Kin of the Soul

[lit_gal]

Once upon a time there was Kin of the Heart where Angel and Xander learned to be friends. Now we're working towards something entirely different.

Kin of the Soul
Slash: Angel/Xander, Angel/Spike
Rated: ADULT
banner by objectivelypink

Enough is enough.  It's time for Xander and Angel to sit down and talk about the very large, very pink elephant in the room. And now that the rest of the clan has made its views clear, it's time for everyone else to get out of the way.

( Part One ) ( Part Two ) ( Part Three ) ( Part Four ) ( Part Five ) ( Part Six ) ( Part Seven ) ( Part Eight ) ( Part Nine ) ( Part Ten ) ( Part Eleven ) ( Part Twelve ) ( Part Thirteen ) ( Part Fourteen ) ( Part Fifteen )

"Whoa. Oh man, did a wire demon attack?" Blair called. Xander pulled his head out of the ceiling and looked down at Blair who stood at the foot of the ladder.

"Please tell me that you're joking about there being a wire demon," Xander begged. He had enough trouble trying to deal with wires without wire demons.

"He'd better be!" Graham called from his spot behind the stove. He was pulling wire while Xander was trying to get it to go where it was supposed to go in the ceiling.

"Totally. I think," Blair answered. "Oh hey, you were the guy Faith.... Wow, there's really no good way to put that, is there?" Blair sounded friendly enough as he held a hand out, and Graham reached over the stove to shake it.

"The guy Faith slept with two seconds before Spike kicked his ass?" Graham filled in. "Yep, that's me."

"Has Spike seen you?" Blair asked, and from the tone, he was expecting bad, bad things.

"Seen me, threatened me, and wandered off," Graham agreed. "I used to think the Rangers had some serious hazing issues, but Spike does take in-group behaviors to a whole new level."

Blair laughed. "Totally. You have no clue. Demons make sorority girls looked like amateurs when it comes to cliques. So, did you just come over to help install the stove?" Blair sounded like a big old doubter on that front.

Xander dropped his pliers into the bucket he'd tied to the side of his ladder. "Oh no, Riley sent him over to change teams." Xander realized that he'd phrased that badly when Blair choked on a half-laugh and Graham's mouth fell open. "And I am not talking about Faith or sexual teams, not that Faith is on a particular sexual team. Shit." Xander rolled his eyes at himself. One day, he'd grow up and learn to use his mouth for something other than self-humiliation.

"Riley suggested I would be a good liaison officer," Graham said, saving Xander from his own verbal diarrhea.

Blair looked from Xander to Graham with more than a little concern. "Um, you do know that you're going to have to give your loyalty to Angel, right? I mean, the military is totally into following orders, but you are not going to get to follow their orders and live in Angel's house." Blair frowned. "Okay, you might get away with it for a while because Angel is like..." Blair whistled to show the size of that problem.

"A giant stick-up-his-butt, church-going idiot?" Xander filled in for Blair. The look Blair gave him was full of sympathy and maybe a little concern.

"I don't think I'd put it exactly like that," Blair said slowly.

"Oh, I would," Xander said. "I could think of a few more words, but I'm not entirely sure I'm using them right, so I would need to check with a dictionary first." Xander realized he was probably going into way more than he wanted to go into. Graham was basically a stranger, and yeah, Blair was family, but he was like cousin family, and Angel-bashing was more something he did with Spike. "And you've been missing. Where were you?" He quickly changed the topic.

Blair got a wild-eyed look. "Oh man, it was crazy. It turns out Doyle's wife was getting remarried, but the new hubby's family wanted to engage in a little ritual eating of the brains. I mean, I know Samoans consider a few pig brains a real delicacy, but this was a little out there." Blair leaned back against the kitchen table and gave an exaggerated shudder.

Xander came down a couple of steps on the ladder. "Is he okay?"

"Oh yeah. His ex is more than able to verbally eviscerate any and all demons. The wedding is off, and Doyle actually went running after her."

