everything else was dirty, they were a little too snug for his tastes and a little threadbare). His shirt was the tight, v-neck under-shirt that Dawn had bought for his first date with Don. How was this different from what he wore everyday? It was a shirt and jeans. With his work boots. Xander already knew that he didn’t understand women, but this seemed a little absurd. He rolled his eyes and went to get his hair done.

They were finally on their way to the bar where they would eat dinner and have their first drinks. Dawn was chattering away about the gay club that they were going to afterwards and Xander was thinking about Don (meaning that he totally missed the part where Dawn said they were going to a gay club). Dawn, of course, timed her disclosure about the club when Xander got Don-face, knowing he would get nervous about going to a gay club (he hadn’t been to many).

When they entered the bar Xander immediately noticed that Don was sitting there with another guy. Feeling suddenly very awkward, he started to inch back out, but stepped on Dawn’s foot. She squealed and pushed him into the wall, and by this point everyone was looking in their direction.

“Xander, I think you totally broke my toe! I’m so telling Buffy and she is going to kick your ass,” Dawn, being distracted by being a major league drama queen, still hadn’t noticed Don. Who happened to be on his way over to them. Xander just knew that the universe had it in for him, and that the good luck of the past few years had only been to set him up for this humiliation.

“Hey Dawn, Xander, what’s all the ruckus about?” Don asked, more than a little amused.

“Oh! Don! You’re here,” now Dawn knew why Xander had been backing off, as she finally saw Don and realized that he was sitting with another guy, “with some really hot guy. Who isn’t Xander, because he’s with me.”

“Not helping. Stop babbling,” Xander tersely whispered to Dawn. She put her hand over her mouth.

“Hey, Don, I was being clumsy and stepped on Dawn’s foot. How are you?” Xander was desperately trying to act cool.

“Doing okay just finished a long day at work, so Colby and I decided to get something to eat. Why don’t you join us?” Xander felt a rush of relief, since it seemed that Don wasn’t on another date. They all walked to the table, where Don introduced Xander and Dawn to ‘Agent Colby Granger’. Sweet, this was another FBI-guy and not other-woman-guy.

Dawn leaned over to whisper in Xander’s ear, “Wow, do you think all the FBI-guys are this hot?” Of course, because no matter how much Dawn grew up she never seemed to grasp how to be cool, this was partly why her and Xander got along so well. This meant that both Don and Colby heard her ‘whisper’. Colby smiled widely at Dawn and she ’eeped’ and put her hands over her mouth.

They settle into the booth and ordered their drinks and food. Colby decided that this pretty girl who thought he was hot deserved a little attention, so he asked about whether she was working or not.

“Well, I go to school at UCLA in the Classics department. I also work for the same charity organization that Xander does,” was her reply.

“Classics? Does this help with your job?” Colby was curious, since it seemed just as odd a combination as math and charity. He failed to see the connection.

“Well, the organization is kinda big and they help fund their charity work by work in antiques. Appraisals, translations, archaeological digs, you know that sort of thing. I mostly do translations and Xander helps with logistics. We’ve both are taking time off of field work while we go to school, and are now helping in a support capacity. Although, that is also partly because my sister thought that we should have ’normal’ lives,” Dawn actually made the air-quotes, “This even though Xander hasn’t been in any real danger in, like, forever,” Don mentally tagged that statement, simply something else to ask Xander about, “and Buffy knows that I can protect myself now, even though it is now totally impossible for me to get into trouble or be hurt with Xander around,” Don thought that the way Dawn phrased this last sentence was a little strange. Did she mean that before it had been possible to get hurt around Xander and now it wasn’t, or for that matter, how was it impossible to get hurt just because Xander was around?

Xander gave Dawn a little nudge in the side, he knew that Dawn was babbling a little because, well, a hot guy asking her questions got her a little flustered. At this point she was so used to geeks and nerds that she didn’t really know how to behave in ordinary company. Yet, she was starting to get into dangerous territory. She fell silent and the silence grew a little awkward.

“Translations? What languages do you know?” Don asked, since she seemed awfully young to already be translating, he also did not fail to notice that Xander had nudged her. He thought that it took years of study to become good enough at a language to do translating at the professional level.

“Oh, um, mostly dead languages. You know? Like Latin, Ancient Greek, Sumerian, that sort of stuff. I’m learning classical Chinese this semester, which isn’t quite dead but only sorta dead. It’s a super fun language. Wait. That makes me sound like a nerd, doesn’t it?”

Xander solemnly patted Dawn on the shoulder, “Dawn, you should embrace the nerdness. You’ve always been a nerd, and you will always be one.”

“It is alright, nothing more deadly than a sexy nerd,” was Colby’s contribution. This got an eyebrow raise from Don and a stern look from Xander. Colby seemed a little old for Dawn, but he knew better than to say anything. He was well aware that Dawn was all grown up now and would make her own decisions. Didn’t mean he couldn’t try a little subtle discouragement.

“Stop that Xander!” Dawn punched Xander on the arm, causing him to wince and rub the spot. “It’s bad enough that Buffy prevents almost anyone from dating me, so don’t even start getting protectory older brother on me. Or else, I’ll tell Buffy that you let me wander the streets at night, all by myself,” Xander’s eye grew big at the threat, but he quickly recovered and put an innocent look on his face.

“I’m not sure what you are talking about Dawn, but you’re definitely right. I won’t do it again,” Xander added a little puppy-dog to the look. Dawn relented but still shook her finger at him.

They continued chatting through dinner, all the while Xander could feel Don’s eyes on him. It was almost a palpable feeling, making Xander feel itchy with desire. Dawn and Colby noticed, but were too focused on their own flirting to care. When the meal ended, Dawn let it out that they were going to a club afterwards, since they were celebrating the end of the semester. Don and Colby tried to back out since they were on a case and had to get back to it fairly early in the morning. Xander chuckled the entire time they tried to go home because he knew that if Dawn wanted them to go out, they would. This is how they all ended up at some club in West Hollywood surrounded by a mass of shirtless guys with super buff bodies. They each looked significantly out of place.

Don and Xander didn’t care, however, because they only had eyes for each other. They each immediately grabbed a beer and headed to the dance floor, where they proceeded to do some not so clean dancing. As Colby and Dawn had just met they sat at a table and continued to talk.

Xander’s eye hadn’t left Don’s in what seemed forever. They were dancing really close; close enough that Xander’s nose was filled with the scent of the man in front of him; light cologne and the beginning of a little sweat. He felt like his entire body was tingling. Don still hadn’t touched him, but they were close enough that only the two of them knew this. Every cell in Xander’s body was vibrating with anticipation. This was the purest, most blissful torture he had ever gone through. He was willing to wait, though, because he could tell from the look in Don’s eyes that this was their night. There wasn’t anything that would distract Don from finally having his way with Xander, nor from Xander having his way with Don. Ways were gonna be had.

Xander decided to cheat. They both knew where this night was heading, and after spending weeks dreaming of this moment he wasn’t going to wait any longer. Suddenly smiling, which Don felt like was a punch to the stomach, Xander turned and walked away, giving Don a view of his ass in those threadbare jeans. Those tight, threadbare jeans. Don jerked into motion when someone stepped in his line of sight. Quickly catching up to Xander he grabbed him, turned him around, and kissed him deeply. He felt a hand go to his neck and another cup his ass, pulling them groin to groin. The feeling of Xander’s hot and hard crotch against his pushed him over the edge. He broke off the kiss, grabbed Xander’s hand, and practically dragged him out of the bar.

Dawn was watching the entire thing with Colby, indeed a good portion of the eyes in the bar followed the pair going out the door. Dawn turned to Colby, “it seems your ride just ditched you. Fortunately, I was Xander’s ride, so it seems like it worked out. Also looks like your boss might be a little late for work tomorrow. Want to come over and see my etchings?” Colby definitely wanted to, so off they went.

