Buffy The Vampire Slayer Fan Fiction ❯ Fear Becomes You ❯ Fathers Suck ( Chapter 5 )

Still don't own Buffy

And be warned, this chapter will include a tiny bit of stuff that could be considered slightly offensive to homosexuals, women, and the British.

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Chapter # 5: Fathers Suck

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“Oh, did I tell you that Cordelia asked about you?”

“What?” Xander looked up from his Algebra II homework and across the table at Buffy. “Me?”

“Well, not really asked, as in asked, but definitely wondering.”

“You didn't actually tell her, did you?”

“Nah, told her you're sick,” Buffy said, chewing some gum, and looked off into space to seemingly consider this, “Don't think she totally believed me, though, so she might actually come to a meeting soon.”

Xander sighed and slumped back into his seat. “Yay”

Because that was just what he needed. Cordy mockage on top of the already more than plentiful Spike mockage, who, unfortunately, hadn't decided to leave after all.

Noticing his expression, Buffy tried to make him feel better. “You don't have to, like, announce who you are when she's here, you know. I mean, it's not like she's gonna immediately think you're you.”

And Ouch

He ignored Buffy's last sentence. “But she'll probably start to wonder when Giles starts with the demons and I'm not kicked out.”

“True,” Buffy allowed, absently curling a bit of stray hair behind her ear. “Maybe you can hide in Giles' office.”

Here, Willow, sitting to his right, finally spoke up. “Or you could just not be there.”

“What?” he looked over at her with wounded eyes, “Wills, don't you want me here?”

“Oh, I don't mean that in a mean way. I just mean that-that if you really don't want her to know then you could just kinda, you know, leave when she gets here.”

Buffy nodded in agreement.

“But I need to be here.” He looked back and forth between the two girls, needing them to understand. “I can't just leave.”

Buffy and Willow shared a concerned look.

They didn't understand.

“You can miss researching for one night, Xander. We're not even really doing anything anymore.” Willow said gently, sounding like she was trying to calm a frightened animal and Xander would have felt insulted if he weren't so busy being strung out.

He shook his head. “No I can't.”

“Yes, you can,” Buffy said with her own version of the calming voice, “Just be somewhere not here.”

“Yeah, but if I'm not here, I'm at Giles'. And if I'm at Giles', I'm with Spike. And if I'm with Spike, I'm not happy. And if I'm not happy, I eat. And all Giles has is boring health food and tea. Lots and lots of tea. It's just not natural.”

It wasn't.

Willow blinked wary green eyes at him. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”

“Yeah . . .” Buffy said, giving him a weird look, “You sound kinda stressed.”

Xander groaned and let his head fall onto his math book in frustration so that, when he spoke, his voice was muffled. “I've been sleeping, on a couch, for a week, only two feet away from a very pissed off Spike, the vampire psycho. Then I've been spending most of the day, when not here, on that same couch, still only two feet away from a very pissed off Spike. Me, the couch, and the very pissed off Spike have spent way too much time together and need some time alone.”

Sympathetic, Willow reached over to pat him on the back.

Buffy was a bit more caught up in other details. She frowned. “Isn't Spike all upward and mobile now?”

Xander nodded into his book as well as he could. “Yeah.”

“And he's still at Giles'?”

Removing his face from his book, Xander looked up at her with a shrug. “I guess so.”

“And so what? Is Spike just gonna hang out in Giles' living room until we find a cure? `Cuz that's kinda wiggy.”

Xander shrugged again.

“What about your house?” Willow asked, probably finally remembering what Xander and Giles had gone to do yesterday. “How'd that go?”

“It, um . . .” Xander looked over at her and hesitated, “well, it went.”

“Oh,” Buffy looked at him in knowingly. “And by that you mean they freaked.”

“They freaked?” Willow repeated, looking worried. “They didn't really freak did they?”

“Well . . .” Xander shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “technically, no, they didn't. It, well . . .” he trailed off as the two girls continued to look at him.

Finally, he sighed. “They weren't a they. Dad wasn't home, so, Giles ended up just talking to Mom.”

“And she freaked?” Willow asked.

