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Xander sitting very still just looking at a phone was not a good sign. If he hadn't made the call, he would be fidgeting and shifting, doodling fantastic buildings on the telephone pad, knee jumping and shoulders twisting as he worked himself into the state of mind in which he would either do it, or decide (as he had already decided more than once) that he couldn’t do it.
Giles knew this: he was a Watcher, and he watched. He watched the girls, he watched those members of his staff who couldn’t be called ‘girls’ – dear lord, he had staff, he had people working for him who received payslips; the thing that had finally convinced him that he had to learn to use a computer was his father pointing out that he could get free payroll software. Taxation was still a closed book to him, but he no longer spent two days every month swearing over PAYE and National Insurance calculations.
He watched Xander, partly because Xander was the other active Watcher, and partly because Xander was worth watching. He knew what Xander did.
So if Xander wasn’t fidgeting, Xander wasn’t waiting to make the call.
And if Xander had made the call and everything had gone well, Xander would have come to tell Giles about it, Giles was certain of that. Giles had been careful to express no opinion on whether or not Xander should call, other than “I can see arguments either way; do whatever you think best, I’m not going to criticise.”
Hence trivially, as Giles’ old maths master used to say before writing an incomprehensible proof on a blackboard, Xander had made the call and it had not gone well.
When he put the bottle on the table, Xander didn’t even look up; Giles winced at the degree of hurt to be seen on his face. He didn’t stint on the Scotch he poured into the two glasses, just pushed one over to Xander's hand, and sat down opposite.
Xander almost seemed surprised to find the glass; half the Scotch went down his throat in one gulp, which was very unusual. He only, as far as Giles knew, drank the stuff when he was with Giles in the flat; when they went out, he drank beer. He was abstemious with spirits and could make a pub measure of Giles’ Scotch last all evening.
Giles waited. Xander would tell him when he was ready, he presumed.
“Can we go out? It’s – I’m not on the board tonight, but do you have stuff you gotta do?”
He hadn't expected that. He had known it was Xander's night off – they had enough adults now that nobody had to be on-call more than three evenings a week, and technically Giles wasn’t in the roster at all, although it was common for him to take over when somebody had other commitments, rather than for the others to get into the complications of shift-swapping. All week, the town night-life had been beyond lively into raucous with office outings and students home from college: Giles hid a shudder.
“I have nothing that won’t wait. What, what had you in mind? A meal out somewhere?” He cast his mind over the places they had eaten in the past: their budget was restrictive in the extreme and anywhere not requiring a reservation on Christmas Eve...
“Just... I dunno. Can we go out for a drink somewhere? We’ll not get into anywhere decent to eat but...” Xander tailed off and Giles smiled at him.
“Chip shops will all be open, and so will the takeaways. We can go if we want to.” He was reaching for his jacket as he spoke; not the tweed which was his armour, but the leather one which Xander had given him as a birthday present. Giles pretended not to know that Xander had spent all his spare evenings for three weeks moonlighting on a building site to pay for it, just as Xander pretended not to know that Giles had sold his copy of Magnalia Christi Americana. It had been an incomplete copy, badly foxed and with the frontispiece missing but it had bought Xander a basic table saw and Giles didn’t regret it for a moment.
“The Ship and Star? Or the George and Dragon? Or do you want a nightclub rather than a pub?” He hoped Xander didn’t. Apart from Maxim’s – and he really didn’t want to go there while Xander was upset – Giles didn’t care for the local nightclubs. Too loud, too brash, too young.
“Ship’ll do.”
They went to the Ship.
And then they went to the George. After that they went to the Bell, and – Giles thought he remembered – the Saracen. They definitely went to the Barley Mow, but it was so crowded that they didn’t stay; they went on to the White Hart. Xander balked at the Wheatsheaf because he didn’t like the beer, and Giles refused the Goat and Compasses because he said he didn’t believe any of the explanations of its name.
