lit_gal | Kin of the Heart

In this universe, Xander challenged Angel right up front--called him a pedophile to his face. And from there, everything changed

Previous parts:
Part one: Bumbling to a Save
Part two: Family Ties
Part three: Devil in the Details
Part Four: Bad Karma
Part Five: Rust Upon Iron
Part Six: Mending Fences... or tearing them down
Part Seven: Quiet Waters Mirroring Undistorted
Part Eight: Bait, Swindle and Self-destruct
Part Nine: Deaf, Dumb, and Destiny-blind
Part Ten: The Road Not Taken
Part Eleven: Full Circle on the Lesson

The Care and Feeding of Humans
It's time for Homecoming, only Angel doesn't understand these human rituals, and he really doesn't under why all the women in Xander's life seem so determined to make his boy unhappy.

Angel ran the sharpening stone along the edge of his knife again. It was already sharp, but Angel didn't know what else to do. He'd even gotten desperate enough to turn the television on for a few minutes, but some show with a guy in cowboy boots doing karate moves was beyond his understanding of modern culture. And he definitely was not asking Xander about it because Xander's explanations were sometimes impossibly complicated. At least now he could understand a good fifty percent of them, which was an improvement over when the boy had first started showing up. Back then, Angel had understood very little.

With a growl, he slammed the knife down on the table and picked up his phone, punching numbers in slightly harder than he should, but at least he didn't break it this time.

"Speak to me," the voice on the other end offered cheerfully.

"Remind me again why I don't just lock him in a room," Angel almost growled. The man on the other end laughed.

"Oh man, I hear that! Xander giving you grief again? What, did another demon decide to spawn with him?" Blair chuckled.

"He's at some dance," Angel admitted. Saying it out loud, it sounded rather trivial, especially since he was at a dance with two slayers, one of whom he had personally threatened if she didn't bring Xander home in one piece. Of course, Faith tended to take his threats as some sort of amusing suggestion, so he wasn't as confident in his ability to inspire loyalty as he once might have been.

"It's not like you to be this freaked. What's up?"

"I have no idea. There's something to do with royalty at this party and Xander is caught between Buffy and Cordelia who both want to be royalty, but only one of them can be. It's very confusing, and Xander is not always clear in his explanations."

"Prom queen?" Blair nearly choked. "They both want to be prom queen? Oh shit. Teenage girls are scarier than most demons I know when it comes to being prom queen."

Angel closed his eyes and stretched his neck as he tried to work his tight muscles. "Xander is concerned and stressed. His friend Willow expects him to play boyfriend when her werewolf is busy, and she continues to lust after him. Buffy and Cordelia are fighting, and he is trying to make them both happy, and the watcher continues to annoy the unlife out of me."

"Man, it was easier when you just ate humans, wasn't it?"

Angel blinked, his brain not even able to process that comment. "You're joking," he finally whispered.

"Totally not. I mean, yeah, I get that you were a total badass, and as one of the potential food sources, I am all in favor of you valuing your soul. But seriously... this must have been easier pre-soul. I mean, eating a human is easy, but the care and feeding of one is like... whoa... seriously complicated."

Angel's guts tightened at the blithe way Blair was just commenting on something so horrific as his years before the soul. He'd been a monster. Nothing was easier. Except it had been easier, and Angel was not comfortable admitting or even thinking about that. "You're an annoying individual," Angel finally declared.

"Well, yeah. But man, you have taken on Xander Harris as a project, so I happen to know that you're into adorable and cute."

"I have no idea how to help him with all these women in his life," Angel said as he stood and paced the floor. The apartment was too small. He should get something large enough that he could really move and maybe get a workout. A room for weapons training would give him more time to teach Xander how to use the crossbow. Right now, they had to wait until the townspeople finally abandoned the streets before practicing late at night, but if he had a larger place, he could have the boy practice longer without interfering with school.

"Earth to Angel," Blair shouted.

"What?" he snapped into the phone.

"Chill out. Seriously. I mean, we all survive high school, and the social trauma is a total rite of passage. Xander will come through without too many emotional scars."