"After her as in..." Xander looked at Blair hopefully. Whenever Doyle came around, Angel got all weird and stressed. It wasn't fair to Doyle, but sometimes Xander really wished he would just stop coming around.

"After her as in he's dealt with some of his issues. He's going to try and get back with her." Blair smile. "Man, he is still totally in love with her. Maybe now that he hates himself a little less, he can make it work this time around."

"Doyle hated himself?" Xander frowned. Doyle never seemed like he was into the self-hate.

"Totally," Blair agreed with a sigh. "He didn't know he was a demon until he was a teenager. I mean, sometimes Naomi did some pretty questionable things, mom-wise, but she never lied like that. And she knew I wasn't going to pop out green and spiky. So, it's not like I would have caught her in that lie. But she never played those mind games. I seriously need to thank her for teaching me to be okay with my demonic side."

"You're a demon?" Graham sounded shocked, and it occurred to Xander that there were lots of things the Sunnydale group and the LA group had stopped talking to each other about a long time ago.

"Only about this much," Blair said holding up two fingers with about an inch between them. "But man, my grandparents were orthodox Jews, so that was enough for them to order my mom to have an abortion. And then, after I was born, they were ready to try a retroactive abortion."

"But if they were orthodox Jews, surely they didn't approve of abortion," Graham said.  Xander rolled his eyes because the last thing they needed around here was one more person ready, willing, and able to talk religion.  There was already too much going on, as far as he was concerned.

Blair shrugged.  "Different rabbis will give you different stories, but the Halakhah has the protection of life as one of the first rules. Since a baby in the womb is only potential life, protecting the mother's actual life takes precedence.  However, being that I had a demonic father, my grandparents' rabbi decided I wasn't even potential life.  And man, that was so not cool.  But hey, it's not like I'm the only one with family issues." Blair shrugged like it wasn't any big deal. "I'm just glad Doyle is finally dealing with the fact he has issues and he's trying to embrace the inner demon."

"So his wife is okay with the demony?" Xander flinched. "And of course she is-she was marrying another demon."

Blair laughed. "Harry's an ethno-demonologist. I mean, whoa. You have to love a woman who challenges gender stereotypes and creates a new anthropological field. Man, if Doyle strikes out, I am so going for it." Blair thrust a fist out to show just how much he was going to go for it.

"Just as long as Doyle doesn't end up back here, I'll wish him bad luck so you can give it your best shot." Xander brushed the ceiling dust off and headed for the refrigerator.

"Bad blood?" Graham asked. The stove screeched against the floor as Graham pushed it out a little more to give himself room to escape the cramped and greasy space. Yep, Graham had the shitty half of this job.

"No, not really. Angel just gets stick up his butt over Doyle," Xander said with a shrug. He held up a soda, silently offering one to Graham, who held up his hand to catch one.

Blair snorted. "Angel has too many people telling him the right thing to do. But I think Doyle is taking the Powers that Be out of the equation."

"Oh?" Xander gave Blair all his attention at that little piece of information.

"Oh yeah." Blair didn't sound sorry at all. "Doyle thinks the Powers are punishing him because his visions are turning vague and coming far less often. In other words, they're turning into normal visions. Man, if someone rewarded me with migraines, I would be totally okay with some punishment." Blair pulled out a kitchen chair, but instead of sitting on it, he sat on the table and put his foot on the chair.

"Visions?" Graham asked, sounding like a big doubter-boy. "Real visions?"

"Several demons do the vision thing. My cousin claims to get them all the time," Blair nodded. "Of course, I'm fairly sure my cousin is lying through his teeth, or at least obfuscating through his teeth, but Doyle had the real deal."

"And now he doesn't?" Xander wasn't sure what to think of that.

Blair shrugged. "He's still a fatidic demon, so he'll get the visions, but I don't think the Powers are supercharging them anymore. D'fatum demons believe that if you slip out of your fate, sometimes you physically change... you'll lose a lot of weight or your eye color will change or your powers either get stronger or weaker. Whistler would probably insist that it was some sort of warning."

