Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me

He was treated to seeing Giles do his flounder impersonation for the second time in one night. This was sort of fun. “What? I…Ethan…how did you know?”

Xander grinned. “You all but came out and said you were bi this summer, G-man. And Ethan’s been skulking around town for nearly three weeks. He could have pulled off that Halloween thing anywhere but he did it here to get your attention. And if he killed Buffy, well, you wouldn’t have a slayer to Watch anymore and would be free to take up your life of crime once again. When I was eight I used to throw pinecones and mud balls at Jesse when he followed Cordelia too long. It’s pretty much the same thing only, well, more evil. It makes a weird sort of sense.”

He’d gotten that last bit figured out thanks to Spike. And it did make a weird sort of sense. Ethan had gotten away from them the other night when Angelus and Eyghon went toe to toe in Angel’s head but Spike said he was still around.

It was kind of cute in a weird sort of way. Not to mention the fact that if Giles and Ethan were dating, well then, Giles couldn’t very well object to Spike all that much, could he?

“And just what makes you think that I would allow myself to associate with a reprobate like Ethan Rayne?” Giles was putting on his Dignified British Guy routine, which Xander might have believed if not for the pictures he’d found in the older man’s file cabinets. He had shown the girls the one of teen rebel Giles in jeans and a tee shirt and doing his James Dean thing. He didn’t show them the other picture of Giles with his arm around the neck of a much younger Ethan, both of them leering at whoever had taken the picture.

He knew that feeling because Spike had thrown his arm around his neck many a time and would then proceed to pull him in close to say something for only Xander to hear or to kiss him until he saw spots. Either way, Giles wasn’t fooling him.

He took a deep breath. He’d been thinking about this sort of thing for a while now. Well, not the Ethan and Giles part but the good guy in love with a bad guy part. “Okay, I’m going to get into some really circular logic here, G-man, and I really hope you can keep up. As Willow would say, this is definitely not Earth People logic. In fact, it’s Babylon 5 logic.”

“Oh, dear lord. Xander…”

He held up his hands. “Giles, bear with me a bit. It'll become clear or you can call the men in the little white coats to take me away, all right? See, Babylon 5 wasn’t just a series with aliens and fighting. The creator meant it to be sort of a futuristic version of War and Peace. It took years to tell the entire story, but what it was mainly about was the fight between the Vorlons and the Shadows and all the different alien species that got caught up in between, including the humans and the Minbari.”

“Okay, so the Vorlons, they were like seriously into order and doing everything a certain way and following orders without question. They’d been manipulating humans and the other races for centuries, preparing them to fight the Shadows when they came back. You could say they were the good guys but they weren’t, not really.”

“The Shadows, well, they believed that chaos and destruction was the best way to get humans and other species to advance. Survival of the fittest and a Scorched Earth kind of policy. When you get down to it, though, between the two races you have light and dark or good and evil. And there was war."

"But what the leaders of the regular people figured out is that neither way was right. Total chaos just destroyed people and things needlessly but the Vorlons wanted total obedience without question. Too much order isn’t good for people either. You’ve got to have a middle ground.”

Giles actually looked interested. Well, at the very least he wasn’t laughing his ass off, so that was good, right?

“Well, in the end the Humans and Minbari won, but what I’m saying is that maybe, if you compromise with Ethan, you can give him some of your order, and he can share some of his chaos with you and you’ll be more balanced. Because, let’s face it, Giles, when you went back to the Watchers you pretty much let yourself be brainwashed back into their mindset. Thank god you let us hang around, otherwise you’d still be the tightass from last year and wouldn’t have any fun at all.”

Xander finally let his babble wind down. It really did sound logical, at least to him. Unless he was just fooling himself so he could feel better about falling in love with Spike. Maybe he should just let Spike turn him; philosophy wasn’t his strong point and he had a feeling he wouldn’t care so much if he didn’t have a conscience.

And wasn’t it weird when you actually thought about letting your boyfriend kill you so you didn’t have to worry about if you were evil or not? Or halfway evil. Whatever he was since he was a good guy “shagging” a bad guy.

And he really needed to get the Grey Council pledge thingie out of his head.

Giles sighed and took off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I’m not quite sure if I’m too drunk or not drunk enough, since I actually understood that and it made a bizarre kind of sense.”

Xander grinned. “Well, I did try to catch you before you got too drunk so you’d be more open to what I had to say. Are you still sort of sloshed? I’d love to play in your weapons cabinet if you are. That cross bow you were talking about the other day with the new trigger? It looks too cool!”

Giles gave him a look that said “shut up” but Xander saw how his lips were twitching. Good, he hadn’t pissed him off too badly. “Xander, I do believe I’ve had a difficult enough week that I could do without the trip to the emergency room when you shoot yourself in the foot.”

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you, Xander. In the meantime, I will think about what you said. Now can we please drop this awkward conversation before we both need to seek therapy?”

“Avoidance. I can do that really well.” He shifted in his seat. “What’s up with Buffy anyhow?”

This time Giles frowned. “What do you mean by that, exactly?”

“G-man, the other night she was wearing a sweat suit to do her Slayer stuff in. With long sleeves and it was baggy. That is too weird.”

“Yes, well, Buffy has been awfully quiet but I thought that was due to that Ford fellow.” Giles was leaning back in his chair and drinking tea again and he didn’t seem too worried. Still, there had been something off with Buffy for the last few days that had left Xander feeling unsettled. “Of course, it’s always hard to have to stake one of your friends. Perhaps you could talk to her.”

“What?!” Xander sat up. He hadn’t heard about anyone being vamped.

“Yes, while we were on patrol one night we ran into Ford. Apparently Spike had turned him to get back at Buffy or perhaps to punish Ford for trying to manipulate him. Buffy’s been quite upset about it. We talked a little after it happened but since then she refuses to say anything about it, even when I suggest she talks to you or Willow.”

Xander didn’t know what to say. He didn’t think Spike had done it, but he wasn’t sure. If Spike had done it, he would have left his body on Buffy’s doorstep with something metal sticking out of Ford’s skull to make sure Buffy knew who did it.

And he doubted Ford had let a minion get him. According to Buffy, the guy had some moves and could hold his own.

So, who killed Ford?

“Well, damn.”

*****