Later, Xander would conclude that the only thing that saved his life was Buffy's utter shock at the situation. It took about five seconds for her brain to shift gears from "Rescue Xander" to "Kill Xander," and in those precious seconds Dawn managed to squirm out from under him and position herself between him and the enraged Slayer.
There were some half-understood growls and screeches from the Summers sisters as the younger one circled around Xander to protect him from the elder. Then Willow, finally recovering from her own shock, muttered a spell and threw it at Buffy. The air gelled around her, which allowed the redhead to rush in, grab Xander's arm, and drag him out of the room.
As another spell reformed the door behind them, Xander realized he he'd been holding his breath since first seeing Buffy, and let it out in a whoosh of relief. "Thanks for the save, Wil-"
A slap rang across his face, leaving his cheek stinging and his ears buzzing. "I got you out of there because I didn't want Buffy to do anything she'd regret later!" Green eyes bore into his, and Xander wondered for a moment if he didn't see a tinge of blackness at their edges. "What the *hell* were you thinking, Xander, taking advantage of little Dawnie like that!?"
"*Me*, take advantage of *her*? Take a look at these, Will," Xander held up his arms. "I was the one who woke up naked and tied to the bed!"
Willow's eyes widened as she took in the abrasions left on his wrists by his bonds. "You mean you--? And Dawn--? She really--? Oh!" She took a step back, and then suddenly covered her eyes with one hand. "Umm . . . nakedness here. Where are your clothes?"
"How should I know? Again, woke up naked and tied to the bed!"
Willow let out an "Eeeep!" that turned into something between a laugh and a choking cough. She turned away from him and hunted around a bit. Looking around himself, Xander figured they were in a suite at a rather-nice hotel. Willow quickly found a bathroom, where she grabbed a towel, shouted, "Here you go!" and threw it at him -- covering her eyes again first of course, which meant the towel smacked him in the face.
He wrapped it around his waist, and announced, "Okay, Wills, you can open your eyes now."
They stared awkwardly across the room at each other for a few moments, until the cacophony of voices from the next room grew loud enough to understand. Xander distinctly heard the words "child-molesting bastard."
Willow glanced at the door, biting her lip. "Um, I'd, ah, better go in there and break things up before Buffy manages to get past Dawnie." She scooted past him, opening and shutting the door in barely two seconds.
Xander heard some more screaming, followed by a short silence. Then the screaming started up again, louder than ever. Willow came dashing out of the bedroom again, carrying a bundle of clothes.
She handed them to him with a frown, saying, "I gotta go back in there in a second, Xan, but . . . I think you should probably get dressed and get outta here while the gettin's good. I don't think Buffy's quite so mad at you anymore, but she's still a little beyond rational thought right now, and I think 'out of sight, out of mind' is the best policy here."
Xander nodded, still a bit dazed. "Yeah. Okay."
"Umm . . . can I . . . that is . . . would you like me to stop by later so we can talk?"
"Yeah, talk. I think I really need to talk. But . . . later. Like, maybe in-the-morning later?"
"Okay. I'll, um, see ya in the morning, then." She gave a little wave and one of her trademark half-smiles, then slipped back into the bedroom.
Xander recognized the neighborhood once he got outside. He suspected his car was parked in the hotel lot, but he had no idea where it was, and when he searched his pockets, sure enough, his keys were missing. Dawn probably still had them. With a sigh, he flagged down a cab for the ride home, where he took a long shower, more to clear his head than anything else, then changed into pajamas and settled down for a long night of not much sleep and lots and lots of thinking.
Willow showed up while he was still eating breakfast, so he offered her some eggs and bacon.
"No thanks, I already ate," she replied, "but I'd love a cup of tea."
After pouring Willow a cup of her favorite tea, which of course he kept on hand for when his bestest friend dropped by, he asked, "How are they?"
She grimaced. "Well, Buffy's a lot calmer than she was last night, but she's still wigged by the whole thing. Actually, now that we've done some talking, I think she might've been able to deal with the *idea* of Dawn being interested in you, but the whole walking-in-on-you thing was a bit too much, especially since she was in Slayer mode." Xander nodded; he'd done some pretty stupid things when hopped-up on adrenaline himself.
"And Dawn's furious right now, 'cause Buffy grounded her for two weeks. Not for the, um, sex thing, but for the worrying-Buffy-out-of-her-mind thing." Willow shook her head. "I just wish I hadn't let Buff convince me to do that location spell last night. I *told* her Dawn was probably just out having some fun, but when we found her at that place out on the edge of town, and couldn't reach you either, we both kinda jumped to conclusions, y'know?"
The redhead suddenly chuckled. "It tells you something about our lives that we both assumed you'd both been kidnapped. Any other older sister and her friend would've assumed forbidden smoochies."