"What do you think?" Xander wasn't a great Doyle fan, mostly because Doyle did bring out the unhappy in Angel, but he didn't want the guy to get screwed over.

"I think people have a right to make their own lives," Blair said firmly. "If he loves Harry, he should try to make the best life he can for himself, and all this following fate stuff is... I mean... Okay, so there's a pattern to the universe, a certain karmic justice, but that does not mean you have to be the flotsam and jetsam getting shoved around. You know?"

Xander shrugged as he thought about the way his life had been going lately. "I'm feeling pretty flotsamy."

Blair looked at him with all this worry, kinda like when Xander had told his mother he was moving to the "big city." Of course, he was a little worried about himself, truth be told. It was pretty easy to ignore the fact he was head over heels in love with Angel when he was firmly in denial. Now, he had to admit that his guts were twisting around at the thought that Angel didn't want a relationship. It was like when he was trying to get up the nerve to ask Kendra out. Other than Kendra, all his relationships sort of fell on him without much effort, and now Xander wasn't sure how he was supposed to deal with these feelings or do the chasing in the relationship.

"I hear you," Blair finally offered softly. Xander wanted to change the topic, but as he watched Graham wiping his hands on a towel and looking anywhere other than Xander, he realized that he couldn't think of any topic other than Angel. How had his good mood managed to vanish so totally?

"Xander!" Cordelia screeched from the front room. "Get out here and deal with this because I'm not doing it." Xander jumped when Cordelia slammed the kitchen door open. "I do not clean floors!"

Xander opened his mouth to answer, but he couldn't find words before she went through the kitchen and stormed out into the back courtyard.

"Whoa. So not going after her." Blair whispered with exaggerated horror.

"And that would be why Spike is the only person not scared to ask her out," Xander agreed. He eyed the door out to the lobby wondered what had been bad enough to set her off like that.

"But I thought you dated her," Graham said, sounding confused. Then again, if he was going to hang around for long, he'd better get used to being confused.

"But I was not the one doing asking. She just kinda announced she was claiming me one day," Xander said with a shrug. "Which is one more thing you'll be getting used to if you hang around here. But right now, I really think I should probably see what major structural damage has been done. Blair can entertain you with stories about tree houses, right, Blair?" Xander turned his best puppy eyes on Blair. He liked Graham, but that didn't mean he trusted him if one of their slimier guests had gone and done something particularly slimy. Soldiers and slime were probably not the best mix, and killing hotel guests was really not cool if they wanted to make the business work.

"Kombai Tree people," Blair muttered, but Xander was creeping out the door and trying to figure out whether the slimy was still actively sliming things. Cordy would never put him in danger, but she had no problem putting him in the path of extreme ick. The lobby seemed quiet as Xander crept out of the back hall. Sure enough, there was a serious trail of something that looked suspiciously like bits of innards.

"Okay, that's just gross," Xander said as he looked at a clump of something that looked like green liver.

"I didn't mean- I'll clean that up."

Xander looked up, and Angel was standing near the weapons cage with a shredded shirt and bits of glop still clinging to him. Oh yeah, Angel had two ways of dealing with stress-brooding and slaying. Xander didn't have to guess about which one he'd picked today.

"Is that anyone we knew?" Xander asked as he looked at the slime trail.

Angel looked back at the mess he'd made and finished wiping the last of the ick off the sword before putting it back into place. "Hacksaw demon was trying to set up shop. Had a few henchmen around to protect it."

From the amount of gore and Angel's injuries, Xander was guessing that it had more than a few henchmen... either that or hacksaw demons were seriously bad bad-asses. Xander just watched as Angel locked up the weapons and then turned to look at him with that constipated expression that meant that Angel needed to go brood or go kill more. Xander was guessing that Angel had come home for a shower, a few mugs of blood and a new weapon before he went out again. Angel was sadly predictable.

"So, are we going to talk?" Xander asked.