A Post Coital Conversation

Xander was feeling good. His and Don’s chemistry had just exploded all over Don’s apartment. Don was leaning back in his arms and they were laughing about nothing in particular. Both were feeling relaxed and completely sated.

“Xander, you mentioned that you spent two years in Africa, but you almost never talk about it. Will you tell me about?” Don was well aware of the turmoil in Africa, of the poverty, and the sheer desperation that millions of Africans lived in everyday.

Xander knew this day would come. It wasn’t that his experience in Africa had been all bad, or even all good. Yet, for some reason he had a hard time talking about it.

“I’ll talk to you about it. I went to Africa shortly after the collapse of Sunnydale. I had just lost someone I loved and only wanted to get away, far away. I needed to be somewhere different and unfamiliar. So, when the Council needed someone to go there to find special women, I volunteered. I recognize now that I didn’t make the decision for the best reasons. But it turned out to be one of my very few, really good decisions.

In some ways, I feel like Africa was a dream. I knew, to some extent, about how it might be there, but it was vague and abstract. In reality, I was nowhere near ready for the crowds, the poverty, and the living conditions. All that said, though, everything went really smoothly for me there. I mean, almost as soon as I get off the plane I literally bump into the first special woman who fit the requirements of the council. She also happened to speak five different African languages. She ended up being my traveling companion for the next two years. She was also like a best friend that I hadn’t met yet. She still is one of my best friends.

Do you know that I’ve been to every country on the African continent? I went everywhere. I saw oceans, the jungle, the dessert, the savannah, everything really. I went to cities so crowded and filled with poverty that they seem imaginary from this distance. I visited small villages that, though poor, were filled with happy people enjoying their lives.

I also saw a lot of horrors; the refugee camps, the towns where every single human being had been gunned down in some tribal or territorial battle. I literally saw children die of starvation, right in front of me. At times, I feel the terrible reality of human cruelty like a suffocating weight.

Africa, more than California, is where I grew up. It was where I learned to stand on my own two feet, how to finally believe in myself. It also made me realize how large, but fragile, this world we live in is. How every one of my actions actually had a larger impact on the world than I previously imagined. It was where I learned that you can’t save everyone and that a great deal of things are simply beyond our control and understanding. It was where I made peace with myself and my place in the world.

Incidentally, it was also where I learned that the man who raised me wasn’t my biological father. Finally being away from Sunnydale for a long time made me realize how spending my entire life in my hometown had stifled me. It was in Africa that I blossomed and finally came into my own. Where all of the bad luck from Sunnydale was shed and things turned around for me. For all the horrors I saw in Africa, I only saw them after the fact. My time there, strangely enough, was the smoothest and easiest that I had had in my entire life. Everything I did over there worked out. I managed to find every woman who fit the requirements of the council, at least at that time. I never experienced any real danger or ever had real problems of any kind. One day, when I tell you about Sunnydale, you’ll realize just how strange that was for me. I had spent so long struggling to exist that I almost lost my sense of self when the struggle simply disappeared.

It was in that moment that I finally began to know myself for the first time. When I realized that I wasn’t as stupid as I use to think. When I realized that I was capable of more than I ever thought possible.

I feel like I was emptied out by the vastness of Africa, like it hollowed me out. It was as if it burned away all of the shit and baggage that I had collected in life. In the end, I was left only with the purest essence of myself. It was a goofy, broken mess of a man, full of insecurity and sorrow, that went to Africa, in some ways he died out there. What returned from Africa was a man at peace with himself, at peace all of the decisions and mistakes that he had made. Another way to look at it, is that I returned more Xander than ever.

That was what Africa was to me. It’s also why I have such a hard time talking about it. It’s hard to find the words for an experience so transformative. Sure, I have many stories about Africa, but that wouldn’t tell you how it made me feel.”

Don was floored. He never imagined that Xander would be so open and honest, especially since they were still getting to know each other. It wasn’t that Xander was closed off and distant, just that he was so self-contained, and he had just let Don in. Don saw the gift for what it was; he rolled Xander over, because now he wanted to hold him. To give him some support, to let him know that it was safe to share.

Now, being spooned in Don’s arms, Xander shuddered a little. He hadn’t realized how much he had needed to talk to someone about Africa. Yeah, he could’ve told his friends, but there was just so much history there. Every time they met they seemed to settle right back into old patterns. They all had changed, but no one could seem to help it. Xander already knew that they loved him and they simply accepted how he had changed at face value. He would always remain the Xander-shaped friend, but they didn’t realize how much the parts they couldn’t see had changed. Xander’s body still shook a little, and a few tears escaped his eye. Don just held him, until they both fell asleep.

Chance, Part 3

Don had just gotten off one the worst cases of his life. The kind where, at the end of it all, he wanted to grab a machine gun, drive through the wall of a prison, and just open fire. Cases like these, always made him wonder about the job he did. He knew the job was important and necessary, but times like these he didn’t know if he should be the one to do it. He wanted to start drinking, and keep going until he died.

He was sitting in his SUV, somewhere, and just staring out the window. He was supposed to have dinner at his Dad’s, but he felt contaminated from the filth he’d just dealt with. He felt that if he saw his family, with their wholesome goodness that he just might go insane. There was a slight tapping at his window, making him jump in his seat. It was Xander, so he rolled down the window.

“Hey there, handsome guy. This ride looks just right to me,” Xander was smiling and joking, but stopped when he saw the look on Don’s face. He recognized the look. He had seen it in the mirror, seen it on the faces of all his friends, and he knew exactly what Don needed. Xander hefted Don out of the driver’s seat and placed him in the passenger’s side. Xander started the car and drove to Don’s apartment.

Once there, Xander slowly undressed Don. He placed him in the bed and started to undress himself. Don was momentarily distracted by the slow revelation of Xander’s flesh. On Xander’s taut, scarred back he saw the external reflection of how he felt inside. Yet here was Xander standing tall, naked, and proud. Don felt the slightest stirring of lust towards the man in front of him. Xander just stood there, looking at him. Don, looking at all the scars on Xander’s body, realized that Xander, in some unknown way, was just like him. It was in this moment, their eyes on each other, that something deeper began to stir beneath their fun and flirtatious relationship.

At the precise moment that the emotion began to stir, Xander walked over to the bed. He gathered Don in his arms and began to gently caress him. Don wasn’t ready for gentle just yet, and was far rougher. Yet, through it all, Xander was gentle. At the end, this time, it was Don who fell asleep with tears on his face, in Xander’s arms.

New Year, New Beginning

Xander was looking out the bedroom window of his new lover’s apartment. It was the early hours of New Year’s day and Xander was thinking some deep thoughts. Still not of the ordinary for him, but far less unusual than it had been. In his head he was trying to puzzle out how he had ended up at this place, at this time.

He and Dawn had already discussed the somewhat suspicious element of chance in their budding relationship. There were so many coincidences that it was beginning to feel very much unlike one at all. Super hot guy related to his first teacher at school, the accidently stumbling onto his cases - which just happened to require Xander’s special skill, the chance meetings - all at different places - just when Xander needed a distraction from school or when Don needed some support, their busy schedules preventing a hook up just until they had gotten to know each other, Don and Xander’s first time randomly occurring on a night of celebration, it all seemed to be too much chance. Especially in Xander’s case.

Xander knew that it was all the whims of fate, yet he didn’t know why this man or why now. He supposed, in the end, that it didn’t really matter why. Just that he was starting to fall in love with this wonderful, surprising man. Xander laughed more with Don than he had in the past three or four years. And they were genuine laughs, not the sort that Xander used to generate to diffuse tension in the Scoobies. Xander was starting to spend a ridiculous amount of time with a goofy grin on his face. He was continuously surprised about how easy this relationship was. Everything went so smoothly, more so than any other relationship that Xander had ever been in. It was strange and a little disconcerting.

He felt arms slip around his waist and a head rest against his back. It was shocking how, in such a short time, comfortable this weight leaning against him had become. It felt like Don had always been there and, just a little, like he would always be there.

