Love or Obsession?
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—B—
Hanging out at the Bronze, Buffy observed—from her vantage point on the second floor—Xander, Willow, and Cordelia dancing in front of a live band. The blonde girl wore shimmering gold pants with a black spaghetti strap top, drinking from a cup and listening to the slow vocal music. Ben Straley approached her from behind, leaning into her vision to greet the distracted girl. Buffy quickly thought the tall boy was handsome, with chestnut brown hair, gentle brown eyes, and a pleasant smile.
“Hey,” he said with familiarity, as if he knew her.
Buffy panicked as she didn’t recognize him.
At her blank expression, he nervously added, “I’m Ben.” When her unsure expression didn’t change, he further added, “We had Algebra II together last year.”
With an apologetic expression, Buffy said, “Sorry. I pretty much repress anything math related.”
Ben continued trying to remind her, stating, “M-Ms. Jackson. Second period. You sat in the seat three over, one behind.”
A vague memory of him entered Buffy’s mind, but it wasn’t flattering. Ben had fallen asleep in class and when he was shoved awake, he’d fallen to the floor. He had laughed it off with the rest of the class, then failed to answer the teacher’s question.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, nodding in recognition. Recalling him now made Buffy feel guilty for being so oblivious to some people, but upon closer inspection, he reminded her of Xander: nice and caring. Someone who could be a good friend. “Yeah, I remember now. The one with the desks, chalkboard, pencils, and stuff.”
“That’s the one,” the humored boy said with a smile.
Tapping her head, she joked, “Like a steel trap.”
Buffy felt his nervousness and was already ready to decline his obvious interest even before he said, “So… I w-was wondering. You know the dance tomorrow night?”
“You mean the Sadie Hawkins thing?” she asked. “The deal where girls ask the boys.”
“Yeah,” he confirmed cheerfully. “I thought maybe, if you’re free, you might ask me.”
Buffy didn’t blink as she said, “Oh, gosh, uh-”
Ben instinctively felt the rejection on the tip of her tongue and raised his palms, stating, “Oh! Oh, hey, no. Don’t—don’t worry about it.”
He was backing away as Buffy tried to ease the sting of rejection by replying, “No, no. You seem like a really great guy. It’s me… I… I’m not seeing anybody. Ever again, actually.”
“Oh,” he replied. “That’s… too bad.”
He looked at her with an odd mixture of disbelief and pity before thanking her and leaving. As she watched him walk away, she grew dispirited for having to reject a nice boy. However, all Ben did was make her think about Angel and Nox—more specifically, how she couldn’t be with one while being rejected by the other. Diving deeper into her thoughts, Ben seemed the exact kind of nice guy Nox wanted her to try dating. But she couldn’t see what was the point of even trying if she felt nothing. Returning her attention to her friends below, eying Xander specifically—as he danced with both Willow and Cordelia—Buffy felt terribly conflicted.
‘Should I ask him?’ she constantly wondered, which always annoyed her. She simply couldn’t understand why Nox was pushing her away. ‘A nice guy? Really? Like, why? What could that possibly change? If anything, I’d only end up hurting him. And I don’t want to hurt Xander, or anyone!’
With a huff, the Slayer unknowingly squeezed the metal guardrail too hard, bending the steel railing to an audible whine by accident. Panicking, Buffy looked around before quickly making her way downstairs, where she ran into Willow.
“Hey,” the redhead said. “You bailing?”
“Yeah,” Buffy answered, adding, “I’m going to stop by the library and see if Giles wants me to patrol, then call it a night.”
“You’ve been doing that a lot,” Willow pointed out. “In fact, you’ve been All-Work-And-No-Play-Buffy.”
But Buffy did want to play. Only, the person she wanted to play with, didn’t want to play with her. She felt it in her chest—in her stomach—a desire to run into Nox every night. However, that desire also came with the shame of being in such an unhealthy relationship. Buffy struggled with wanting it and not wanting it because it felt good in the moment, but she also couldn’t bring herself to tell Willow or the others. She couldn’t bear it if her best friends—the best reason she was alive—saw her differently.