“Kinda, yeah. . . . She . . . she thought we were playing some kind of mean trick on her.”

Willow looked at him in concern. “But you got her to realize that you weren't, right?”

“Nah . . .” Xander, looking down and, avoiding the two girls' eyes, began to play with the pages of his math book. “She threatened to call the cops on us.”

“Well then what about your dad?” Buffy asked, “Couldn't you talk to him?”

“Well . . .” Xander hesitated, “yeah, but . . . I gotta say Buff, I don't think that'll do anything.”

“Why not?”

“Uh, Dad is, um . . . ,” Xander faltered, frantically racking his brain for a Buffy-safe response, “Dad is very . . . anti . . . uh, anti-supernatural.” Yeah. That could work.

“Anti-supernatural,” Buffy repeated flatly.

“Yeah, very,” Xander nodded seriously, “Traumatic Halloween experience. Ghosts, witches, fairies . . . mention anything like that and he just freaks out. Goes total kablooey all over the room. And don't even get him started on black cats.”

“Oh I remember that!” Willow exclaimed, as though this parental quirk actually existed. “That thing with your neighbor and her cat?”

“Yeah!” Xander agreed, nodding empathetically.

“Yeah that was . . . that was really weird.” She made a face. “And kinda icky.”

God, he'd have to get Wills a present for this or something. Maybe a soda; he didn't have a lot of money.

Buffy looked curious. “What happened?”

“Oh you really don't wanna know.” Xander shook his head with wide eyes to show his sincerity. “Really.”

“Yeah,” Willow said in a small voice, sounding a little disgusted. “I wish I didn't know, either.”

He felt kind of bad about lying to Buffy. But, still, while she may have become one of his best friends, he really hadn't known her that long and didn't want her caught up in his little family drama if he didn't have to. She had enough of her own problems without adding his into the mix.

“Okay . . .” Buffy said, giving them both a strange look before changing the subject. “Then . . . your mom. She doesn't have any strange . . . phobias about the supernatural, too, does she?”

“Nah, Mom's pretty okay with it.”

“Then all you have to do is try again and convince her and you're off Giles' couch and away from Spike.”

“And while that would totally be of the good, I somehow doubt I could pull it off without Dad finding out. I figure even he'd notice that I've shrunk about a foot and am carrying some excess baggage a little too far up in the front. This whole thing is doomed to failure, but me and the G-man are gonna go try again tonight anyways.”

And hopefully his dad would decide to stop over at the bar, or a friend's house, or maybe the grocery store for some munchies after work instead of coming straight home. Dad and the G-man really didn't need to meet.

 

 

Spike sat in his chair, no longer tied up, and stared blankly at the commercials being played on the telly.

The Watcher had taken away the ropes last night, supposedly for good, having apparently made the decision sometime during their argument at supper. And Spike didn't know what to do.

He was free.

He could leave. Could do whatever he wanted.

He could go find his own cure, go find Dru, go steal a busload of booze and get completely pissed . . .

Except for the fact that he couldn't.

None of his contacts would listen to a human.

He didn't have his senses or strength anymore so he couldn't force cooperation or sniff Dru out himself.

And how the hell was he supposed to steal anything while this weak and making this much noise?

Add to that having no spare clothes, no food, no money but what he could find around the Watcher's house, nowhere to go, an admittedly uneasy understanding of his new limits and needs, no idea as to where to start looking for either Dru or a cure, and being no longer safe to walk about at night . . .

He could essentially do whatever he wanted, but he couldn't do anything.

So he'd stayed at the Watcher's house. Right now, the white hats seemed to be his best bet at a cure.

The real problem was that now that he was untied, he could no longer trick himself into believing it was the ropes that kept him from going after Dru. That he actually wasn't just sitting around his enemy's house watching the telly as Dru got further and further away.

Everything in him cried out that he should be doing something, anything, but sit about on his arse. But then he had absolutely no clue as to just what that something should be.

What could he do?

It hadn't been so bad earlier, when that dark-haired bird-bloke had been around. Whether being confused by or fighting with, that one was a lovely distraction. She kept his mind too busy to be bothered by more serious thoughts.