It seemed that this New Year was the true start of Xander’s new life; the one where he wasn’t comic relief; the one where he wasn’t the normal one; the one where he wasn’t the screw up or the zeppo. Africa had torn down the life he had built on a shaky foundation. Now it seemed that he was building something new, something true and almost too beautiful to be believed.

Hands that were now wandering up and down his torso distracted him from his ruminations.

“Come back to bed, Xander,” Don whispered against Xander’s back. His breath creating a shiver that went all the way down his spine. Xander closed his eyes and just let himself be for a few moments, “I think you need to convince me again about the efficacy of the Goldilocks method,” Xander laughed, then turned in Don’s arms and kissed him lightly.

A Date with Don, Part 2

Xander was waiting by his door. He and Don were just about to go one their second evening date. It had been a while since their last one, both had been so busy with their lives that they hadn’t had a chance to get another proper date in. Even though they saw each other for lunch or coffee a few times a week, there was something special about dates. Xander was really excited for this one, since it was going to be more casual than their previous, so Dawn hadn’t needed to dress him for this one.

There was a knock at the door, and suddenly Don was kissing him. Their kiss was a little chaste this time, but that didn’t stop Dawn from giggling like a school girl.

“Alright, mister, keep it clean. I want Xander back at home by midnight. And there had better be no hankey-pankey,” As Dawn spoke she poked Don in the chest.

“Hey, don’t you be poking me. Xander is the one who can’t keep his hands to himself. You should be worried about my virtue,” was Don’s response, which had Xander swatting him on the arm.

“Excuse me! I’m totally not grope-y guy. I happen to be a perfect gentleman, I’ll have you know. Shall we?” Xander exaggeratedly stuck out his arm to escort Don out of the apartment. Dawn still hadn’t stopped giggling, because she thought it was too freaking cute. Don put his hand on Xander’s arm, and away they went on their date.

Don ended up taking them out to eat Indian food, not something that Xander had eaten a great deal of, but discovered that it could be absolutely fantastic, especially if you had the right company. Since his company happened to be the best possible, it was possibly the best meal he had ever had. Now that he and Don had already slept together, and had spent much more time together, he was able to fully relax on the date. He got so much simple pleasure from being in Don’s company.

There were eating dessert when Don asked Xander a question, “So, interested in going for a ride tonight?” The nature of the question caught Xander by surprise and caused him to swallow his ice cream just a little too fast. This, in turn, meant brain freeze.

“Uh, brain freeze! You totally timed that question for when I was taking a bite. I’m starting to know your ways, mister. Soon, very soon, you should expect retaliation,” Xander warned Don, trying to be as ominous as he could (which wasn’t very).

“Are you saying that you are going to punish me? ‘Cause I’ve been a bad boy and all?” Xander only responded by smiling widely, one eye twinkling with the promise of untold mischief.

“I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you. You’ll definitely be getting yours.”

Don raised an eyebrow at that and grinned. Xander’s stomach still did a fluttery butterfly thing every single time Don broke out a full smile. Xander just couldn’t seem to help how attractive he found Don’s smile lines. Both of their smiles faded as they continued to look into each other’s eyes (or eye in Xander’s case). Suddenly, there was a great deal of sexual tension at the table. Things had been fairly light hearted up to this point, now their eyes were hungry and making promises.

Xander wanted to draw out the anticipation just a little longer, so got up and excused himself to go to the restroom. However, this was calculated to get Don to look at his ass. While Xander was away Don hurriedly got up and paid for dinner. It had been too long since Xander had been in his arms and he really didn’t want to wait longer than absolutely necessary.

When Xander got back, but before he sat Don spoke up, “I’ve paid the bill. We’re going now.”

“But I’m not done with dessert! I vowed at birth never to leave sugary goodness unconsumed. You’ll simply have to wait for me to finish,” Xander calmly replied as he sat down and continued eating his ice cream. Don sat back down with a huff. Xander finished his dessert in silence, blithely ignoring how Don was sulking.

“Alright, sulking boy, lets go,” Xander smiled and offered his hand to Don.

“Hey! I wasn’t sulking. I was simply letting you finish your dessert in peace. So that you could eat quickly, without distraction,” they were heading out of the restaurant by this point, with Don’s hand at the small of Xander’s back gently propelling him along. Xander laughed at Don’s eagerness, which he easily identified with.

“You were totally sulk guy. Take this as a lesson for the future, nothing gets between me and sugary goodness.”

“Well, if it helps, you should know that I’m getting a little sweet on you,” Don said with a straight face. Xander burst out laughing, because he still loved the puns. At the same time, he got a little gooey on the inside. Don was turning out to be a surprisingly romantic man.

Chance, Part 4

Don and Xander were walking back to their car, after leaving the restaurant. They were both still making puns and laughing, essentially just being quite silly.

“Look, it is a Happy Meal Deluxe, two for the price of one,” Xander’s eyes got widened with surprised, then narrowed with menace. Only one species was capable of such cheesy lines: it had to be a vampire. Xander hadn’t seen a vampire in around three years, and was greatly surprised to see one now. Fortunately, old Sunnydale habits never died because if they did, so did you. Xander reached into his pocket and drew out his stake. It was slim, but quite pointy, Xander liked to think of it as his stealth stake.

“Look, buddy, I’m an FBI Agent and you should really turn around and walk out of this alley before you ruin my evening by forcing me to run you in. Leave now and we can both pretend that this never happened,” Xander shivered a little, Don’s in charge FBI-guy voice was seriously hot. He’d have to get Don to talk like that later in bed.

“FBI Agent, huh? I’ve never eaten one of those before. You probably have ridiculous healthy, and therefore extra yummy, blood,” Don was perplexed by this talk of eating. Cannibals weren’t something even he tended to run into with any regularity.

“You might want to listen to him. I know you can see us quite clearly. Take a long look at me, seriously, I’ll even let you take a moment to understand the mistake you made tonight,” Xander smiled widely, the wide smile he had when dealing with vampires.

The vampire was now, himself, a little confused because he knew that the man with the eye-patch wasn’t even a little bit afraid, he also smelled a little different from most humans. The general shape of the guy and the eye-patch started to ring little warning bells in his head. The guy grinned even wider. It came to the vampire in flash. This was Xander Harris. Of the original Scoobies. The man loved by the most powerful women in the world. Almost no one in the supernatural community had seen him in three years. Yet, they all knew of him. They knew that he had lost an eye battling the first and, while only human, survived.

“Oh, shit. I’m totally sorry dude, it has been a while since anyone has seen you. I didn’t recognize you right away. I should probably be on my way, but now that you know where I hunt, you’ll probably send a slayer in my direction. Which means I still get my Happy Meal Deluxe,” the vampire lunged as he finished talking.

However, he tripped halfway to Xander. Falling flat on his face, he was momentarily stunned. Xander used that moment to stake him. After the body had disintegrated into ash, now blowing in the light breeze, Don could only stand and stare.

“What the hell just happened? Why did this guy know who you are? Did you just kill what I think you killed?” Were Don’s rather sensible questions, and he got full credit from Xander for not freaking out. Then again, Xander already knew that his FBI-guy was cool under pressure.

“Um, yup, you just saw me stake a vampire. He only knew me by reputation. What my reputation is and why I have it is a long story, that I should probably tell you a little later, once the shock wears off.”

“I’m not in shock. Aren’t vampires not supposed to exist?”

“You may not feel like you are in shock, but you are. You my, dear man friend, were just introduced to the truly dark underbelly of the world. You are a smart man, think of the implications. If vampires exist, what else does? Because almost all of the horror stories are true. The world has werewolves, demons, vampires, witches, and a whole bunch of other creepy crawlies so evil that they make the worst human monsters seem like angels. You know those monstrous crimes that haunt you because you couldn’t solve them? You know how some crimes seem so inhuman that you can’t imagine the kind of person who would do such a thing? It was probably a demon or some such thing responsible. Trust me on this Don, the shock is there, even if you cope better than most. Come back to my place, where it is safe from all manner of supernatural creature-things, and you can hold me while when I start shaking from the adrenaline,” Don was galvanized when he realized that Xander’s hands were shaking a little. Don was used to the effects of adrenaline, but knew what happened when you weren’t used to it. They silently walked, holding hands, back to the car.