"So, I should just let him struggle with this?" Angel asked. He didn't know what answer he wanted from Blair. If Blair told him to let this go, that meant that he was doing the right thing, but it also meant that he had to keep sitting back and doing nothing. He was remarkably uncomfortable doing nothing.

"You have to wait for him to ask for help, and Angel, he might not."

"It would be easier if they were not all so incredibly damaged," Angel sighed. "Buffy is now dating a boy who is clearly homosexual, and none of them seem to realize it. The boy is sexually interested in Xander, the captain of the football team, and some random man who passed us on the street when we patrolled together, but he has no sexual interest in Buffy. And she continues to feel lust for him. This Scott even gave her a claddagh ring and explained how it represented friendship, and she failed to understand that he doesn't want to have sex with her."

Blair laughed. "That is every parent's fantasy... dating teens with incompatible sexual orientations. No sex is safe sex, my man."

"I don't care about Buffy's safe sex, I care about Xander once again turning himself inside out emotionally once they discover this deception."

Angel slammed his hand down on the table. He was nearing the end of his own emotional reserves, and still Xander continued to cater to everyone's needs but his own. When Giles had verbally ripped into Xander for falling asleep when guarding the werewolf, Angel had wanted to come out from behind the stacks and rip the watcher's head off. A child should not be asked to perform such a dangerous task. Certainly, Giles had never given him the proper training or education to deal with a werewolf if Oz had managed to escape, and there was no television, no radio... nothing in there to keep Xander from falling asleep. What did Giles expect? After the many times Angel had checked to find Willow or Buffy asleep at the same task, no one could claim to be surprised that one of the teens had fallen asleep on duty. Then again, he wondered if the arrogant little caffler even bothered to yell at the girls at all or if he saved his ire for Xander. Maybe it was time for another visit to the watcher because the lesson from the last visit was clearly wearing off.

"That's the risk of caring about someone who just cares. That's what makes Xander, Xander," Blair said, but Angel could hear the sympathy in the other man's voice. "Really sucks, huh?"

"He asks me things I don't know the answer to," Angel admitted with a great deal of frustration. "When Cordelia and Buffy were both trying to be royalty—"

"Prom queen," Blair corrected him.

"Prom queen," Angel growled back. "When they were both pressuring Xander to help, he asked me what he should do. I don't even understand why they want to be prom queen. Apparently there are no real jewels or any power or money attached to the position. I had no advice for him."

"Man, it's all about status. Whoever is prom queen is the high status female. Sure, there will be lots of smaller groups who will make fun of her behind her back. Totally. I was in those subgroups. But my point is that most of the people in the school will recognize her status. There are so few human rituals where they can actually compete for power that the rituals that do exist get totally out of hand. Now the concept of hazing at fraternities and sororities... oh man, that gets so nasty with the in-group/out-group and the assigning of status that you would think vampires set up the damn ceremonies."

"So, this is like a clan gathering," Angel tried to understand how royalty could be like vampires.

"Kinda," Blair agreed. "Only it's like all the vampires are the same age, so you need some consensus on who is the master. The crowning of the king and queen is like picking the master."

"And there will be some individuals or even groups sired by a particular vampire who refuse to recognize the master's power or who publicly acknowledge him while undermining him," Angel checked.

"Totally! Those are called cliques, only instead of being gathered according to who sired whom, they gather according to interest. All the kids who like chess will form one clique and choose their own leader within the subgroup."

"Like choosing a sire?"

"You got it."

"Then what happens when Xander has both Cordelia and Buffy demanding his loyalty?" Angel demanded, more upset than ever. Vampires caught between clans or between feuding elders within a clan rarely survived. And while he trusted both Cordelia and Buffy to physically protect Xander, they were both so very capable of emotionally crippling him.

"That is the stuff of teen angst," Blair said, and Angel did not like the tone of voice. "Chill, Angel. This is like the watered down, human version of status. No humans were harmed in the making of high school. Okay, a few were harmed, but people recover. Xander knows he always has you there making him eat his vegetables and go to bed on time, and he'll survive the rest."

