Chapter 11("Is this blasphemy? Tara? Is it?")

Giles let out a small smile at the way Xander was scrunched up in the little arm chair while holding a heavy, leather-bound book in his lap. The boy, though without any powers of his own, put his all into helping others. The Slayers were known to gripe and shirk duties and witches seemed to be prone to bouts of selfishness, but Xander, for all his cowering in the face of danger, seemed to be the only one who genuinely wanted what was best for his hometown.

"Buffy'll kill this thing, right?" The young man's voice was small. Not soft, or quiet. Small. Only now had it truly sunk in the type of things this boy had to deal with every day. It was no wonder he was always so eager to help in the demon slaying.

When one had enough demons at home, the ones roaming the streets were nothing.

"Faith, probably. Buffy has been overcompensating since Art came around, but Faith's been injured and is angry."

"Gee, Angry-Faith or a Buffster who's convinced she's about to be superannuated? That'll be interesting."

Giles stared at the boy dumbly. "…superannuated?"

"I pay attention in English," he said defensively. It was true. Comedic timing wasn't everything. Sometimes putting a smile one someone's face required a guy to be quite verbose. Verbise? Wordy.

An awkward silence settled between the two. Giles shifted in his seat.

"I am proud of you, you know." The young man looked up at him. "All of you. You've all grown so much since I've met you."

"T-that means a lot, coming from you Giles."

"You're nearly 18. You'll be a far better man than your father, I can assure you."

Xander fixed the Watcher with a shy smile. "Well, let's just say he isn't my most predominant male figure."

Giles beamed at him and cleared his throat. "Yes, well…let's get back to research, shall we?"

"So whatever this is, it eats our bad emotions?"

"I wouldn't necessarily say 'eats'," he said, adjusting his glasses. "For all we know, it could just be causing all these negative emotions for, as you young folks say, shits and giggles."

The backdoor was kicked in as Buffy and Faith sauntered into the house. Luckily, Tara had her own rambunctious, door kicking Slayer in mind and butt hinges on the doors were one of the first things put she into the house, right after several protective charms and the slightly paranoid application of table corner guards that earned the teenaged Watcher many sympathetic looks at the local Babies R Us.

"You haven't found it yet?"

"Well, sorry," Xander teased. "We all can't just wander off and take fifteen minutes to come back with just two weapons."

Buffy pouted. "We brought brownies too."

Giles sighed. "We don't need brownies, you two. We need information on inter-dimensional demonic activity."

There was a shimmer and the air around them suddenly smelled of ozone. Only for a second, but it was strong. When they looked at the table again, a heavy book lay atop all the others. Its pages were frayed, yellow, and it looked to be bound in snakeskin.

The four of them frowned and cocked their heads.

Faith whistled. "Spooky."


"That was…wow."

"Yeah," Willow giggled and tucked her head under Tara's chin, just enjoying being held. The sandy haired witch in question was leaning against her desk, arms wrapped around the smaller witch.

"Should we start?" She asked, tilting her head to the several books knocked off the desk during their impromptu makeout session.

"Wait, one more." Willow craned her neck and kissed Tara one more time. As a kid-hell, even as a teenager-she had viewed kissing as something icky. First as that odd thing mom and dad did, and then as downright gross, the way movies portrayed it. Willow honestly never could see the appeal of having someone else's spit in your mouth, or worse, someone else's tongue.

Now though, as Tara sucked on her lower lip, Willow could very much see the appeal. In fact, it was like Willow had suddenly gained Appeal-o-Vision, as she contemplated all the other things that mouth could do.

"I think," smack "That we," smack "should," lick "invoke," suck "a goddess of protection?"

"Right-o," Willow breathed. "Bast or Aradia? Or are they the same?"

"Funny," Tara purred into her ear. "Never pegged you for a 'Pussy is Pussy' kinda girl." It was a joke of course, a reference to the feline forms both took. Willow laughed, and for a moment Tara wondered if she's laugh at her 'insect reflection' joke. She'd been waiting to use that one.

"Dunno," the redhead whispered hotly. "I'm kinda starting to lean towards a few Buddhist deities." She pushed her jean clad hips against the front of Tara's cargo pants, and was yet again struck by her own brazenness. Was she in some sort of witchy heat?

The young Watcher chuckled low in her throat. "The goddess Tara would be more than pleased to-"

"Um, am I interrupting something?"

The two witches leapt apart instantaneously. Willow scowled. "Xander! Don't you knock?"

The young man's were still wide, and his face turned a fascinating shade of red. "We found a spooky book and if you guys could come downstairs and check it out that'd be real swell or you could just carry on I don't care I'm sorry?"

He then did an about face that would make any drill sergeant proud and fled.

"So…" Tara blew her bangs out of her eyes with a puff. "Bast it is, then?"

After a quick prayer to said goddess (Beloved Bast..yada yada…..slay the evil that afflicts out minds….yada yada. Cliché, but effective) the two witches made it down the stairs, avoiding Xander's gaze.

Tara plastered on the fakest smile in the land. "Ooh look, new book!"

Willow followed suit. "Is that the spooky book? Ooh, it looks downright spooky," she turned her earnest gaze to the others. "See? We took a look at it. Now Tara and I need to do more research."

"I think I have some volume-y texts that might shed light on the situation."

"But it appeared out of nowhere," Buffy protested. "It might be a ghost book! I can't slay ghosts!"

Faith nodded sagely. "Ghosts are awful, man."

"Artie is afraid of ghosts," Tara mused.

"At least if a demon is messing around I can stab it," the blonde Slayer explained. "Ghost kinda just…don't do anything. All they do is scare you and make you sad."

"And then you feel guilty when you freak out at them."

"Tara, would this be an awful time to say that your house looks like a haunted house?"

The witch shrugged. "If we get ghosts, the worse that'll happen is that Artie will cry. No poltergeists or evil spirits, though. Got enough charms to make sure of that."

And then Xander collapsed on the couch twitching and whimpering, green mist hovering over him.