Care
by Te
February 2000

Disclaimers: If they belonged to me, there would be
a great deal more sex.

Spoilers: General 4th season-ness.

Summary: Xander does some thinking, damn me 
straight to hell.

Pairing: Xander/Anya with Xander/Giles undertones. 
Or maybe it's the other way around.

Ratings Note: PG-13.

Archival: Sure, just let me know where.

Author's Note/Acknowledgments: Yet another failed
attempt to write schmoopy, schmutty G/X. Thanks go
to Woodinat for getting me off my ass and also
audiencing.

*


Giles isn't the same as he used to be. 

It's definitely true, but it's not a comfortable truth, or 
even a solid one. It's a statement that spawns 
questions, like wondering just who, exactly, he used to 
be, and when the change had come over him.

Xander does and does not want to believe it has anything
to do with him, and so he pins it all on Jenny, on Angel. 
Before there was anything more in him than a hungry 
sort of rage and a lot of denial.

He doesn't really have the words for it even now, though 
it has a lot to do with innocence. Such a cheesy thought 
it makes Xander want to blush, and yet it's the rightest 
thing he can think of. Before all the shit with Angelus, 
Giles had seemed just as innocent as Willow, almost.

After, it had been different.

Which isn't even remotely true, considering what he
 knows now about 'Ripper,' but it feels right. The shadows
never leave Giles' eyes now, no matter what he's doing.

Sometimes Xander thinks about what it must be like to 
be alone with thoughts like Giles' all day, and wishes 
he's more than just... than just whatever he is.

He wishes Olivia had stayed around, too. When she was
there, Xander felt as though some of the free-form 
responsibility in the air was being taken care of.

Responsibility. And if that isn't a joke he isn't sure 
what is. 'Somebody please go take care of Giles so I
can stop thinking about it, and about the pleasantly 
contemptuous look that would be on the man's face 
should I ever try to do anything about it.' 

Like... stage a raid on the town council and hold them 
all hostage until they made Giles head librarian or 
something. Xander wants to believe that Giles would 
appreciate his *having* thoughts like that, at least, but
knows it's unlikely at best.

Anya makes things easier, though. She genuinely likes
Giles, and almost approves of Xander's attempts at 
friendship with the man. Anya knows a fellow outcast 
when she sees one. Different, strange, and occasionally 
frightening views of the world are her specialty, after 
all, and Giles hasn't changed so much that he 
actually *fits* or anything like that. 

He's drifted pretty far in the other direction as far as 
Xander can tell... And he knows Anya approves of *that*. 
So there's comfort in them both going to Giles' home 
for visits, and in drifting off into imaginings of possibly
darker times to come, when he will have given up all 
his illusions for Anya's pragmatism. 

For the sweetly simple equation of body to body, need 
to need... like to like?

He daydreams that whatever Anya sees in his eyes when 
she smiles with such joyful possession is actually there, 
and that the world isn't half so frightening to him as it 
truly is -- whether or not it should be.

And sometimes those daydreams include a Giles in 
impeccable trousers and some dignified old burgundy 
robe that loses all innocence when combined with 
*that* smile in the man's eyes and the shamelessly 
bare feet. His good hand would tease the rim of a glass,
his other would tap staccato on one crossed thigh and he 
would smile at Xander, cold and even, and say: 

"But now you understand, of course."

Or something along those lines. Giles would never 
move, but his words would be a beckoning just the 
same, and Xander would walk to him, Anya at his side 
and... and. 

In reality, some sunny afternoons are spent on Giles' 
couch. Anya and Giles discuss practical demonology, 
Xander takes it all in indiscriminately and acknowledges
that he's doing so by making jokes, or trying to. He aims
them -- in intensity if not necessarily content -- at Giles 
and desperately searches for something.

Something. 

He knows what he wants to see there, but it's safer not 
to name it. The exasperated amusement, though warming,
is never quite enough.

Xander and Anya spend a few hours, and then it's back 
home to Anya's skin, and his delayed hunger, and her 
need, and the unconscious care they take with one 
another, even when it's rough. Anya doesn't taste young, 
though Xander has no idea where that appraisal comes 
from. 

Anya loves him in her own way. It's one of the safest 
things he has ever felt, if not the sweetest.

It's grounding, and something like healthy, and all his. 
An altogether different responsibility based on nothing 
but his being himself... he can surrender to it so easily, 
he knows. Belong to Anya in every way she demanded, let 
them both be in love as well as mutually appreciative 
friends. 

It would be so easy he wouldn't even *feel* the victory. 
Just a round peg sliding comfortably into a round hole
and disappearing within, cherished and static. And 
Xander knows exactly what thoughts like that mean.

Smells the self-abuse a mile away, because no, nothing 
should ever be easy. 

Nothing worth a damn, anyway. Nothing for him. 

Much better to throw himself at the needs he can't fill, 
and at the people he can't satisfy. 

Much better to dream of a Xander who can be that 
determined, that necessary for the simple existence of 
a Buffy, or a Faith, or a Giles.

Much better to soak up their pain and be outraged on
their behalf than to take a look at himself and take 
some care for who he actually is ... because, in the end, 
*that* just feels like quitting.

Anya's whispers against his throat, Anya's warm, 
strong arms. Giles' friendly contempt, Buffy's self-focus, 
Faith's psychosis. 

And there has never been any doubt which way he'll 
choose, given half a chance.

End.