Title: Living Confessions.

Author: Adalisa

Feedback: I love it. It's inspiring... and let's face it, it's the only real reason to keep writing.

Distribution: Mama Chelle's site, XanderSlash's site and my site. Anywhere else, just ask. I won't say no.

Summary: Well, you're going to know after reading the first three paragraphs, so let's keep it as a surprise until then.

Rating: R

Disclaimer: Everyone here is property of Joss Wheldon, Warner Bros. And another bunch of people. But they keep treating them bad, so I play with them.

Content: X/A, C/W implied.

Spoilers: The Witch, Angel

Notes: Alternative Universe started in "A different kind of Slayer". This happens around a month after ADKS. And I once again want to credit my evil muse for the ending. It's cruel, it's nasty. You'll know when you get there.

Dedication: To Woodinat, Meagan, Mama Chelle, Cynthia and Memnoch, who wrote wonderful fics in this month and I couldn't send them feedback. This is for you guys.

By Adalisa.

"So, how is Amy?" Xander asked, as he drank his coffee. He and his two best friends where in the table Cordelia had claimed as theirs a couple of weeks ago after the Harvest incident. Willow still was considered by most as an outcast, and Larry still beat Xander regularly, but even so, Cordelia had decided not to let that influence her. If anyone asked her, it was much better to hang around live outcasts than popular dead bodies.

"Much better. She gave me all her mom's books." Willow answered, pretty proud of herself. "I can levitate a pencil now."

"Great. I'm dating a witch." Cordelia muttered, in the slightly annoyed tone that Xander knew meant 'But anyway I love her'. He had suspected about Willow and Cordelia's relationship ever since the first year of High school, when Willow start helping Cordelia with her studies. Then, when Cordelia started to reject most of the men who lusted her, the suspicion had turned pretty certain, especially since Willow never dated anyone and was ready to defend Cordelia against any rude comment Jesse did. And there had been that little incident when he found them in one of the utility rooms... Still, there was one little question in the back of his mind. "So now it's official? No more groping in closets?"

Willow giggled and blushed, a look that Xander liked in his friend, while Cordelia simply took her hand. "After what happened with those vampires? Will and I figured that it was not worth to keep things in the dark."

"I don't know..." Xander smiled, and touched the silver cross of his neck. "Sometimes a little darkness and mystery are good..."

"OH! YEAH!" Willow cheered up, like she usually did when she remembered something important. "You do have a mystery man in your life... Have you seen Angel lately?"

"In person? No. He keeps following me in the shadows and thinks I don't notice it." With a sigh, he put his empty cup on the table and got ready to go. "I don't know what you girls think of it, but it's getting old for me."

"But you have a plan." Cordelia handed him the stake he had left on the table, smiling too. Her smile was a little more cynic than Willow's, as if she knew what exactly was going through Xander's head.

"Maybe. My parents are at the movies..." He didn't finish the phrase, and didn't wait for the girls to answer it. He was on his way home, sure that if Angel followed him this time, he was in for a big surprise.

* * *

Angel watched silently as Xander left the Club, and began following him as soon as he thought it was safe enough. He was sure that there was no way in which Xander knew that every night he did the same, following and watching all his movements. It had been in the shadows where he had seen Xander stake at least twenty or more vampires, most of the time alone, some times with his friends. It had been in the shadows where he had seen Xander fight some other strange creatures, like a giant Mantis just two weeks ago. That had been a weird fight, not only because of the monster in question. Giant Mantis were not very common as far as Angel knew, but there had been something else. When the monster had been defeated, Xander had helped another guy around his age to stand up, and, just for a moment, Angel thought that Xander had slapped the guy's butt. That could have been a trick played by the light. But what Xander had said then had intrigued Angel, and that had not been his imagination. Xander had leaned on the boy's shoulder and whispered: 'Whenever you want, Blayne, we could solve _that_ little problem". Those words had been haunting every moment of Angel's life... It was not much their meaning, but the tone in which Xander had said them. A tone that still could send a shiver of anticipation through Angel's back.

Shaking his head, trying to bring himself to reality, Angel watched as Xander stopped for a moment, alert, as if he had heard something... But before Angel could react, he saw three big vampires attacking the boy.

At first, Angel didn't move. He had seen many vampires do the same and end up in the wrong point of a stake. But when one of the three managed to grab Xander by the back, and Angel could take a good look at him, he could not stop him from rushing to help.

The three vampires where the Three, some of the most vicious and deadly vampires on earth. Even if Xander was the Slayer -something that Angel still had some difficulties to believe- he wouldn't be a match for those three.

