The Adventures of Deadboy and Zeppo

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Xander lay diagonally across the bed on his stomach, and Angel traced a finger up the back of his childe's thigh where a series of bites decorated the flesh. The ghastly white of starvation had been replaced with the more normal tones of a fledge, and the bites from the previous night had already faded to faint bruises despite the fact that Angel had allowed his teeth to tear the flesh. Angel used his demon vision to examine the fading marks and trace the veins traveling under the surface of the skin.

Xander moaned without regaining consciousness, and Angel smiled. While he had whipped Dru into unconsciousness many times, driving Xander into oblivion through multiple orgasms had been a special treat. The boy had reacted to every touch and bite with appreciative moans and cries and when Angel had finally allowed the boy some initiative, he had been floored with Xander's enthusiastic explorations. Not even Dru had made him feel so satisfied.

Xander threw out an arm and stirred restlessly as Angel continued to explore his childe's body with a single finger.

Five days. For five days he had not walked the balance beam in his mind, and he still couldn't figure out how Xander's words had managed to cut through to him. He had loved Doyle as a brother, but when Doyle had told him basically the same thing, Angel had ignored the man. He had talked to people more and let them physically close to him, but he had kept that emotional distance. He had still tried to be perfect. How funny that Xander Harris' words had reached him where Doyle's had not.

He knew full well that things were not going to be perfect. Despite the fact that he had promised himself to give up the guilt, he did feel guilty that he was benefiting from Xander's death because he had respected the annoying human. He worried about hurting Buffy. She wouldn't understand why he could start rebuilding a life with Cordelia and Wesley and Xander when he couldn't build one with her. But no matter how much he loved her, and he always would, he couldn't live with someone who saw him as the dark savior of her fantasies. It was just a little too easy to lie to himself when he was with her.

And then there were the inevitable problems when Buffy and Willow found out Xander had come to L.A. Angel knew how much the two girls had loved Xander, and knowing that Xander's demon was in Angel's bed might create more problems than the Demon Initiative had. Oh, it was hard to have a perfect moment with the clouds of guilt and fear circling, but Angel let himself have at least a good moment as Xander's fingers curled around his arm.

"Sire," Xander whispered, and no matter how many times the boy said that word, Angel still felt the pull. Xander looked to him for protection and life, and Angel could admit now that the need to dominate Xander came from both a demonic sense of clan and power as well as his own past. He remembered the joy of holding down a bar maid as she wiggled in mock protest. He'd loved those games because his lack of control in his father's house had left him seeking power elsewhere.

"Here, boy," Angel whispered, and the hand on his arm tightened as Xander opened large brown eyes. Angel's own body was draped over Xander's back, and Angel made no move to get up.

"Thank you." Xander whispered, and Angel frowned at the tone.

"I enjoyed it too," Angel pointed out as he tried to decipher the look on Xander's face. The adoration and lust and need from the previous night had been erased from Xander's face, and Angel found himself resenting the sad, closed expression that had taken their place.

"Angel?" Xander asked in a small voice.

"Xander?" Angel returned in the same tone, unable to understand the sudden change after last night, but certainly wasn't pleased.

"Do you..." the boy's voice stuttered, "will you just finish it before I say something really stupid that ruins this whole not hating each other moment?" Xander's words tumbled out, making Angel roll to one side and half sit up. The fledge pulled back the hand that had reached out to his sire even in sleep, and Angel could feel his anger gnaw at the edges of his control.

"Finish... Xander, do you really think I'd stake you?" Angel demanded angrily. Xander hunched his shoulders unhappily.

"Kinda hoping because I still have the whole fear of fire thing going, so walking in the sun is not high on my list of wanna-do's." Xander said to the pillow.

Angel growled and rolled Xander over so that he was lying face up on the bed still pinned beneath Angel. As he looked down at Xander's hunched form, he realized that Xander did in fact expect to die. Then again, after the stories Xander had told of his parents, Xander had always been hurt by the people he loved. Even the Scoobies who had loved him unconditionally had unintentionally hurt him in ways that had surprised Angel. So of course the demon would expect the same.

"You will not walk in the sun," Angel ordered in his strongest sire voice.

"Look Deadboy, we both know this thing is a really, really bad idea what with me not having a soul and all, and even Cordy understands that it's just better to have a quick end."

"Mother of God. Please tell me you did not tell Cordy I was going to stake you," Angel begged. He didn't have the energy to deal with Cordelia and there would come a time when the woman had enough clothes that throwing a credit card at her would no longer work as a form of self-defense.

