1. Wonder

**Title**: _Facets_  
><strong>Author<strong>: gleefulmusings (formerly xanzpet)  
><strong>Betas<strong>: mysterious_daze and flamen_minore.  
><strong>Fandom<strong>: _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_  
><strong>Character<strong>: Xander Harris  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Warning(s)<strong>: Language; sexual situations.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, lyrics, etc. are the property of their respective owners. Snippets of dialogue may be incorporated from the original canonical episode(s) and belong to their respective authors/creators. The original characters and plot are the property of the author(s). The author(s) is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended, nor should any be inferred. No profit is being made.

**Summary**: A series of drabbles, all of which concern Xander Harris in some fashion or another. Het, slash, and gen. These are not necessarily canon explorations nor are they presented in any particular order.

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><p>Angel padded over to the front door, surprised by the mid-afternoon summons and somewhat dismayed to find a grimacing Xander on the threshold.<p>

Xander sharply looked up when the door flew open and soured at seeing the vampire in a state of undress. "Could you put a shirt on? Thanks."

Angel sighed, not bothering to explain that Xander had disturbed him in the middle of a workout. To do so would invite a litany of questions which he didn't want to answer, like why did vampires need to exercise and did the pig's blood contain enough iron?

Wordlessly, Angel stalked away, assuming Xander would follow. As he strode back into the living room, he grabbed his wifebeater and threw it on.

"Better?"

He turned quickly turned around and was discombobulated by how close Xander was to him. Apparently, the boy had expected him to keep going.

Xander said nothing for a moment. "Buffy wants you to meet her at the Bronze tonight, around eight," he finally grumbled.

Angel blinked. Buffy was using her best friend to set up dates? That was callous. And a little pathetic.

He indicated his agreement to the plan with a nod of his head and waited for Xander to take his leave, annoyed and discomforted to feel Xander's eyes examining him.

"Was there something else?" he asked.

He watched Xander nervously lick his lips, refusing to make eye contact, before taking one step forward and closing any space which had remained between them. A whoosh of air expelled from his lungs when the boy wrapped his arms around him and laid his head on his chest.

"Do you ever wonder?" Xander whispered.

It was such an innocuous and seemingly harmless question, though it contained a litany of thoughts and feelings and regrets which Angel had desperately tried not to acknowledge.

He stood there unmoving for minute, feeling Xander's shaking arms, feeling their warmth leech into him. He reached up with a trembling hand and hesitantly stroked the back of the boy's head.

"All the time."

Xander just as suddenly released him, turned on his heel, and took his leave.

"I'll tell Buffy to expect you," he called out over his shoulder.


	2. Proxy

She eyed the pale skin of the mortal youth with clear hunger.

As she ran her fingers through his sable locks, she imagined them longer, silkier, slightly curling. She imagined the pearlescent skin glimmering before her in the moonlight was dusky and quiescent. She imagined the brown eyes were larger, and darker, and knowing.

She imagined the ensuing pain she was to cause and purred. She imagined the rage and the impotence of the Slayer and laughed.

She imagined the shame and the guilt of her child and sneered.

She leaned closer and sunk her fangs into his flesh, dreaming it was that of another, and drank her fill.

She crossed the room and looked out the window, the stars twinkling back at her as if in affirmation. "Soon, Alexander. Very soon, I think."

And as Darla watched the life drain from Jesse McNally's eyes, she pictured when her new beloved, her Alexander, would be in her arms, newly risen, with eyes only for her, as those of Angelus had once been.

_Dear boy._


	3. Dawning

Angel grabbed Xander by his shoulders and threw him against a row of rusty orange lockers, forcing himself to dismiss the resulting wince.

"Say it," the vampire growled.

"I don't know what you mean," the boy answered in a curiously blank voice.

"Tell me."

"Nothing to tell, Deadboy."

"I don't believe you," Angel roughly countered.

"I don't care what you think. I don't care about you at all."

The vampire bent down and put his face to the boy's ear. "You care, Xander. That's what you do. You _care_."

The boy squeezed shut his eyes and turned his head.

And Angel finally knew.

He sensed the lust, the love, and the guilt. He sensed the confusion, the innocence, and the sorrow.

He sensed Xander's agony at his perceived betrayal of Buffy and their friendship, of Giles and his loss, and of his duplicity against Cordelia.

Above all, however, Angel sensed the boy's shame and knew nothing more would ever come of this inquiry because Xander was too noble to fight for that which he truly wanted.

The vampire hesitated momentarily before forcibly pulling Xander's head back to face him once more.

Xander kept his eyes closed and Angel was glad, for now he wouldn't have to see eyes which burned with mortification, self-loathing, and resentment. Hate, feigned or not, would be much easier to bear.

He leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on the boy's forehead before releasing him and stalking away, his duster a swirl around his calves.

He ignored the choked sob, the sound of knees giving way, and the low moan of humiliation. He was at the front door of the school when the echo of angry heels stomping on linoleum hit his ears, and he fled into the night when Cordelia's worried, tinny voice anxiously asked the boy to tell her what was wrong.


	4. Moments

He leaned back against the brick wall of one of the anonymous warehouses in the commercial section of Sunnydale and sighed heavily, smiling as he felt the fumbling fingers begin to unzip his pants, trying in vain to keep the ecstatic anticipation at bay.

Best not to rush things, after all. Take it slow, for it might never happen again.