So without thinking much of his own safety, he ran to Xander's side, and help him to get away from the Three.

"Come on! This way!" Xander yelled at him, and began running, obviously aware of the danger that the Three represented.

Angel followed him still with the Three closing in, until they arrived to a two stories house, not that far away from the Bronze. Xander crossed the lawn and opened the door almost without looking at the keyhole, as Angel got ready to what he thought would be his last battle.

"Stop fooling around and get inside!" Angel felt the mortal's hand as he was pulled inside the house, in what could be considered the most strange invitation he had ever got in his long life.

Once inside, Angel managed to relax. "The Three won't come inside... They have to be invited."

"I know." Xander walked towards the living room, with Angel close by. "You know those guys?"

"They're assassins..." Angel began, only to be rewarded by a 'D-oh' look from the teenager. "The Master has finally took you seriously... he must be pissed that you killed Darla..."

Once again, Xander cut Angel in the middle of a sentence. In the brief second between the kick, his body falling to the floor, and feeling the young mortal's weight over his chest, Angel wondered how he had managed to do so. Then, all his thoughts focused on the pointy stake that was aimed at his heart.

"Masquerade is over, Dead-boy." Xander said, smiling knowingly. However, Angel's confused brain didn't registered that fact. He was too busy wondering why it felt so good to have the boy's warmth body over his. "You have 5 seconds to convince me not to push this stake into your heart."

"Wha... what?"

"Don't play with me anymore. I know you're a vampire, so why don't we do this the fast way?" Xander pressed the stake in his hand just a little, so Angel knew the boy wasn't joking. Suddenly, all his doubts about Xander being the Slayer erased completely.

"I... I was sent to help you!" He said, fully knowing that it sounded ridiculous as soon as he heard the words. "I mean, to help the slayer. I was cursed, a hundred years ago by a gypsy old man, because I killed his people's favorite daughter... Since then, I've had my soul... I wanted to die, but a demon told me that I could be someone, helping the slayer... He showed me a blonde girl, told me that she was the slayer... but when I got here I met you... and so I decided I had to help you..."

Xander didn't move from his place, but he eased the pressure in the stake, smiling. "You're a souled vampire, a demon told you to help me. And I'm supposed to believe that?"

"You are a male Slayer... as far as I know that isn't possible, and yet... I really think you're the Slayer." Angel managed to say, still feeling odd pleasure from having the boy on top of him.

"Until that blonde girl you've been talking about appears, right?" This time, Xander leaned closer, so close that Angel felt more than heard the words, the warmth breath of the boy caressing his cold skin.

For a confusing moment, his mind thought 'What girl?', and he could feel himself pushing his neck up, not very sure of what was he doing. But the sound of the door opening, and two pairs of shoes walking in the room stopped both of them cold.

"So I told Mr. Snyder that... Oh, my! Xander!" The woman who had been talking stood in the living room entrance, looking at the pair with something more close to amusement than to shock. The man who was behind her had a strange smile in his face. Somehow, Angel was sure that if he had any blood in his system, he would blush.

"Hi, Mom. Dad..." Xander began, his voice vaguely cheerful. "I wasn't expecting you until... midnight..."

"It is midnight, son. " Mr. Harris said, walking inside the room as if his son wasn't straddling a man in the middle of it.

"Of course, if we had known you planned to bring a friend, we could have took a little more time..." Mrs. Harris finished, putting her purse in the table. "You know you only had to ask."

"Ah... Mom... it isn't like that..." Angel could see with some amusement that Xander was blushing a little, as the boy let him go. "Angel is not my friend... he is a vampire..."

To say that this surprised Angel would have been an understatement, since both Mr. and Mrs. Harris weren't even a bit startled to hear their son. In fact, it was as if they heard it all the time.

"If you're planning on staking him, son, do it in your room." Mr. Harris looked at Angel, with the same curious look Angel had seen in parents about to give their daughters' hand.

"We just cleaned the rug and you can be... a little messy, Xan dear.." Mrs. Harris gave her son a kiss in his cheek and walked towards her husband, just stopping for a moment to see Angel. "I'm very pleased to meet you. Xander has talked a lot about you. He says that you're..."

"Mom!! Please! Let me have some secrets, will you?" Xander blushed a little further, and grabbed Angel's arm, pulling him up the stairs to what the vampire assumed was the boy's room.

"You told your parents about me?" he asked, as they entered the messy place.

"What was I going to do? I mean, not every day I meet a vampire who helps me to stake other vampires and follows me every night." Xander sat in his bed, and pulled a crossbow from the drawer close to his bed.