"About the fact that you let Spike fuck you?" Angel asked with uncommon crudeness. Oh yeah, he had his head way up his butt tonight.

"For one," Xander said sweetly, refusing to answer crude with crude. It used to annoy the life out of him when Willow did that-when she totally ignored the ways he tried to piss her off. It obviously had a similar effect on Angel because he clenched his jaw until the muscle went all bulgy. "And then there's the part where you think you have a right to tell me what's right and what's wrong," Xander added as he crossed the lobby to stand not more than six feet from Angel. He would have gotten closer only the smell was a little totally disgusting. No wonder Cordy had run for the hills.

"I'm just concerned about your choices." Angel could barely get the words out with his jaw clenched so tight.

Xander sighed. This would be so much easier if Angel was trying to be an idiot, but he was just being his normal Angel self. "When I'm doing wrong, I know it," Xander pointed out. "And last night was not feeling wrong. It pretty much felt..." Xander stopped when he spotted the look on Angel's face. "If felt like something we're never going to discuss or bring up again," Xander cleared his throat and tried to not notice that Angel was looking homicidal. Hopefully Spike planned to be scarce for a while because it was not looking healthy for him right now.

"I don't have to approve of your choices," Angel said, his voice pretty much making it clear that he was lying through his teeth. He desperately wanted to have the right to approve or disapprove, and that wasn't all that surprising considering he was a demon, even when he was trying really, really hard to not be one.

"Good, because I'm in the right here."

"Father Peter-" Angel started to say, but Xander cut him off before he could go any farther with that.

"Okay, can we please have one conversation without Father Peter? I'm really starting to regret dragging you into that church, and the irony of this whole conversation? So not lost on me. But when I dragged you in there, I wanted you to talk to someone, not open your brain and let someone else set up camp in there." Xander could hear himself start to shout, but Angel and Father Peter were going through his last nerve. He was either going to shout or shoot Angel somewhere really painful. Maybe both.

"I haven't-"

"Oh yes, you have. Father Peter says.... Father Peter says...." Xander said in his snottiest voice. Then he took a deep breath and tried to reclaim some sort of calm. Otherwise he was going to be down to calling Angel poop names at this rate. "Angel, at one point, you were the champion of 'homosexual is normal,' remember?"

For a second, Angel just stared at him, like he couldn't keep up with all the emotions spilling out. Normally, Xander would be the first to wade in and try and explain things and reassure Angel, but this time, he just let Angel flail. Eventually he nodded. "You thought being homosexual was weak."

"And clearly I have more trouble with the logic than the knowing right from wrong. After seeing you and Spike, I can safely say that homosexuals are allowed to be kick-ass scary." Xander backed up until he could sit on the round couch. Honest. He definitely needed to share some honesty here. He glanced up, and Angel looked more freaked out now than ever. Xander ignored the little part of him that felt guilty because it would be so dang easy to just let Angel off the hook. Stupid, but easy. They could go back to ignoring their feelings, except Xander had never really been one for self-deception. Stupidity and blindness, sure, but self-deception reminded him of his father, and that was not a path he wanted to walk.

Xander leaned forward. "Angel, as much as I was terrified of being called gay because gay and in high school is a very unsafe place to be, I never thought being gay was hell-bound freaky evil. I've seen evil. Gay is not it... unless you're talking Spike, and his evil isn't really coming from any gayness he might have."

"Xander...." Xander waited for something more, but Angel stopped there. He stopped and sighed and stared at Xander with demon goo dripping from his shirt.

"Okay, lay off the heavy sighs for lent or something," Xander suggested. "Look, I know when I'm doing wrong. Like that first night when you walked me home and I called you a pedophile-that was wrong."

Angel took several fast steps forward, but he stopped short of sitting next to Xander, which was probably good for the upholstery. "You were completely ethical that night. Even if Blair's right that my attraction wasn't technically pedophilia, you were right that I was out of line."