“I play,” Buffy tried to assert. “I have big fun. I came here tonight, didn’t I?”
Nodding, Willow replied, “You came, you saw, and you rejected.”
Buffy glanced upstairs where she had met Ben, and asked, “You mean that guy?” At her nod, the blonde explained, “I’m just not in date mode right now.”
“Maybe you need to date to get in date mode,” Willow offered with an encouraging smile.
Glumly, Buffy admitted, “I don’t think I’m ready for that, Will.”
Shaking her head and swaying her long hair, Willow insisted, “You’re thinking too much. Maybe you need to be impulsive.”
“Impulsive?” Buffy repeated. “Do you remember my ex-boyfriend, the vampire? I slept with him. He lost his soul. The demon that wore his face nearly killed Ms. Calendar before we restored his soul, and now we can never be with each other again, literally, to keep people from dying. The next impulsive decision I make will involve my choice of dentures.”
“Okay, the Angel thing went badly,” Willow conceded. “I’m on board with that, but that wasn’t your fault, Buffy.” Leaning closer, she emphasized, “And anyway, love isn’t always like that. Love can be nice, too.”
Though Buffy still didn’t feel it, she couldn’t help but fixate on the word nice. Hesitantly, she asked her friend, “Do you think… you can fall in love—like, that big Disney love—dating someone… nice?”
“Of course,” Willow greatly asserted. “That’s usually how it happens… I’ve read… somewhere. Oh! But-but, it’s true in my case. I totally didn’t have the feels—or anything, besides friendship—for Oz when we first met. He was just a great guy I could talk to and have fun with.” The redhead professed with a broad smile, “But now, I love him, like, totally Disney love.”
Buffy could clearly see how happy her friend looked, and she recalled her heartbreaking conversation with Angel. They were in his apartment, standing in the middle of the living room, facing each other as much as the inevitable. The pair understood, without saying much, that they could never be a couple again. Seeing the sadness in his eyes—knowing hers were just as sad—felt like she was trapped inside of a coffin and couldn’t breathe—couldn’t move. His whole demeanor was so heartbreaking, she didn’t think she could ever be happy again.
Breathing heavily, Buffy’s heart felt like it was racing, and she clenched her fists tightly. She needed to hit a demon to death, or find Nox to fuck the misery out of her—anything to be free of the suffocating poison choking her. However, Nox—the last good thing in her love life—told her to try for a nice guy, alluding that they were, somehow, the answer. He made Buffy wonder if asking Xander out on a friendly date wouldn’t be the worst thing.
Before leaving the Bronx, Buffy asked Xander for a ride to school to see Giles, and he happily obliged. It was touching how much he cared for her, but she couldn’t deny it wasn’t the same feeling she got with Nox. Getting on his bike, she didn’t want to compare the two because it wouldn’t be right, but deep down, she knew Xander just couldn’t match up to Nox.
‘What’s wrong with me?’ she asked herself as they rode down the street. It was terrifying to think of the answer because she truly suspected something was terribly broken inside of her.
At his back, as they drove to their high school, Buffy tried to analyze Xander in a new light. Holding him around his torso felt better than she expected. His jokes weren’t as immature as they used to be, nor was he as perverted. He had a motorcycle, and his own house. He came over for dinner often, which was always nice, and he even dressed better. Xander had so much going for him—checked so many boxes—but she still didn’t feel it… the passion.
She recalled Nox saying, ‘Jesus Christ, it’s got to be raw, uncut, animal magnetism straight from the get-go with you, doesn’t it? Is taking a date or two to see if you can build something so unthinkable? Let me tell you: when you’ve lived as long as I have, taking things slow isn’t some terrible omen of a doomed relationship. It’s the smart thing to do.’ Buffy didn’t want to cheat on anyone, but even he said what they were doing wasn’t a relationship. ‘Try, Slayer,’ he’d said. ‘Just try.’
