Getting On...

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PART 11

He slipped on the Armani with a soft sigh.

It had been years since designer clothes had felt comfortable on Xander’s body. Five years, in fact, and while he never would have expected that when he’d left, there was something stifling and just too… much… about them now. Hell, these days he was used to jeans and t-shirts bought at Wal-mart; flannel when the weather called for it, which wasn’t that often in Dallas.

And more to the point, he was used to hot blue eyes locked firmly on him while he dressed. Even at six in the morning, Will would lay in bed and watch him dress, that heated gaze promising all sorts of naughty pleasures when the clothes came back off hours later, and… and it had only been two and a half months that they’d been together but Xander couldn’t help feeling lost without those eyes; that slow, sleep-tinged smile.

“Fuck,” he grumbled as he fastened his pants, “I am so whipped. I’ve been gone less than a day and I’m all… sad?” Well, yeah. He missed Will. He’d known he would, but this… this felt like he’d lost some sort of limb that he’d never even known was there.

Xander sighed again, softly, and plucked his mobile phone from the table beside his bed.

He was one button away from hearing his lover’s voice when the knock sounded at his door and he groaned, closing the phone. “Come in, Dad.”

A voice chuckled with obvious amusement and Xander knew it wasn’t his father even before he saw the man’s face.

“As much as I might find it amusing to claim responsibility for your presence, Xander…”

“Come in, Uncle Ethan,” he corrected himself. “I’m sure you have a butt-load of meddling to do, so we might as well get started, right?”

Even with the annoyed tone of his own voice, Xander found himself smiling at his father’s lover. Ethan might be many things—among them scallywag and rogue—but one thing Xander had never doubted was that the man loved his father. Loved him too much, he’d thought when he was younger, but now that he had Will, he thought he understood. He would do anything for his own love, after all, so the many things Ethan had done in the past and would likely do in the future to make things easier for Rupert Giles were… forgivable.

One brow arched as Ethan stared at the dark haired young man he’d known for well over a decade, and going on two. It had been a year since he’d seen his beloved’s eldest child but a year couldn’t possibly account for the confident strength his gaze was being met with. “Well, well,” he murmured, “I do believe someone has finally grown up.”

Xander blushed slightly, then shrugged. “Maybe I’ve just been doing some thinking, Ethan. I’m twenty-six; it was bound to happen sooner or later. I couldn’t stay stupid forever, right?”

The rather lanky Englishman barked out a short laugh, one corner of his mouth quirking into a sly smirk. “Oh, you were never stupid, Xander. You simply had no referent for what you saw playing out between Ripper and myself. But I’m thinking you do now. And I would dearly love to meet whoever it is that’s shown you. Not that Larry chap, of course, because that was doomed even before I knew about it.” His sly and wicked gaze grew a bit. “This is someone new. Someone you… dare I say love? How marvelous!”

It was exactly that strange knowing that Xander hated about Ethan Rayne.

“Fuck off, Ethan,” he mumbled, knowing the much older man was right. He really hadn’t understood about Ethan and his father. Of course, why would he have? And then again, Rupert Giles was only his father by virtue of adoption so maybe he’d been a little… possessive of him, even at two years old, which he’d been when they’d met. Himself and his Dad.

His biological father wasn’t even a memory, and Xander was convinced that was a good thing.

He had no recollection of Anthony Harris.

He had no memory whatsoever of that man hitting his mother or him, although he was fairly sure that had happened.

He didn’t have the vaguest shadow of a nightmare during which his sperm donor had tried to kill Joyce so that he could inherit Summers Industries.

In fact, his earliest memory was of a very tall Rupert Giles and an equally tall Joyce Summers-Giles—because she’d given up the name ‘Harris’ after her first husband had killed himself while on bail and driving drunk after the attempted murder, and thank God it had been him against a tree rather than helpless pedestrians—smiling and calling to him to come get his new ‘prezzie’ and tell him he was going to have a baby brother or sister in just a few months. He’d been glad because it meant his Mommy hadn’t been getting fat after all.

His next clear memory was of seeing a small, wrinkled red thing and being told it was his sister Elizabeth.

“Bethy,” he remembered his mother saying. “Xander, this is your sister Bethy. It’s going to be your job to look after her, okay? Not now, but when she’s older. She’ll need her big brother because kids can be mean sometimes and your Daddy and I weren’t married when she started growing.”

Everything after the name hadn’t made much sense to him then and when he’d tried to say ‘Bethy’ it came out more like ‘Boofy’. And his first little sis had been Buffy ever since.

It had still been years before Ethan had entered their lives, of course.

Joyce had died—ironically enough—crossing the street while pushing Buffy’s stroller just over a year later when a different drunk driver had careened through downtown Sunnydale, but she’d somehow seen or felt the car coming and at the last possible moment she’d thrown Buffy—stroller and all—to Lilah Morgan-Chase, who’d caught the baby and claimed an impressive reward for doing so a few weeks later.

