A Touch More Gentle

## Content Information

Xander entered the doors of Carter Hall with a bit more pep in his step than when he’d left.  Leaving that afternoon, he hadn’t expected to do as much as he did with the day.  He had the chance to speak with Didi and Arsling, was able to take in the sights around campus, and even became Iva’s campaign manager.  It was eventful to say the least, but as the sun slowly set in the distance he figured he’d had enough adventure for one day.

He checked his phone again, and sadly still no messages from Tamzen.  “She’ll talk to you when she’s ready,” he mumbled to himself, “She went through a lot, you don’t want to smother her.  Tamzen’s an adult, she can take care of herself.”  He rounded the corner of the hallway to go back to his room, and his eyes locked on a person hovering outside his door.

In fact, this wasn’t the first time today that Tamzen had found herself lurking outside the door to Xander’s suite. When she had finally left her own room for the day, after having caught up with Linny about the last few days and assuring herself that her friend was all right, she had planned to spend the rest of the day at her studio at WKDN, regaining the sense of balance that she had been so badly lacking since Thursday night. A quiet evening there, sorting through albums and old files, and checking over the equipment tucked away in the electronics closet was just what the doctor ordered.

And it *had* helped. What she hadn’t expected was to find herself suddenly at loose ends after only an hour or two, to find herself wanting to be somewhere else. So she had left the studio, and let her feet guide her, only to find herself standing in front of Xander’s door. She had turned away the first time, chiding herself - they already had a date planned for tomorrow, surely *that* was soon enough to see him again. She didn’t want him to think she was clingy, after all - and since his room was obviously unoccupied, it was clear that he had already made plans for the day. So she had tried to distract herself.

All attempts at distraction had failed, and her thoughts (and feet) had kept wandering back towards Xander every time she had gotten restless that afternoon. She had thought to message him, but… why disturb him from whatever he was doing. She had been waiting near his door for about 10 minutes this time, and was about to give up and head back once again, when she turned and saw him standing there.

“Umm… hi Xander…” she said shyly as he approached. “I was just…”

Xander rushed forward and engulfed Tamzen in a tight hug, lifting her off her feet and twirling in place.  He gently set her down, and just held her there.  After a moment of just silently holding her, he let out a contented sigh.  “I missed you… I know it’s only been a day but I missed you so much dear.”  As he held her there he noticed her arm had returned to being, well being flesh.  “Oh gosh and your arm’s an arm again!”

Tamzen let out a small yelp of surprise as Xander swept her up into his arms which turned into a delighted giggle as he spun her around. She pressed her lips against his for a brief moment then glanced up at him from under pale eyelashes. “I couldn’t stop thinking of you, either. And I didn’t want to wait until our date tomorrow to see you again…”

“Here, let’s sit down, I want to hear about your day and how you’re feeling.”  Xander swung open the door to his suite and led Tamzen inside, his hand holding hers gently.  He led her to his bed and plopped down on it, gesturing for her to join him.

She sat down on the edge of the bed next to him, and ran her fingers through her hair. “Not much to tell, really. I collapsed as soon as I got back to my room - didn’t even make it to my bed, because Linny tried to tempt me with pizza. She’s… I think she’s fine, by the way, or at least a little more resigned to the whole werewolf thing. She said people came to visit her on Friday, which makes me feel a little less shitty about having left her alone.” Tamzen laughed then, flushing slightly. “I think Queen Selene might have stopped by to see her - that must have been a hell of a thing - Linny doesn’t want anyone to know that she…” Tamzen paused. “Oops! Well, anyways…” she relaxed a bit more. “I woke up under a pile of the plushies I had left for her on Thursday night, and I finally cleaned up some… that’s when the arm changed back, by the way… then I went to work for awhile…”

“Sounds like a pretty eventful day you’ve had there dear.”  Xander rubbed the back of his neck for about the tenth time that day.  “Arsling and Selene huh… I’ll save my teasing for a more appropriate time I suppose.  She texted me earlier, I get the gist of what’s going on.  For my part I woke up around noon and went for a walk.  Let me tell you it was a pretty interesting walk, lots of sights to see around campus I never thought to look at.  We should just take a stroll at some point together, though I’m sure you’ve already taken them in at some point yourself.  The real interesting part,” he turned to her and raised an eyebrow, “were the folks I saw and talked to today.  More specifically Iva and… Didi.”

If Tamzen had hackles, they would have been raised at the mention of Didi. Instead, Tamzen stiffened up and looked over at Xander. “You talked to Didi…” she said, her voice devoid of any emotion.

Xander, who’d been testing the waters to see how well mentioning Didi would go, had immediately gotten his answer.  He made a mental note to contact Didi later, and quickly tried to diffuse the minefield he’d just stepped into.  “Well… yes.  I hadn’t intended to see her, but I wound up running into her.  It actually went well, at the very least neither of us attacked each other.  I um… I apologized to her, for all the threats I’d been blurting out that night.  I still don’t agree with how she went about things, but after texting with Arsling, I realized that it may be for the best that she’s a werewolf now.  Or more accurately that she isn’t being hunted or forced to hurt anyone anymore…”  His voice trailed off, as he looked at her, bracing for whatever reaction she may have.

Tamzen’s face had been expressionless the entire time that Xander was attempting to explain himself. She pushed herself to her feet, and stalked towards the living room. “Out here,” she said coldly, not bothering to look back at Xander before she left his room.