"That doesn't seem like enough," Angel admitted with a frown. He wanted to do more... like lock Xander in a very small room just until all his friends finally grew up. Then again, considering his friends, he might be in that small room for a very long time.

"Trust me, it's enough."

"Is that Blair talking or a D'fatum demon?"

"It's Blair Sandburg, mostly human. Naomi did a great job with me as a mom, and most of the time, she just loved me and stood back and let me make my own choices and live with the consequences of those choices. Well, that and she made me eat vegetables."

"And Xander's going to turn out okay?"

"Man, you're doing all the right things to make sure Xander turns out great. He's going to be his own person though, Angel. He's not even your son or your consort, so you have to let him figure some of this out on his own."

"To borrow one of your phrases, that really sucks," Angel sighed. "And I have to go. I can hear Xander and Faith in the hall."

"Stay good."

"Good night, Blair," Angel answered as he stared at the phone looking for the 'end' button. Why couldn't they have one of those phones that you just hung up? Actually, his favorite phone was the one where you picked it up and someone was on the other end asking who you wanted to talk to. Those had been useful. Finally finding the right button, Angel disconnected the call and put the phone down on the counter before going back to the knife and sharpening stone at the table.

Faith was laughing as they came down the hall, so hopefully no one had been killed. Then again, with Faith, laughter might indicate mayhem and demonic attack. Angel hurried to the door and pulled it open to check on his humans. Xander looked stressed.

"They deserved that shit," Faith insisted.

"I'm never hearing the end of this. From either of them. I might as well just not go back to school because I will never be able to concentrate with the mucho gripe-o fest they're going to have going."

"What happened?" Angel demanded.

Faith laughed and headed for his door, ducking under his arm. When Xander came over and rested his forehead on Angel's chest as though upset, Angel growled at the lack of any answer.

"They both lost," Faith said cheerfully as she headed for the refrigerator.

"I'm never hearing the end of this," Xander said, his words muffled by Angel's chest. Xander pushed himself back and poked his finger at Angel's chest. "And it's all your fault."

"My fault?" Angel asked in confusion as Xander followed Faith to the kitchen. Had neither of Xander's girls been chosen for the queen? Faith wrapped her arms around the plate of left over fried chicken and bared her teeth when Xander tried to grab a piece. "And share before I make you wish you'd played nice in the first place," Angel threatened. Faith rolled her eyes but at least she let Xander grab a chicken leg before she started devouring the rest. "Is someone going to explain exactly how this is my fault?"

"I don't know," Xander shrugged, his mouth full of food. "It just is. I have to blame someone to avoid accepting any blame for myself."

Faith snorted. "Boy here has gone and got himself put in the dog house."

"The dog house?" Angel asked as he shut the door and put himself in front of it. No one was leaving this apartment until he understood what had happened.

"I was slow dancing," Xander admitted with a twist of his mouth.

"With Cordelia," Angel said. They had discussed this. Angel had even taught Xander a few steps, and that had not been easy since Angel was awkward when trying to take the girl's part, especially since he suspected that Cordelia would also prefer to lead.

"He wishes. Turns out Cordelia and Buffy went and got themselves kidnapped," Faith offered as she headed for the table, still guarding the plate of food. Xander grabbed for another piece, and Faith twisted out of his way, throwing out a hip to block him.

"Faith!" Angel warned with a growl.

"Yeah, sugar?" she flirted. Angel could feel his frustration eroding his control, and he knew the second his eyes turned yellow.

"Fine." She thrust the plate toward Xander with more force than needed, but he just smiled as he took a second piece.

Angel sighed as he realized that she was truly upset. "We can get more chicken if you're still hungry," he offered. Faith considered him through narrowed eyes for a second, and Angel couldn't avoid thinking that the girl was constantly judging him. He just wished he had some insight on what she was judging him about.

"Five by five with me. Actually, I think there's enough here. It's not like I was out killing any vamps and getting myself worked up," she shrugged as she gave Angel a wink. It was like getting hit on by your baby sister. Angel shoved that thought away as too disturbing to even contemplate. She turned a chair around backwards and straddled it.