Of course, it had been _not happening_ for several weeks now, right under everyone's noses, and wasn't that just delicious? He was experiencing no guilt, no taciturnity. Indeed, the fear of being caught and exposed only added to the thrill.

He sighed again, more gently this time, as eager lips gently kissed the head of his cock. His lover's skillful ministrations had been a not unwelcome surprise. He had expected the tenderness and the exquisite care; but the eagerness, the willingness, the realization that he had been wanted in this way was far more powerfully seductive than the acts themselves.

He fisted his lover's dark hair in his hands, marveling at its silkiness. Strange that a man's hair should be so soft, tresses caressing his fingers like delicate kisses. He groaned at the sensation of teeth gently raking down his shaft; not enough to be painful, but more than enough to be memorable.

The dexterous tongue burned every ridge, every vein, every cell; an intoxicating and oxymoronic warmth which had been gloriously unexpected and addictive.

It wasn't love, what they had, but it was more than lust. It wasn't friendship, either, but it was acceptance, and maybe that was more important.

Maybe it was more important to know your lover than to love them. Maybe it was more important to respect them than to like them.

Their trust was uneasy, but it was present. It was new and weird and provocative and heightened the passion.

They made love in the dark not to be concealed, but to expose their vulnerability to each other, to impress upon themselves that these stolen moments might be fleeting, that everything could just stop at a moment's notice. It was easier to think both could walk away from each other, together, before either decided to leave.

There were no words, no declarations of permanence. There were just tongues and breathy catches and smoldering eyes, and it was enough. Maybe one day it might not be. Or maybe, one day, it would be everything.

Xander turned soft eyes down at Angel and traced the vampire's cheekbone with a calloused finger.

"Such a good boy," he whispered.


	5. Shards

Xander had never really bothered with mirrors.

When he was younger, there were simply things he hadn't wanted to see: bruises, helplessness, desolation. When he was a teenager, those things which had been seeded in his youth had taken root, and he had become more adept at ignoring them. Adolescence had brought a host of new problems: inadequacy, self-loathing, and a chipped tooth from a skateboarding accident.

After Buffy, however, there had been new seeds: realization, resignation, and purpose. And if his eyes had hardened so that there were now a few crinkles around them, that was okay. He preferred to think of them as laugh lines, anyway.

Now a mirror was requisite so that he could apply his medicine. Not that it did much. The gaping hole where his eye had been wasn't going away.

At first, he thought that might be okay, too. After all, at least he was still there. He had outlived his best friend, one of the few teachers he had actually liked, another Slayer, the woman he had considered his mother, a friend who would never know how much he missed her, and countless Potentials. What was an eye when compared to that?

A lot, as it turned out.

Xander was angry: with himself; with Buffy; with Caleb; with the people whom he had watched placed into the earth; at the rest they enjoyed which he knew would always be denied him, until it was finally his turn to lie down.

But why was this loss so intolerable?

He was unable to qualify it. Hadn't others lost much more? Hadn't he been expecting something like this would eventually happen? Had he really believed he would escape Sunnydale unscathed?

Maybe he had thought all wounds would be internal, that he could continue hiding them from everyone else and suffer in silence, the silence which he once thought he had to fill but which now eluded him, though he craved it no less.

He slid the patch away and began gently dabbing the ointment to the damaged flesh.

He inhaled sharply and held the breath.

He was a monster.

He looked liked one of the things Buffy was supposed to kill. He wasn't just damaged, he was ruined.

At once, he scolded himself for his vanity, but the memory of the livid scar on Cordelia's stomach crept to the fore of his thoughts. Had she felt like this? Did she still blame him, as he now blamed Buffy? Had he been responsible for Cordelia's fall, or had it simply been an accident? Had Buffy been responsible, or was he just collateral damage?

_Did _things just happen? He had denied as much when Joyce died, but now he wondered. It was distasteful.

He put the patch back in place and brought his fist to the mirror, smiling when it shattered. He laughed when he held up his hand and saw the shards of glass embedded in his skin, at the blood rushing to the surface and running down his palm and escaping into his shirt sleeve.

His laughter died and he frowned when he caught glimpses of his reflection in the fractured pieces.

Even broken things still caught the light.


	6. Sticks and Stones

So he was home. If this could be called home.

Didn't feel much like one, not for any of them, not even Dawn or Buffy. It was just a house now. Whatever scent that had belonged to Joyce had long since evaporated, pulling with it any lingering trace of her gentleness.

The others hovered; discreetly, but it was hovering all the same. Never out of earshot, knowing they were now out of his line of vision.

_So you're the One Who Sees._

He snickered wildly and felt the glances upon him. He just as soon dismissed them, knowing they probably thought the meds had made him crackers. Maybe they had.

Or just maybe he now saw things more clearly than ever before.

Willow flitted around him like a nervous bird. Dawn, when she was able to meet his eye, shot him looks of such heartbreak, he was forced to look away.

Giles couldn't look at him, but tried to convey his love and support. Anya used sarcasm and rage to cover her fear and impotence, all of which was a thin veil to disguise her utter devastation.

Faith said nothing, for which he was grateful, but he knew her as well as he always had, and he knew she partly blamed herself.

Kennedy was the worst, however; she wore her guilt like a shroud and it was slowly suffocating him.

Well-meaning people poking him with well-meaning sticks.

Except for Buffy. Her silence threw stones.


End file.