"Well, yeah, you were so totally out of line. I mean, you're two hundred and something, and you didn't even give her a chance to grow up and find herself before you're sweeping in like Errol Finn."

"Flynn."

"Unpointlike, Angel." Xander glared up, but Angel was too busy looking everywhere else to notice. "My point is that yeah, you were being a little stalker-creepy, and if I had come up to you because I was bothered by your stalker-creepiness, I would have been totally on the side of doing good. I didn't. I would have staked you if I thought I could get away with it, but I settled for making you miserable because I was angry."

Angel's gaze snapped to him, and his mouth opened, but Xander rushed on before Angel could interrupt. "Buffy got to keep her vampire boyfriend, but I had to lose my vampire best friend. I couldn't get the memory of Jesse out of my head, and it was like if I couldn't have my friend, no one else could, either."

"Xander." This time, Angel did sit down, goo and all. For a second, his hand hovered over Xander's knee like he couldn't decide whether or not he was allowed to touch. But then he rested his palm against Xander's thigh. "I wish I could have saved you from that memory."

Xander shrugged. It was an old memory and a dull pain, although it never totally vanished. "Even when I was torturing you because I wanted to torture you, as opposed to later when I discovered it was kinda fun to torture you, I knew I was wrong," he admitted. "I told myself to stop. I would tell myself that it was no different than if my dad died, and so I decided to kill everyone else's dad... or torture everyone else's dad by showing up at their apartment and calling them names when they were too tongue-tied to defend themselves. And I think I lost my point in there somewhere."

"No, I think you made it," Angel said softly.

"Good because I'm way better with pithy comebacks than long speeches." Xander stopped and for a second, the hotel was freaky quiet. No guest bellowing, no Cordelia heels clicking over the tile, no Spike with his weird Britishisms shouted across the lobby. Xander gave a small smile at the evidence that their family was trying to give them space. "You know," he admitted, "that's actually why I pointed you at a priest-because I'm not good with the talking about right and wrong. I just know when I'm doing it."

The heavy silence returned. Even Angel's hand on Xander's leg was inhumanly still, and that silence seemed to soak into Xander's bones, making him almost afraid to move. It was like there was an abyss, and if someone shouted the wrong word, they'd all slide into it. When Angel spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper. "And if the priest you pointed me at tells me that this is a sin that puts your soul in danger?"

"No offense, Angel, because I know you really love your new, shiny religion, but these are people who thought eating hamburgers on Friday pissed God off. I've seen people-eating vampire and demons and girls brought back from the dead after being sacrificed to false gods. I've seen demons rebuild themselves out of computer parts and a giant snake try to eat the world. I've seen lots and lots of wrong, and I don't think God really cares about our cholesterol. "

Angel's expression had softened now-he almost had a smile on. "That's not a rule now."

"And again, not pointlike. My point is that the church has been wrong, which means the church probably is wrong on something now. The church is made of people, and people are really good at being wrong."

"Except you? You always know right from wrong?" Angel's voice might be soft, but Xander could hear the challenge in there. He rolled his eyes because Angel was so very good at getting everything wrong.

"Okay, I am officially not even close to perfect. I am way with the wrong, way too often. My head will be saying things like, 'Faith sex bad,' and my pants pretty much veto me." Xander gave Angel a sheepish grin. "My head says that after a hundred years of eating rats, you've probably earned a little rest, and yet, I kept showing up at your apartment with the sharp jab. My hate for all things vampire was definitely vetoing any thoughts of doing the right thing. My point is that I do lots of bad, but I generally know when I'm being bad."

"I want to believe you."

"And yet I'm hearing a really big 'but' in there."

Angel's gaze slipped away from Xander. He almost reached up and pulled Angel's face around, forcing Angel to look at him, but the gesture was way more intimate than Xander wanted-not until he knew he wouldn't get pushed away. "I want to believe you so much, that I'm afraid I'm lying to myself." Angel still kept staring at the wall like he expected to find the meaning of life in magical ink. "You may be good and listening to your own moral compass, but from the time I was old enough to resent my father, I lost all ability to see right and wrong. It does suggest that my father might not have been wrong about my eventual damnation."