They made it to the Spread Eagle just before time was called; Giles thought briefly about joining in the fight which broke out in the car park afterwards, deciding against it only because Xander was leaning against the locked door of the Public with his eye shut and his patch askew, and he couldn’t fight without Xander watching his back. Hadn't done for ages. Didn’t want to any more.
Time to go home. He had some vague notion that they’d had a secondary plan, that they’d intended to do something else as well as go to the pub but... he couldn’t remember. No doubt if it was something important, he’d think of it later. For the moment, he would take Xander home and... he straightened and started to count up how many pubs they had been to, and how many drinks he’d had. How many drinks Xander had had. Trouble with too many drinks was that it tended to mean no sex, either because one of them just wanted to go to sleep, or – it had to be admitted – because one of them, and it was usually him because Xander very rarely drank that much, actually couldn’t do it. He rather suspected that this would be one of those nights.
The something he thought he had forgotten was spreading and dividing, amoeba-fashion. There were two things he thought he had forgotten. One of them was something he and Xander had meant to do, and the other was something... back at the flat. Something he had to do? Somebody he had to see?
It didn’t come to him. Oh well.
“Xan? Time to go home?”
He got the Xander-smile, the big one, and his heart rejoiced. He still didn’t know what had gone wrong with the phone call; he had offered, early on, a cue for Xander to talk if he wanted, and Xander had smiled rather uneasily, and turned it away. He had recognised the invitation, Giles was sure of that, but he hadn't been ready to accept it, so Giles let well enough alone.
He’d have liked to go home in a taxi, but for one thing they couldn’t justify spending the money, and for another, the taxi ranks were crawling with people now that the pubs were chucking out. They could be home on foot in the time they would have to wait for a cab, he thought. It wouldn’t kill them to walk... well, not here, where there were lights, and people, and actually the vampire population was small because it was known in bloodsucking circles that there was an infestation of Slayers and that it wasn’t a healthy place for a vamp to be. Once they got off the High Street, too, he would be able to walk with his thumb in Xander's hip pocket and his palm curved around Xander's arse, and he liked that, and he liked that Xander did the same to him. They weren’t likely to get any grief for it, and if they did he might get the fight he’d missed earlier.
He didn’t get the fight, but he got to walk with Xan, and he got to drag Xan into an alley and kiss him thoroughly on the way. That was good. He liked that. There probably wouldn’t be sex, not real sex, but he liked to snog, actually, and snogging Xan within earshot of a main road gave him a buzz. He stopped again on the long curving drive to kiss Xan and run his hands over the strong body, before scrabbling for his keys. There was a light in... he frowned. He thought he had turned off all the lights in his flat before he had left. That was careless of him; he ticked off the girls often enough for leaving lights on when there was nobody in a room, and if they picked up that he had done it, they wouldn’t be backward about rubbing it in. Still, there were no lights on the stairs, so if it was just his sitting room, it didn’t matter.
He stopped to snog Xander again in the lobby before relocking the main doors; he snogged Xander on the stairs at the first bend; he had his hand on Xander's arse as he set his foot on the second flight.
The light came on; he gawped foolishly upward, and it was a double heartbeat before he thought to remove his hand – cautiously and inconspicuously – and continue up the stairs.
“Rupert. Xander.”
Yes. Well. That was the thing he had forgotten.
His father was coming for Christmas.
* * * * *
Xander followed him into the sitting room, and closed the door, before apparently forgetting what he was doing and just leaning back against it. Giles puzzled for a moment about what to say. Oh yes.
“I was supposed to pick you up.”
His father nodded.
“Hell. Sorry. Forgot. How did you get here?”
“I telephoned from the station. When you didn’t answer your mobile, I called the main number and Miss Lehane answered it. She very kindly came and collected me.”
Giles frowned. “Faith did? Did... does she know who you are?”
Peter looked irritated. “Of course she does! I’m here every couple of months with the research; I met her when you were still fighting with the remnants of the old Council, and every occasion since. She’s a very pleasant young woman, but I have to say, Rupert, I have no idea what she’s talking about most of the time. And she calls me Big G. I don’t know why.”