When Xander let her off at the rear entrance of the school, Buffy recognized that they were alone and that there was potential for something meaningful to happen. Instantly feeling self-conscious, she swallowed audibly as he was preparing to leave.
With a tentative step forward, she nervously asked, “H-Hey Xander?”
Xander looked at her, and seemed to sense the situation, cutting off the puttering engine. Still seated on his bike, he replied, “Yeah?”
She looked deeply into his chocolate eyes and found them nice. In fact, his face wasn’t unappealing. There was a comfort there that allowed her to continue saying, “I was… I was wondering… if…”
After her long pause, the confused boy asked, “Yeeeah?”
Buffy wiggled her fingers, finding it odd that her palms were sweaty. She took a deep breath, and said, “I’ve been… The thing is, I k-keep getting asked to the Sadie Hawkins dance.”
Xander crossed his arms and his face seemed playful as he curled his brow in that comical way he did. Buffy quickly felt more at ease—realizing that Xander would always be Xander. She smiled as he replied, “Uh, unless I’ve been misidentifying genders all my life, I don’t think those guys are familiar with the rules on that one.”
‘Maybe Willow was right,’ she thought. ‘Maybe I am overthinking it.’ Feeling more relaxed, she asked, “I was hoping we could go?”
His eyebrows sprung up as he asked, “We? As in, you and me?”
The Slayer suddenly felt nervous again. Though she answered, “Y-Yeah.”
Buffy loved the idea of friendship with Xander, but being more gave her pause, like she needed to be cautious. It was dangerous to lose a good friend like him. He and Willow were how she stayed sane throughout the hardships of her duty, and she didn’t want to lose him because she hurt him unnecessarily. Buffy didn’t want to feel even more trapped if she lost him.
“As-as friends!” she quickly added. “Friends. You know, so I can tell guys I’m already going with someone.”
Xander deflated some, but nodded nevertheless as he replied, “Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, of course. Anything for you, Buff.”
Buffy nodded before they said their goodnight. Less than thirty minutes later, she stopped a male student from shooting his girlfriend with a gun that vanished.
—X—
Resting his head on his hands as he looked up at the high ceiling, Xander gave a fleeting thought to the poltergeists of James and Grace, since he expected Buffy to stop the shooting that night. He was laying in Cordelia’s queen-sized bed with the stunning beauty, but he wasn’t thinking about helping the ghosts pass on, or how he needed to buy bulletproof vests, or even how amazing Cordelia felt snuggled up against him. Xander was more amazed that Buffy had asked him to the dance. He hadn’t expected it. Not truly. As Nox, he may have told her to date a nice guy, but Xander hadn’t believed she’d pick him.
“Buffy asked me to the Sadie Hawkins dance,” he said out loud, looking over the lightly sweaty beauty cuddled up beside him.
Riding the last waves of pleasure with dark hair matted to her heart-shaped face, Cordelia leaned back to ask him with a queer look, “You want to bring that up now?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to bring it up before we started,” he reasoned with a smirk. “That’d be crazy.”
Nodding, she agreed, saying, “Yeah, I guess.” Cordelia moved away to look at him, propping herself on her elbow with her head resting on her hand. As blunt as ever, she asked, “Did she really ask you? Because I find that hard to believe.”
After a huff of humor, Xander replied, “Admittedly, she asked to go as friends, but it got me thinking. We can’t keep doing this if you get a boyfriend, or I get a girlfriend. Otherwise, it’s cheating.”
“Deduced that all on your own?” she sarcastically asked.
“I’m serious, Cor,” he asserted, supporting his head on his hand. They faced each other as he explained, “I think we’ve been doing this teenage hormonal thing so long, we can’t just suddenly stop and be a normal couple. It’s too backwards.”
The way her eyes squinted, Xander expected the fire, and Cordelia didn’t disappoint, hotly retorting, “You got what you wanted, so you’re bailing. Is that it?”
“Stop it,” Xander returned with just as much edge in his voice. “You know that’s not it.”