Dishing the Day with Dawn, Part 4

“Dawn, we may have a small problem. Or, at the very least, I got something I need to talk about with you,” it was the morning after Don and Xander’s somewhat disastrous second date, and Xander needed to get Dawn’s opinion about what had happened.

“What is it? Did something happen?” Dawn thought that Xander was looking awfully serious.

“Well, after our date last night, on the way to the car Don and I ran into a vampire.”

“What!?” this possibly was Dawn’s squeal to end all squeals. Xander swore he saw the window’s vibrate, “How did this happen? You haven’t seen a vampire in forever,” Dawn paused and thought it over for a moment, “you were meant to see this vampire weren’t you? Probably so that you would have to tell Don about the supernatural world. Oh my gods! It is true, he is totally your soul-mate. I knew it! I’m like the smartest girl in the world. I totally rule.”

“Yes, Dawn, you do rule. Now will you help think about what to do about this. I mean it is obvious that I have to tell Don something, but what do I tell? How much should I tell? I don’t want him thinking that I’m crazy insane-o guy.”

“Just give him the general intro that we give to parents of new slayers. You know, the whole ’the world is older than you know, blah, blah, blah’. You should probably also tell him about your previous involvement with slayage. You might want to give him the real skinny on your bio-dad.”

“I guess that makes sense. But I’m gonna wait to tell him about my bio-dad until he gets over the shock of vampires, demons, and the like. Don’t want to completely blow his mind, you know?” Xander was a little worried about all of this. It had been a while since he had to initiate someone into the world of the supernatural. In Africa he had decided that he was going to approach these things with more honesty, while everyone else, except Dawn, still believed in the whole secrecy thing. Xander, however, felt that the more you knew the better able you were to protect yourself and that people deserved the right to know if they wanted. It turned out that after Africa, he himself had very little contact with the supernatural world, so he sort of put it all at the back of his head. Slayer business was only a small part of his life now. So he hadn’t said anything to Don, but now it was looking like he should have said something about it before they got jumped by a vampire in an alley.

This put a small smile on Xander’s face. It seemed that no matter how grown up you thought you were, in the end you were still mostly fumbling in the dark. This meant complications, mistakes, and maybe a little light groping, if the circumstances were right. Xander knew, perhaps better than most, that life would always be a little messy, no matter how much you might want otherwise.

“Thanks, Dawn, talking with you always helps, since you make so much of the sense,” Xander smiled warmly at Dawn.

“Of course I make sense. I have always made sense and will always make sense,” Dawn proudly proclaimed.

Xander raised an eyebrow, “Um, do you forget that I knew you as a teenager? Teens never make sense. Period.”

“Xander!” Dawn smacked him on the arm, “don’t you know that you are never supposed to bring up the awkward adolescent years with someone who was also there for yours? Are you absolutely sure that you want to get into a whole ‘you were such a nerd in high school’ mud slinging match? Think very carefully before you answer,” Dawn said all of this with a very menacing glare.

“Um, no, actually I don’t even know what you are talking about, you silly girl. You have always been the brilliant and beautiful woman I see before me,” Xander quickly said, smiling in his most innocent fashion.

“That is what I thought.”

Between Brothers

Don stepped into his brother’s office with a little trepidation. He needed to talk to someone about this whole vampire thing. Charlie seemed the least likely to have him committed, so he had been elected.

“Hey, Charlie, do you have a minute?”

“Don, is there a case needing my help?” Charlie asked, since that was usually why Don stopped during the day.

“No, not with a case. I need to talk about what happened after my last date with Xander.”

“Uh, sure. As long as you aren’t about to ask or tell me about anything related to gay sex. I think that may be one of the few areas about which I’m completely ignorant,” Charlie also really, really didn’t want to know anything about Don’s sex life, with a guy or a girl.

“No! Not about that. It is just that we ran into a vampire,” Don cringed over how crazy it sounded to say aloud.

“Vampire? Really? Don, I know you didn’t come here just to jerk me around, so get on with it and stop stalling.”

“Seriously, it was a vampire. It exploded into dust after Xander staked it. He also told me that most of the legends and myths we know about are also real,” Charlie frowned at Don’s statement, because there was no twinkle in his eye. No hint of a smile. Don was being completely straight with him.

“Huh. Vampires. Really? Vampires?” Charlie’s mind couldn’t get around it. He most certainly did not believe in vampires. Except, as he never really considered, they may not require belief to exist.

“Charlie you’re repeating yourself. Yes, really. Vampires. Among other things.”

“Wow. The implications are staggering, provided you and Xander aren’t mistaken,” Don could practically see Charlie’s big brain go into hyperdrive.

“There is no mistake. I saw the thing crumble into dust. A whole human looking thing crumble into dust because someone stabbed it with a piece of wood. I don’t see how that could be anything but a vampire. What is even crazier is that the vampire recognized Xander. Xander said that it was just his reputation, but what kind of person has a reputation with vampires? I mean, I’ve noticed the small discrepancies with Xander, noticed the scars, the vague job, the fact that he got an FBI badge just by showing up, and that he carries himself not unlike a soldier. I thought he might’ve been involved in some black ops or something. I didn’t think it would be vampires,” Don realized that these unexplained things about Xander had troubled him more than he thought. He didn’t doubt that Xander was the man he represented, it was just all this stuff, below the surface, that troubled Don. He still felt confident that he knew Xander. But vampires were far different than thinking he was or is involved in some classified black ops. That he understood, vampires he didn’t.

“You had all these concerns and you never said anything?” Charlie was surprised, Don wasn’t usually the kind of guy to let things like that go.

“Well, no, because Xander is still Xander. That he was able to get an FBI badge, no matter how strange the circumstances, let me know that he was on the good side. I didn’t want to make things awkward by asking questions he couldn’t answer, since, having been on the receiving end of such questions, I now how it can kill a relationship.”

“Hey! This might actually explain Xander’s gift with probability. He told me that it was a natural talent that couldn’t be developed into a formal method, so that other’s could use it. Maybe it is a supernatural skill. If that is the case, then Xander is in some trouble. I’ve been trying to work this out for months, and now it turns out that it actually is beyond the realm of science?” Charlie was a little annoyed, he had spent too much time thinking about Xander’s gift, since finding some way to formalize it would have been immensely useful in so many ways.

“Don’t be too hard on him. I mean, how exactly do you say that not only are there vampires, but you can have magical math skills? Would we have believed him? I’m not even sure that he has magical math skills, nor even what exactly that is supposed to mean,” in saying this Don realized that he felt the same about Xander. His entire world may have changed, but there was still Xander. This handsome and exciting man that he had been dating for a few months now. A man who mad him feel safe and secure. The man with whom he always felt light-hearted and carefree. The man that he was starting to think he might want to spend the rest of his life getting to know.

Charlie and Don talked for a little while longer, but Don already felt much more at peace with the situation. Everything had changed, but he still had some constants like his family and Xander.

Bumbling, Part 3

Xander was walking around thinking about Don. Not brooding, thinking, since brooding usually happened alone and in the dark, whereas Xander was walking in the street during daylight. He hadn’t seen Don since the encounter with the vampire. They had talked a few times on the phone and while it was a little awkward, Xander knew that Don’s feelings hadn’t changed. Not only because he said so, but because of the warmth in his voice every time Xander talked to him. Don, though, still needed some time and space to think about things, to allow his world view to change.