"Um, I didn't tell Cordy you were going to stake me," Xander said in a tone of voice that made it perfectly clear that he had told her exactly that.

"Wonderful," Angel complained in a sarcastic tone that made Xander flinch. "That's going to be a fun conversation." Oh yeah, the idea of a perfect moment was sliding farther away by the second. "Xander, get this through your head: I am not going to *ever *stake you."

"But..."

"One more word, and you're going to find out how I taught William to be more careful with the horses," Angel threatened, and Xander stopped talking immediately. However, the eyes still had the guarded sadness that made Angel wonder how much of this pain Xander had carried in life. He took a breath as he realized that he had to either convince Xander that he was needed or risk the idiot running into the sun in some misguided attempt to do what he thought his sire wanted.

"I have spent the last century trying to deny myself every pleasure, and maybe I've decided to change my policy. I want family. I want childer, and Dru and Spike just don't fit into my life now. You are the only family I have or want, and if you destroy yourself, I will follow you to Hell and made you sorry you ever rose from your grave," Angel growled menacingly. Xander looked up and a crooked slowly smile appeared.

"You want me to stay?"

"I think I just said that," Angel pointed out.

"Yeah, I thought so, but sometimes I'm not quick-to-catch-on guy. Just thought I'd check." Angel looked down in confusion as Xander's eyes darted off to the side. Suddenly Angel realized why Xander had asked.

"Xander, if you need to hear me say it, you just need to ask," Angel offered. Xander was giving Angel the power and control he had always longed for in a relationship; the least Angel could do was offer Xander something in return.

"I need to hear you say it," Xander admitted with an indifferent shrug. Angel reached out and cupped Xander's face and forced his childe's head up so that he could look Xander in the eye.

"You're mine Xander, and I will never let you go. You won't ever leave me or kill yourself because you belong to me." Angel could feel the tremors go through the body beneath him, and yellow bled into the dark brown eyes watching him. For not the first time Angel considered that demons would be better off possessing creatures with fewer hang-ups than humans.

"Even when I have one of those days when my powers of annoyance are, you know, annoying?" Xander asked, but now his expression held a wonder that reminded Angel of young William.

"I didn't say I wouldn't beat you senseless," Angel shot back, but he lightened his words with a smile.

"That'd take about two hits," Xander returned quickly as Angel got up off the bed and started searching for clothing.

"Yeah, well you never did have the sense god gave a goose."

"Hey, I've met a few geese at the school zoo, and they do pretty well for themselves. I mean, have you ever tried to pull a goose's tail?"

Angel stopped in the middle of pulling up his pants and looked over at his childe. "No, Xander, I don't think I ever have." He threw a pair of black pants at Xander who put them on.

"Don't try. They've got a nasty bite, and the embarrassing pictures people will get of you running away from a bird? So not worth it."

"I'll keep that in mind," Angel said as he fought the urge to laugh. Dru had truly created the most human vampire Angel had ever met.

"You know, I really thought I was coming here to die. I'm kinda glad I'm not all dusty since you turned out to be less of a pain in the ass than I expected, Deadboy," Xander offered as he caught a shirt Angel threw his way.

"I have to admit that I'm glad you came to LA. I'm still a little confused about why Dru turned you only to leave you, but that's Dru." Angel shrugged at the insanity of his strangest creation. He thought that he could totally own her by driving her mad, but in some ways Dru had never been his because of her insanity.

"Tell me about it. She babbled about people in the stars the whole time that minion of hers was holding me down. Stars, blah, blah, blah…. Brother with the kiss, blah, blah, blah…. Green eyes, blah, blah, blah." Xander's words made Angel freeze mid-step as he walked toward the door and the sounds of his humans down below. He slowly turned as the words triggered a memory.

"Xander, tell me everything she said."

Now Xander stopped walking and cocked his head slightly in confusion. "She said so much, the talkage and the petage and the near heart-attack level fear went on for a while before she actually got around to biting me."

"Tell me as many phrases as you can remember." Angel watched as Xander's confusion grew even greater before he closed his eyes in concentration as he attempted to obey.