Xander nodded, although his face was more serious. "Last night was all about assumptions, in more ways than one. You should've seen how mad Dawn got when I called her 'Dawnie' -- she made it *very* clear that she doesn't want me seeing her as a little girl anymore." He snorted. "Not much chance of that anymore.
"But when I thought about it, I realized something else about last night. You see, I not only woke up naked and tied to that bed last night, I was blindfolded too. I had no idea who or what had me, and Dawn did her best to hide her voice for a while. I could tell the voice was a girl's, but not much else, and considering my Sunnydale dating history, that didn't exactly reassure me, y'know? I didn't know if I was about to be raped or sacrificed or what.
"Once I knew it was Dawn who had me, though, I was scared enough to pee my pants -- if I'd had any on -- about what *Buffy* might do to me . . . but never for one second was I scared of Dawn. And there's not a lot of people I'd trust that much. You . . . and you, I guess. Even with Buffy, I'd be afraid that one of those craziness-demons had poisoned her again, or something." He shrugged.
Willow was staring at him. "You . . . you're not sorry about what happened."
"Confused, yes. Shaken up, yes. Sorry? Uh-uh. How could I be? Wills, a really beautiful young woman went to great lengths last night to seduce me. She teased me until I lost control of myself, we had some pretty amazing sex--" he grinned as his friend turned bright red, "--and then she told me she's loved me for as long as she's been human, and she'd be mine forever if I wanted her."
Willow's eyes went wide. "Wow. Porno to Disney in point-five seconds."
"Yeah. That's pretty much how it was, too. One minute, we're in the grip of wild jungle passion. The next, she's talking eternal love."
Willow's eyes got even wider. "Wild jungle passion?" she squeaked. "You and Dawn?"
"Hey, don't look at me like that, Wills. If she'd done to you what she did to me, you'd've been just as out of control as I was." He chuckled. "Heck, you may be playing for the other team these days, but I'll bet if an eighteen-year-old *boy* did to you what she did to me, you'd've been screaming 'Batter Up!' in no time!"
"She was that . . . um, bad?"
"She was that good. Didn't she tell you she got her basic game plan from Faith? Although . . . I doubt Faith would've included the 'I love you's, or even the bit where she told me about how much she'd fantasized about me."
"You're enjoying this way too much, Xander." Willow said with a mock-glare. "You mean to tell me, after all that mooning after you I did in high school, all I needed to do was tie you down and ravish you, and you'd've fallen in love with me?"
He laughed. "It certainly would've gotten my attention. And I'm not suddenly in love with Dawn. It's just . . . I've had this little-sister-type love for her for years . . . and now I realize I'm incredibly attracted to her as well. I don't know if I can add those two feelings together and come up with being in love . . . but you know what? I think I'd be willing to spend the next several years finding out."
Buffy wasn't nearly as amused by the whole situation as Willow. "You're five years younger than him, Dawn--"
"Um, Buffy? The *youngest* guy you ever dated was Riley, and he was, like, five or six years older than you," Dawn pointed out.
Willow and Xander, watching the sisters argue, both remembered "Poophead Parker," but figured discretion was definitely the better part of valor in this case.
"I was in college--"
"Where I'll be in the fall."
Buffy put her fists on her hips. "You know I'm just trying to keep you from making the same mistakes I did, Dawnie."
Dawn struck a similar pose. "I waited almost a year longer than you to have sex, I knew the guy for eight years before that . . . or three, depending on how you're measuring. And he's not a vampire, or a demon, or even a mean person. He's the nicest guy I know, and I love him awful."
As Buffy struggled to come up with another argument, Dawn softened a little, and went on, "Buffy, a couple years ago you said you were going to stop trying to protect me from the world, and start showing it to me. You've actually done pretty okay with that . . . although you still try to pull that 'for your own good' crap on me every now and then. If I ever thought I could sneak up on a Slayer, I'd do to you what I did to Xander . . . except for the seducing part. And if I knew another guy as nice as Xander, I'd get him to do that! God knows, you haven't had a good seducing in years!"
Buffy blushed fiercely at that. Willow chuckled, and Xander would've done the same if he'd dared.
"I'm almost eighteen now, and there are some things you can't show me -- I just have to do them on my own. And one of them is figuring out if this thing with me and Xander can really work," she said, as she looked at him fondly. "And even if he breaks my heart -- which I don't believe for a second that he'd ever do -- it'll be up to me to decide just how much to beat him up, not you."
Buffy gave Xander an evil grin, and he knew what she was thinking. She'd been training her younger sister for two years, and if Dawn was a little weak in the bare-handed stuff, she was as deadly as any of the younger Slayers once you put any kind of weapon in her hands. If Dawn ever *really* wanted to hurt him, she could.
But Xander had meant what he'd said to Willow; his trust in Dawn was absolute. If he ever hurt her enough for her to want to hurt him back, he'd deserve whatever she did to him.