The Pack: Accidentally in Love

Chapter Two

No one was yelling in his house. That was new and different.

Xander crept in the front door, past the disintegrating paint and the broken porch rail. The living room was deserted, devoid of anything or one, except for a few empty beer bottles and a half-pack of cigarettes. He didn't let down his guard, but he did call out.

"Mom?"

There was no answer. He wasn't sure if he should be worried or relieved. Probably both, he figured. Xander snuck through the kitchen and looked around cautiously. He was still alone. He wasn't sure how to feel until he looked at the refrigerator and saw a certain yellow notice stuck there.

The court summons. Fuck.

Well, at least here was no way his parents would see him in nothing but Giles' jacket and his own hide. On the downside, though, he had a sneaking suspicion that whichever way the verdict went, his parentals were not going to be thrilled with him for missing it. The only question was how not thrilled they would be. He was betting on very.

Xander relaxed and slouched up the stairs to his room. He wanted to be wearing pants when he was punished. His room itself was scattershot with clothes, mostly socks, and the occasional candy wrapper. He knew that somewhere within the mess lay a semi-wearable pair of pants. He started digging and had just found a pair when he heard the phone ring downstairs.

Grabbing the only pants that had smelled remotely decent, he hastily pulled them on and dashed to the still ringing phone. He would have to remember to go back to the abandoned house and pick up what he'd left behind. He didn't have that many clothes. At least, not so many that he could afford to leave a whole set behind.

He picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Xander?"

It was Willow, checking up on him again. He supposed he should be flattered that she cared so much.

"Hey Wills."

"Hey." She sounded hesitant. "How are you holding up?"

Xander snorted. "I've only been home for five minutes, Will. That's not really enough time for a bombshell."

She coughed delicately. "No, I meant about all that stuff that happened yesterday and this morning. I thought maybe you wanted to talk, just us best buds, without Buffy and Giles being all eavesdropping."

"We wouldn't want them dropping eaves, now would we?"

"No, we wouldn't." She giggled. "So how is my Xander-shaped friend?"

"Topless."

"Oh!"

He laughed. "Yup, I'm all sweaty and half-naked standing in the kitchen, your own personal Chippendale dancer!"

"I bet Kyle wishes he were there," she giggled.

Xander had nothing to say to that. Willow sighed.

"Don't tell me you're getting all repressed and stupid," she said.

"I'm not getting stupid, I just not thinking about it," he replied. "It was a fluke, nothing more."

*

At this very moment, Kyle hated Xander. A lot. Xander had gotten a ride home, semi-clothed, and blanketed in concern. Meanwhile, Kyle had just been left naked on the floor, shivering and far from his nice warm bed. So, yeah, he hated Xander right now.

Tor's muttered hallelujah forced Kyle to look up—they were finally back to Sunnydale. That didn't mean they could go home just yet, though. They still had to stop back off at the house from last night and gather their clothes. The only one of them now capable of walking on the sidewalk was actually Tor, as he had been kidnapped while clothed. The bastard.

But then, Tor was walking with them and making sure no one spotted them, so he wasn't nearly as big a bastard as Xander. Stupid Xander.

The house was still blessedly empty, not that he had really expected otherwise, but it was still a comfort. That, however, was the only comfort. In daylight he could see more clearly precisely why this house had been condemned. The walls and ceiling were streaked with hundreds of fissures. He could tell that it would only take a few good knocks against the main beam to destroy the whole house. His every step brought little puffs of plaster raining down.

His clothes were bunched up in a pile by the bed. The bed where he had lost his virginity. His brain wouldn't work. For the moment he had no intention of letting himself think about that in any real detail. To think about it would be to admit it, and he was very much not ready for that. Not when he could blame it all on a freaky animal possession.

He hated to admit it, but he already missed the little voice in the back of his head. Kyle pulled his pants on slowly, forcing himself to look at the still stained bed. He could look at it and not freak out. He could think about the sex and not have analyze it or admit anything to himself or remember the feeling of Xander's skin on his.

Nope, never mind, he couldn't.

The others didn't look at all surprised when Kyle dashed back into the living room. Heidi and Rhonda gave him their best "aww, isn't he just adorable" looks, but he knew them well enough to see the concern lurking in their eyes. He smiled to reassure them. It didn't really seem to work.

Tor came up and put an arm around him. He savagely shrugged it off. He hated making them think that he was vulnerable, especially when he was. All he wanted at the moment was some peace and quiet to freak out a little. He just wanted to contemplate his lack of virginity by himself, thank you very much. It really didn't help that he knew they had heard him last night.

But he couldn't alienate them now that they had so much dirt on him. Well, and because he liked them. That just kind of came secondary at the moment. He was sure it would be back up to number one as soon as this Xander mess was over.

*

"It sounds to me like you're repressing," said Willow, in her most non-judgmental tone.

Xander refrained from whining, "But I'm not!" back at her, as he was fairly sure that wouldn't help his case any.

"Repressing is bad, Xander. Very, very bad. It can lead to all sorts of very bad things, like Oedipus complexes and schizophrenia."

He smirked. "Willow, have you been reading Freud again?"

She sounded sheepish. He suddenly wished she were there, so that he could see her face and enjoy being around his Willow. "No?"

"I thought we talked about this," he said, doing a little dance inside for getting the upper hand for once.

"Well, it's just right there and it's so interesting and you know my mother's a shrink, I thought it would be something we could talk about, and…" She stopped abruptly, then continued suspiciously. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

"Would I do a thing like that?"

No-nonsense Willow was back. "Yes." He heard her take a deep breath and prepared himself for a reaming. Instead she asked, quietly, "Was it really that awful?"

The question stopped him short. Was it? What had really been so terrible? He'd been running around thinking about how awful it was, but what if it wasn't? He supposed the loss of control had been bad, but it hadn't actually been all that unpleasant. It had even been nice to give up control for a while, to not have to worry about things like his parents or how he was going to pass sophomore year. And it wasn't like he'd even done something illegal, or even really bad. So what had been so horrible? The sex? Sure, he hadn't planned on losing his virginity to another boy in an abandoned house, but he was a sixteen year old boy. Sex was pretty much always good. So, really, it all boiled down to one thing.

"It made me feel things that weren't real."

She was silent at that. All he could hear from the phone was a faint hum and her soft breaths. Finally, she spoke. "How do you know they weren't real?" Her breath was coming quick now: he could tell she had something important to tell him.

"Out with it, Will," he sighed. "Wouldn't want you to explode."

The phone was quiet for a moment, not even breath coming through. "I'm not supposed to tell you."

"But we both know you're going to."

There was nothing to say to that, so she just came right out and said it.

"I don't know about you," she started, "but Kyle's feelings were all real."

He was so not expecting that answer.