Rick Wilkins appeared out of thin air in front of the small, rather shabby house on the quiet Sunnydale street at the wolf hour, about three o'clock in the morning. Apparently, this area had escaped the recent Halloween anarchy resulting from Ethan's Chaos spell; though, in any case, the neighborhood trick-or-treaters would have known better than to ring the doorbell of that specific house and then demand candy, considering exactly who lived there. Even such a measure of revenge as TP'ing the unkempt front yard and the dying tree by the cracked sidewalk would have been thought far too risky, since the first thing every new kid was told after moving in by the other children was the warning, "Stay away from the Harris house!"
*House,* bitterly reflected the man on the front sidewalk, staring with his mystic vision at the neglected dwelling. He could now actually see the multiple protective wards shining brightly in the vicinity, all unknowingly created by Sunnydale residents around their homes that kept vampires from entering without the specific permission of those who lived there, glowing in various degrees depending upon how much affection the inhabitants felt for each other and their homes. In the entire neighborhood, this was the only house without a single glimmer of protection.
The sorcerer had enough Sunnydale Syndrome wrapped around his presence to have been totally ignored even if he'd shouted at the top of his lungs, but Rick instead confined himself to merely snarling under his breath, "A fledgling vamp five minutes after digging themselves out of the grave, dirt still dribbling from their ears, could have strolled right inside without any trouble at all!"
Cynically shaking his head, Rick then stalked towards the house, up the concrete walkway with grass growing through the gaps in this, and then he absently waved his right hand, causing the front door to swing wide ajar without actually touching it, not breaking his stride as he then stepped through the open doorway. An instant later, he came reeling back outside, spinning around on the entryway and then standing there to start gasping for breath while also trying to control his stomach. Gagging, Rick choked out, "Oh, so that's why no vamp ever murdered us all in our beds!"
For the man who'd just acquired the heightened senses of a primal animal spirit, it was actually excruciating to smell the overpowering scent of two long-time human drunks fast asleep in their beds, with the odors of long-ago spilled alcohol, vomit, and other body fluids still tenaciously hanging around inside the house, despite all the cleaning a young boy dared to do without being walloped by an alcoholic father for acting 'sissy.' Rick muttered, "Geez, I can't believe I got used to that while living here and finally stopped paying attention! Jesse and Wils were polite enough not to say anything on their rare visits, but it must have been why they stopped coming here. Well, beside the obvious reason."
Slowly turning around to once more face the open doorway, Rick glared into this entrance leading further into the dark house. A quick cantrip later, the man followed his newly-deadened nose into the residence, keeping as quiet as possible out of sheer habit. Plus, Rick really wasn't in the mood to confront an awakened Tony and Jessica Harris and their accompanying hangovers.
A couple of minutes later, after exiting the bedroom that had once been occupied by Xander Harris, Rick clutched a few items in his hands while then heading towards a door leading off the messy kitchen. He quietly opened this panel and then he headed down the steps in the cramped flight of stairs, finally coming to the landing of the basement. Rick cautiously looked around for any changes since his last visit a month ago, until he was satisfied that his glowing green/yellow eyes had no trouble with seeing inside the nearly pitch-black room under the house, a building addition that was rare for Southern California, but which had always been taken for granted by a young Xander, who had his own reasons for coming here in the past.
Edging his way past the usual household junk found in this place, Rick made his way to the far corner of the basement, and he then knelt down on the concrete floor, to shove aside a leather trunk covered completely with cobwebs, which showed to the man there that nobody had disturbed this container for a long time. Not since he'd done so himself, anyway. Reaching out to grab a screwdriver hidden nearby under a heap of rags, Rick used this tool to carefully remove the screws from a good-sized vent in the basement wall, almost at floor level, revealed when he'd moved the trunk. Yanking off the steel screen of the vent, Rick put this, the screwdriver, and the screws together out of the way on the floor, and then he reached into the vent.
A muffled curse later as he barked a knuckle dragging out the metal box hidden inside, Rick then shifted from his kneeling position to instead sit tailor-fashion in front of the vent, placing his box of personal stuff onto his lap. Giving the container a fond rub, the man unlatched the box and he opened the lid to then closely examine the contents.