“Nobody knows why Faith does anything,” explained Xander slowly; Peter looked over at him.
“Xander, how much have you had to drink?”
Xander thought about it, seriously. “Lots.”
“And when did you eat last?”
Giles sat down at the desk with a thump and started to giggle. “Knew we’d forgotten something, Xan. Were going for a fish supper, weren’t we? Forgot.”
“Oh, good lord. Rupert, have you grown up at all in the last thirty years?”
It wasn’t particularly accusatory, but it made Giles defensive nonetheless. “Xan was upset,” he said sulkily. “So we went out.”
His father thinned his lips, and Xander giggled in his turn. “You look jus’ like Giles when you do that. Useta do that in the library at schoo’, look at me that way. Always thought he was about to ground me.”
“I’ve a good mind to ground the pair of you,” said Peter sharply. “Not exactly a good example for your Slayers, are you? Both the active Watchers rolling drunk?”
Giles, suddenly feeling nineteen again, opened his mouth to say something – he wasn’t sure what – but was forestalled by Xander.
“Wasn’t Giles’ fault. I wanted to go out. Needed to. I’d called...” He swallowed hard, stared at Peter and his voice went high and thin. “Wasn’t his fault.” He pushed his fist against his mouth, which was quivering, and Giles, with horror, saw tears lying on the dark eyelashes.
“Don’t make Xan cry,” he snarled at his father; “it hurts his eye.” He started to get up, but his father put a hand in his chest and pushed him back, before turning to Xander.
“Xander! Stop that at once!” It was firm, but not unkind, and Xander blinked, obviously confused. “Sit down there.” He waited to be obeyed, glowered at Giles and stalked off, returning with two tall glasses of water and Giles’ packet of paracetamol. “Let’s see what we can do to ameliorate the consequences, not that either of you deserves any help. Drink it all, Xander.” He disappeared again; Giles took the opportunity to abandon the desk for the couch and Xander wobbled over to join him. He would have liked to put his head in Xander's lap but there was some reason he mustn’t... Oh yes, because his father was there. He could hear the kettle in his tiny kitchen begin to purr, and doors open and close; it sounded as if his father was looking for something. He ought to go and ask what he wanted and help him find it – it might be something they needed for an apocalypse but why did his dad expect to find it in Giles’ kitchen? – but he was too tired, and the world was beginning to spin very slowly. He closed his eyes.
“Rupert.”
He opened them again. His father was standing over him, holding a mug and a plate; Xander was staring at the plate on his own lap, hands wrapped around another mug.
“Eat the sandwich, Rupert, and drink your tea. Xander, stop looking at it and eat it. It isn’t going to bite you.”
For some reason Xander found that incredibly funny; Peter had to take the mug back from him for a moment to stop him spilling his tea, but he did, slowly and awkwardly, lift the sandwich and begin to eat. He stopped suddenly, though, and looked up at Peter.
“There was no nog.”
Peter tipped his head enquiringly. Xander went on doggedly. “Didn’t matter where we went, there was no nog. Can’t have Christmas Eve with no nog. Everybody has nog. Was only ever Giles who said he didn’t know about it. You know ‘bout nog at Christmas, don’ you, Peter?”
Peter shook his head. “All it says to me is one of Rupert’s favourite television programmes when he was very small. Norsemen and an ice dragon.”
Giles looked up and met his father’s questioning gaze. “Americans drink this stuff at Christmas... Don’t know why. ‘S like alcoholic custard.”
Xander was horrified. “’S true then? No nog in Christmas at England?”
“Told you so,” muttered Giles through a mouthful of his sandwich; his father seemed to be trying not to laugh.
“But... what about, I dunno, old family recipes? Traditional Christmas Eve mixing of eggs an’ cream an’ eggs an’ spices an’ eggs an’... an’ stuff?”
Peter shook his head apologetically. “I, I know the name, of course, but I’ve never encountered it, Xander. It’s not an English tradition at Christmas, I’m afraid.”
Xander's head thumped back against the cushion. “No nog in Christmas at England,” he said again mournfully.