“Well… what do you want me to say?” Cordelia demanded. “It sounds like you’re dumping me, but we… We never even got a chance to figure out what this was.”
Xander paused for a moment, both loving and hating how difficult this always was. He enjoyed the emotional high of being with her, but disliked that he also felt shame and self-loathing whenever their coupling ended. As he learned through many loops, inevitably, something would always break them up—even if that something was his decision—and that would be the end of them. Xander and Cordelia were great, but also fragile, which disappointed him.
Clearing his throat, he confessed, “I love what we have—in and outside of the bedroom—but if there was more, I think one of us would’ve pushed for it by now.”
Cordelia paused to consider his words, then said, “Maybe I was just waiting for you to push.”
“I could say the same thing,” he softly returned. “I think, deep down, we both know we’re like a safe haven for each other—a really good rest stop. I can trust you, and you can trust me. I’ll always watch your back and I trust you to have mine. Plus, you feel absolutely phenomenal.”
“Damn right,” she asserted with a cocksure grin, making him huff in amusement. “So, what you’re too scared to say is: we’re, what? Friends with benefits?”
“First, I have no such fear,” Xander returned. “And second, sure, but with a heavier emphasis on the ‘friends’ part.” Cordelia was silently ruminating on his words before he added, “You’ve been in my life so long—driving me crazy for most of it—I just want you to be happy, even if that was with someone else… not that I expect anyone to top me.”
Cordelia smiled warmly—with a tender expression—before groaning in frustration. She glared at him, though with no real malice, as she said, “You just had to ruin it, didn’t you? We could’ve been anything if you just kept your mouth shut, but now the magic is gone.”
Though she was putting on a brave face, Xander fully expected her to drop her mask when she was alone, likely to cry herself to sleep. He knew how much she protected herself, and as they’d never become public in this loop, she’d never truly dropped all her guards when they were together. It was because Xander didn’t push for more that Cordelia didn’t trust him enough to show her most vulnerable side… the side that always led to her hating him for breaking her heart. In this loop, however, that wasn’t the case. He believed she would be better sooner than she had before.
The teenage boy smiled devilishly before saying, “Yeah, you know what? You’re right. I did ruin the magic. You. Are. Right.” The sexy cheerleader eyed him suspiciously before he added, “Looks like I’ll have to use my considerable skill in the art of funny business to make it up to you.”
He pounced on her naked form, and a giggling Cordelia squealed in delight. “Xander!”
It wasn’t long before the sexy girl felt Xander’s cock slide into her tight pussy. Spreading her legs wider apart to allow him deeper reach into her moist slit, Cordelia moaned in building euphoria, relishing his length and girth as he filled her to the brim. The seductive girl held onto Xander’s muscular body, pressing her large bosom against his chest as he pumped in and out of her yielding pussy. The sound of flesh slapping and the bed creaking filled their ears. Their mouths were locked together, tongues entwined, as Xander pounded the seductive girl into the mattress.
When the glistening beauty’s moans grew louder, and her flush body trembled, Xander knew she was moments away from climax. Her vagina was quivering around him, squeezing with greater intervals as her fingernails dug into his skin and her toned legs wrapped tight around his bucking ass. When her spine arched, her head dropped back, and her toes curled, Cordelia’s pussy clamped down on his meaty cock like a warm vise—setting him off. Her orgasm triggered Xander’s, and the lovers climaxed together for a third time that night. The moaning gradually died down along with the trembling of their ecstasy-filled bodies.
Even still, as they held each other, panting and satisfied, the time looper wished he felt more.
—
The next morning, Xander and the rest of the Scooby Gang met in the library, where they learned about the school shooting that Buffy prevented. As they had before, they investigated the source of all the strange happenings around school. After George, the possessed janitor, shot Ms. Frank, the equally possessed teacher, and then killed himself, Xander purchased bulletproof vests for himself and Buffy, and insisted she wear it.
Helping her adjust the vest over her white shirt, he joked, “Gotta keep you alive to sweep me off my feet at the dance.”
