Stricken

Part Three

At the soft, sad tone of Xander’s voice, Angel reached over and touched the boy’s shoulder lightly, frowning when he flinched. He didn’t move his hand this time, though, just rubbed soothingly until Xander relaxed and raised his head to look up at him.

The anguish in those chocolate eyes made his stomach clench and he wasn’t sure why. This was Xander. The bane of his existence, at least when Spike wasn’t around. While he shouldn’t enjoy the boy’s pain, certainly, he shouldn’t feel this moved by it, either. At the very least, his demon should feel some smugness but the only thing he was getting from it was a strange desire to kill Willow so that Xander had nothing to feel badly about.

Which made no sense at all, but that was Angelus for you.

Shaking off the sudden suspiciousness he was feeling regarding his demon, Angel spoke quietly, not wanting to spook the skittish boy. He wanted to comfort him but he couldn’t when he didn’t know exactly what had happened. Besides, it might do Xander good to talk about it.

“Xander? Tell me what happened.”

The boy gave him a slightly stubborn look but he just waited patiently until the werewolf sighed and replied sullenly, “I don’t know when it started. After I got bit, everything was normal for awhile. Then I started hearing things, seeing, smelling things.. feeling things I shouldn’t have been able to. I couldn’t block it and it just kept building, day after day. Around Willow…it was worse.”

He paused and Angel nodded encouragingly, still lightly stroking the boy’s shoulder. After a moment, Xander sighed and continued. “I started snapping at the girls… not literally, I mean being all annoyed and growly. I get this itch under my skin and everything starts pissing me off. But it still wasn’t, you know… bad until after the first time I changed. I knew what was happening, I could feel it building, so I locked myself up. Tore the inside of the closet all to pieces. I remember it all but what I remember most is the…anger, I guess. It doesn’t like being suppressed. And the sense of freedom…” At this the boy’s eyes closed and Angel stared avidly at the slightly wonderstruck smile on Xander’s face before the young man blinked his eyes open and sighed.

“It’s so hard to deny it now, Angel. But after that, that’s when I started noticing that I was following Willow around. About 4 or 5 nights ago, I kind of blanked out and the next thing I know, I’m standing behind her and I just wanted to…grab her, make her submit, make her hurt. I mean, Willow, Angel! If I could hurt Willow, then no one’s safe. Gods, if I hadn’t realized what I was doing,” he shuddered, shoulders hunching as he wrapped his arms around himself.

Without realizing what he was doing, Angel grasped more firmly on the trembling shoulder and tugged the boy forward, into his arms, and held the boy close, murmuring into his hair. Xander stiffened for a moment but eventually relaxed up against Angel, breath coming in pants as he obviously thought about what could have happened.

When the tremors subsided, Angel still held him to his side, ignoring the not-so-subtle attempts Xander made to wriggle away. “What happened then, Xander? Why didn’t you go to Giles after that?”

The boy set his mouth mulishly, obviously not wanting to answer. The tightening of Angel’s stomach warned him that he might not want to know, as did the shiver that ran up his spine, but he had to ask again.

“Xander? What happened after you realized what you were about to do to Willow?” he asked in his firmest tone, the one usually reserved for Spike, though it only rarely worked on his grandchilde.

Xander opened his mouth and closed it, shifting a little under his arm, before muttering quietly. “Was so upset. I mean, I wasn’t even attracted to Willow anymore. She’s Willow. How would I react around someone I wanted? I don’t wanna be like that, Angel. I won’t.”

Angel waited a minute, knowing Xander didn’t want to answer but not wanting to push too hard. His fingers stroked lightly over the boy’s arm until, with a small sigh, Xander continued.

“I…remembered from when we studied on werewolves when we first found out Oz was one. Went back to the house and got into my mom’s old spoons and forks and stuff. They were supposed to be pure silver.” At this point, Angel couldn’t help his muscles tightening up as he realized what Xander was saying.