"But you were going to stake me just a minute ago..." For the first time in the 200 years he had as a vampire, Angel felt completely confused. He couldn't understand what Xander was doing.

"Let me put it like this..." the slayer answered, aiming towards him. But since the crossbow wasn't charged, Angel could relax a little. "You're a vampire. I'm the Slayer. I think the next part is very obvious."

"I saved your life... I think that made clear I was on your side..."

Angel sat on the chair near the paper filled desk, trying to keep his expression neutral. The casual way in which Xander had lead him to the living room, even when the Three following, the fact that his parents hadn't seen anything strange in the fact that their son had a vampire in the house... It almost made him think that Xander had done this sort of thing before.

"Then why you keep saying I'm not a blonde ditz from California?" Xander lowered the crossbow, and kept staring at Angel. For some reason, now that there were no weapons involved, Angel felt more vulnerable than before. "If you were so desperate for dying... Why you decided to help me?"

Angel looked away from Xander's eyes with a great effort. How could he explain to the boy the fascination he had felt when he had seen that girl in California, when Xander had managed to occupy every one of his thoughts in the month he had known him? How to explain him that he had pictured that girl as the one who would overcome every difficulty of the Slayer job alone, when Xander had shown him that the Slayer could ask for help, that he had the support of everyone around him? "I... I was told that that girl was the Slayer. She... she looked beautiful in the stairs as she was coming down from the library' school... Whistler told me that she would suffer and overcome many tests, and that I could choose to be at her side. That's why I came to Sunnydale. To wait for her."

"And found me instead." Xander smile grew, and now Angel was sure of his feelings. He felt like the main course in a banquet. A mice under the cat's eye. "You must have felt cheated... You could have left after the Harvest, you know?" Angel looked at the Slayer, who was now on his foot, walking towards him. He watched silently while the boy put his hands on the arms of the chair he was using and leaned closer, just as he had done in the living room. "You didn't had to follow me every night, to watch every one of my movements."

Angel open his mouth, but whatever thing he was planning on to say was completely forgotten as Xander brushed his lips gently against his, as he felt the warmth of the boy's skin touching his own cold body. His mind was blank, and he forgot everything about his mission, the blonde girl in California, Whistler. For just one second, his world was reduced to that gentle contact.

And then everything was back in it's place again. Xander was standing in front of him, talking. The world was as he remembered... but still a little out of the usual focus.

"... me?"

"What?" Since he hadn't caught most of Xander's words, Angel suddenly wondered if that kiss had been only a dream.

"I asked you why you where following me. If I'm not the one you were supposed to help."

"I... " It wasn't until later when Angel admitted to himself that he hadn't a real answer to that particular question. In the moment, he truly believed that the uncomfortable silence that followed that first syllable had been just after-shock from the kiss, even when he still was not sure if Xander had kissed him, or if he had just imagined it. And when that image resurfaced in his mind, the words started to flow easily from his mouth "I followed you because I wanted to be sure that you were safe... I simply couldn't sleep if I wasn't absolutely certain that you were alive, and safe... You are the first human who asked my name in more than a hundred years. But I know you only did that because you thought I was human."

"No." Xander corrected immediately. "I did it because I am attracted to you and I want to get to know you."

At this, Angel's eyes grew wide with surprise and curiosity. "What? Xander shrugged, leaning close again, to whisper in the vampire's ear, who this time knew he wasn't hallucinating. "I am attracted to you. I had been planing into bringing you here not to stake you, but, maybe to seduce you. And mom was telling the truth. I talk about you almost every night."

Whatever possessed Angel in that moment, he would never be able to tell. But upon hearing the admission from the boy's lips made him give up to a strange impulse. He reached out to capture the warm mouth of the mortal with his own, tangling his fingers in the boy's hair, letting himself to be caught in the Slayer's embrace.

As he felt Xander's fingers tracing the line of his abdomen, pulling up his silk shirt to reach his cold skin, Angel lost control and felt as his face shifted to game face. It was then when he forced himself to stop the kiss, as Xander hadn't shown any sign of wanting to give up.

"I... I can't... Not like this..." The vampire managed to force himself to leave the boy's arms.

"Like what?" Xander traced the lines of Angel's deformed brow, kissing him again. "Look Angel, I won't lie to you. I'm not doing this just because you're gorgeous. I'm hoping this won't be the only night I'm in your arms. I want to get to know you."

"You have done this before..." Angel managed to say, his confidence mostly returned to him after Xander's revelation.

"Never with a vampire." Xander smiled, and recaptured the vampire's mouth, apparently not bothered by the fangs that adorned it in those moments.