“Good thing they rescheduled it for tomorrow,” she replied with a smile.
As the night progressed, Xander wondered who would be the one making out with Buffy this time. It had been Angel, Spike, and even Drusilla; all vampires. Though, he didn’t mind if it was Drusilla again. Sadly, Xander wasn’t surprised to see Angel show up in the indoor courtyard. Buffy asked why he was there, and the vampire replied, “I followed Spike here.”
Xander’s head dropped to hear the name of the one vampire he didn’t want kissing Buffy. It would only trigger his need to kill Spike, and by extension, that traumatic memory. Xander’s heart sank at the idea that he might still be angry enough to kill Spike simply for kissing Buffy again. He wasn’t that stupid anymore, nor did he feel much emotion anymore, but somehow, he still felt an urge in his gut he couldn’t explain. If Spike was chosen once again, killing the blond vampire and looping back was a real possibility.
The three split up, though Xander hung out near where the action was going to be. He stashed Hellguard nearby, and idled in place, deeply world-weary. Strolling lackadaisically through the hallway, he didn’t know where Angel, Buffy, or Spike were, but he expected to see at least two of them any second. Xander prayed James and Grace would possess Spike and Angel, and leave Buffy out of it, but then he unexpectedly lost his balance. The teen felt like he was falling backward, but when trying to break his fall, he discovered he had no control of his motor functions.
Xander instantly feared he was looping back to Halloween somehow, but instead, he heard Buffy say, “You can’t make me disappear because you say it’s over.”
Xander turned and saw her looking at him with lovesick eyes, and he instantly knew they were the ones possessed. His mouth was speaking words that weren’t his own.
“I just want you to be able to have some kind of normal life,” he said to her. “We can never have that, don’t you see?”
Though there was a ring of truth in Grace’s words, Xander quickly realized the danger of this situation. Neither himself nor Buffy were able to defend themselves, and Spike was in the school. Xander suddenly found himself to be eternally grateful that Angel was there.
While Grace and James replayed the fatal tragedy of their end, Xander waited to either loop back because one of them died, or be shot. However, the seconds dragged on. Xander tuned out the melodrama between Grace and James when he finally heard, “Well, what do we have here?”
Xander couldn’t see him as the sound came from behind him, but he recognized Spike’s voice anywhere. Then he heard a punch, followed by a lot of grunting and muffled smacks. As Grace and James moved away, Xander was trying to concentrate on the fight, all the while wondering who was winning. He cringed at the thought of cheering Angel, and resigned himself to stewing in growing frustration.
Finally, the humans were on the balcony when Buffy pointed her gun at Xander and yelled, “Don’t talk to me like I’m a stupid-”
BANG. The revolver went off, and Xander was so grateful that he was shot in the chest.
“James…” he weakly voiced before falling off the balcony.
With his ring still active, Xander didn’t fear the fast fall and painfully hard stop against the stairs below. Even as his head hit the stone step, cracked, and bled profusely, his ring was already healing him. Xander lay there looking at the night sky for nearly a minute before Grace finally got up and rushed to meet Buffy in the music room.
As the music played from the record player, Grace—in Xander’s body—forgave James—in Buffy’s body—before the lovers kissed; sweetly at first, as if confirming they were real, then quite passionately. Xander lost himself in the physical intimacy, reacting with practiced ease exactly how Buffy loved to be kissed, intensely with tongue. It seemed like she felt the same, and that only excited him more. Xander didn’t think about how Nox fit into this kiss, the passing of time, or the world around them. Not until she massaged his chest and his body recalled the bullet that impacted the kevlar, did he break the kiss. Xander pulled away, his entire body vibrating with pain.
“Guh!” he groaned in sudden pain, resting his head on her shoulder as the ring continued healing him.
Buffy yelled, “Oh, my God, Xander! Are you okay?” she desperately asked, helping him stay on his feet.
Xander leaned on the strong girl and half smirked as he replied, “Are you k-kidding? N-Never felt better.”
“I shot you!” she exclaimed with growing worry.
