[AN: Sorry it took so long to get up the first bit of the sequel. Blame the real life.]

The Pack: Accidentally in Love

Chapter One

Xander had a headache.

He was also lying naked on the floor of the Hyena house at the Sunnydale zoo, surrounded by his classmates in a way that perfectly replicated his worst nightmares. And Giles was there. All that considered, a pounding skull was really the least of his problems.

Xander slithered slowly over to the edge of the stupid magic circle, covering himself and decidedly not thinking about the past few hours. All he could possibly care about at the moment was finding a pair of pants. He looked up, and was dismayed to see all eyes on him, or more accurately, the large bite-hickey on his neck.

Not thinking about it not thinking about it.

"Uh, Giles?" he said, as he stood up, being careful to keep his crotch covered.

"Yes, Xander?" Giles was polishing his glasses. What right did Giles have to be polishing his glasses? Xander was the one who had just had the big gay sex!

Not thinking about it.

"Can I have some clothes?" he whimpered instead, desperate to get away from all of those hungry and angry eyes. He was particularly eager to hide from the speculative look in Willow's eyes. That was just wrong. And creepy. And wrong.

Giles wordlessly handed over his suit jacket. Xander put it on with a shudder, idly noting that tweed, while an impeccable fashion statement, felt horrible next to his skin. His bitten and bruised skin. He was never having sex again.

The rest of the Pack, and Xander wished desperately that he knew a better term for them, were silent, just lying on the ground, watching the scene unfold. Kyle's eyes were hard, and Xander felt a surge of Mate! Protect! He squashed it. Kyle was a bully, a big old meanie, as Willow would say.

Oh god. Willow. He had hit his Willow. He was going to hell. No, he wasn't just going to hell, he was going to the ninth circle, the one for the betrayers, because she was his Willow, and he had hit her! Xander ignored that little place in side of him that insisted that she had deserved it for trying to capture his Mate. Kyle wasn't his Mate, it was just a fluke, and he was going to burn for eternity. He couldn't even look at her. She had to hate him now. He hated himself now.

Xander looked up at Giles and sighed. "Take me home?" There was just too much to deal with here. He needed his room and his blissfully neglectful parents to sort this all out.

"Right, yes," said Giles. "Girls?"

Buffy and Willow shuffled toward the exit. Xander followed, shoving down all the parts of him that sobbed over leaving Kyle behind. He was not gay. He could look at Buffy's ass and still be aroused. Sort of. Maybe he was just tired. This was a fluke, nothing more.

Not thinking about it.

*

Kyle also had a headache, but he had bigger problems. He was naked, in a room with the school librarian, and all he wanted was his Mate. That was the biggest problem. He had a Mate. And, to top it all off, it was Xander freaking Harris, bane of his spank bank.

Ordinarily, Kyle would be ecstatic over finally having had sex with the most consistent member of his fantasies since eighth grade, but right now, it felt a lot less than awesome.

The librarian was still polishing his glasses, even though Xander and the girls had already left. Kyle made no attempt to cover himself as he rolled over and looked at the man.

He cleared his throat and put the glasses back on. "I think you all ought to go home," he said. "It's getting light out." Kyle snorted to himself. No shit Sherlock. Still, he refrained form saying anything out loud. He was too tired to risk insulting a teacher.

Kyle just stared at Giles and willed him to go away. He did. They all listened as the sound of his footfalls died away. Kyle turned to the others to gauge their situation now.

"Fuck," said Rhonda. It seemed an appropriate sentiment.

"We should go," said Kyle. Sure, he wasn't Alpha, but, then, they didn't have an Alpha anymore, which was something he did not want to examine his feelings about. He did not miss Xander's leadership, and he did not want to take up the mantle. It was a reasonable suggestion, that was all.

They picked themselves up and slouched toward the door. Kyle was resolutely not thinking about the twinge in his ass, just like he was not thinking about the fact that for some reason, his Xander-detector was still on, and was pointing east.

Kyle pretended he didn't care.

*

"So, Xander, are you sure you're okay?"

He sighed. He loved his girls, and honestly it felt like it had been years since the zebras and the fishes. He was glad that Buffy cared enough about him to ask, but, really, all he wanted to was to be alone.

Giles wasn't saying anything. Xander knew that later on, he would be freaking out about the Giles-silence and what it could possibly mean, especially since Giles had a severe "I know something rather bad but I'm not sure how to bring it up" face, and, honestly, he really didn't want to know.

He wondered what Kyle was doing now. Xander knew that Kyle was angry, confused, and probably very annoyed. But none of that answered the most important question right now: did Kyle still want him?

"Are you sure you want to go straight home?" Willow was asking. "My parents are away again, so you could totally stay with me for a while."

Sweet Willow. Clearly she had already forgiven him for the whole knocking her out thing. She knew just enough about his family to want to protect him from it. Someday he just might tell her all of it, but since Jesse, he just hadn't felt that urge so much.

The car stopped outside his house. Xander stared out at the disintegrating paint and the broken porch rail. He forced himself to answer Willow.

"No," he said, unfolding himself from Giles' tiny backseat. "I just want to go to sleep."

Buffy made a sympathetic face, and Willow pulled out the puppy eyes. Xander just opened the door and got out.

Home sweet hellmouth.

*

This was kind of a big problem. Bigger, or at least more immediate, than his Xander-shaped problem and his shiny red ass. They were naked and stranded two miles from Sunnydale. Awesome.

They couldn't walk on the road, obviously, unless they wanted to risk the chance that the Sunnydale PD had actually gotten their heads out of their asses for once and slapped them all with a public indecency charge. This left them all picking through the scrub on the side of the road, scuffing their bare feet on brambles and trying not let naughty bits get scratched.

A car blew past. Kyle considered hitching a ride, but there again was the naked problem.

No one was talking. The girls were just holding hands and trudging on together. He hoped they would be okay, but then, it didn't seem that the whole thing was affecting them too terribly much. Tor was a different case. He hovered just to Kyle's left, never letting more than a few feet between them.

Clearly Tor was taking a bit to snap out of it. Kyle really wasn't sure if this was a good or a bad thing.

Another car passed. Heidi swore lightly under her breath. Kyle wanted to whine his reassurance at her, but sub-vocal noises were not something people did. And they were people. Nice, normal, human people with just a little tiny nudity problem.

Kyle was getting very tired of being naked. This was all Xander's fault. If Xander hadn't been so irritating the other day at the zoo, then Kyle wouldn't have had to pick on Lance, and none of this would have happened. In fact, Kyle wanted to find Xander right now and beat the shit out of him for screwing up his life!

A moment of rage passed, then Kyle deflated. Who was he trying to fool? He was done sublimating his lust for Xander in anger. It wasn't Xander's fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. This was Sunnydale, and sometimes things just happened.

He kicked a bramble away. Knowing that it wasn't anyone's fault didn't stop him from wanting to blame them, though.