Chapter Two
Disclaimer: See chapter one
Her power pushed at his defenses and he swallowed it down. Xander was immediately surrounded by the scent and sound of the sea, he could smell the salt on the air, taste it in Thea's mouth. There was a song in his head, words he couldn't quite hear, a tune he lost as soon as he'd heard it. A voice whispered through his head.
"You are."
Suddenly there were hands on his shoulders and he was pulled away from those salty lips, that haunting song. Xander came back to himself slowly, blinking black eyes as he met Spike's concerned blue. Looking down at himself he found a tail instead of legs, his new pants shredded. Great. Just great.
"What happened?" he asked around sharpened teeth.
"What did you do to him!" Spike demanded.
Thea was looking far too pleased with herself and Samuel was trying his best to keep his face blank but the pleasure shown out of his eyes.
"Thank you, my boy," he said to Xander. "You may have just saved my family."
"Huh?" was Xander's articulate reply.
Thea knelt beside him, ignoring Spike's growl of warning, and stared at Xander with a look in her dark eyes he couldn't quite decipher. Xander cuddled into Spike, as relaxed as he could be given the situation. Normally he was self-conscious when he was half-naked, especially when it was the bottom half uncovered, even in his half hyena form, but the fish form was different. Mers were like real fish when they had their tails, everything was on the inside. Normally, when they bred, the females would lay eggs in a special nursery and the males would swim over the clutch and release their own brand of caviar to fertilize them, so no outside equipment equaled no embarrassment for the Xan-man, or mer-man as the case may be.
"How's that?" Spike asked.
It was Thea who answered.
"I thought myself the last of my kind but he is as I am. A siren. Or he will be after he is brought into his power then he will bring our sons into theirs."
Samuel drew his wife to her feet.
"Thea, dear, perhaps we should allow him some time to acclimate himself to the idea."
"What idea?" Xander asked, his confusion bleeding the black from his eyes and the scales from his lower body. Suddenly finding himself naked, Xander grabbed the remains of his pants and covered Xander Jr. who was no longer inside his fishy self but hanging in the proverbial breeze.
"You are a siren, Alexander. One who has not been brought into his power but one nonetheless. I could bring you into that power. I could make you shine like a jewel in the depths of the sea."
"How?" he asked, somewhat afraid of the answer. If he was completely honest with himself, Thea scared the shit out of him.
"We lay together and my power will call to yours, opening you to it."
"We have to have sex?" he shouted then blushed as everyone who wasn't already watching the spectacle they had made turned to look.
"We are creatures of flesh, it is our way."
"Wait, wait, wait just a minute," Xander said, rising to his feet, destroyed jeans clutched to his crotch. "You said that if I get brought into my power that then I can bring your sons into theirs."
Thea nodded.
"You want me to have sex with your sons!"
Xander was proud of himself. As hysterical as he felt, he sounded calm when he spoke. Thea looked confused.
"You are a lover of men," she said. "I had heard that you enjoyed women as well, were these rumors wrong? Do you find intercourse with me distasteful?"
"What? No! And, and not men, just man, one, man and how, how do you know that your kids even wanna have sex with me? I mean, maybe they don't like guys that way and aren't you married? I don't think Sammy would like you and me getting together very much and..."
"My husband knows that there are certain things that must be done and Sampson does enjoy both sexes though he prefers women."
Xander turned away and began pacing, a habit he'd picked up from Spike, and raked a hand through his hair, nudity momentarily forgotten.
"This is just too weird and pants, I need some pants. Excuse me."
With that he very calmly fled the room.