Author: Maude M.
Feedback: Please :)
Website: http://www.popslash.net
Distribution: List Archive. Others, I would be honored. Just let me know where.
Pairing: Giles/Xander
Rating: Big Time R.
Spoilers: The Gift
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy Productions, Fox, and the WB, etc., etc., amen.
Summary: Xander has a bad, bad habit.
Warning: This is pretty dark. Includes drug abuse and character death. Consider yourself warned!
Notes: Hues of Bliss has shamefully been stolen from a poem by Thomas Gray.

Giles awakens to a knock at his bedroom door. "Come in," he calls sleepily.

He blinks his eyes and makes out a Xander-shaped outline in the doorway. "Giles...I'm...scared. Can I sleep in here?"

Giles clears his throat. "Yes, of course."

Xander, wrapped tightly in a number of blankets walks to the opposite side of the bed and lies down on top of the comforter, facing away from Giles. Giles lays immobile for a moment, reflecting on the boundaries that have dissolved between them during the course of this ordeal.

He hears sniffing from the Xander-side after a few moments. "Xander? Are you all right?"

Another sniff. "Yeah, sorry Giles."

"Don't be sorry." He turns over and stares at the boy's back. "Do you want to talk about it?"

There is a long period of silence. "It's just...everything is so depressing. And it's never going to be normal again," his voice breaks on the last word as the tears become more audible.

Giles places a firm hand on Xander's shoulder through the blankets. "I know you think that now, but I promise, it's not going to be like this forever. Once your system is..."

"I'm not talking about my system!" He hiccups. "I'm talking about everything! It doesn't ever get better! Buffy's been dead for three years and nothing's been right since she's gone! Willow and Tara left, and Anya left, and now it's just us...Who's next? Dawn? Spike? You? I don't want to do this anymore! It's too hard! Every time I lose someone, another part of me dies. But the loss doesn't numb me; I have to carry around that pain,that empty, dead part of me, every day. They may all be gone, but the hurt never goes away."

Giles doesn't know how to argue with that. It's true. Nothing has been the same. Not a damn thing since Buffy died, and one by one they kept dropping off. Maybe this is why he has to try so hard with Xander. Maybe he has to try and stop things before they were all gone. "I know. I know it's hard. I am so sorry. I wish I could just erase everything. Make everything the way it was before."

Xander cries harder. Giles hasn't said the right thing. There is no right thing to say.

***

Dawn pretends to be interested in a magazine, but intently listens to the conversation that Xander is having in the next room.

"Right."

Pause.

"I totally see that."

Pause.

"You were? But I didn't..."

Pause.

"Yeah. I get that."

Pause.

"Yeah."

Pause.

"I know. I'm just trying to get my life straightened out."

Pause.

"I know it's not. And that's not what I want. I promise you that..."

Pause.

"I know I have. But this time is different. I have a lot of support. They aren't going to..."

Pause.

"Yeah, I can see that. But if you'll just give me another..."

Pause.

"I see. I know it is."

Pause.

"Really? Because that's all I need. One chance."

Pause.

"I won't, I promise. Thank you so much."

Dawn can hear the click of the phone returning to the handset. Xander appears in the living room a moment later and flops down into a recliner. "Hey Dawnster."

"Hey," she replies, pretending to be reading her magazine.

"Watcha reading?"

"Marie Claire."

"Ooh! Can we do the quiz?"

"That's Cosmo," Dawn says looking at him pointedly. "Was that your boss that you were on the phone with?"

Xander clears his throat and looks down. "Yeah. Yeah it was."

"Are they going to let you have your job back?"

"Sort of."

Dawn frowns, discarding the magazine entirely. "How can you sort of have your job back?"

"Well, they are going to let me come back in two weeks, and I'll be on a probation period. And I won't be doing what I was doing before. They aren't going to let me around the equipment for a while." He says this without looking up from the ball of lint he's picking off of his sweatshirt.

"Oh. Xander?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened?"