He'd soon figured out that she was actually another victim of the curse, and, over the past week, Spike had been taking immense pleasure in mocking her about that. The only problem with this being that she gave as good as she got and Spike had to grudgingly admit she was quick.

And he knew he had been inside for far too long when he started wishing a white hat would come keep him company.

Horrified at the very thought, Spike looked around the living room again for something to distract him. Eyes catching on the bright sunlight peeking into the room from behind the curtains of the front window, he paused.

As it was no longer “safe” to walk about at night, Spike would, supposedly, need to do his walk-abouts in the daytime.

In the sun

He frowned, sitting up to closer consider the door.

He didn't really have any reason not to. And when he'd gone out before it had been getting on toward sun down and he hadn't really been paying attention to anything but getting back to the factory or Dru's disappearance.

That was probably the first step to doing anything productive. Going out in the sun.

He could start testing his new limits, pick some pockets, maybe find a bookstore to start doing a little bit of his own looking . . .

And, of course, there was the chance for new scenery. If he was starting to think things like that about the white hats . . .

He grimaced, shaking his head in disgust.

Mind made up, he stood, swiftly walking out the door and down the Watcher's shaded path with quick, determined strides. Coming to the end of these shadows, though, he paused, examining the contrast between the light and dark of the sun and shadows. In the back of his mind, over a hundred years of training, instinct, and experience screamed at him to get the hell out of there and back indoors, but he forced himself to ignore them.

Schooling his face into a determined scowl, he took a large step forward and stopped.

Unconsciously wincing, he awaited being burned alive. A few tense seconds of nothing but pleasant warmth later, he relaxed a bit, opened his eyes, and looked around at the sunlit greenery and pavement, at the rows of nice houses up and down the street, and at the relaxed humans going about their nice and normal lives.

Across the way, a lady wearing headphones and a pair of wristbands jogged by with a large dog. A couple houses down, an older man cursed at and kicked an overturned bin, garbage flowing out onto the pavement. Directly across the street a minivan, smiley face drawn on the back window in the dust, pulled into the driveway and two laughing children jumped out and raced into the house.

This was so bloody strange.

It was so peaceful.

So happy

Raising a hand to shield his eyes, Spike pushed his gibbering instincts to the back of his mind and squinted up into the clear blue sky at the sun. It hurt.

He'd forgotten just how bright that was.

With a disgusted sigh, Spike lowered his hand and turned back to the street.

Right. He hadn't come out here for a trip down memory lane. He had business to do.

Choosing a direction randomly, Spike turned left and started walking, carefully blocking out his surroundings. They were just too fucking weird.

It was too normal, too bright, too open.

And it was so warm. Pleasantly so, even

Spike couldn't remember the last time he had been this pleasantly warm. Maybe during the summers, or closer to the Equator, or in some of the Middle Eastern or African countries, but that was always a different kind of warmth, a warmth that always came with heavy humidity and strong odors.

There was a whole other dimension to this warmth that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Almost as though it wasn't only coming from the outside.

In its own way, it was actually kind of . . . nice.

He allowed himself one last look up at the sun.

Ignoring the utter wrongness of a vampire out and about in the daytime, his instincts, the brightness, and the fact that the whole situation was bringing his new “changes” to almost painful attention . . . this whole sun thing wasn't that bad.

 

Once again, Giles and Xander were standing uncomfortably on the front steps to Xander's house. The grass was still half dead and overgrown, the paint was still old and chipped, and one of the trash cans had been knocked over so that its contents now spilled all over the lawn and driveway.

Xander hated it when that happened. It was always so disgusting and time-consuming to pick up.

“I'm sorry to ask, but will we be going in anytime soon?”

Xander winced and turned back from his examination of the lawn to face Giles.

“Yeah, sorry.” He tried again to ignore how tall and broad Giles had gotten. It was annoying, but things like that were becoming harder and harder to ignore as his time as a girl drew on. There were just so many of those little things that marked his change, and there was only so much denial Xander could spend in one direction. Other things needed to be denied too, after all.