"Are Buffy and Cordelia alright?" Angel asked, a bit of growl still in his voice. If Giles had to deal with multiple teenagers all day, perhaps Angel was being too hard on the man. This could drive anyone to insanity.

"Five by five," Faith repeated. Xander nodded, his mouth still full of chicken. "It's boy-toy you have to look out for. He went and slow danced with Red, and there were parts of him a little too interested, if you know what I mean. Cordelia shows up when they're on the dance floor, and I thought she was going to castrate him right there."

"I wasn't doing anything," Xander protested.

"Babe, that was doing something. It's called a hard-on," Faith smiled sweetly, and Angel flinched at the crudeness. No wonder everyone had trouble remembering she was fifteen.

"I'm a teenager. That happens when I dance, when I get dressed, when someone pokes me with a stick!"

"Kinky," Faith said with a wink.

"Okay, disturbing much?" Xander demanded as he finally dropped into one of the other chairs.

"I calls 'em as I sees 'em," she joked.

"Xander," Angel interrupted before Faith could make any other inappropriate comments, "why were you slow dancing with Willow?"

"I wasn't... or I was, but it was by accident. She was bored, and Giles was making really stupid finger sandwich jokes, and Oz was playing a fast song, so I invited her to fast dance."

"Only one flail into the fast dance, the band started a slow song," Faith finished. "At least I didn't have to rescue anyone from your flailing arms when you were slow dancing."

Angel frowned as Xander blushed deep red. While Xander might hate it when people tried to fight his battles for him, Angel was going to talk to Faith, just as soon as he had her alone. She should not go making Xander feel bad about himself, even if his attempts at fast dancing were sometimes dangerous. Angel would offer to coach the boy, as he had with slow dancing and fighting, both of which Xander was learning well-enough; however, Angel's own attempts at modern dance were lacking. Quite frankly, Faith would be the better teacher, but Angel did not trust the girl to not cause irreparable harm to Xander's ego.

"Anyway," Xander said loudly as he changed the topic, "Cordelia walked in during the slow dance, and she had the whole arch-villainess eyebrow of death going."

"That is one broad who would make me think twice before taking her on," Faith agreed as she started in on piece of chicken number three. Humans were expensive to feed.

"Is Cordelia angry? And who kidnapped them?" Angel demanded.

"Yes Cordelia is angry," Xander snorted. "Only it's not so much angry as furious and spiteful. And I didn't do anything but dance... but that is not going to matter so much as her making me publicly pay. And some weird guys on some slayerfest quest kidnapped them."

"They were after me," Faith offered. "It makes a girl feel special to know that men with automatic weapons are out there gunning for her. I'm just sorry that the idiots picked up Miss Priss instead. I would have given them a good tumble."

"But Buffy killed them?" Angel still didn't understand what had happened.

"Seems like. There was much drywall damage and spilling of blood, so I think that's a yes on the killing," Xander finished as he picked the last bits of meat off the chicken. "But I'm a little more concerned about the fact that Buffy and Cordelia both lost prom queen. If Buffy lost, I just would have avoided the library. If Cordelia lost, I would have claimed that I needed to do some extra credit project to keep you from going all parental, and I would have totally laired up in the library. Now, there is nowhere in that school that is safe," Xander said sadly.

"They're upset," Angel guessed.

"Upset? They're way past upset. They're nearly homicidal in their upsetness," Xander said sadly.

"They'll deal," Faith said without much sympathy. "I'm a little more interested in who set up a slayerfest. Most demons don't have balls that big, present company excluded," she finished with a wink in Angel's direction.

"Perhaps it's the same person who is contributing to the out of control minion problems in town," Angel mused.

"We killed the Master. Okay, Buffy killed the Master, and we were kill adjacent, but the Master is dead, so who are we talking about?" Xander asked.

"The Master is dead, long live the Master," Faith said with a grimace. "New big bad in town, maybe?"