Xander sighs. "What happened when?"

"What happened with you? Why did you start shooting up?"

"I don't know if I should..."

"Goddamn it. Nobody tells me anything. We just walk around ignoring everything, and nobody ever says anything. This is stupid," she shouts, picking up her magazine roughly and stomping off.

"Dawn! Come back here."

"What?"

"I'll tell you. Sit down and I'll tell you." Xander runs a nervous hand through his hair, as Dawn sits back onto the couch, arms folded.

"I'm sitting."

"Ok so...Why I started. Well, I guess it's because I just can't handle living in this place. Everyone either leaves or dies, and it really hurts."

"Lots of people live here and they don't all do heroin."

"I know. But I mean, everything just went to shit after Buffy died. First we lose her and then Willow and Tara..."

"That's not fair. You know they had to get Tara help."

Xander sighs and stares at a wall. "I know. But still, there they go, and then An...Anya leaves me..."

Silence.

"You know? And it's not like anything around here ever slows up when one of us takes off or dies! It's just more, and more and more evil. And we have to stay. We have to fight it, and everything is just losing people and death. So, I guess the short answer is that I want to leave, but I can't: I can't leave you and Giles, and I have to keep fighting, and I was just found something that made things go away for a while. Just long enough that I could stomach another day in this place."

Dawn was silent for a long moment, watching Xander hold his head in his hands. "But we all have to live with that."

He looks up at her; smiles weakly. "I know. You guys are good at it. Spike doesn't have a soul, so he can care less about all the death. Hell, he digs it. You: you're part of Buffy. Courageous is your middle name. And Giles.... well, Giles is Giles. He isn't afraid of anything. What am I? I'm the donut-boy. And there's less and less people to buy donuts for."

Long pause. "So I guess getting clean must suck. You screamed a lot."

He smiles embarrassedly and nervously picks at his lint. "Yeah, I guess I did. Sorry about that."

"You called Giles a buttoned-up English Prick."

"Yeah. I guess I did."

"It was kind of funny."

"Yeah."

"You keep saying all this stuff like it's still happening: You can't stand living here, you want to leave, you can't leave. You still feel this way?"

"I guess I do."

"Are you going to do it again?"

"I hope not."

***

"Giles, are you gay?"

Giles spills his cup of tea onto a desk littered with invoices. As the brown liquid begins to seep into the papers, he mops at it with a stack of napkins he pulls from a drawer. "Dawn! Why are you asking such an absurd question?"

Dawn sighs and hands him another handful of napkins from yet another drawer. "You know, it's cool if you are. I mean, I knew about Willow and Tara and stuff."

Giles looks her squarely in the eyes. "What makes you think that I'm gay?"

She shifts uncomfortably. "I guess...I just thought...I mean, Xander always sleeps in your room, and..."

Giles flushes. "Dawn, I thought that I explained to you why Xander sleeps in my room. He gets very frightened at night, and since he's off the drugs..."

"He's been off of the drugs for two months," Dawn says simply.

Giles is stunned. Has it actually been two months? It seems...It must be right. "Well, some people adjust much more slowly than others."

In a stance that's entirely comprised of hands placed on hips, Dawn asks, "So if I'm scared at night then Spike could stay in my room?"

"Oh, dear god, Dawn," Giles spits out in horror. He is absolutely stunned for a moment or two at the thought of Dawn and Spike... "Please tell me that you and Spike..."

Dawn sighs. "No."

"Oh thank god. You don't...have those kind of feelings...towards Spike, do you? It is, of course, perfectly natural that at a certain age..."

"Oh, just stop Giles. No, I'm not sleeping with Spike. No, I don't want to sleep with Spike. I am just trying to prove a point."

Maybe she's right. Maybe Giles doesn't give her enough credit for being observant and mature. "I do see your point. Thank you, for bringing it to my attention."

