Disclaimer: The characters portrayed and/or mentioned in the following story do not belong to me; they belong to Joss Whedon, who created them, Mutant Enemy, and any of their affiliates. I do own the story idea that Xander is a succubus - if you don't believe me, I can tell you just where I got the idea. It's actually a rather interesting story...

Warning: This story, on the whole, contains slash - and this chapter should give you a good indication of the pairing. ^_~

A/N: This is a direct continuation of where the last chapter left off. For any of you who, like me, were getting fed up with the little summaries before the story actually began - I am breaking away from those. Hopefully, I won't feel the need to use them again.

Oh, God. This-- this wasn't happening. This so wasn't happening. Xander kept repeating this to himself as he paced aimlessly around the large hotel. He'd made it upstairs, and was now pacing along a corridor in front of the vacant rooms.

How was he going to be able to face them, explain to them what the big deal was? Maybe he wouldn't have to. Maybe they'd just think it was because he was a nice guy, who couldn't imagine doing something like that to another person.

No. Cordelia was in there, and she knew enough about him to know it was more serious. For the first time since coming to her for help, Xander was having serious second thoughts. She didn't know him as well as Willow, or even Buffy did, but she knew him well enough. He shouldn't have come. This was the hugest mistake he'd made in a long time.

Somewhere in Xander's mind, he knew that he was panicking, and probably overreacting, but at the moment, he didn't really care. What was he going to do?

"Are you going to pace all day?"

The voice really shouldn't have surprised Xander -- he knew Angel had a penchant for sneaking up on people, but combined with everything else, Xander didn't know if his heart could take any more surprises. He spun around to face Angel, suddenly angry. None of this was Angel's fault, but he knew Angel could take his anger, and it beat having the vampire see him completely wigging out. "You know, maybe I will! Is that a problem? I'd hate to do anything to offend you -- I'm just having a minor crisis, nothing to upset you about."

Angel lowered his head and crossed his arms over his chest, suddenly looking much more intimidating. The part of Xander that wasn't worried he'd seriously pissed the vampire off wondered if he practiced that in front of the mirror -- and then he realized, no, that would be kind of pointless, him being a vampire and all.

"Xander," Angel said darkly, in just the right tone of voice that had Xander jumping to attention like an errant child. "Yeah?" he asked, kicking himself for letting Angel get that response out of him.

"Talk," the vampire said simply, in the same tone of voice.

Xander glared at him. "You're not the boss of me!" Even before Angel raised an eyebrow at that response, Xander was berating himself. What was he, a four-year-old? He sighed and said wearily, "Look, Deadboy -- I don't wanna talk about it. It's... it's nothing."

"It's something, Harris -- either you explain it to me, or we go back downstairs and you explain it to all of us." The look on Angel's face told Xander he was very willing to drag Xander downstairs to do just that.

Xander ducked his head, suddenly shy of Angel's gaze. The look he was getting was too piercing, and Xander was almost... afraid of what he'd see when he told Angel what was wrong. "I promised..." his throat contracted, and he had to clear it before continuing, "I promised myself I would never become like that. Yelling at someone, telling them how horrible they are, that I'm disgusted with them... I can't become that. I can't," he repeated, looking up at Angel with large, desperate eyes. Angel was forcibly reminded that no matter what Xander had done, no matter what Hellmouthy thing he'd lived through, he was still a young man -- still a teenager, and somewhere inside him, just below the surface, was a frightened child.

Apprehensive of what his answer would be, Angel asked softly, "Why?"

Xander gave a sharp laugh, his face looking anything but humorous as he smiled and said, "I grew up with that." He'd told Angel this much, he might as well tell it all, right? He continued with an air of forced nonchalance, "Oh, it mostly wasn't directed at me. My mom got the brunt of it, and she could give as good as she got. Actually, they ignored me, for the most part. I was thankful for that small mercy. I'd rather be ignored than yelled at."

Angel was thinking quickly. While Xander had been talking, a sudden idea had come to him. But he didn't know how well it would work, if at all. There were so many things that could go wrong with it -- not the least of which was Xander's refusing to even try it. He looked up at Xander and said, "I think... I've got an idea. But I need to talk to Wes about it." He didn't miss the quick flash of hope on Xander's face before he buried the emotion. "Do you think it'll help?"

Angel hesitated. "I think... I think it's the best thing we've got, right now." Before Xander could say anything else, Angel pivoted and walked back to the stairway.

Xander felt funny. Angel was helping him. He tried to tell himself it was just some sense of honor, helping a friend of Cordelia's... a friend of Buffy's... but that didn't stop him from marveling at the fact that Angel'd said 'we' in his last sentence. And then Xander realized that he wasn't panicking anymore. He was still worried, but... somewhere along the way, without his knowing it, he'd begun to trust Angel. He hoped it wasn't misplaced.

Next chapter: Cordy and Xander talk, and Xander learns just what Angel's idea was.

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