With a wave of his hand—feeling his ring finishing with the worst of his injuries—he asserted, “Oh, don’t sweat the small stuff, Buff. I’m just like, finally! One possession that actually turned out okay.”
“You must have brain damage because nothing about shooting you is okay!” a distressed Buffy returned. Then, looking at the back of his head, and the blood that trailed down to his neck and stained his shirt, Buffy yelled, “Oh my God, your head!”
Wrapping his arm around her neck, Xander leaned in and looked her in the eyes, trying to relay calm stability as he affirmed, “Buffy, it looks worse than it is. Trust me, I’m fine.”
She seemed to see as much in his eyes. After a charged moment, the blonde suddenly looked away before softly commanding, “Come on.”
Buffy would’ve carried Xander if he didn’t outright refuse, and eventually, they met up with Angel. The vampire had a bruise on his cheek and his lip was busted, but mercifully, he had been successful in stopping Spike without killing him. Xander was fully healed by the time the other Scoobies joined them, but pretended to be mildly injured as they explained all that had happened, minus their kiss.
The next night, Buffy and Xander went to the Sadie Hawkins dance together. Though they went together, the dancing, the laughs, and the fun didn’t feel different from when they hung out as friends. Along with their other friends, they simply enjoyed themselves. Afterward, the pair went to Pink’s Hotdog, and he ordered two dogs each. Despite the energy requirement for fighting and healing, Xander and Buffy only ate twice as much as normal meals.
Once settled on the outdoor benches, a curious Buffy asked, “Any idea why Cordelia told me not to break your heart, then changed her mind and told me it’d be okay if I did?”
“If I use my trusty—but super worn out—Cordelia decoder ring,” he began, “I suspect she wanted to be nice, then realized she had an image of blunt honesty to maintain and reversed what she said. That’s pretty much her MO.”
Her eyebrows rose as she shook her head, nonverbally saying, ‘okaaay,’ before genuinely expressing, “With all the craziness that happened, I hadn’t expected to have fun tonight. But I did.”
Setting down his soda, Xander nodded before agreeing, saying, “Same-sies. We should do it again.”
“For the next dance or the next Sadie Hawkins dance?” she asked before taking a bite of her second hotdog, groaning delightfully at the deliciousness.
After swallowing his bite, he proposed, “Well, this might be a wild idea, but, I could ask you to a regular, non-Sadie-date where food and fun would be all but assured.”
Buffy stopped eating and looked at him with wide eyes before stating, “That… that sounds like a date.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” he astutely said.
Buffy cleared her dry throat before rationally replying, “But what if us dating completely wrecks our friendship? It happens, like, all the time. Would you really want to risk what we have like that?”
Though he should acknowledge the realistic risk and act with understanding and caution, Xander felt nothing of the sort. After so many loops with the same people at the same time and place, the world felt binary. All he needed was a yes or no—will they or won’t they—so he could just move on. Xander wanted to get out of the time braid and had little patience for emotional hang-ups.
Thus, he quickly answered, “Hell yeah,” to Buffy’s surprise. “I know we’re friends, Buff—best friends, actually—and I never want to ruin that, but the thing is, I don’t think we can. I mean, even if we break up, I’m still going to love you and want the best for you. That’s not going to change; ever. But, if by some miracle we end up having something that lasts… that keeps going into next year… and the year after that… for the rest of our lives…”
At the tantalizing possibility of escaping the time braid, Xander nearly lost his emotional equilibrium, momentarily brought down by the massive weight of the sadness, despair, and trauma that he regularly repressed.
Clearing his throat and getting control of himself, he continued, “W-wouldn’t that be worth it?”
Buffy was quiet for several seconds, and when she continued to eat—likely thinking about his question—he continued to eat as well. After returning the pink trays, they were by his bike when Buffy finally responded.
“We have to take it slow,” she softly said.