Giles is left pondering the situation for the remainder of the day. As evening approaches, he becomes increasingly apprehensive; knowing that it would only be a matter of hours before he has to send Xander away from his bedroom. It makes for a very awkward dinner and subsequent Scooby meeting.

At ten o' clock, just as he usually does, Xander walks through the door with his arms full of blankets. "Hey," he says simply.

"Xander," Giles says as he removes his reading glasses and marks his place in the book he's reading, "Please sit down for a minute."

A panicked look crosses Xander's face, but he obediently sits at the edge of Giles' bed. "What's wrong?"

"I truly do not want you to get the wrong impression, or think that by any means I am just cutting you loose... well, what I want to say is that, perhaps, tonight, you might sleep in your own bedroom."

Xander's eyes widen and he takes a sharp breath. "You want me to go back to my apartment?"

Giles sits up next to him, puts an arm around the boy's shoulder. "No, no, of course not. I'm just suggesting that, for tonight, you sleep in the guest room."

Xander looks down. "Oh, okay. Yeah, I get that. You want some privacy, and all. I get that. Cool, then. I'm going to let you sleep. I'm sorry that I'm bothering you. I never meant to bother..." His voice trails off and cracks; he makes a motion to stand up.

Giles' stomach turns, and he just wants to hold him. "Xander. It's nothing like that. You are not a bother to me, not at all. I just think that it might be...healthier, if you began to sleep in the guest room."

"Oh, yeah. I guess. Yeah. You're right. I. Yes. Night, Giles," he says in a whisper gathering up the blankets he's spilled on the floor.

"It looks a little improper, you see. Dawn has asked questions and..." Giles is beginning to sound as flustered as Xander. He reaches down and tilts Xander's chin towards him. "Don't be hurt by this. Please."

Xander looks him in the eyes and says, "I love you, you know."

Giles feels a weight on his chest and a knot in his stomach. Something tells him that Xander's love might not be the familial variety. "I love you too, Xander."

Xander slowly sits back down on the bed and tentatively lifts a hand; placing it on Giles cheek. He rubs a small circle with his thumb, and as Giles' eyes shut, Xander moves closer, pressing his lips against Giles and making just the very smallest of lip movements. And as quickly as it had started, it was over.

Giles opens his eyes and his face falls. "Oh Xander. This isn't what you want."

Xander's gaze snaps immediately away from Giles'. "You don't know what I want."

"Do you? This has been such a trying time..."

Xander stands up. "I am not just some screwed-up junkie that can't think for myself. I have real feelings, and what I feel for you is real. I am more than my addiction."

Giles stands up as well. "I didn't mean to imply..."

"I know. Goodnight, Giles."

***

Giles enters the kitchen and begins to fill the teapot, pulling his favored mug from its hook over the sink. His conversation with Xander the previous night left him restless and anxious. Dawn bounces into the kitchen a few moments later and begins to fix herself a bowl of cereal. "Morning, Dawn."

"Morning G."

Giles sighs. These kids and their incessant nicknames. "Sleep well?"

"Mmm-hmm," she mumbles, reading the back of the cereal box. "Can we get the cocoa-flavored next time? I don't really like these."

"Cocoa, fake fruit, I don't see how one could be worse than the other."

"Good. Oh, hey. Xander just left."

Giles adjusts his glasses nervously. "Left? Did he say where he was going?"

Dawn looks up from her bowl. "Well, he had all of his stuff. I thought he was going home. You didn't know."

Giles clears his throat and continues to prepare his tea as normal, and lies. "No, no, I knew. I didn't realize that he would be going right now, however."

After dropping Dawn off at school, Giles drives immediately over to Xander's apartment. He begins to find knocking on Xander's door a rather heart-wrenching experience, but nonetheless, quickly raps three times.

"Jesus. That was fast." Xander opens the door with a garbage bag in hand. It appears that he has begun to clean the apartment he hasn't seen in months.

"I cannot believe that you would just leave without saying a word. Honestly, Xander, I didn't mean for you to leave at all," Giles says.