The flashing of police lights distracted Xander from his musings. As he glanced around he noticed that Don’s SUV was there. Xander looked around because he suddenly realized that he’d been wandering aimlessly in the streets, yet somehow had ended up where Don was. Chuckling inside at the nature of chance, he prepared to continue walking when something caught his eye. There were runes painted in blood on the doorway of the building. Xander gave a big sigh since he now knew that stumbling onto this crime scene hadn’t only been born from his desire to see Don. This was a case that actually required his special brand of talents. He dug in his pocket for his FBI badge, which he had been carrying around because the novelty of it still amused him. He flashed his badge to one of the patrolmen guarding the scene and entered the building. Inside he saw a bustle of activity, people everyone doing various police-y things. He saw Don off in a corner and called out.

“Hey, Don? May I have a moment of your time?” Xander figured being super polite might help soothe any irritation Don would likely feel for him intruding into his work.

Don looked up from his conversation with Colby, completely surprised to see Xander here. His surprise was only surpassed by Colby’s. Colby, being the only other person who had met Xander didn’t know how Xander had gotten onto the crime scene, where no civilian should be.

“Xander? What are you doing here?” Don asked as he walked over to Xander.

“Um, I was just taking a walk when I saw the police lights. I also noticed the runes written in blood over the door. Which only means one thing, whatever happened here the responsible party is probably a demon,” Xander was cringing a little on the inside as he spoke, he really had wanted to give Don the time and space to process the existence of demons. Now, however, Don was going to have direct experience with them.

“Demon? Are you sure?” Don was starting to feel a little overwhelmed. Regular human crimes were occasionally almost too much for him to handle, now there were demon crimes?

“Well, give me a moment to look around at the scene and I can tell you for sure,” with this Xander began to carefully examine the room, being very sure not to disturb or touch anything. They had already covered the bodies; which was okay for now, but Xander would have to see them. Xander took note of the ritual circle drawn in blood on the floor. His nose could smell the faint odour of non-human. He noticed that there was not a single drop of blood anywhere except for the ritual markings.

“Don, could you get them to uncover the bodies? I need to take a look.” Colby by this point was a little irritated with a civilian looking over their crime scene.

“Um, Don? What exactly is he doing here?” Colby really wanted to know, as did a few other people who noticed the one-eyed guy examining their scene. Those familiar with Don’s team knew this guy wasn’t on it, yet Don wasn’t throwing one of those ‘someone from another agency is stealing my case’ tantrums.

“You’ve met Xander. Xander show everybody your badge,” Xander handed his badge over to Colby, who’s curiosity only grew, since neither Xander nor Don had mentioned that Xander worked for the FBI, “Also, I have orders straight from the Director of the FBI, Xander has the authority to take over any case he wants, but I’m hoping that he’ll only be taking an advisory role for this case,” Don said this with a little steel in his voice.

“Hey, I already told you that I don’t know anything about solving crimes. I’m not going to take over this case, but I do believe that it will benefit from my special skills and knowledge,” Xander help up his hands in supplication, while also putting on his most harmless face. He didn’t want to cause any trouble for Don, “now can someone uncover the bodies? No one’s moved them yet, have they?”

“No, no one has moved them, since we haven’t finished processing the scene,” Colby replied.

The bodies were uncovered. Xander frowned deeply when he saw the victims. It was triplets, three young women around thirteen years old. One had her eyes missing, another her hands, and the last her tongue. Their feet were still at the very centre of the ritual circle, and they created a perfect radial pattern from the centre. This confirmed to Xander that this was the work of a demon or a very evil witch.

“Okay. I’m good. Don? May I speak to you privately for a moment?” Don nodded and they went off to a corner, “you guys have pictures, right?” Don nodded again, “how long can we leave the bodies like this? I need to call some people to examine the ritual circle and the runes, it would be best if they could see the original scene.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be a problem if you can get them in within the next few hours.”

“They’ll be here shortly after I call. Don, I’m sure now, this was the work of a demon or a very evil witch. You’ll need my help to solve the case and kill the thing responsible.”

“I guess you’d be the expert. Damn! I was hoping to leave the supernatural as mostly a real, but abstract part of my world. Wait, did you say kill?” Don didn’t like the sound of that.

“Yes, this is the only possible solution. We can’t put a non-human being in jail, since they aren’t supposed to exist. Also, demons that do things like this cannot be reformed. Whatever the purpose of this ritual, it clearly wasn’t done for the betterment of humanity. Don, this,” Xander waved to the crime scene, “wasn’t only a crime; it’s also an act of war. Even if I hadn’t stumbled onto this scene, eventually the Council would have found out and they would send someone to destroy the demon. You probably won’t be able to officially solve this crime, but, if you let me help and want to keep your eyes open, you’ll at least be able to see justice done.”

Don looked Xander in the eye. He could tell that Xander was earnest. Looking over the crime scene again, at the youth and mutilation of the bodies, Don knew that he would let Xander do this his way. He already knew from the Evidence team that there wasn’t any real evidence. No fingerprints, which was understandable since a demon had done it and that demon may not even have fingers. There was no DNA evidence, which wouldn’t help anyway, even if they did find something. No one in the neighborhood had seen or heard anything. They essentially had nothing to go on. Except for the ritual circle and the runes. Which, no one could decipher. Don also trusted Xander. Xander had never lied, sure he hadn’t told Don everything the first moment they met, but there was plenty that Don hadn’t yet told Xander. In the end, it was this trust that allowed Don to make his decision.

“Okay. Make your calls. I’ll make sure that they don’t move the bodies until your people have had a chance to look it over.”

S.O.S.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Dawn. We have a problem.” Xander’s voice was rather somber.

“What is it?” Dawn was very curious, she hadn’t heard Xander be this serious in quite some time.

“I stumbled onto a crime scene. Some demons or a bad witch did a ritual that killed three girls. I need you to come down and decipher the runes. Can you also get the local Watcher affiliated magic user here? I want someone who knows the mojo to look over the scene.”

“You stumbled onto a crime scene? Where a black magic ritual occurred? How could that happen?” Dawn was completely shocked. Outside of Xander’s recent encounter with a vampire, Xander hadn’t had direct contact with the supernatural world in quite some time.

“Don was at the scene. Can you come quick? They are waiting to move the bodies.”

“I’ll be right there,” Dawn may be a little frivolous and super girly, but she knew how to get serious when it was necessary. As soon as the call ended, she was already calling the local Council affiliated witch.

Soon enough her and the witch were on their way to the crime scene. The local witch was a guy named Emerson. He had serious face, but was secretly thrilled to be working with two of the original Scoobies. Especially Xander. Xander had been out of the field long enough that some of his former exploits were becoming quasi-legendary. Dawn’s knowledge of languages was also becoming something of legend, since almost no one knew as many demon languages as she did.

When they arrived at the crime scene Xander was waiting for them. He took them past the uniformed officers and showed them the scene.

“Oh! Oh, my goodness. This ritual was definitely black. The residual magic is almost suffocating with darkness,” Emerson exclaimed as soon as the entered the place, “those runes on the door were definitely demonic. Normally runes on a door indicate a ward, but these were to trap something, seems like energy. Xander? Could you get everyone not in the know to leave the room? I need to try something.”

Xander looked at Don, who nodded, and so they ushered everyone out of the room except for the Council members and Don. Colby was deeply surprised to see Dawn here, and even more so that she got to stay while he had to leave. While Emerson was preparing to do a spell, Dawn was carefully noting all of the runes. She was pretty sure about what they said, but needed to talk to Emerson before she knew how they related to the ritual.

Emerson was finished with his preparations, though he hadn’t done anything as far as Don could tell. He reached into a small bag, which seemed to be filled with fairy dust, or some such nonsense. Muttering some incomprehensible words, he tossed the dust towards the bodies. Don was about to protest his contamination of the crime scene when the dust stopped falling. Instead, it began to slowly stream upwards to a point almost at the roof, but located at the exact center of the circle. When it reached this point the dust simply vanished.

“This is as bad as I thought it was,” Emerson said when the last of the dust disappeared.

