The only Andrew Xander is comfortable with is the one that sits in a red cape at the coffee table of a partially-collapsed house and rolls many-sided dice to find out whether he beat the dragon - and calls them 'die', too. The Andrew that Xander can appreciate is frankly, a whiny, snotty, manipulative little boy. He doesn't wear suits.
"Maybe the charcoal instead," and Andrew holds the fabric up to his arm. Xander shrugs. He doesn't know a thing about expensive suits, although Andrew has forced him to spend some money on them. Apparently the Watchers were well-funded. "You have to have some opinion," he says.
Xander shrugs again.
"Whatever," and there's a little slip of the Andrew that Xander is familiar with, a teeny piece of the whiner left. Xander blinks, and Andrew's back to discussing tie options with the tailor, and the Andrew Xander knows is gone.
It's not that this Andrew isn't an improvement - ask anybody. Buffy said it twice daily. It's more that Xander misses the old Andrew. Enough things changed.
When the fitting is over, Andrew puts a hand on Xander's shoulder, indicating it's time to go. As Xander wasn't listening, he missed the verbal cues they could leave. His hand stays on Xander's shoulder a few seconds longer than necessary. "How do you do that?" Xander asks, suddenly.
Andrew takes his hand away. "What?" he says.
"Turn into someone new."
There's a pause, and Andrew holds the door open for Xander. When they're out of earshot of the tailor, Andrew scrunches his head. "It's role-playing," he says. "that old guy?" he says, "he was terrible."
"But--" Xander starts. Andrew watches a girl cross the street, and he wants to shout at Andrew that he's all wrong, that trying to improve yourself shouldn't come at the expense of your old personality. The truth was, of course, that Andrew's old personality was terrible, and it's probably a good thing nothing remained.
"But." They cross the street, and Andrew says, "I don't want to be the kind of person to be taken in by Warren." Andrew pulls out his ringing phone, and starts chatting away in Italian to the girl he met last night. Those are the only words Xander picks out - last night, and how are you? - but it's enough. He decides that the one thing of Andrew's old personality that stuck around was how much of a liar he used to be.
When he's off the phone, Xander says, "You're really good at that."
Andrew turns to Xander. He says, "I know."