Xander looks away. "Look, I have to come home sometime, and it's better sooner than later."

"Are you sure that you're ready? It's only been...."

"Two months. Do you want to come in?" Xander steps out of the doorway to let Giles inside.

Giles surveys the mess, and his mind immediately conjures up images of dirty hypodermics hiding under piles of trash. "Listen, Xander, why don't you just move in with Dawn and me? We love having you with us..."

"Ha."

"What do you mean, ha?"

Xander reaches down and picks up a stack of paper plates from the floor. "I mean ha. Dawn hates me."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because she does. She used to look at me with all of this pride in her eyes, and all of this love. And now it's just disgust. She looks at me like Spike does."

"I think that you're misinterpreting her," Giles sighs. "She just doesn't know what to do. She's realized that you are fallible, and she doesn't know how to resolve that with the hero she's created of you throughout the years. Or maybe she's just spending too much time with Spike, which is altogether possible..."

"I just don't think it's going to work."

"Maybe just another month or so. We can get you out of your lease, and when you're ready we can find you a better apartment without any bad memories attached to it."

Xander turns around sharply. "This apartment has good memories. I did live here with Anya, you know."

Giles is beginning to feel defeated. This isn't at all how he imagined the conversation going. "I understand. But maybe that's the problem. Maybe this apartment allows you to bury yourself in the past."

"And your place doesn't? And the magic shop? This whole place is just one huge reminder of the past! Everywhere I go, there's some memory associated with it. There's nowhere I could move in this town that wouldn't have some sort of memory attached."

"What are you saying?"

Xander drops the bag, and turns to face Giles, looking him intently in the eyes. "I'm saying that it isn't a good idea. I said...did some stupid things last night and I'm embarrassed. And now you're saying, 'let's be one big happy family,' and I can't see that happening when I feel this way."

"I'm very sorry if I hurt you," Giles says quietly.

Xander's looking away again. "I know. You didn't. I mean, why the hell would you want me like that? I'm just this fucked up, strung-out, *kid* and you probably think I'm some sort of *gay slut* now, or something..." He sets himself roughly down on a chair and is again sobbing. "I've just turned into this huge fucked-up mess, and I cry all the time, and I'm scared of the goddamn dark...why? Why? I remember being so normal. I had all these jokes, and smart things to say, and now it's just all this fucking crying..."

Giles is across the room and holding the boy against his chest as he rocks back and forth. "Please don't say those things about yourself. They aren't true, you know. They aren't true."

"And here you are, you are like this last good thing left in my life, this strong person who lets me sleep in your bed, and holds me when I'm scared, and I have to go fuck that up by telling you what I feel, and trying to kiss you..."

Giles kneels down in front of Xander; pulls the boy's shaking hands away from his tear-soaked face. "You needn't be ashamed of what you feel. I understand. Sometimes you just want someone to hold onto..."

But there are Xander's lips, once again on the Watcher's, kissing so, so gently, a salty, tear-stained kiss. Giles doesn't pull away, he allows the boy to part his lips so slightly, to flicker his hot tongue into his wary mouth. He allows the boy to remove his glasses, and wind his fingers through the short hair atop his head. When Xander's tongue pushes farther into his hesitant mouth, the Watcher moans involuntarily, and steadies himself with a hand on Xander's hip.

Giles knows this is wrong, wrong, wrong, but he's comforting the boy, offering Xander a safe moment of human contact, and damned if the boy doesn't taste good, toothpaste and orange juice and tears, and it's sweet and tart and desperate, and Giles wishes he could do the right thing, but this is Xander, and he deserves to be happy, even if this is just the worst way to go about it.

Xander is the first to pull away, leaving Giles dazed with wet lips. His eyes flit open and Xander searches his face. "Was that wrong?"

"I...I honestly don't know."

Xander nods. "Can I do it again?"

Giles knows that this is the point of no return. An affirmative answer will start an avalanche that he is completely unprepared for. A negative answer could mean losing the boy. "Yes."