Xander laughed-he couldn't help it. Yep, give Angel half a chance, and he really would make it all about him. Xander adored the guy, but neither one of them were in any danger of perfection. "You have guilt to an artform. Put that guilt on canvas, and we so do not have to take in boarders anymore." Xander slapped Angel's slimy leg. He then stared unhappily at the goo left smeared against his palm.

Angel sighed and looked at him.

" Oh, get off the martyr horse, Angel. So you're a big old screw up. You're kinda in a family of screw ups. And for the record... I don't know anyone who isn't a screw up. Willow's parents loved the stuffing out of her, and yet they screwed her around so backwards that she's terrified of making one mistake. Buffy's father loved her, and yet he did the big vanishing act. Faith... and I'm not even going there. There's so much screwing up going on there that I can't keep it all straight. But my point is that no one wants to screw up. We just do. I staked Jesse. I loved him like a brother, and I didn't mean to, but I did."

"You had no choice," Angel hurried to reassure him.

Xander just shook his head at how unpointlike Angel could be. "And if I hadn't staked him, I wonder what would have happened. Would I have let Jesse drain Cordelia? I don't think so, but I don't know because my love for him might have made my right-wrong button do the wonky. Me and loyalty sometimes take a few unhealthy detours, kind of like you and guilt."

"You wouldn't have let him kill her," Angel said firmly.

"Which is easy to say when I never had to face that. But here's the deal, Angel. We all screw up. Big screw ups, small screw ups, small screw ups that turn into huge city-eating screw ups. We don't know we've screwed up until the screwing has happened, and I really think I picked a bad verb for this sentence." Xander sighed. Yep, on the not-perfect side of his scale, he could add verbal incompetence. "Screwing up doesn't make us bad. And being gay isn't wrong, it's just how some people are born. I am gay. I am so totally gay. I am blissfully gay." Xander spread out his arms to show the scale of his gay-bliss. "So, you can either put your hat in the ring and try and impress me with expensive gifts or watch me...."

"Xander-" Angel strangled his name so that it came out as almost a cry.

"Nope, no discussion. You're no worse a man than anyone else, and I’m gay and definitely looking for a man, so either get with the gift giving or step aside and watch me interview prospective life partners." Xander stared at Angel, willing him to just listen for once in his over-gelled life. Slowly, the anger and frustration faded, his shoulders stooped, and something that looked like fatigue seemed to settle onto every inch of Angel.

"Gift giving?" Angel asked.

Xander could feel his cheeks ache, but it wasn't a surprise considering the size of his big, stupid smile. "Oh yeah. You can cough up the big bucks to impress me with double-paned windows and cherry paneling or you can watch me be gay with someone else."

"I buy you those things now." Angel still looked more tired than anything else, but he had a small smile going.

"Well, yeah, but now we can call them courting gifts. Because seriously, I'm more than a little interested in you, but I'm thinking I'm going to be the girl in this relationship, and if I'm the girl, I want gifts."

"Of double-paned windows?"

"Hey! Have you looked at how many windows we have around this place? Diamonds would be cheaper." Xander leaned his shoulder into Angel. He hadn't realized just how much he'd missed their physical contact until just now. Even demon goo couldn't get him to give up touching again. For a minute, they just sat there. Angel's fingers tightened some on Xander's leg, and things felt right.

"Xander?"

"If you go getting your guilt on, I'm putting a red sock in with your underwear," Xander warned. Of course Angel had to ruin their perfect moment.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"And I would like to not be hurt, so that's good."

"You don't understand. I'm not a man."

"Okay... I haven't seen in your pants, but I always assumed you had man parts." Xander hoped that Angel would take a clue and just let this one go.

"I'm a vampire." So much for that hope.

"The lack of heartbeat gave that one away."