“But just as a quick warning, my dad's probably gonna be home today, and, well, like I said, he's not so good with the whole supernatural thing. Or with the temper-control thing. So, you should, you know, probably not say anything about that to him. Wouldn't be a good idea. Not pretty at all.” Xander shook his head and tried to convey his absolute seriousness with his eyes. “Anti-pretty even. Why it would be so unpretty that—

“Yes,” Giles interrupted, holding up a hand. “So I was told. Now will you please stop this incessant stalling and open the door.”

“Fine then, don't listen to me,” Xander muttered and turned to do just that.

No drunk or passed out parents in sight.

“Hmm, they must not be home yet. Oh well, another day.” Xander shrugged and tried to close the door. “Let's get back to your place G-man. Spike's probably getting lonely without us.”

“Yes, and we wouldn't want that, now, would we?” Giles' voice was extra dry.

“I knew you'd understand!”

“Xander,” Giles turned to look at him seriously and Xander looked away to avoid his eyes. “I understand that informing your parents of your nightly exploits and recent change may be rather difficult. I even understand your particularly strong protests against the informing of your father; no son would like to inform their father that they are now, a, well . . . a daughter. But believe me when I say, this must be done. They must be made to understand.”

“I . . . I know but . . .”

“The truth is that we don't know how long this situation will last. And, Xander . . .” Giles continued, looking at him with sympathetic eyes even as he laid out the cold, hard truth. “You can not go through this episode sleeping on my sofa and skipping school. People will soon start to think of you as yet another “runaway” and you cannot go through extended periods of schooling on make-up work. And,” Here Giles paused, face almost sad, “And your parents deserve to know the truth. Or would you rather they think you dead?”

Xander swallowed and Giles still went on.

Dead?

He hadn't thought of that.

“And you will need your family's support in this. You've done well so far, but who's to say how you'll be in another week. We're still not even sure if this one change is even—

“All right, all right! I get it!” Xander threw his hands up to stop his talking. “No need to pound me into the ground, okay? I get it. We'll tell them. I just . . .” He sighed and looked down, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “Forget it.”

“Everything will be okay.” Giles said, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. And he really looked as though he believed that.

“Are you sure?”

“I—”

“Hey! Who the hell are you, and what're ya doin' in my house?!”

Surprised, Xander looked over to find that, yes, the door was still open.

“Oh, oh, par-pardon me sir. My name is—

“I don't care what your fuckin' name is! What're ya doin' in my house?”

And, yes, that was his dad. Who had apparently just come home from work while he and Giles had been busy talking and was now storming their way.

Dad was a low-level marketing grunt working for that big, screw-the-little-man type electronics company on the edge of town. So, he basically spent the day being ordered about and treated like shit, this treatment only made all the worse by the fact that his immediate boss was a woman.

Apparently this was emasculating.

So, coming home from this torture and affront to his male pride, Dad felt it only proper to order his son and wife about and basically treat them like shit.

He wasn't mortally abusive or anything; he just needed to, you know, reaffirm his masculinity. Regain his place as the “Big Man.”

Xander had never understood why people seemed to think he was being viciously abused. And he really didn't understand why some people thought that abuse was sexual. It was majorly wiggy to think that some of his teachers and other adults looked at him and saw a victim of incestuous pedophilic rape and/or molestation in denial.

Anyone who'd ever even met his dad would know that he'd never rape Xander. That would be gay and thus feminine behavior. And, Lord knows, Dad would never stoop to doing anything he considered feminine.

“Oh, I'm terribly sorry, but you see—

“Ya know what? I don't fuckin' care. Get the hell off my lawn.”

Dad had obviously stopped by a 7-11 or something on the way home for a pre-beer beer.

“I'm from your son's school.”

“And what? That gives you the right to break into my house?”

“The door was already open, sir,” Giles lied, “We assumed this meant someone was home and were merely waiting for someone to answer the bell when you arrived.”

“Oh,” Dad calmed a bit then snorted as he pushed past them, loosening his tie. “Damn woman probably forgot and is sleepin' again. Lazy bitch.”