The boy shivered again and pressed closer to Angel, voice low and hoarse. “I sharpened one of the old knives and sliced from my wrists to my elbows on both arms. My hands were shaking so bad, I made a real mess of it. Nothing unusual there.” He stared down at his unblemished forearms like he could still see the blood flowing.

“As you can see, they healed up pretty quickly. My head was still racing and everything just got so overwhelming, blood was everywhere, making everything slippery. I didn’t know why it didn’t work. Figured maybe it was like vampires or something, it had to be inside. So I drove it into my heart.”

Angel’s body was rigid now, his demon pacing inside his mind, hands rubbing up and down the boy’s arms without thought. Xander glanced up at him and smirked a little, saying emotionlessly, “Hurt like fuck. But I guess I should have known that mom wouldn’t have anything as expensive as pure silver.”

His voice cracked on the last word and he brought his hands up to wipe furiously at his eyes. Silently, Angel hauled him onto his lap, hugging the boy tightly as he started to cry, face buried in the vampire's shoulder.

Sobs wracked Xander’s body, voice harsh and gasping as he wrapped his arms around Angel and held tight. “I’m supposed to be dead, I..I should have died! I can’t make myself d-do it again, Angel. I’m not strong enough.”

Rocking him roughly, Angel’s big hands massaged and stroked the boy’s shuddering back, murmuring to him in a low voice until the harsh sobs dissolved into some gasps and soft hiccups against his now-wet shirt. He held him tight, hands still lightly stroking along Xander’s spine, as he started talking in a soft voice, not wanting to startle the boy and make him decide to move.

“You probably smelled Oz on Willow. Your wolf would see her as the mate of another wolf and would want to compete for dominance but Oz wasn’t there to fight. I’ll get Wesley to look up all we need to know about werewolves, okay? It’s going to be fine. There’s got to be a way to put the wolf under control.”

Xander sighed against his shirt and simply nodded, obviously too drained to argue. Which was a first. Not wanting to tempt fate, Angel just sat quietly, one hand still absently stroking along the soft t-shirt covering Xander’s back, the other lightly holding the boy against him.

Footsteps creaked overhead and Xander’s head jerked up, startled. When the boy ducked his head and tried to wriggle away, Angel knew he was finally processing everything that had happened but he didn’t want Xander to be embarrassed about it.

He let him get as far as sitting half beside him then stopped him, catching the boy by the shoulder, turning him to face him. When Xander wouldn’t look up, he grasped him by the chin and tilted his head up, speaking quietly as he heard the door above the stairs open.

“It’s going to be okay. No more of this silver crap, alright? We’ll work all this out.”

When Xander didn’t answer, just stared up at him with a clenched jaw and puffy eyes, Angel shook him slightly. “Xander. No more, okay?”

The boy growled softly and Angel felt it vibrate under his palms, but he just arched a brow and waited.

“I already said I couldn’t. You want it written in blood?” Xander finally snapped out.

Sighing, Angel dropped his hand from the belligerent boy’s chin, wondering again why he just hadn’t kicked him out to start with. What he was going to do with a moody teenager in the hotel, he didn’t know. But obviously, they weren’t looking after him in Sunnydale.

Forcibly ignoring the suggestions Angelus threw him at how to deal with the boy, Angel looked up and tried to smile at Wesley as the preoccupied ex-Watcher came down the stairs. He had his glasses perched on the end of his nose and was flipping quickly through one of his books, a perplexed expression on his face.

“Angel?” he called, not glancing up, and jumped a little when Angel said, “Here, Wes.”

“Ah, yes. There you are. Good morning, Xander. Angel, these books aren’t as detailed as I would like, although they do have some fascinating information in them. Including, um.. Angel, if I may ask, why did you say you bit the werewolf last night?”

Angel blinked and Xander shifted uncomfortably against him. “To try to control him, calm him down. Dominance and all of that. Why?”

Wesley glanced back down at the book, then back at Xander, making the boy shift around again. Angel frowned and looked down at the young man, trying to find what Wesley was staring at. Xander caught on before him, however, and reached up to block the scar on his neck from the older men, scowling.

Wesley sighed. “Oh, dear.”