Xander followed her, his head held low, and he stood just outside his room.  “Sorry I broke the rule already, I wasn’t thinking about it.  Tamzen I’m-”

She whirled around, pivoting on one heel to face him. “*Don’t*…” she hissed. “Just don’t.” She pivoted again, and started to pace the floor, cold fury being replaced by agitation as she waved her arms around to emphasize her point. She didn’t look at him. “I get it. Linny’s forgiven her, *you’ve* forgiven her… every monster in the school wants to throw Didi a god-damned parade for what she’s done. Hell… they might even be right…” She clenched her fists at her side, and tried not to cry. “I *can’t* forgive her. Linny told me at the beginning that Fluffy was dangerous, that I shouldn’t make light of the risk of having her walking around campus at night. But I told Linny that she was *wrong…* that Fluffy wouldn’t hurt anyone…” she sniffled softly, her eyes wet. “And I was just an idiot after all… and maybe I was the one that put Linny at risk by being friends with her…” She was *not* going to cry, god dammit. “And she’s the *only* one of us who came out of the woods unscathed… had she planned for that to happen all along? I just feel so… *so*… used!” And in the space of a heartbeat, the floodgates burst, and Tamzen sank to the ground, burying her face in her hands, and letting out the tears of humiliation and betrayal that she hadn’t allowed herself to have over the past few days.

Xander, without thinking or hesitation, rushed to her side.  Reaching out a hand, Xander began rubbing her back gently, seeing how she’d react. Tamzen stiffened slightly, then relaxed again, seeming to take at least a little comfort from his touch.  “Tamzen,” he whispered, “Tamzen… I… You...”  Xander couldn’t find the words, or even if he could he didn’t want to make her feel any worse.  He just stayed there a moment, rubbing her back and staying close to her side.  Finally he found something he wanted to say.  “Tamzen, you didn’t do anything wrong here, you think you did but you didn’t.  There was no way you could’ve known this was coming-”

Tamzen looked up at him, eyes full of tears, and shook her head. “I could have known. If I wasn’t so scared to talk to people, if I didn’t just hide away at the station and pretend like the world didn’t really exist… I *could* have known…” she buried her face in his chest and sobbed.

He wrapped his arms around her, letting her cry.  “Even if that’s true though, what could you have done?  The situation was stacked against you Tamzen, no amount of knowledge or insight could’ve prevented what happened to Arsling.  You…”  Xander paused, he knew what he was saying wasn’t helping, he knew trying to talk about this seriously wasn’t going to solve anything for her in the moment.  She’d just feel worse about herself… he knew because he’d been in spirals like this before too.  “Tamzen, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking bad at this and none of this is probably helping.  I just want you to know I’m here for you though, and I want you to be able to feel better.”

For a moment, the only noise was the soft sound of Tamzen’s breathing, interspersed with sniffling. Then, surprisingly, her back shook as she started to laugh. “Yeah…” she sniffed, with a watery giggle. “You *are* bad at this…” she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him tight, resting her head on his shoulder. “But that’s okay… I’m pretty bad at it too.”

Xander held her there, letting out a light laugh.  “At least we can be bad at it together.”  Xander just sat there with her in his arms, holding her tightly to him.  “I’m sorry Tamzen… I-”

She kissed him, cutting off any further apologies as her lips met and covered his, and her hands guided him down to the floor. When his back was against the floor and she was kneeling over him, she broke off the kiss, and pulled back slightly until she could meet his eyes. “That wasn’t how I was hoping to spend tonight… shall we start over?” she asked, gaze intent.

“Sounds good to me, sounds *very* good to me Tamzen.”  He leaned up and met her lips with his, caressing her back with his hands.  Then he pulled away, gave her a sly smile, and chuckled a bit.  “So I’m Xander Crossman, pleasure to meet you-”

Tamzen giggled and scrambled to her feet, offering her hand to him. “Not that far back, you goof. C’mon…”

He took her hand, standing up but not releasing it.  Then he pulled her close until their lips were inches from each other.  His own face turned red as he held her there, and he began whispering.  “I suppose we could spend the night on other ventures, if you’d be interested of course?”

She smiled at him, and led him back into his room. “I say let’s see where the evening leads us…”

Xander took the opportunity to lift Tamzen up in his arms, and kissed her gently.  Lowering her onto the bed slowly, Xander slithered up and joined her.  Cuddling up to her side, he began lightly kissing her cheek, running one of his hands through her hair, the other wrapped around her waist.

She chuckled softly as his hands explored her hair. “Maybe I should stop wearing it up if you’re going to do this,” she teased as she shifted slightly, making sure there was enough room on the bed for him. She turned her face towards him, guiding his kisses towards her lips as she gently ran her now no-longer-enchanted hand gently across his skin.

He found her lips with his, kissing her gently and slowly.  He pulled her in close, his hands tightly holding her waist to his, his legs intertwining with hers.  In between kisses he gave her a light bite on the neck just to tease her.

Tamzen gasped in surprise as his teeth grazed her neck, and her hands flexed against his back, momentarily digging her fingertips into his skin in response. She dragged her fingers lightly down his spine, before slipping her hand underneath his shirt so that she could feel his skin under her fingertips as she traced maddeningly light circles and spirals against bare flesh.

Xander leaned his torso up and slowly pulled his shirt off, revealing his chest to her, and the new scar on his back to the air.  He gave her a wink as he tossed his shirt down to the floor.  He kissed her again, pulling her in close to him.  As he broke the kiss he playfully bared his fangs a little, giving her a warm smile.

She smiled back at him, a touch of hunger glimmering in her eyes. She kissed him again, catching his lower lip and letting her teeth lightly graze over it as she pulled back from the kiss.

Xander licked his lips, his eyes meeting hers, the same fire she’d seen multiple times before returning to them.  He gave her another light kiss on the lips, then gently trailed his kisses down her cheek and to her neck.  He settled in there, letting teeth and tongue tease and explore that sensitive patch of skin as her pulse raced underneath...