"You don't-"

"Angel," Xander cut him off before they could go for round two of the guilt. "You're a vampire. I do get what that means. Your soul may care about me, but your demon is going to do this weird ranking thing and put me in a spot where he feels like he can safely keep me. I'm big with knowing this. I'm also weirdly okay with that because you have over two hundred years of experience on me, so in issues not involving morals, I'm pretty sure you are the boss. You definitely get to set rules when throwing stars are involved, because the minute I start saying that a weapon looks easy, that is not a good sign." Xander looked up and Angel was watching him.

Angel reached over and ran a finger over the line of Xander's jaw. "If you understand my demon, then you know why this is dangerous."

Xander just looked at Angel. Yeah, he had a pretty good idea what Angel meant, but he was not even going to dignify it with an answer.

"If I'm successful in my courting, I willna let you go. I won't be able to. For a demon, to have something and to want something and to then leave that which you want..." Angel stopped, his voice heavy with emotion and his pain laid out across his face, making him look so vulnerable that Xander wanted to make stupid promises.

"Hard?" Xander guessed.

Angel looked at him with haunted eyes. "I dunna know that I'd be strong enough to do it. I don't know that I'd be able to look at you and know that I couldn't have you, not without taking you anyway."

"Well, it's a good thing that I don't plan on ever telling you that."

Angel shook his head, but his hand moved to rest against Xander's neck. Demon goo smell or not, Xander's body reacted to that touch. "You can't know that. You can't know how you'll feel about a relationship with me."

"Angel, you're an idiot." Xander brought his own hand up and put it on the back of Angel's, trapping it there against Xander's neck. "I've been in a relationship with you for three years. Cordy dumped me because I was more relationshippy with you than with her. Sex doesn't make a relationship, it's just a really nice cherry on the top of the trust sundae. Really nice. Really, really-" Xander stopped "Angel, that is not a pleasant expression."

"I'm not having pleasant thoughts."

Xander fought to not smile. "Okay, if the thought of me and sex makes you that unhappy-"

"The thought of you and Spike and sex makes me that unhappy."

"Jealous?" Xander teased. There was more than one way to skin a demon.

"Yes." Angel's eyes were yellowing now.

"We could fix that."

For a second, Xander thought Angel was going to agree. He thought he was going to get scooped up and rushed to the nearest room, and he actually started gathering arguments for why they should shower first because Angel seriously stank. But then something shifted, and Angel pulled his hand back. However, as the yellow faded from his eyes, he smiled at Xander-an honest, open smile. "One month. Let's wait one month so that we know we aren't making a mistake."

"Your head is still up your ass, isn't it?" Xander sighed and shook his head sadly.

Angel rolled his eyes and got up. "I just don't want you to make a mistake."

"Too late. I already fell for a guy with his head so far up his ass that he can't see straight."

"Spike is having a bad influence on your language."

"Spike and Faith and even sometimes Blair. There are a lot of bad influences around here," Xander pointed out.

"Speaking of questionable influences, why do I smell Graham?" Angel asked as he headed for the stairs.

"I don't know how you can smell anything over your own stink." Xander followed, wondering if he was going to be able to catch a peek. A month was a really long time to wait.

"It's not my stink, and you didn't answer my question."

Xander shrugged. "Riley sent him. He's supposed to be liaison officer or go between or something. Apparently Riley's time as a vampire made him see the world in a whole new light."

That made Angel stop in the middle of the stairs. "So he gave us a soldier?"

"Yep."

"Spike is not going to be amused."

"Oh, I don't know. Spike had lots of fun scaring the pee out of him."

For a second, Angel stared at him with horror. "Does Graham know that an amused Spike is much worse than an angry one?" Angel asked.

Xander could only shrug. "If he sticks around, I think he'll find out, but that's up to you."

Angel reached out and slung an arm over Xander's shoulder. "You keep telling me that I'm in charge, but why do you always seem to get your way?"

"It's my sex appeal," Xander answered with a wide smile. "I have crazy, scary powers of the sexy." Angel just shook his head as they headed up the stairs.