He left the door open, so Xander and Giles, taking this as an invitation, followed him in, closing the door behind them. There was the sound of moving clutter, banging glasses, and then a short silence before Xander's dad returned from the kitchen, holding a beer and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Dropping into his old chair, he turned to give Xander and Giles a narrow look.

“So who're you again?”

“My name is Rupert Giles.” Giles walked further into the room and sat down on the couch, leaving Xander standing awkwardly off to the side. “The school librarian.”

Here his Dad snorted again, taking a swing of his drink. “Yeah, that'd be a problem right there. No way that boy'd go inta one a those.”

“Well I can assure you Mr. Harris that your son has spent quite a bit of time doing just that.”

“What? Ya mean the brat's breakin' inta libraries now?”

“N-no, of course not. I-I simply meant that he spends a good deal of time in my library.”

Mr. Harris looked suspicious. “That's not one a those strange homo ways of talkin' bout sex, is it? Cuz' you can have the boy if you want—always knew he was little bitch—just don't come talkin' ta me about it, okay? I don't want anythin' ta do with your lot's sick little homo fantasies.”

Off to the side, Xander buried his head in his hands and shook his head.

“My-my lot?”

“Yeah, you know, you British-types.”

“I . . . I . . . um . . . well . . .” Giles obviously didn't know what to say to that. “That's . . . that's not quite, ah, where I was - where I was going with that.”

“No?”

“No. In fact . . .” Giles cleared his throat, trying to get back on track, “well . . . you-you have noticed that this town has a . . . a rather high, er, death-rate, correct?”

“Aw shit,” his dad groaned, “The brat's not gone and gotten himself addicted to that PCP crap, has he?”

“Er . . . no.”

And it just kept getting worse from there.

 

“Why that . . . that-that man.” Giles sputtered, hands clenching the steering wheel as he glared at the road in front of him. In the passenger seat, Xander looked over at him warily. Giles never got truly angry very often, and Xander was kind of worried about him doing so while driving.

“I . . . I can't even believe . . .” Giles growled and made an angry right hand turn.

Tearing his eyes away from Giles, Xander turned to stare out the window, absently watching as buildings, trees, and the various signage of Sunnydale passed by.

Xander had known that telling his parents wouldn't help. Dad was the decision-maker, after all.

If his dad could have actually been convinced in the existence of magic, he would have only exploded over Xander changing into a girl, of all things. It would be seen as the ultimate act of sissy-ness and an almost unforgivable disappointment.

But then if his dad couldn't be convinced, he would just explode over what would be seen as an incredibly stupid attempt to hoist more kids on him.

Today, Dad had chosen option number 2.

It would've been nice for his mom to have believed them, though. He hadn't expected to be able to stay at home, but he also hadn't wanted his mom to think he was dead.

Gradually, the surroundings began to register in Xander's mind, pulling him out of his absent haze. Now actually paying attention to the scenery passing outside his window, Xander realized that they were nowhere near Giles' neighborhood and were actually driving further away from it.

Hesitantly, Xander tried to get Giles' attention.

“Um . . .”

“And to think I was a—

“Um, Giles . . .”

“He didn't even—

“Where're we going?”

“Why I'd— Giles finally looked up from his angry mutterings. “Sorry?”

“Where're we going?”

“Oh, yes, well,” Giles said, visibly trying to calm himself, “As it seems we won't be expecting any help from your parents,” Giles gave the last word an ugly twist, and Xander winced, “I suppose you will just have to live with me until a cure can be found.”

“But . . . but there's still Mom.”

“Who we were unable to convince.”

“We could try again. Without Dad.”

Giles looked skeptical. “And she could make that-that absolute brute think rationally?”

Xander paused. Damn. “Well, okay, a place to stay is definitely of the good,” he allowed, deciding not to answer Giles' question. “But that still doesn't explain where we're going.”

“We're going to Wal-mart.”

“Wal-mart?” Xander asked. The G-man goes to Wal-mart?

Giles nodded. “Yes, Wal-mart”

“And we're going to Wal-mart because . . . ?”

“Because I meant it when I said you couldn't get through this experience sleeping on my couch and I couldn't think of any other place open this late where I could buy a cot.”