Xander’s eyebrows rose in surprise before he remarked, “Well, that’s new.” She looked mildly confused, but he pushed on to say, “Slow…” With a knowing grin, he asked, “You mean like Nascar slow?” She suppressed her own grin and squinted her eyes at him, as if to say, ‘not funny.’ Xander smiled before asserting, “We can do slow. Regular slow.”
Their first date was during the day at an ice cream shop, and despite their gelatos, it was unexpectedly awkward. Seated outside to bask in the warm shine of the sun, the silence was like a third wheel that wouldn’t leave. It was as if Buffy didn’t know how to act around him, and Xander felt doomed it would always be like this, thus trapping him in ever-repeating time forever. As ever, he joked when he was nervous, essentially saying they had been alone plenty of times before, only without the possibility of kissing later. Buffy snorted in amusement, and they had an easier time connecting after that. By the end of the date, they’d remembered they were great friends who could talk and laugh about anything.
Kissing was a challenge, however. They hadn’t done it since being possessed. Buffy even evaded a kiss attempt. In front of her home, he had leaned down, and before their lips met, Buffy dodged. He pulled back and saw her eyes were the size of saucers. She quickly said goodnight and rushed inside, closing the door behind her with thunderous force. Though he would’ve preferred the kiss, her nervousness—and the fact that she enjoyed kissing Nox—was still amusing.
Not that intimate moments between them mattered more than the nightly attacks Buffy, Angel, and Nox were facing; hellish battles. The Slayer was playing down the constant attacks to her friends during the day. However, as Nox, Xander knew how arduous their battles against teams of vampires were. Additionally, different breeds of demons appeared with dozens of vampires every other night.
After a week of constant battles with many enemies, a frustrated and worn-out Nox demanded of Buffy, “Tell Janna that I saved her life, and I demand she repay me by performing the ritual on Spike.”
“That’s not the smart play,” an irate Angel said to him.
Nox yelled back, “Continuing to do this is not smart!”
Angel had been on edge every time Nox was near Buffy. Ever since the vampire had learned about them, it seemed as if he was eager for a fight. Thus, he stepped up threateningly to Nox, who happily stood his ground as the vampire argued, “Even if we give him a soul, it doesn’t mean he’ll automatically help us. Souls don’t automatically mean they’re good!”
Glaring brightly at the vampire, Nox growled, “You don’t think I know that, you blood-sucking parasite-”
A conflicted Buffy pushed them apart with her supernatural strength, eying them with worry as she pleaded, “Stop. Please.”
Nox backed away, quite done being a corner of this love triangle. Before leaving, he told them, “We change Spike first, then we promise to change Drusilla, too.” Extending his hand, Dreadnought flew out of the demon skull it was stuck in, and into his grasp—splattering neon-yellow blood on the grass—as he finished saying, “We won’t dust her and they can be together, but only if he helps us. He’ll do anything for her.”
Xander learned the next day that Buffy relayed the message and Ms. Calendar agreed, but to his surprise, Willow wanted to be the one to perform the ritual. She had been working closely with Jenny to learn more magic, and felt she could do it. Xander already knew she could, so he supported her.
Stolen novel; please report.
The following night, Angel and Buffy positioned themselves close to the Bric & Broc factory, while Xander guarded Willow as she performed the ritual. Once completed, Willow was incredibly drained, but Giles, Jenny, and Oz took care of her. Xander left to patrol and found Buffy and Angel fending off a wave of attackers trying to get a comatose Spike. It was another long night of fighting and injuries. Nox hated inviting the vampires into his mansion, but the sun was rising and they couldn’t make it to Angel’s apartment in time.
Looking around the mansion, Buffy asked, “Do you actually own this place?”
“Mnn” was all Nox sounded as he carried an unconscious Spike to the cellar. The two behind him were looking around as he chained the unconscious Spike to a pillar.
Angel noted, “Didn’t think anyone lived here.”
“That’s the point,” Nox remarked. With the last click of the metal latch, he turned to Angel and stated, “Expect to be uninvited when you guys have a place to go.” He turned to Buffy and said, “Come on. I’ll drive you back.”