It had been hard, he remembered, for his Dad and he to try to hold things together on their own. Dad had been dying inside; mostly because while Joyce had been a good choice as a wife—she was the Summers in Summers Industries and their marriage had created a merger between SI and GileSystems, forming Giles-Summers Industries—he’d truly loved her. Add in trying to raise a one year old as well as a three year old, and…

Oh, yeah. Things had been hard and Xander hadn’t been old enough to be of any real help. In fact, he was likely more of a hindrance.

He certainly hadn’t been even a little bit supportive when his Dad had married again; this time to a woman who was so unlike Joyce that he couldn’t manage to grasp it.

Sheila had been a nightmare. A nightmare composed of too-perfect hair and too-reserved touches designed to give the impression that she cared, but… she was an anthropologist and cared nothing for anyone or anything other than her research.

Xander still wasn’t sure of how she’d managed to conceive his youngest sister Willow but obviously she had… and had run off to study aborigines in the depths of the Congo a mere six weeks after giving birth.

Three weeks later, Ethan had arrived and nothing had been the same again.

For one thing, Xander had never seen his father so… relaxed. Not since before his mother’s death, anyway.

Ethan had bothered him in a way Sheila never had. Even as an uncaring and cold woman, Sheila and his Dad had made some sort of sense. Hell, he’d seen his friends’ parents and it was always boy-girl. But boy-boy? It didn’t gel within young Xander’s mind.

He’d been resistant, but Ethan had been so good with Buffy and Willow that as he’d grown older he’d sort of accepted the other Englishman, trusting him almost as much as he trusted his Dad.

And when he was fourteen he’d discovered exactly how far Ethan was willing to go to keep their family on top and he’d never really trusted him again.

But now… well, he still didn’t exactly trust the older man, but he… understood.

All the introspection took a mere moment and when Xander smiled, he let his eyes meet Ethan’s. “I mean it. Fuck off. I’m not the same kid you knew, Ethan. My life is… different.” Xander swallowed hard, forcing his stare to be both hard and sincere. “And when I leave this time…”

“You’re not coming back,” the reedy man guessed. “Your father will be heartbroken, you know… after all, you’ve only one more million to earn before you’ve matched and surpassed him.”

Xander sighed. “It was never about out-doing him, but you know that, don’t you? Or maybe it was at first, but… not now.” He waited for the nod then went on. “You’re right, by the way. I’m in love. And he’s…” Xander’s eyes glazed and he sat down suddenly on the edge of his old bed. “He’s not what I ever thought I’d fall for, Uncle. He’s… complicated. He’s just so… fuck, I don’t know how to say this without sounding scarily gay, but he’s so fucking perfect. I… I swear, if he were a woman, I’d be plotting how many kids I could get him to shell out for me.” A soft sigh left him and he hung his head. “Jesus, I know Dad wants grandkids, but I just can’t…”

Ethan smiled his dangerous and wicked smile as he patted Xander’s shoulder. “I doubt you need to worry about that, Xander. Buffy seems to have it covered.”

He laughed softly at the brunette’s stunned stare.

“Buffy,” Ethan said slowly, “has developed an infatuation for Liam Aurelius of Aurelius Technology Systems.” He grinned. “And he seems to return her interest. Assuming it lasts more than another few months, there is a very good chance that your father’s desires will be satisfied within the year.”

And the interesting part of that was… “GSI has been aching to do a hostile takeover of ATS for years,” Xander snapped. “Why in the hell would Dad want to do it that way? Connect our family to… them?” He glared. “He would never…!”

Ethan smiled a bit and shook his head. “If you’d actually been listening, you would have heard me saying there’s a grand passion between your sister and Liam Angelus. It has nothing to do with Ripper, although he’s not exactly upset about it. If they marry, GSI gets ATS without any drama… and without cashing in any capital. And there is the added benefit of children. God help us all if the step-brother breeds first, though. He’s got forty-nine percent of the public stock through his mother, whether he’s brain damaged or not… which is actually rather in question.”

And that was probably true enough, though Xander had never really bothered to keep up with the lives and such of the competition, but ATS were definitely their biggest rival company and had done things that… well, were definitely not kosher, which begged the question…

“How in the Hell did Buffy ever meet Liam Angelus, much less end up spending time with him? We avoid them like the plague, ever since Heinrich fucked us over after Mom died!”

Another small smile crossed Ethan’s lips. “I suppose your sister felt it was time to bury the hatchet, Xander. Among other things.”

He felt ill at the very idea of his sister with an Aurelius, but… it was her decision, Xander figured. He only hoped she wouldn’t end up regretting it. Hell, he hoped he didn’t end up vomiting.

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tbc...