“I’m afraid not. Nor in England at Christmas, either. And in any event, I would be afraid that if you put eggs and cream on top of whatever you’ve been drinking tonight, you would be very sick. Eat your sandwich, please, and drink your tea.”
Chastened, they did as they were told; Peter drank his own tea in silence. When they had finished, he took the plates back to the tiny kitchen, poured more tea and glowered at them until they began to drink it, and said firmly, “Now, Xander, tell me sensibly what has happened to make you upset enough for Rupert to think that taking you on a bender would be a good idea.”
Giles thought briefly of objecting: he was fairly certain that the bender hadn't been his idea, but although he knew the general outline of what had upset Xander, he didn’t know the detail, and if his dad was going to find it out, that would probably help.
Xander was turning his mug round and round in his hands. “Willow called me last month,” he said quietly; he couldn’t be sober just like that, but he sounded it. “She... her mom had called her. I dunno how... dunno who had seen who, or where, but Willow had a phone number for my folks. I haven’t seen them since... since Sunnydale. I knew they’d got out, I spoke to them a couple times from Cleveland. They went to Weaverville. I... they... They never asked what I was doing in Cleveland, they just, my mom said that since I was working – I said I’d got a job – I should be sending them money. I said I couldn’t do that.”
Giles rolled his head on the back of the couch to look at his father. “When we were in Cleveland, we had even less money than we did when we got here,” he said owlishly. “Don’t think Xan got paid anything until he went to Africa. And not much then.”
Peter nodded, and returned his attention to Xander.
“My dad yelled.”
Giles winced. He had been privy to that conversation.
“Told me that if I couldn’t pay my way with them I could look out for myself.”
Peter frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. If they wanted you to send them money, it wasn’t a question of you not being able to pay your way, was it?”
“That’s what I said,” muttered Giles, rebelliously.
Xander shrugged. “Next time I called, the phone had been cut off. I wrote a couple times, and the second time, the letter came back ‘not known at this address’. So... that was Cleveland. Then there was Africa, and then there was here. And then Willow gave me a phone number.” He looked up miserably. “It’s taken me three weeks... every time I thought about calling them, I just wigged.”
The equivalent slang in English was different, thought Giles, but his father appeared to be following. “I’m not surprised. It would be an incredibly difficult call to make.”
“Yeah. Just... yeah. Anyway, I did it tonight. Hadn't thought it through. Got my dad. They’re somewhere in Santa Barbara now. He asked where I was, and I told him, England. So he was all like ‘what are you doing in England?’”
Giles hadn't realised how much Xander's speech patterns had changed since the California days, until now. His accent now carried occasional overtones of Ohio, of Kenya, of Johannesburg, of Somerset, even. Nobody would ever mistake him for other than an American, but only as he reverted to the slang of his teen years did it become obvious how much he had changed.
“I didn’t know what to tell him. Hadn't thought it through. Can’t tell him what we do, he doesn’t know about that. Can’t tell him about the Slayers. So... when we went to Oxford, Giles called me his Clerk of Works, so I said I was that. Said it was a girls’ boarding school in England and I was Clerk of Works.” He blushed suddenly, an ugly dark red. “He asked how old the girls are, asked what the age of consent is in England, said... made a couple real nasty remarks.”
Peter was going white-lipped. “I can imagine.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Asked when I was gonna start sending money home, ‘cause Clerk of Works sounded real important. I said it wasn’t, it was maintenance and construction. He didn’t rate that, but he got that I get my room and board, so I couldn’t need money so I could...”
“You could send it to them,” said Peter in a low, dangerous voice. “Xander, tell me you didn’t agree to that.”
Xander looked up, obviously surprised. “You sound just like Giles,” he said irrelevantly. “I said I didn’t make much, I didn’t think I could... He was drunk again. Wasn’t even noon in California and he was drunk. And he’s out of work, he said so. So he asked why I’d called, and... I didn’t know. He just kept going round and round and coming back to money. He said I couldn’t need much money, because... he knows about the eye, so he said I couldn’t be dating because nobody would want a loser, a janitor with one eye, so I told him... I told him...” He was beginning to shake, and it was plain that he couldn’t finish his sentence; Giles leaned forward, about to say something although nothing useful came to him, and Peter forestalled him.