This time, Angel let himself go with the movement. It wasn't as if he hadn't fantasized about it ever since the boy had gone bravely into the sewers to rescue his friend... Of course, in that time he had believed it impossible, imagining that Xander would be at best horrified by the idea... so it had took sometime to his body to caught up with the program.

Angel let Xander take the lead, still amazed of the Slayer's boldness, and soon both were on the boy's bed, Angel nuzzling Xander's neck, breathing on the life and strength that emanated from his new found lover, Xander finally managing to get the silk shirt out of his way, and his hands were now very busy fighting against the buckle on the vampire's belt.

Things would have progressed nicely from there, but in the precise moment when Angel started to pull up Xander's shirt, the door of the room opened.

"Xan-honey?" Mrs. Harris entered the room, without pausing to even consider what her son could be doing. "It's your Uncle Ethan on the phone... He says that he has to tell you something most important. Now."

Xander sighed, as he sat on the bed, looking at his mom with an innocent stare. "Yes, mom. I'll be down there in a minute." Mrs. Harris smiled, and closed the door again.

"I suppose we can wait." Angel said, a little sad but also relieved that they had been stopped before things had gotten out of hand.

"Yeah." Xander stood up, and walked to the door. "Look, I would tell him to call back but... when Uncle Ethan calls and says that it's most important, then it's the apocalypse or something like it. I can't let him waiting."

"I'll wait here, don't worry."

Xander smiled and left the room. When the Slayer closed the door, Angel let himself lie down, closing his eyes. It was a strange, peaceful feeling, even when Angel knew it couldn't last. After all, Xander had said it best. If he was a vampire, and Xander a Slayer, the outcome was sadly obvious.

* * *

"Uncle Ethan? What's so urgent? Is the world going to end today?"

"Not exactly, son." Ethan's voice sounded quite near, so Xander was very sure that his favorite uncle was not in England. "It has come to my attention that you have in your hands a souled vampire."

Xander grimaced. It was typical... Ethan always seemed to know what was going on his life. "Not exactly. If you hadn't called right now, then I would have my hands in him."

"And I wouldn't have interrupted you if it wasn't important, son." There was a momentary silence. "I hate to tell you this, Xander, but your plans will have to be interrupted for a while."

"How do you know I have plans?" Xander asked, blushing a little. Ethan was right of course. He had plans, and apparently, Angel shared them, so any delay was very annoying to him.

"Because if I were in your place, I would have plans." That short answer made Xander chuckle a little. It was probably true, after all, his mother always said that Xander had grown up to be just like his uncle Ethan... Except when she was really exasperated, then she said that he was just like his fathers. "Your friend's name is Angel, right?"

"Yeah. Weird name for a vampire, if you ask me."

"Wrong. His name is Angelus." Another pause. "And he has many enemies among the rumani gypsies."

"And they cursed him. He told me that." Well, Xander amended, except from the part of his name. Angelus sounded way better.

"Did he told you that the curse is breakable?" Ethan was smiling, Xander was sure of that. Probably gloating that he had once again found an thousands year old spell and that he knew how to break it. "Or what kind of merciless killer he was before his soul was restored?"

"Your kind, I bet." Xander answered. It wasn't as if he didn't know that his Uncle Ethan wasn't always on the side of the white hats. If not, well, why would he be so insistent that Giles should not know about their blood relation.

"Definitively." Another soft laugh. That meant that 'Angelus' was a cruel, cynic vampire. "And you will have the chance to find out by yourself if he has a true happiness moment."

Xander paused. He was not very sure about what would that mean, but if it included a mind blowing sex session, then... Ethan had interrupted them just in time. "So that means not even romantic, sappy evenings? What a great way to put the breaks on the night."

"Cheer up, son. I have never let you down, and this won't be the first time." Ethan's voice sounded quite confident. "A rumani gypsy will go to the school as a teacher very soon. When I find the way to keep that curse in place, she'll tell you." Another pause, and Xander could swear that he heard waves behind his uncle's voice. "I'll be in contact."

The line went out, and Xander hung the phone. He would have to go upstairs to tell Angel the bad news, as there was no way that they could finish what had been interrupted by his uncle's warning... But still there was a small hope. It wasn't permanent, Ethan would find the way to fix it all.

In the meantime... Xander could find some consolation in knowing the feeling to wake up in the vampire's arms.

The End.

--

Adalisa

-Obi Wan and Darth Maul Rule!

WhiteKnight's own Dama de los AU

Keeper of Obi-Wan's desire to wring Anakin's neck during TPM