Lycanthrope, Vampirism, and Magick

One month later and Xander was still at Halliwell Manor. The three sisters and two boys were quickly becoming his family, his pack. Still there was something missing, a mate.

He did enjoy helping the Charmed Ones though. He felt needed. Mostly he provided back up when needed and protected the kids. Besides of the kids, he worked part time at Piper’s club, P3, and did some fix-it stuff around the neighborhood. That way he’d be there when the kids nd a d a babysitter/guard werewolf.

He only had about three big problems in his life, and they weren’t really problems. Ever since Wyatt had seen him in his full wolf form, he had been dubbed Uncle Fluffy. Now he couldn’t live it down, even Paige and Phoebe used it every once in a while. It was cute the first couple of days, but it got old quick. Okay so he didn’t mind Wyatt, but when Leo said it, it grated. But it proved that they liked him enough to tease him at least.

Second big problem was his love life, or the two younger sisters involvement in it. At first both had shown interest, Paige had thrown a pass good enough for her to be in the NFL when she took him back to his bike the first day they had met, flirting and touching.

Now that they knew they lacked certain equipment they worked to fix him up with every Tom, Dick, and Harry. What fun.

The biggest problem was plaguing him now. Phoebe did an advice column for the paper, it had even gotten syndicated. So she was the first to notice how he would avoid talking too much about his past, about Sunnydale. She was convinced it wasn’t a good idea to bottle up emotions and all that and tried every so often to pry more information out of him than he was willing to give.

“I’m not telling you today and I’m not telling you for your column Pheebs, you’ll just have to get over that writer’s block all on your own.”

“ You know you’ll have to face it, one day Xander. You can’t run away forever.”

”As the song goes, there’s nothing wrong with getting a good head start. I know, just not now, kay Phoebe?” He smiled his brightest smile at her and batted his eyelashes. She laughed.

They were in the dining room, he was feeding Wyatt, having put Chris down for a nap, and she was trying in vain to come up with a new idea for her paper. The house smelled of the sister’s perfumes, candles and herbs they used along with baby powder. It smelled like home.

“Hey when does Paige get home?”

Phoebe looked over the top of her laptop; eyeglasses perched on the end of her nose. “Umm, in a hour or so I think. She’s a waitress today, or bartender, something like that. With all her temp jobs I get confused.”

“Yeah, but she loves it. Well she doesn’t love having something new to learn everyday, but she loves helping people and you gotta admit she does a great job at it.”

All three of the sisters seemed to have an inner need to help people, and not just with their magick. Piper was the ultimate mother figure, loving, protective, helping everyone in need, and more than ready to kick you in the ass if she felt you needed it.

Phoebe had empathy as a power, as a result she was very attuned to how people were feeling and wanted to make things better. She put most of that need into her column that was why she was so damn good at it. As long as she didn’t use him as a guinea pig.

Paige was the youngest sister. Well half sister. Like Wyatt and Chris her father had been a white-lighter. These were guardian angles of a sort for witches. So it was in her nature to guide people along their life’s path or help in any way she could. When she first found out about her birthright of being one of the most powerful witches in the world, she had been a social worker. Taking time off for fighting demons put a stop to that and now she did temp jobs, everything from packing oranges to secretarial work in big offices. More often than not she found someone who needed help and was there for him or her, a do-gooder through and through.

“Well I’d better head down to the basement and change if I’m gonna help out at the club tonight. Who’s playing anyhow?”

“Some local band, I have no idea. Hey you gonna talk to Tony if he comes by?”

“Gods please tell me Paige didn’t give him my work schedule. What is it with you two? He’s too, I dunno, too passive. That one date we went on I felt like I was a parent not an equal and I am so not into daddy kink!”

At that thought her nose wrinkled up ever so cutely. It really was a shame he wasn’t into girls, she’d make a great mate.

“Okay I so don’t want to go there Xander, more than you even. I’ll make sure he doesn’t bother you tonight if he’s there to make up for it, kay?”

“Thanks. Igo ggo get ready now.”

He went through the kitchen, down into the basement. There wasn’t much space for bedrooms in the house so he had a cot set up down there, in what used to be a darkroom. He didn’t mind it so much; it wasn’t as if he spent any time down here awake.

Half an hour later and he was ready to work, red polo shirt replacing the tee that Chris had spit up on, his oldest and softest pair of jeans and boots. Not fancy, but it would do.

Piper was at the club already, but Paige was back. She’d brought home pizza from her temp place and the three adults ate in the kitchen.

“You should have seen this guy, I mean he was huge! And his girlfriend was so much smaller and he kept yelling, and then he went to slap her and I just couldn’t help it, I had to stop him!”

Paige was freaking out, she had used her telekinesis on a mortal, a human. That was so against the rules, but what else could she have done? Xander thought. If he was that big it wasn’t as if she could hit him. “Well at least no one noticed, and hey you helped save her from a beating, at least today. That’s a good start.”

“I just don’t see why she was upset that I knocked him out, I mean he was hitting her, you’d think she’d be grateful or something!”

Phoebe put down her slice of pizza to give her sister a comforting pat. “I know Paige, but it doesn’t always work that way. You know that from when you were a social worker. The person being abused is the one that must decide to end the relationship. Maybe now though she knows there are people willing to help her.”

They finished dinner in silence, each wrapped up in their own thoughts.

An hour later found Xander behind the bar at P3. It was a good night, Saturday in the summer, good band. The club was really jumping.

What he liked about bartending here was the fact that it wasn’t just beer and Jack. He could use some of his experience with mixed drinks, Harvey Wallbangers, Blue Thunders, Pain Killers, Slippery Nipples and his favorite to serve with a wink, Screaming Multiple Orgasms. Every night he worked he challenged someone to find a drink he didn’t know, if they won he’d buy their entire party a drink.

It didn’t happen often.

Tony never did show up, and Xander was really enjoying himself. The music was loud, so he had on protective earplugs and that was a bother, but he loved the feel of the music, the beat rumbling through his bones, making him vibrate.

If he let himself on nights like this he could be lost in scent alone, the smell of different perfumes and people, and emotions. It gave him almost a high, it was so intoxicating.

After the club closed on these nights he’d go out, go wolf. Not really hunting for anything, just running out in the open, enjoying life, what he was. If you would have told him all those years ago in Sunnydale when he first met Buffy that eight or so years down the rode he’d be a were and love it, he would have thought the teller was totally insane. But it was true; he did love it and wouldn’t change it for anything.

Later on he was on break in the back, just sitting back and enjoying what he could sense. A guy had tried to either flirt or stump him, he wasn’t sure, but just about every bartender knew how to make a Blow Job so maybe it was flirting. Or a blatant proposition.

Problem was because of his looks, tall and dark and biker with long hair, he attracted the kind of men and women that were expecting him to dominate in a relationship. But he wasn’t an alpha, okay so the hyena demon once upon a time might have been, but him, Xander was a beta, a hunt brother, someone that followed but didn’t lead. He longed for someone strong enough to dominate him, that he could trust with his whole self and not have to hold back anything.

Pushing these thoughts away he stepped outside to clear his head before going back to work. It was lucky that he did, otherwise no one might have noticed the demon trying to sneak in through the back.