“What did he object to: that it’s men at all, or that it’s Rupert?”
Xander dropped his mug; fortunately it was empty. Giles shot upright in sudden sober shock. They both stared at Peter, who raised an eyebrow and looked back.
“What?”
“You know?” That was really feeble but it was the best Giles could do.
“Rupert, I am neither blind nor stupid. I realised when I came here for Xander's Transition that there was something between you.”
“There wasn’t,” objected Xander faintly; Peter just looked at him with a faint smile.
“There wasn’t,” Giles reinforced.
“Of course there wasn’t,” agreed Peter mockingly. “There was just enough that he could see you during Transition. Rupert, I went and did some more research. It’s not just that we couldn’t think of another Transition where the postulant could see the sponsor: there hasn’t been one. It has never been recorded. So plainly there was something different between you. If you tell me that it wasn’t, wasn’t what it is now, I believe you, but don’t try to tell me that there wasn’t anything at all. By the next time I came to visit, it was obvious that you had, had reached an agreement.”
“Obvious to you,” muttered Giles rebelliously.
“Obvious to me,” agreed Peter. “The time after that, Miss Lehane assured me that things were much easier on the stress front now that you were getting laid regularly – which was more information than I quite felt I needed – and young Wells told me how romantic it all was.”
Xander whimpered.
“I believe some of the older Slayers know too.”
This was... Giles could think of no halfway intelligent response to this.
“Do you mind?” asked Xander in a tiny voice. Peter looked startled.
“I, I wasn’t under the impression that I got a vote.” Then he actually looked at Xander and qualified it. “Xander, you have to understand that a man of my age finds homosexuality... an uncomfortable concept. But as I said, I am neither blind nor stupid. You are making my son happy. That makes me happy. I’m sorry, I, I didn’t realise that you didn’t know I knew.”
There was a moment’s silence and then Peter added provocatively, “And in your favour, you have the great virtue of not being Ethan Rayne.”
Xander gave a snort of laughter. “I guess. Yeah. Well, my dad didn’t take it half as well. And yeah, he worked out that it was Giles, God knows how. England’s full of guys, why would he think it would be the only one he knew?”
“Because I’m the only one he knew,” said Giles, flatly. “So if you say ‘an Englishman’, well, then he’s going to start with the one he knew. Not acceptable?”
Xander shook his head miserably.
“Any particular reason?”
“You’re a guy. You’re English. Did I mention that you’re a guy? You’re older than me. You must have been leading me astray ever since I was in school and underage.” Xander looked at his feet. “So I ought to be making you give me money for that.”
“Which, of course, you would then send to California,” agreed Peter frostily; Giles was almost incoherent with rage.
“I never – I bloody never – looked at any of you children while you were at school. You were all...”
“Giles – Giles! I know, yeah? Already had this conversation: when I was in school I was looking for a parent, all the way to the time you called me your wingman. And after that there was Anya and there was... it wasn’t that way. But my dad... he’ll just think the worst of people automatically.”
There was a long silence, and Xander leaned his head back against the top of the sofa. Finally he said quietly, “I’m sorry. My dad’s a jerk. He’s always been a jerk. I don’t know why I expected that suddenly now he would have stopped being a jerk. I don’t even know,” and his voice cracked; he swallowed twice and restarted, pitched a little higher, “I don’t know why I’m so upset that he’s the same jerk he’s always been. Willow used to say... Willow used to say when my dad had been real jerky and I was complaining, that insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” He looked up at Peter. “She said that was Einstein.”
Peter nodded. “Attributed to him, certainly.”
“Well, she used to say that my dad was a jerk and I knew that so why was I surprised? I mean, she was sympathetic, she got that I was hurt or angry or... or disappointed or whatever, but why was I surprised?”