Xander frowned. "The Master's been gone for over a year, why now? And I'm stupid because I know the answer to that. It's because Spike's gone, isn't it?" Xander looked over with so much distress, that Angel abandoned his post at the door and walked over to rest a hand on his shoulder.

"Whoever is doing this, they're going to be as dead as the Master," Angel promised.

Faith's snort made it clear what she thought of that. "Yeah? How are we going to find the big bad? Hey, maybe we should put out an ad in the paper. Would the real demon terrorizing Sunnydale please step forward?"

"Faith, enough," Angel said firmly.

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I'm heading to bed. Anyone want to join me?" She stood and twitched her body.

"I think I've had enough of scary ladies tonight," Xander said with a shrug.

"Awww. I'll steer you 'round the curves," she said as she have him a coy look. Angel could smell the growing lust from Xander. Well, he himself had chased pretty much any girl in a skirt shabby enough to suggest she would take his coin in return for spreading her legs. At least Xander was lusting after women who did not take coin. Looking at Faith again, he could only hope they had never taken coin.

"And the rule is no sex in the apartment," Angel growled peevishly.

"You're welcome to supervise," Faith offered him as she stalked closer, her smile now focused on him, but at least she was leaving Xander alone. "Maybe even some hands on supervision. But if you two are busy, I can find someone on the street who's willing to give me a good, hard fuck."

"Faith," Angel said slowly. "I'm trying hard to pretend that you don't know what sex is. And if I catch one sniff of sex on you, I'll lock you in your room for a month and potentially eviscerate whatever guy you slept with."

Faith laughed. The girl truly did seem to find his threats amusing. "Five by five with me as long as you're locked in there with me," she offered, her hand sliding down over his arm. When Angel glanced down out of shock, he could see Xander's smug amusement. The little chancer was far too amused at Angel's discomfort.

Angel crossed his arms over his chest and did his best to look stern, and again she laughed. "I need more soda, pick me up some, kay?"

"When you've eaten the cauliflower I got you, I will," Angel said firmly.

"When I what?" Faith asked, her eyebrows drawing down as she finally dropped her lascivious affect.

"When you eat your cauliflower. You said that you would prefer cauliflower over other vegetables." Now Xander went from a small smug smile to a huge smirk as he looked from Angel to Faith and back again.

"Seriously?" Faith asked, and for one second she actually looked fifteen.

"Seriously," Angel insisted. "So, since you haven't eaten any of it yet, you have a lot of eating to do tonight and tomorrow if you expect me to get more soda."

"Fucking mother hen," Faith cursed as she headed for the door, and that momentary glimpse of a young Faith vanished under the slayer with the attitude of a pissed off gangster and a vocabulary that put a foot soldier to shame.

"And I will know if you throw it away," Angel added. Faith flipped him off before slamming his door shut behind her. He listened to her go into her apartment. Really, they were all in Xander's name, and Angel again considered putting the one in Faith's name instead. The first week here, she had not even offered a consistent answer regarding her last name, but she seemed to be settling down now. Cacophonous music suddenly blasted, and Angel flinched back from the sound, smiling only when he heard the refrigerator open and the crunch of her biting into the raw cauliflower.

"Can I just say woo-hoo that you have the apartment next to her and not me?" Xander said as he looked at the kitchen wall. It was vibrating slightly from the bass. "She scares me sometimes."

"She scares me often," Angel said as he headed for his kitchen. Pushing aside a bottle of pickles, ketchup, mustard, a brick of cream cheese and a plastic tub of Cool Whip, Angel grabbed his blood, which always seemed to get pushed to the back no matter how many times he growled at the humans. Xander dumped his chicken bones on the plate of leftovers Faith had decimated and scraped them into the trash while Angel was microwaving his blood, carefully watching as it turned. It still seemed odd to put food into a box and have it heat by itself, but he was not foolish enough to ask for that explanation again. Willow's attempts to describe energy were even less helpful than Xander's. But really, it was no more strange than the music coming out of the box in Faith's room... at decibels that would damage the human ear.

Angel walked over to the phone and dialed Faith's number. It rang, but Faith didn't even bother to pick it up, she just turned the music down to where it was only potentially damaging to human hearing.