The first thing at hand was a thick envelope that Rick picked up to thoughtfully weigh in his hand, until with a shrug of his shoulders, the mature man then casually placed this with its contents of nearly a thousand dollars inside a suit pocket. For a variety of reasons, he really didn't need the money anymore, what he'd labored for the last couple of years on weekends and summers of mowing lawns and other chores around the neighborhood, to take a no-longer-possible road trip with Jesse. Still, he sure as hell wasn't going to leave the cash behind and possibly be found by Tony. Even though that bastard might actually croak from trying to drink away every penny of it!
Showing his teeth in a vicious snarl, Rick then eyed what had been under the envelope, and his angry expression now changed into a rueful grimace. A wave of a finger, and his porn stash vanished, on its way to a dumpster behind the Bronze, which was now pretty much the best place for it.
That act of magic revealed something more innocent and much more treasured. Carefully reaching into the box to gingerly lift out the bunch of comic books individually placed in their plastic wrappers, Rick brought up the stack of magazines in front of his face to nostalgically examine what was revealed there on top of the stack, savoring the cover of X-Men 1 and its young mutant superheroes rushing into action against Magneto.
"Damn, Jesse, but you had such a good time gloating about this to me when you used your birthday money to score it!" softly chuckled the man to himself, who suddenly had tears in his eyes. Just like Mrs. McNally, before she and Jesse's dad had left Sunnydale, when his best friend's mom had told Xander he could have whatever he wanted of her vanished son's stuff. It had taken that woman's stern urging while barely keeping her own emotions under control before a paralyzed Xander had sadly chosen what comics there were in Jesse's closet.
Gently placing the comics next to him, Rick tenderly kept his right hand resting on top of the stack, and he brought up his left hand to wipe away at his eyes while also performing a massive sorrowful sniff. After finishing, the man gave a light pat to the pile of magazines, most of which were almost as valuable as the first issue of that teenage mutant team. Not that this meant anything to someone who just last night had been about the same age as the early X-men; even if those comics had been the complete run of Sugar and Spike, Rick would have cherished them all, anyway. They'd been Jesse's, which made them priceless.
Just like the last things left in the metal box taken from the vent. Rick again carefully removed these, to be placed on top of the stack of comics. There were all the photographs he had of Jesse, which were followed by more pictures removed from his suit pocket, these being of his friend that had been in his bedroom a few minutes before, the only things he'd bothered to collect during his short visit there. Besides the fact that he couldn't take anything else without possibly making people suspicious, Rick didn't really need or want what Xander had previously owned. Even his most eye-searing Hawaiian shirts had to be left behind, if only because they didn't fit anymore.
Rick moodily shrugged, trying to drive away his sudden melancholy. In part, he succeeded by what he did next, which was to take out the remaining items in his box. These were a lot of photographs of Willow over the years, with some of the newest pictures being Buffy, her mom, and Giles. There were also some souvenirs from school, including reports, artwork, and the like, all the way back to first grade, kept simply because he'd done well on them and his teachers had actually praised these in their written comments, which had meant more to Xander Harris than these educators could have ever known, when they'd put down their approval that a child desperately yearned for and never received from those who should have truly given to him.
Finally, with the utmost care, Rick took the very last thing from the box. It was a crudely-scissored heart cut out from thick red paper folded over, to make a Valentine's Day present for him on that holiday during first grade. Delicately unfolding the fragile heart, Rick deeply smiled at once more seeing the clumsy writing there: WILOW + XANDUR.
Several minutes later, Rick Wilkins IV stood on the front sidewalk, his back to the house where Xander Harris had grown up. Holding a grocery bag filled with the items he'd come for and which were the only reason for his visit, the stony-faced man stood there stock-still for a few moments, the sole indication of life being the slow rise and fall of his chest. That specific action caused Rick to feel the faintest crinkling of paper in his front shirt pocket over his heart, where he'd placed a little girl's loving gift, and this impulsively led him to a decision that he'd thought inconceivable even ten minutes ago.
Closing his eyes, the sorcerer concentrated for a few moments. Then, Rick firmly nodded to himself once, still with his eyes shut, and he vanished into thin air, seemingly ignoring everything around in his vicinity.
In the Harris house, two people continued their drunken slumbers, never to know that their son, in whatever form, had paid one last visit. Nor would they ever know, that as long as they resided in their dwelling, some of the most powerful protective wards in the entire city of Sunnydale would continue to exist around this house.
Tony and Jessica Harris had given Xander Harris his life. Rick Wilkins IV had given this alcoholic couple their lives and a chance to change for the better - if they chose to do so. He would do nothing more for them, ever.