“Yup, this was totally a ritual sacrifice to a higher demon. Which is way worse than if they had simply wanted to steal the magical energy for themselves,” Dawn agreed, “though, I might be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure that they were sacrificing for Illyria, God-king of the Primordium.”

“What? Illyria? Why would they be giving her a sacrifice? Aren’t all of her followers dead? Do you think that she is building a kingdom again, or these demons were just misguided?” Xander seemed to have a lot of questions, but Don was sure that he had more.

“Seems like the only thing to do is ask her,” Xander said decisively.

“Wait, are you telling me that you are just going to find this Illyria and ask her if she is rebuilding her demonic kingdom? It can’t be that easy,” Don’s tone was full of incredulity.

“Usually, things like this aren’t this easy but we happen to know of Illyria. It may take some time to find her, but she’ll probably talk to us,” Xander wasn’t sure about that, but it was definitely possible.

“Yeah, Illyria used to hang out with some old friends of ours. Wouldn’t exactly call her good, but she probably didn’t know about this sacrifice and she’ll probably help us kill the demons responsible,” Dawn added.

“Well, I think we are done here. Let’s go find Illyria,” Xander lead everyone out of the building and to a car, “I think that I should drive, it’ll give us the best chance of finding her.”

They got into the car and Xander drove in a seemingly aimless way. He didn’t seem to have a particular destination in mind. Don, for his part, was actually feeling a little turned on by this in-charge Xander persona. It wasn’t a side of Xander that he’d seen before, and he guessed that this was what Xander used to be like. They finally pulled into the drive of a small mansion in Beverly Hills, not quite where Don thought they would find a demon named Illyria. They climbed out of the car and Xander knocked on the door.

A slim woman with brown hair and a sweet smile opened the door.

“Half breed I will rip out your spine for your impertinence. Scum like yourself isn’t fit to breath the same air as me, much less disturb me in my home,” the sweet smile was long gone and there was nothing but an endless chill in her eyes.

Xander bowed deeply and spoke, “Illyria, God-king of the Primordium, I beg your forgiveness. I am Xander Harris, with the Watcher’s Council; I once was close allies with Angel and Spike. We seek your guidance with an FBI case.”

Illyria paused; it had been a long while since anyone had recognized her grace. She also knew of this half breed from Angel and Spike. Though, they had never mentioned that he was a half breed.

“You may enter,” she turned and walked away. The party of people entered her home. Don’s hand was itching to pull his gun. He wasn’t sure why, but this woman, or demon he supposed, set him on edge.

“What is this ‘case’ you speak of?” Illyria demanded.

“Some demons, or at least one, ritually sacrificed three girls today. The sacrifice was dedicated to you,” Xander didn’t say anything else, knowing that Illyria, since she feared nothing, would give them all the information they wanted.

“I will rip out their insides and dance on their organs! I was God to gods, and they dare believe that the muck at my feet is a worthy sacrifice? My power did increase earlier today. It seems their ritual was correct, but the sacrifice unworthy. I am already tainted with enough humanity, it chokes me. I will destroy them for adding more,” by this point Illyria was no longer holding onto the shell’s form. Her icy blue eyes disturbed Don.

“Great! We sort of figured that you would feel this way. You deserve a sacrifice worthy of your grace. Can you track them down?” Xander asked.

“Yes. I feel all those who worship me. Let us go do violence,” Illyria strode off towards the door, leaving everyone else to scramble after her.

“Emerson, can you access the weapons in Dawn’s and my apartment? The trunk is enchanted for easy access. Willow should have taught you the spell.”

Emerson was thrilled that he would be useful. He began to perform the spell. Soon enough, everyone was well equipped with weapons. Xander gave Don a crossbow, figuring that he wouldn’t know how to fight with a sword or axe, and that his aim was probably good. Xander had an axe for himself, and Dawn had a short sword. Illyria was giving directions and Xander was driving again.

Soon they arrived in the warehouse district. They got out of the car and Illyria strode towards the door. She raised her hand to knock, but instead punched the door in. Don’s eyes widened at the display of strength. He now realized why Xander had been so subservient to Illyria. It was finally driven home that evil Demons did need to be killed. He knew of no jail that would hold someone with Illyria’s strength.

Inside the warehouse, demons were already screaming. Some were begging Illyria to spare them, but as they were beneath her, the only response they got from her was their quick and painful death. Xander and Dawn were in the fray, slaying demons. Both had big smiles on their faces because it had been a really long time since either had been directly involved in slaying. Emerson was casting spells whenever he saw a demon getting close to any of the people directly fighting. Don had shot a few, but was mostly watching the battle in shock. He never thought Xander capable of the brutality that he was witnessing. Yet, he was getting very turned on. Xander was really, really hot being all warrior-like. Though, his involvement in the fight was strange. The demons who engaged him never got very close and seemed to be continuously tripping or bumping into things. It was very strange to watch.

The battle was soon over. Illyria had taken care of the majority of demons and she was covered in their guts and blood, yet her face was impassive as ever. Xander and Dawn were much cleaner and neither of them were injured. Don and Emerson were both also fine, having only been distantly involved with the battle.

“I wish to kill more demons. These were barely worth the effort of leaving my home,” and she was gone in a blue flash.

The remaining four headed back to the car and the crime scene, where their individual transportation still was.

After the Math, Part 2

Don and Xander were just finishing their shower, which was an all new high in Xander’s book of post-slayage activities. In fact, Xander thought that getting all wet and soapy with Don counted as one of his favourite things. Something about all of that steam and heat; which wasn’t only due to the water. Could also be all the rubbing that ‘accidently’ seemed to happen with two people in a not so large space. Don was watching Xander ruminate, mainly because it was accompanied by a fairly goofy grin that Don found irresistible.

“Xander, not to break our mood or anything, but I think it’s time you tell me about the Council. About all of this business with demons,” Don had adjusted, somewhat, to the idea of demons and magic, but he didn’t know why Xander was involved in all of it.

“That’s a long story. One which I’m quite happy to tell you. It’s been a long while since I’ve been so directly involved. The basic story is that I discovered the existence of vampires in high school. My best friend was turned and I had to stake him. It was a traumatic introduction to the world of the supernatural and mostly evil. One of my friends in school was the Slayer, one girl in all the world who was given the power to fight against evil. Willow, my best friend, and I quickly became involved in her fight. It became our fight. We have been fighting ever since,” Xander’s tone was full of sorrow. He didn’t regret getting involved, but it didn’t mean that he didn’t mourn the loss of innocence and sorrow over all the losses they had experienced over the years.

Don had seen the scars. It was beyond his imagination, though, to think that Xander had been fighting in a war against evil for over ten years. Don had been in the FBI for about that long, and he sometimes wondered how he continued fighting against regular human evil. He couldn’t imagine ten years of killing and fighting demons.

“I understand why you stayed in the fight. You probably wouldn’t be the man I’m starting to love if you had turned your back when faced with such evil. It just seemed like the costs were high. I mean, you are crippled for life.”

“Yeah, the costs were high and we lost some dearly loved people. What else could we, or I, do? Often we were looking at the end of the world, hell on earth, or whatever ridiculous notion the big bad of the week had cooked up. My losses are insignificant compared to the fact the world keeps going.”

Don paused. Did Xander just say the end of the world? Hell on earth? He suddenly felt awe towards the man before him. Don couldn’t imagine the pressure of having to save the whole world, sometimes he felt that the pressure to save only one person would break him. Don walked over and kissed Xander deeply.

“All right, stop distracting me!” Xander pushed Don away, “you wanted to know about the council? They, we, are essentially the group responsible for fighting demonic or supernatural threats to humans. When we started in Sunnydale, which was located on a Hellmouth - our closing it is what caused the collapse, it was only a small group of us. The events that shutdown the Hellmouth changed the nature of the battle, there used to be only one slayer, now there are hundreds. The Council is responsible for coordinating the efforts of the Good against the Bad. I suppose one way to look at it is, is that I was once a soldier and now I’m a general. Of course, I don’t lead battles or whatever anymore, but I do help with the logistics of the fighting, you know, who goes where with what weapons. Now I’m ready for kisses,” Xander leaned back into Don.

