InsaneJournal

“No, Dawnie, you gotta do it like this. See?”

“Er…I think so.”

Xander smiled as he sat on the back steps, sipping periodically from the mug in his hand as he watched Slayer and former Key spar amongst the morning mist. Thanks to him and the fact that he’d taken a job in town that involved carpentry after finding he really liked it (carving stakes to relieve stress and needing a distraction were what helped that along), they had a tall fence around the backyard that blocked off anyone but the most resolute of nosey neighbors.

Thwack.

He smiled as Faith caught Dawn’s foot easily but that was to be expected since she was the Slayer. The teenager was doing well though and could easily take down a vanilla human that tried to come after her. Maybe even a weak vamp if she kept her head.

“Doing well, I see,” commented Giles as he sank down next to the vampire. “Dawn improves every week it seems.”

“She’s doing good,” said Xander. “Good enough to take on a human or a weak vamp. But she’s got a long way to go if she wants to take on anything else.”

The Watcher nodded and sipped from the mug he’d brought outside, from which the strong smell of coffee came. “You haven’t sparred with her?”

“Not yet.”

“What about with Faith?”

“Not of late.”

Giles frowned at his surrogate son for a long moment then murmured, “Xander, you have to approach this at some point. You can’t just ignore the fact that you have a problem.”

“I don’t have a problem.”

“You are deathly afraid that if you raise your hand against someone human again, you will lose control.”

Xander twitched then frowned at the two combatants, taking a long gulp from his mug. The two men sat there in silence for a long moment then he broke it in a low voice.

“How long have you known?” he asked wearily.

“Since Faith mentioned to me that you’ve never taken her up on being her sparring partner of late,” replied Giles. “You willingly took that up.”

“I don’t want to hurt her. She…”

“It’s been over eight months since she was shot, son.”

“Damnit. How do you do that? How do you see right through me?”

“Its something I’ve learned over the past year or two,” replied the Watcher with a smile. He then clasped the vampire’s shoulder, drawing his gaze to him, and said, “You shouldn’t be this afraid of it. Fear, as I recall a very good book once saying, is a mind killer.”

Xander blinked and queried, “Dune?” At the man’s arched eyebrows, he admitted, “I’ve seen the movie, Giles. Classic sci-fi geek, remember?”

“How could I forget?” asked the older man with a smile. “Though it is true.”

“Yeah, I know but…”

“But what, son?”

“I never really had it under control, Giles…I blocked it away from me, locked it up. When I took all that away, I couldn’t entirely put it back. I…I’ve been trying to control it but its hard. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life.”

“But something you have to do.”

Xander nodded and replied, “Yeah. Just blocking it from me didn’t help at all – if anything, I think it might’ve made it stronger. But I’m going to control it if it kills me.”

Giles smiled, clasping his shoulder again, saying softly, “Well I hope it doesn’t come to that as I know several young women and one old man who would hate to live without you.”

“Thanks, G-man.”

“Ah…you know I hate that name.”

“I know,” said Xander with a smile. He then looked at the two combatants as they laughed and started towards them, arms around each others shoulders, and asked, “Hey, Faith, patrol tonight with me?”

She blinked at him then smiled, nodding. “Sure, Fangs.”

Dawn jumped forward and exclaimed, “But you two have to be back before midnight! They’re showing Santa Claus Conquers the Martians on AMC.”

“Me miss a cheesy black and white B-movie?” asked Xander, affecting a look of shock. “Why, Dawnie, if you think I’d miss that, you don’t know me at all.” Grinning, he rose and tugged the teenager to his side as he opened the back door, saying, “You know I wouldn’t miss that for the world, kiddo.”

“Awesome,” said Dawn cheerfully. She wrinkled her nose then and continued, “I’m going to go take a shower now ‘cause I reek.”

The three adults watched as the teenager disappeared into the house and Faith helped Giles up, the man groaning as his back popped. He then sighed as the phone rang from inside, saying, “Probably the bloody Council.”

“Nothing’s wrong, right?” asked Faith. “I mean, c’mon, everything’s been five by five in town for months now. If something were up, we’d know first.”

“Not necessarily,” replied the Watcher before he disappeared inside. The Slayer frowned after him then looked at Xander, who looked as worried as her. She elbowed him in the side, drawing his attention to her, and said, “You feel something too, don’t you? Something’s coming.”

“Yeah,” he replied softly. “Something’s definitely up.”

She bit her lip then slipped under his arm, leaning into his embrace and trusting him to hold her. His arm tightened around her immediately and he hissed, “You have to help me get this under control, Faith. I can’t keep being afraid of myself. Not now.”

“I’ve been telling you that for the past four months,” she growled. “But you’re stubborn.”

“I’m listening now.”

“Yeah, you are. What do I need to do?”

Xander frowned and replied, “We’ll go out tonight and find some place out of the way where we can go. Then…you’ll have to fight me and I…”

He trailed off and she asked, “Fangs?”

“I…I’m going to have to briefly let it loose, Faith. I locked it away once – now I’ve got to beat it down into control. If I lose it entirely though, if I can’t come back after it takes over, you…”

She turned in his arms, folding her fingers over his mouth to stop him from continuing. He stared at her for a moment then closed his eyes as she breathed, “I’ll have to kill you. I know.”

“But it won’t come to that,” she said stonily a moment later. “You got me?”

“Yeah,” he replied with a smile, opening his eyes to see the determination covering the fear in her eyes. “I gotcha, Faith.”

“Good. Now lemme go so I can go kick Dawnie out of the shower in a few and take me one.”

Xander grinned as she strolled away into the house with her hunter’s walk then he followed her, carefully setting his mug down in the sink after rinsing the last traces of blood from it. As he turned off the water, he heard Giles say through the wall, “Four dead? But…how? I…yes, I am aware of that. No, no, I’ll do it – this isn’t the sort of thing you can leave to anyone else, now is it? Yes. Yes. Thank you, Terrence. Goodbye.”

As the Watcher came around the corner and startled at the sight of the vampire, he asked, “What’s going on?”

Giles frowned then ran a shaking hand back through his hair, replying, “The girls that have the potential to be Slayer’s are being hunted down and killed. Since I seem to be the best Watcher they currently have in the field, they want me to leave and gather up other potential’s they’ve found that may be targets.”

Xander scowled at that and hissed, “Then…then this darkness Faith and I’ve felt over the past month. It’s starting.”

“Yes,” said Giles wearily as he took off his glasses, “and I have a very foreboding feeling about what it is going to be.