Title: Wounds You Never Bled

Author: meagan

Summary: Yet another "Xander's childhood/adolescence sucked" fic.

Warning: abuse issues here.

About three years after "Save It for Later."

Disclaimer: Of *course* they belong to someone else. I could never come up with characters like this. Specifically, they belong to Mutant Enemy, Fox, WB (even though they *really* don't deserve these guys after what they did to us in May), and anyone else I forgot.

Rating: Let's say PG.

Spoilers: For this whole series of stories, everything, including some parts of "Graduation Part 2" (but I'm changing some stuff I didn't like) season 4 rumors, and _Angel_ rumors. For this particular segment, nothing, really. And you really need to read the rest of the series first.

Distribution: Deadboy and Xander (of course), WWoMB, my site (listed above). Otherwise, please ask.

Feedback: Please! I'm finding I have no desire to write unless I know someone's reading this. And I'm working on a PWP (it immediately follows "Save It for Later." It's largely to make up for the bad stuff I've been putting Xander through lately, including this piece) that will be held hostage until I hear from people.

Note: Anyone who can identify the source of this title gets a cookie. I think I've established that I suck at coming up with titles, so I'm desperately grabbing slightly obscure song lyrics. Also, we know Xander had crappy parents. But there are different ideas about fighting and how they treat their son, and this is one of mine.

Reversal 18: Wounds You Never Bled

By meagan

"I don't give a damn about that!"

Xander's roar startled Angel, but not as much as the small face peering through the entrance to the living room. "Daddy? Are you fighting?"

The small, frightened voice shocked Xander out of his rage. He collapsed on the couch, leaving Angel to shepherd their son back to his room. When the vampire returned, he found a pale, silent form huddled on the couch. He moved to sit next to Xander, but the mortal's reaction was to cringe. "Xander, honey? Are you okay?"

"It's happening again." Angel's confusion forced Xander to clarify himself. "First the arguing, then the yelling, then the years of living in the same house but not together. And frightening the children."

Angel sighed. He knew Xander's life growing up was not what anyone would consider loving, but he had also hoped it was in the past. Apparently not. "That's not going to happen with us."

Clearly not the right words. "How do you know that?" Xander focused his eyes on his hands. In a small voice, he continued. "Do you know what I did when my parents fought?"

Suddenly, despite the details Cordelia had given him, Angel realized he only knew part of the story.

"They yelled. They never actually hit each other. That somehow made it worse. I can't even remember how many times I would listen to them argue, screaming so loud I was amazed their eardrums didn't burst. Sometimes, I found myself wishing one of them *would* hit the other. Then someone could call the cops to stop it. I even found myself wishing they would hit *me* so someone would see the bruises and take me away from them. But that never happened." He felt Angel's arm circling his shoulders. "Please don't do that." He shrugged off the comforting arm, turning to look Angel in the eye. "There are some things you need to know, and if you do that, I'll lose my nerve. All I will want to do is hold you and never let go."

"As if that's a bad thing."

Xander smiled half-heartedly. "True." The smile faded. "But you need to hear this so you know what's going on." He moved away from Angel, this time not to escape but rather to keep his thoughts from turning to the happy place he had never thought he would find but now never wanted to leave. Not facing meant not healing. "You know I always slept outside on Christmas Eve to avoid the drunken fighting, right?" Angel nodded. Cordelia had confided that she had once used that information to hurt the mortal, a move she later sorely regretted. Xander stared at the floor, hoping he was about to do the right thing. "When I was younger, my uncle Paul lived in Sunnydale. Just a couple of blocks from our house. So whenever my parents got really loud, I would go to his house. He always let me hang out there. I was just happy to be someplace where people didn't yell, at me or each other." He sighed. "Although sometimes, I used to do things so they would yell at me instead of at each other."

"So is that why you became a funny guy? To distract them?"

"Probably." A small chuckle. "Kind of like Chandler in _Friends_." Serious again. "But it didn't always work, so I would leave. Go to my uncle's house. He never questioned why a four-year-old would be wandering the streets of Sunnydale at two in the morning. Then again, my *parents* never wondered how I ended up over there when they knew I had gone to bed in my own room the previous night." He turned his attention to Angel, waiting to see if the vampire could see where this was all going. If so, he could sidestep the pain of reliving it.

"What did he do, Xander?"

"Never mind. I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"No. You have to talk about this. If not with me, then with a professional." Or both, he thought. He vaguely recalled someone insisting that the only way to avoid this sort of pain was to go right through it. "What did he do?"

"He was always nice to me. He listened to me, treated me like an adult. He had a Nintendo that I could play any time I wanted. He took me to the movies and the carnival. He let me stay up and watch tv until I fell asleep in front of it. He never told my parents any of the things I told him. So I trusted him." Xander took a deep breath. This time, when Angel's arm wrapped around his shoulders, he didn't move away. "And he knew it. He used that trust and hurt me. Even though I could barely read, I knew that the way he touched me was wrong, but he was the only person who even pretended to care about me, so I let him continue. I've never told anyone -- not even Cordelia -- this stuff before." Tears made their way down his face. "I don't want to put those two in a position like that -- needing to go to someone who hurts them just so they feel loved. Or thinking that fighting is the way that two people who supposedly love each other express their emotions."

"So what happened to him? Is he still around?" Angel silently added, "So I can go kill him."

Xander laughed, a cold, harsh sound. "No. He died when I was thirteen. A car wreck. He was drunk, the pavement was slippery." Now a sigh. "I never got to tell him to stop."

Angel gently kissed the top of Xander's head. "I think that's enough dredging up the past for one night." His turn to sigh. "Will you do something for me?"

"What?" As if he didn't know.

"Talk to someone? I can't help you by myself." At Xander's objection, he continued. "That gives me too much power. And that's what hurt you in the first place -- one person being the only one who showed you kindness and understanding. I would be lying if I said I didn't want to be the one to get you through this all by myself, but I would also be lying if I said that I thought I could -- or *should* -- do it. You need someone else to talk to -- someone who knows what they're doing, and someone who isn't as emotionally invested in you as I am. If there's one thing I've learned since I met you, it's that I don't always know the right way to do things." He smiled. "And we could both use lessons about the proper way to argue. Couples counseling. Would you do this for me if not for yourself? For the kids?"

Phrased that way, the idea was more appealing. "Okay. But just because you'll be there, going through it, or at least some of it, too."

"Daddy?" Big eyes on a little girl. Fear. No, not fear. Concern. For him. No three-year-old should have such a serious face or worry that much about her father. "Are you okay?" A tiny hand rested on his leg.

"Yeah. Sometimes people need to cry in order to feel better." He grasped her waist and lifted her onto the couch, settling her between the two adults. "You know I love you, right?"

Confused, she gave him a "well, *duh*" look common among teenagers. She was ten years ahead of the game on that one. "You're my daddy."

Gazing down at her, he suddenly realized something different about his children. At least different from his childhood. They called him "Daddy." Not "Dad" or "Pop" or any of the other distanced variations he had called his own father on the rare occasions they spoke to each other. That subtle difference meant the world to him.

And he realized that his kids had -- and that they realized they had -- one more thing he never did. Unconditional love from parents. It didn't occur to them that it was unusual. More tears.

Small hands reached up to dry his eyes. "Daddy? Are you crying again because you need to feel better?"

He hugged her. "No, sweetie. I'm crying because everything *is* better."

~~~ the end ~~~