Don, this time, was the one to pull away, “One last thing is troubling me about tonight. Why did Illyria call you a half-breed?”

Xander sighed deeply, “Damn you and your FBI guy observation skills. I was hoping to save this talk for another day. I’m half demon. Remember me mentioning that the man who raised me wasn’t my bio-dad? Turns out that my mother was impregnated by a demon. Which makes me half demon. We haven’t been able to identify the exact demon who fathered me, but we do know in general what he was.”

“And? What was he?” Don was really hoping that Xander wasn’t going to turn out to be evil.

“We’re mostly guessing based off of the ability I inherited. First let me tell you a little background about demons. We call the demons like Illyria, or the ones we killed tonight, chaos demons. There are also the demons we encounter most often, either by their children or by their actual presence, usually doing something evil. On the other side are balance demons, which are rarely encountered in this dimension. Whatever it is that they do, they tend not to do it in any obvious way to us. I used to be the butt of jokes in Sunnydale because of my terrible luck. In a fight, I was always the first person knocked out or I was the first person targeted by creepy demons who wanted to mate. All this bad luck was due to the influence of the Hellmouth on my demon inherited ability.

My inheritance is simply good luck, so we figure that my bio-demon dad was balance demon of good fortune or something. Another way to look at it is that the only reason I survived Sunnydale was the constant presence of my power. Some of the situations I survived was only by luck, since as my ex-fiancé’s troll ex-boyfriend once said I’m ’ludicrous and far too breakable’,” it took Don a moment to process the fact that Xander was once engaged to a woman who had dated trolls, he opened his mouth but then decided that he actually didn’t want to know, “it was only after I left the Hellmouth that my power was able to do more than just keep me breathing. This is why Africa went so well. It’s also why I haven’t been in the field; my good fortune simply doesn’t let me encounter evil any longer. I got sidelined from patrolling because my slayers were frustrated by never finding anything to slay.”

“Wait, you said that you never run into evil anymore because of your good fortune, why did we run into a vampire the other night?”

“I think chance was giving me a kick in the ass. I was a little afraid to tell all of this to you, because I didn’t want you to think I was crazy and since my luck won’t allow me to encounter demons or vampires, I wouldn’t have been able to prove any of this to you. Thus, chance stepped in. We weren’t in any danger, though.”

Don remembered how the vampire tripped when he lunged for Xander. He suddenly realized how odd that actually must be, this was a vampire! Granted he didn’t know much about real vampires, but he kinda figured that clumsy wasn’t really part of the undead package. All lot of things were beginning to make sense to Don; the coincidences with Xander that seemed random but were too convenient.

“Have you been manipulating chance to get me to fall in love with you?” Don was now more than a little suspicious.

“No, I don’t have any real control over it. Sometimes, I can set my will to a certain goal and the goal will be accomplished, like how I found Illyria today. But it’s more like that chance favours me. In the sense that it was always possible that if we met, and given time, we would fall in love. So chance gave us the opportunity, but we are the ones who wanted this to happen. When you needed me, chance led me to your SUV. We both wanted to meet someone special, and due to my gift, we met the person most likely to make us happy. The point to chance is that it can give us the things we need, but in unexpected ways. I mean, did you ever think that your ‘someone special’ would be a man? Are you even gay?”

Don thought it over. No, he wasn’t necessarily gay. He had never pursued a man before because none had attracted him. He also wasn’t against the idea of being with a man; it just never really had crossed his mind before. Then he saw Xander, and wanted him. He had done the chasing, Don now realized.

“See? Chance just removed the obstacles in the way and provided the opportunity, but we are the ones who chose to travel the path,” Xander beamed at Don, because it was true. He had chosen Don, just as Don had chosen him.

A Date with Don, Part 3

While Xander knew that things were okay between him and Don, he was still a little nervous. This was their first date since the big night of revelations. Xander had given Don some space to think everything over and to assimilate his new knowledge of the world. Xander was anxious to see Don, mostly to see if, now that there had been time for it to sink in, whether or not Don would care that Xander was only half human. He only hoped that because his half-demon side was on the good one, that it would help Don accept him.

At the knock on his door, Xander’s heart started beating in triple time. Almost as soon as the door was open, however, Don’s arms were around him. They stood there, hugging in the doorway for a few long, and very delicious, moments.

“I missed you,” Don whispered, “I appreciate that you gave me some space. I needed it. But it seems my space feels a little empty without you.”

Xander’s heart melted a little at Don’s words (oh, who was he kidding? It melted a whole lot). They both were startled by a huge dreamy sigh from the living room. Dawn, of course, had been shamelessly watching them the entire time. They both turned to her and all she did was smile innocently at them. Shaking their heads, they decided that now would be a good time to get started on their date.

“So…where are we going tonight?” Xander asked with no small amount of curiosity.

“Well, I figured we could go watch a bad movie and neck in the theatre. But then I thought that this might be a little too juvenile for a man like yourself so I think we’ll just go for dinner, maybe some drinks or dancing. Sound good?”

“Not really. I think you are vastly over-rating my maturity. I may have grown up and become a real boy, but I’m definitely not above making out in a movie theatre,” Xander declared, it was no contest whether he wanted to have dinner or make out with Don. Making out with Don would win every time.

In the end, it turned out that they did very little making out in the theatre. They somehow ended up seeing a good movie, even though they had tried to pick something bad. Instead they simply did a lot of cuddling; which, in a lot of ways, was what they both really needed.

The night continued in a similar fashion. It wasn’t that they had stopped being attracted to each other, but more that their small time apart, along with the emotional roller coaster of their past few meetings made them both want to just simply feel close to the other.

After the movie, they ended up on Don’s couch for some more cuddling (though, this time it was naked cuddling). There was no definite line they crossed when they went from cuddling to making love. In Xander’s experience, sex had never been like this. Certainly not with Faith and with Anya it had always been very passionate (and orgasm oriented). This time with Don, though, was very different. They would start, then stop to cuddle some more. Everything was gentle, slow, and caring. Don all the while would murmur little endearments in Xander’s ear and Xander would giggle occasionally (because, for him, fun equaled laughing).

The Dread Curiosity of Eppes Returns!

Now that it was a new semester Xander didn’t have a standing appointment with Charlie, but he did have one today. He hadn’t seen Charlie since Don had discussed the existence of vampires with him. Charlie, in the meantime, had spent some serious time thinking about Xander’s gift and the possible implications.

Xander knew he was in trouble the moment he saw the big smile that Charlie was wearing when he entered the office. Don had mentioned his discussion with his brother, and while Xander had said that the Council’s business should remain that way, he was okay with Charlie knowing about the supernatural world (Xander actually felt that everyone should know, since the more you know the safer you are).

“Xander, it’s been a while since we last met. Now, Don has told me about the vampires and a little about the supernatural world. From this and our previous discussion of fate, I have inferred that your gift with probability is related somehow. What is the relation?” Xander could tell from the look on Charlie’s face that he would not be able to avoid this conversation.

“Well, you see, my bio-dad was an upper level balance demon of good fortune. I inherited a low level gift of good luck from him. However, because he is a demon related fate, I have some innate skill with probability. I am not as good as a seer or anything, and you know my gift works best with a lot of data, but I can tap into the general framework of destiny with math. This is why I’ve been working so hard with probability. There is an order to the universe and math can be used to express that order,” Xander hoped that Charlie would find his explanation satisfactory.

“Yes, I suppose that makes sense,” since Charlie did believe that math was capable of expressing the order of the universe, “however, you told me before that your gift relates to free will, how exactly can that be if your gift relates to fate or destiny?”

Xander should have known better than to think that Charlie would have missed the glaring contradiction of his gift. The problem was that Xander didn’t know how to answer that question, since he didn’t really understand all of this metaphysical mumbo-jumbo himself. Willow had tried to explain it once, but Xander was pretty sure that she had been speaking German, which explained why he hadn’t understood a word of her explanation.