"She said Buffy had been bad and had stolen Spike's eyes. She said she wanted to steal Spike's eyes back. She talked about her brother in the sky who listened to the stars with her. She muttered on about him dancing in the stars after the world went dark. She absolutely ranted about naughty dolls who didn't like their dresses." Xander paused and wrinkles appeared in his forehead. "She talked about a lost kitten and green eyes and a fire that was burning a mountain." Xander now opened his eyes, but Angel could tell that the fledge was seeing Drusilla's face in his memory.

"She said that her brother with green eyes was calling." Xander laughed a little. "I told her I could get her a good package on a cell phone so she could call back because I was working at this place that sold these really cheap…." Xander glanced over and then laughed a little nervously, "And that's totally off topic. Okay, Drusilla. She said kittens could see in the dark and her brother told her to make the kitten new and sunshine made her skin giggle and puppies sometimes peed on the floor and that I was a bad little boy. I'm sorry, that's really all I remember since I was focusing more on the panicking than the listening."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Angel whispered softly, the words coming easily to his lips even though he hadn't used that phrase in quite a few decades.

"Did any of that made sense to you? 'Cause I have to say I think she's battier than a fruit loop." Xander looked at him curiously, and Angel struggled with how much to explain. Should his redemption come at the cost of another life? Could it?

"Dru had a vision."

"Yeah, she gets those a lot. They have medicine for that now."

"She has real visions, just like Cordy, just like Doyle used to."

"Doyle?"

"He…" Angel stopped. "He's the one who convinced me I couldn't keep trying to live separate from humans. He's dead."

"Okay, and this is me being even more confused," Xander admitted.

"Dru is a seer and so was Doyle, so he's a brother of sorts to her. Doyle also has green eyes and since he died saving others, I imagine he is dancing in the stars after his world went dark. I definitely know he listened to the stars since that's Dru's description of a vision."

"This is starting to sound like that poetry class in school that I always hated because I couldn't get the right answers out of the poem. So tell me, where do bad dolls that hate their dresses come into this?"

"I have no idea," Angel admitted. "But I think Doyle asked Dru to turn you."

"Whoa, you mean the Powers That Be stuck their fingers in my life? I'm not liking that idea. Demon here, don't really want the powers of light interested in me."

"But you aren't completely a demon. Dru left you your humanity, and no offense Xander, but you're still pretty much you, including the fact that you only care about the people who you consider friends. You had a..." Angel struggled to explain what he had seen in the human Xander, "a coldness towards other people."

"Okay, that's kinda true. I had a mean streak that Willow always used to ignore. But I'm still not getting why one of your dead friends would send crazy girl after me." Angel glanced at Xander sharply, surprised to see the fledge had given up Dru as a sire so completely.

"Simple, kittens can see in the dark." Angel offered with a shrug of his own as he opened his bedroom door. He could hear Cordelia slamming things around the office, a sure sign she was either hurting or homicidally angry.

"Either that's not simple or I'm not that bright." Xander gave a small cackling laugh. "Maybe both."

"Maybe I just need to listen to my childe a little more often," Angel translated as he threw his arm around Xander's shoulders and started walking again.

"I don't know if I can handle being listened to. I've spent 19 years getting ignored, Deadboy."

"If you don't stop calling me Deadboy, I'm going to let Gunn call you Zeppo for the next decade or so," Angel threatened.

"That's okay," Xander answered amicably. "Gunn calls me names for the same reason I called you Deadboy back in Sunnydale."

"To annoy the unlife out of me?"

"Um, yeah. Well, that and to try and make you seem smaller so that I didn't feel like pissing my pants every time you snuck up behind me with your whole dead creepage thing."

"I don't sneak *or* creep," Angel said. Xander looked over and Angel tried to suppress his smile. "I just lurk really quietly."

"Okay, if that's your attempt at humor, you're pathetic."

"I'm two hundred years out of practice," Angel pointed out with a shrug.

"Okay, maybe I'll cut you some slack for that, Deadboy."

"Watch it, Zeppo. Have some respect for your sire."

Xander smiled as Angel let go of his shoulders long enough to cuff him upside the head gently.

"Whatever," he answered.

"God, you've been hanging out with Gunn too much," Angel complained, and Xander gave a little laugh. "We've got cases waiting, so it's time to get back to work, Kitten."

"Okay, I officially hate that nickname more than Zeppo." Xander put an elbow in Angel's stomach just hard enough to register his annoyance.

"Whatever," Angel answered right back as he steered his childe toward the stairs. It was time to start a new life. Angel sent up a quick prayer that Xander's soul had found peace and a quick thanks to Doyle for helping him see the true path to redemption.