Xander walked into the bar with a grin and simply ignored the looks the patrons shot him as he made his way to Willy

"Hey kid... I see you're still breathing which I will take as a good sign" Willy said with a chuckle as Xander sat down at the bar

"Then you'll take it correctly" he said as he dropped a large roll of bills on the counter and pushed it towards Willy

"That's the money owed to you by the Vampire nest, the Ba'Then demon and Angelus" he said and quickly noticed the conversations die in the bar

"If any one decides not to pay you tell me Willy... I'll get the money" he said before standing up and heading for the exit

The door opened and Xander grinned as a Large demon limped into the and quickly shied away from him "Don't worry pal... I got the money you owed Willy so I don't have any problems with you" he said before smiling and walked out into the night

=====

Xander had a smile on as he walked through the graveyard at one in the morning //if that dumb shit doesn't attack me soon I'll have to worry about the sunrise killing him before I do// he thought with a chuckle as he thought about the vampire that had been trailing him for several minutes, when the wind changed and he smelled several corpses ahead of him his grin turned to a sneer

//my my my... we may actually have a semi-intelligent Vampire, guess that means I have to kill him// he thought as he put on a pair of heavy gloves and prepared to test a new weapon

As the vampires charged Xander slammed his fists together and was rewarded at the sound of cracking plastic

As the vials on the glove cracked the fluids contained within seeped into the gloves, nitric acid from the left glove mixed with the phenol from the right glove and with an almost evil glow Xander's gloved hands caught fire

Within moments the battle was over and Xander looked around with a grin before he started to curse and quickly threw the gloves off

"Damn it that's hot... good thing I decided to forgo the magnesium powder" he said with a grin

The slow clapping from behind him quickly drained all mirth from his face as he spun around with the two Tomahawks appearing in his hands

Faith stared in surprise at the speed Xander was able to pull off as he spun before a sheepish grin spread over his face

"Ooh... hi Faith, I thought Dead boy had this patrol tonight?" he said as he quickly made the weapons disappear as quickly as they had arrived

"Angel said he had to look into something and he'd be back by tomorrow night, I have to fill in for him" the slayer said with a shrug "So I get his patrol while B headed home"

Xander caught the tone and smiled quickly "Hey no sweat, this place seems pretty dead now. How about we go grab a bite and I'll tell you about some new toys I've been thinking of to keep you alive" he said and watched the emotions on the slayers face

"Okay, food sounds good... and you promise to tell me how you did the whole flaming hand deal?" she said as the two walked off

==

"...out of his pocket and said... TEA TIME" Xander finished the jokes as faith had taken a drink and was pleased as she snorted a considerable amount of the carbonated beverage and proceeded to cough and snort

As Xander finished up his laugh and faith succeeded in removing the excess fluid from her sinus she glared at Xander, this succeeded only in sending him off on another round of laughter as she tried to keep the mirth from affecting her

"That was a sick joke X man... I'm gonna love telling it to Giles" she said with an evil grin before she thought for several seconds "Okay boy toy... explain what's going on here" she said as the laughter quickly died from Xander

"What do you want to know Faith?" he asked and hoped she would not ask what he thought she would

"First, how did you do the flame thing back there, after that you can go into why Buffy and Willow where asking if you were acting weird and finally you can explain the whole leather and hair deal" she asked and watched the young man across the table

"Okay Faith, the flame deal is simple, nitric acid and phenol react to each other by starting a flame, I had a vial of each on the gloves. When I snapped my fists together the chemicals reacted and caught fire, the gloves kept it from burning my hands." He said and watched as the slayer nodded

"the last two questions are interconnected so I will try to explain, do you remember me explaining about the whole 'Hyena' deal and the death of principle flutie?" he asked and smiled when she nodded again

"Well when they dealt with the that the Hyena was removed from everyone but me... since the Zoo keeper never finished and I was the strongest I remained inside of Xander, over the last two years I have been learning from him and I learned quickly enough that I'm no longer an as Savage as I was back then... well after a while the whole Halloween incident came along and I learned something else, I learned about protecting the weak instead of killing them, I learned that there are times that I would need to sacrifice myself for others" he said and took a sip of his drink as he waited for Faith to catch up

"You... you mean you're the Hyena? How the hell did that happen" she asked before her face fell "It's not like the whole Angel and Angelus problem is it" she asked with a look of fear

"no... what we did together had nothing to do with this, what happened is I was bitten by Oz last night... when he did I was released and Xander... well I don't know what happened to Xander" he answered as a look of relief passed the dark slayers face for a moment before she darkened again

"What do you mean you don't know where Xander is?" she asked as Xander rubbed his temple's to remove some of the headache he was building up

"Faith, Xander always knew I was there... within him, he knew what I would do and he fought to make sure I learned what I needed to... when he was bitten he just sort of... faded away, I have asked Giles to look into it but as of right now I don't know if I'm going to be able to get him back" he said as a small amount of despair worked it's way into his voice

With a shake of his head he puts a grin back on "So... what's up with your life?"