“Um…I don’t know?” Xander gulped as Charlie frowned at his answer.

“Really? Perhaps we should discover how your gift truly works fortunately I’ve designed a series of tests. This time, though, you will be taking all of them. I haven’t forgotten how you ‘forgot’ to mention that you were dating my brother,” Charlie’s voice was quite stern by the time he finished speaking.

Xander, because he was feeling a little guilty about not saying anything, acquiesced. Charlie handed him the first test, which was a series of probability equations. They were hard and the test was long. All in all a very grueling experience. As soon as he finished Charlie handed him another test, this one harder and longer. This went on for what felt like an eternity. Xander knew, deep down inside, that he had actually woken up in a hell dimension this morning and that Charlie was the devil.

Many, many hours later the tests were finally finished. Xander was exhausted, hungry, and really needed to go to the washroom. Charlie had refused to let him out of his sight, afraid that Xander would make a run for it.

“You may use the washroom while I look over your results. Be back in five minutes. Do not make me come looking for you,” Charlie did not look up as he spoke. Xander, who now knew that Charlie was capable of emotional blackmail and torture, took his words to heart and returned in less than five minutes.

“Good, you’re back. Now about these tests. I can definitively state that your gift is relates only to humans or perhaps other beings capable of making decisions or free will. Some of the probabilities on the tests related to animals, mating patterns, migration, population, that sort of thing. With these questions you answered what you could but provided no additional data. All of the human related problems, however, did receive data that improved the accuracy of the probabilities. The contradictory nature of your power is quite curious. It seems likely that we are missing some key detail that would resolve this contradiction. It seems that we’ll have to continue our investigation, which will involve more testing. Come back next week,” Charlie was smiling because there was little he loved more than a math puzzle. Xander, on the other hand, sighed deeply.

Balance indeed! He grumped inside of his head. It seemed to have the good brother he had to deal with the very evil brother. It may not be the kind of evil that wants to destroy the world and enslave humanity, but anyone who loved math that much had to be evil.

Chance, Part 5

Xander was dejectedly making his way home when he decided that the only cure for the evil math blues was ice cream. It was a temporary fix, but one that he desperately needed. A thought crossed his mind, causing him to shudder in horror. What if there was no rational explanation for how his gift worked? Xander knew that things like magic simply defied any rational ability to explain them. Would this mean that he had an endless amount of testing by Charlie to look forward to? Xander began to doubt that he had actually inherited good luck from his bio-demon dad. There was no interpretation of good luck that entailed endless testing by a curious math genius. No interpretation at all.

“Hey, there, little boy. Looking for something sweet?” Don had been driving by when he saw Xander making his way to the ice cream shop looking like someone had just kicked his puppy. He was deeply amused by the picture of absolute desolation that Xander was presenting.

Xander’s head shot up at the voice of his lover. Indeed, this was quite possibly the only thing better than chocolate and ice cream (or chocolate ice cream). A broad smile slowly started to light up his face and erase his look of desolation. It started with a slight curling of his lips and grew until it was the wide Xander smile that made Don’s heart skip a beat.

“Why, yes, kind stranger, I am looking for something sweet. Would you perchance know where I could acquire a sugar stick?” Xander’s eye was wide, trusting, and looking as innocent as a new born infant. Don couldn’t contain himself anymore, and burst out laughing.

“Did you really just say ‘sugar stick’? Is there even such a thing?”

“I’m not sure perhaps we should go back to my place and find out. We’ll each give it a test lick to see how sweet it may be,” something salacious crept into Xander’s look of innocence. The contrast only made Don laugh harder.

Xander gave up the game because the sight of Don laughing was filling him with joy. Xander had always believed in laughter, humour perhaps being his best weapon. He loved to laugh and loved making other people laugh. It was one of the few things that had always brought him joy, even throughout years of fighting against evil. Just now, laughing with Don, Xander thought of all the laughing they had done together and realized that the sprout of love he noticed on New Year’s Day had blossomed. His smile became impossibly wider.

Don stopped laughing when he noticed the look of pure joy that Xander had on his face. It was the first time since they had met that the somewhat serious and solemn man had looked truly happy.

“Don, I love you,” soon Don’s face mirrored the joy on Xander’s. Unable to stop smiling they shared a somewhat awkward and sloppy kiss.

“And I love you.”

The Red String of Fate

Xander was musing on the vagaries of fate. He recalled an old Chinese myth about the ‘Red String of Fate’ that he had come across when he had just begun to research his bio-dad and his demonic gift. The myth was that the gods tied a red string around the ankles of destined lovers. This destiny transcended time, place, and circumstance. In a lot of ways this seemed to describe his and Don’s situation. Neither had seriously considered spending their life with another man, yet here they were, in love and looking forward to a future together.

He still didn’t believe in soul mates, finding the idea absurd and juvenile. Buffy had thought that Angel was her soul mate, a vampire whose soul was more slippery than an eel. In some ways, Xander didn’t really believe in destiny. He’d broken a prophecy, after all.

Chance, however, he did believe in. It was quite clear to him that random things happened all the time. That chance brought change, for good or ill. This is what he considered good or bad luck. Good luck equaled good changes and bad luck equaled bad changes.

In considering all of the unexpected, but unbelievably good, changes his life had undergone since leaving the Hellmouth. He had actually worked out the probability that he would end up with Don. They were almost infinitesimally small. With his gift for probability, Xander knew that given similar circumstances, he would choose Don every time. Perhaps that is what they meant by being destined lovers.

Xander didn’t really care for all that, though, and simply thanked his good fortune.

Etchings

Colby was a little jittery on they way to Dawn’s place. Being invited to see etchings could only mean one thing and it had been far too long since he had had the opportunity to do that one thing. He found himself incapable of saying no, even though Dawn was much younger than him. At least she was an adult, right? Wait, just how old is she?

“Ugh, Dawn, I know a girl usually doesn’t like to be asked her age, but how old are you, exactly?” He gulped, when she smiled mysteriously and winked at him.

“Afraid of spoiling my innocence, Agent Granger?” Dawn quirked an eyebrow and gleefully watched Colby squirm.

“No, its not that, I just, um, want to make sure that Xander isn’t gonna kick my ass over this.”

“Over what, exactly, seeing my etchings? I’m sure he’ll understand. But, if it makes you feel better, you aren’t going to be breaking any laws,” the mysterious smile remained and it Colby did not feel even the slightest bit comforted. Soon enough, they were pulling into the parking lot of Xander and Dawn’s apartment.

Dawn led the way up the stairs and Colby’s fingers twitched at the sight of her ass as she climbed. He wondered if the elevator was broken, since Dawn lived on the fifth floor. When the reached her floor, he heard the distant ding of the elevator. Dawn only turned slightly to him with a smile so lecherous he was both aroused and disconcerted at the sight of it on her pretty, but very young, face.

“This my floor. Sorry about the stairs, but I find that it helps keep me in shape. I figured you’re a big, strapping guy who wouldn’t mind a little physical exertion,” again that smile and Colby suddenly wished that he had worn boxers that day.

As the entered the apartment, he noticed that Dawn ushered him in without an invite. Suddenly finding himself seated on the couch with a cold beer in his hand, he wondered if he was blacking out. Was everything moving really quickly? Was he slow?

“Here are the etchings, enjoy. I’ll be right back,” Dawn said as she planted a large artist’s portfolio is lap. He cautiously opened it and, lo and behold, it was filled with etchings. But the etchings were strange, full of devils and demons. People with agonized faces were everywhere. Colby was deeply confused. She really wanted him to look at etchings?

He heard a throat clear and looked up. Suddenly he was breathing heavily and feeling slightly panicked. Dawn was standing in her bedroom doorway wearing nothing but a few lacy scraps of what could only be generously called ‘underwear.’ She started walking backwards into the room and he was suddenly in front of her, pulling her close.