"How upset was Cordelia?" Angel asked now that it was just the two of them.

"She probably wouldn't have done more than call me some name I didn't know without looking up, but then Faith made a crude comment about how parts of me were into Willow, and now Willow and Cordelia are both with the cranky," Xander shrugged.

Angel sighed and reconsidered the idea of putting the apartment in Faith's name. Perhaps Blair would be a better guardian. Angel could financially support them both. "I'm sorry," Angel offered, knowing that the words were as worthless as ever. He had brought Faith into their lives, so every time she did something to harm Xander, he could feel the worry gnaw at him. He wanted to do the right thing, but he so rarely understood what the right thing was anymore. Jessica Harris had grown much more attentive of Xander since he was home far less often. Perhaps Angel should make it clear that Xander could move back home, and Angel would not renege on his deal. To be honest, he was selfish enough to not want Xander to leave, even if it would be better for him.

"Hey, no reason for you to be sorry," Xander said as he headed out to the couch and clicked on the television. It was so late that some stations had gone to static, and the others had reruns of shows so old they were in black and white. "I mean, I know I don't like Willow, so I meant it when I said that a stick poke could make me get hard. Sometimes I think I don't have any control at all. I mean, the other day, when you rested your hand on my shoulder, I got hard. I have a stupid cock."

"At this age, it's supposed to be stupid," Angel agreed. He took his blood out and headed for the living room.

"Was yours?" Xander asked.

"I got hard for any woman who looked poor enough for me to afford," he admitted as he sat next to Xander on the sofa.

"Okay, that's pretty high on the patheticness scale."

"I think we've had this discussion before," Angel pointed out.

"Probably," Xander shrugged. For a few seconds he focused on flipping idly through the channels. "I like Willow, but I don't like Willow, not the way Oz likes Willow or the way I like Cordelia."

"I know." Angel focused on the television and waited as Xander struggled to sort his thoughts.

"It's just that sometimes I forget she's Willow and she feels like a girl. Not that she's not a girl, because curves there. Willow as a boy would be hugely with the weird. But she's not a *girl*."

"You're just libidinous," Angel guessed. Xander turned a confused look his way. "Horny," Angel edited himself.

"Oh, yeah," Xander agreed enthusiastically. "Only Willow is supposed to be the one with more sense than me, so she's supposed to be the brakes here. Only, she's not so brake-like. She was putting hands places that Willow hands should not go, which is where the stick-poking metaphor comes in. Should someone stoking the inside of my elbow or the small of my back really be so..." Xander trailed off into silence.

"Erotic?" Angel guessed. Xander nodded unhappily. "Everyone has erogenous zones, Xander, that's normal."

"And I'm just a mindless puddle of libnous goo when someone touches one of mine."

It took Angel a second to realize that Xander meant libidinous. He fought back a smile as he tried to figure out the socially correct answer. "Do you want to go hunt something?" he finally asked.

Xander gave him an odd look. "I'm exhausted. I think I'm going to head to bed and think stern thoughts about how my body should not be vetoing reasonable decisions made by my brain," he said as he clicked the television off and got up.

"Xander," Angel said as the boy got up.

"Yeah?"

"You'll survive high school," he said firmly. "The social trauma is a rite of passage, and emotional wounds heal."

Xander looked at him really oddly. "Um, good? I think. Angel, seriously, check the expiration date on your blood supply," he said as he headed for the door. "Good night."

"Good night, Xander," Angel answered right before his door closed. Sipping his blood, he listened as Xander got ready for bed, his shower running for a long time as he masturbated. Faith was kicking her wall in time with her music and crunching on cauliflower. Blair was right: the care and feeding of humans was never simple.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

moonjean2009.livejournal.com

Angel being all caring and parent-y amuses me greatly and no matter what Blair says about teenagers coming out of high school relatively unscathed, I think the girls are almost actively going out of their ways to scar Xander. At least Angel is looking out for him, even though he can't really protect him from his (Insert: sarcasm) "friends".

I just keep on loving this story and love that you're continuously updating.

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Kin of the Heart

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