“I knocked him down once,” said Giles dreamily. “Rugby fouled him in the street.”
Peter raised an eyebrow. “Did you kick him when he was on the floor?”
Giles shook his head, regretful of the missed opportunity.
“Pity.”
Xander shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. He’s a jerk, that’s not breaking news, he’s a lazy, grasping, bad-mouth drunk, he’s a loser, he’s a jerk. I don’t know why I care.” He took two loud breaths, obviously struggling for control, and added, painfully, “He’s not worth the hangover I’m gonna have tomorrow. I’m gonna feel like shit because of... because I called him up, and I let him upset me, and he isn’t worth it. I called my dad on Christmas Eve and he’s not worth it.” He looked up at Peter. “I wanted...” He swallowed, the alcohol driving the truth onto his tongue. “I wanted to play Happy Families, I guess. I wanted the world to be not the way it is. Not new: plenty of times I’ve wanted things not to be the way they just plain were.” He adjusted the elastic of his eye-patch.
“So have we all,” said Giles softly, rubbing his fingers.
“Yeah. Yeah. But... I can face the vamps and the demons and the monsters, I can do that.” He touched his face. “And this... I wish it hadn't happened, but I’m past it, sorta. I manage, ya know? It’s such a big deal I can’t do anything else. Anya’s dead, Jesse’s dead, and those are way bigger deals than my father being a jerk, so why can’t I get past him?”
“I’ll give you something to counter Einstein, Xander,” said Peter, gently. “I’ll give you Chekov. ‘Any idiot can face a crisis – it’s day to day living that wears you out.’”
Xander gave a huff of amusement. “I guess. And my mom... I could hear her in the background, crying. It’s all she ever did. He would yell and she would cry. She would never stop him yelling at me, she would just cry at him and later she would tell me that I shouldn’t provoke him so. It was always my fault, at least the way she saw it.” He squinted at Peter again. “You... did you just growl?”
“I beg your pardon?” Peter was startled. Xander giggled, and tipped his head back again.
“Giles does that. When he’s really pissed about something, and can’t say so, he growls in his throat. Guess he got it from you.” He frowned, sleepily. “Why are you pissed?” A moment’s thought. “You don’ say that, do you? You’re not pissed, you’re annoyed, Giles says.” He giggled again. “’M learning to speak English. I’m pissed. Had enough to drink that now I’m pissed.”
Giles himself was trying to hide laughter; his father stepped behind the couch and lightly flicked at his ear. “Be quiet, Rupert. Some Senior Watcher you are. Take Xander away and put him to bed; he’s quite right, he’s going to have a monumental hangover tomorrow... well, it’s today now.”
“Oh God, is it?” asked Giles, momentarily sidetracked. “Shit, it’s Christmas Day. We’ve got about five hours before overexcited Slayers start Christmas. Xander! Wake up and go to bed. Hell. Dad, I did remember that you would need somewhere to sleep; the spare room here is so small that you can’t open the wardrobe unless you’re kneeling on the bed, but at least there is a bed. Xander! Wake up! You’ve got to go back downstairs to your own room.”
Peter sighed. “Rupert, use your head. I know. Faith Lehane knows. Andrew Wells knows... that’s the important one. What Andrew Wells knows today, the world knows in twenty minutes. Andrew Wells knows that you and Xander are, are involved. You’re out, both of you. The notion of Xander having his own room is null and void. I am not going to have a nosebleed at the idea of you sharing a room, and neither of you is sober enough to negotiate the stairs without waking everybody else in the building. Take him, and put him to bed.” He hesitated. “He could probably do with feeling that somebody loves him.”
Giles was mute, but he nodded, slipped an arm under Xander's and heaved him upright. Xander swayed, but his eyes opened, and he rested his head on Giles’ shoulder.
“Come on, Xan, Dad says I’ve to put you to bed.”
Xander blinked sleepily and straightened. “Yeah. Yeah. Good idea.” Some remnant of politeness returned to him. “G’night, Peter.”
Peter smiled at him.
“Good night, son.”