Buffy nodded silently before asking Angel, “Will you be alright here?”
“Yeah,” he said with a longing smile. “You should go. There’s no telling when he’ll wake up or what state he’ll be in.”
Half an hour later, they were in front of Buffy’s home, with the morning light tinting the house in an orange hue.
She hopped off the bike before asking, “Do you really think Spike will help?”
Nox was apathetic as he answered, “I’m not a hundred percent, but if he sees it’s for Drusilla, I think he will.”
“Is that love or obsession?” the curious Slayer wondered aloud.
After a century on the nauseating Love Roller Coaster, Xander was so tired of love and all its problems, he had begun questioning the point of it. In his estimation, all that emotion seemed to do was make people stupid; whether stupid-crazy, stupid-dumb, stupid-angry—and he’d admit at times—stupid-happy. It was a drug that overrode logic and reality, because couples like a Slayer and a vampire wouldn’t happen otherwise. His parents wouldn’t have happened either.
“I’d put my money on obsession,” he lamented, and she looked disappointed to hear it. Not that he cared, adding, “Love encompasses so much in life—the good and the bad—but I’ve seen it fail so many times, it’s more bad than good, in my opinion. As long as I’ve been alive, love—no matter how great it is in the beginning—always spoils; rots, and then we have to live with that smell.”
Buffy nodded, but he could see in her expressive eyes how sad he was making her. It was like he told her Santa Claus wasn’t real, making him feel a small twinge of remorse. Xander recalled Merlin’s tutelage, and he reluctantly added, “Even still, Slayer, I don’t doubt real love is out there.”
Buffy perked up as she asked, “Really?”
Nox nodded, stating, “I’ve been told by a reliable source that true love is like two bodies sharing one soul. So, I do believe love is out there; just, not what people imagine it to be.” Buffy nodded with a hint of a smile, grossly annoying him when he felt like such a sucker. Moving on, he stated, “Anyway, obsession is just about loving yourself.”
“So, if Spike takes the deal, he’s obsessed with Drusilla,” Buffy summarized. “But if he doesn’t, it shows he loves her? And we continue to suffer the pleasure of Drusilla’s company.”
“Or the other way around,” Nox countered. “For as long as I’ve lived, I still don’t know if a vampire without a soul is incapable of feeling love. Maybe they feel it and just hate it. Whereas, with a soul, we feel it and embrace it… to varying degrees, anyway.”
Buffy nodded, and before the silence stretched too long, she randomly admitted, “I went on a date recently.”
“With your funny friend?”
“Yeah,” she answered.
When she didn’t elaborate, Nox figured, “I take it you don’t like him.”
“No, I do,” she quickly asserted. “Xander’s great, and funny, and caring… and-and great? I said that, already.” She laughed anxiously before saying, “It’s just…”
Nox wondered if she could hear the amusement in his voice when he asked, “He’s too good for you?”
Reeling by the verbal slap, she sternly returned, “I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“I would,” he insisted, earning a cute glare from the blonde.
“More like, we’re just… not… the right fit,” she struggled to explain. “He tried to kiss me and I just… I t-turned away. I’m sure he hates me now.”
Xander recalled the end of their last date: leaning down for the kiss and Buffy pulling away. He realized he hadn’t felt embarrassed or rejected when she’d pulled away. After the amount of physical intimacy he had experienced from a large variety of women, it was actually more interesting that she turned away. Buffy stood out, which was interesting, to say the least.
“You’ve never even kissed?” Nox asked. “Poor guy.”
“No, we have!” she quickly corrected. “I mean, we were possessed at the time, but after, we were totally smooch city.” At his calm bright eyes staring at her, a dejected Buffy sank her head before groaning, “Ugh, why am I even telling you this?”
“Why turn away if you enjoyed kissing him after being possessed?” he asked. Buffy eyed him a moment before considering how to respond, but she remained silent. After several moments, Nox urged, “Don’t force yourself to feel something you don’t, Slayer. But, if he’s a friend, there must be qualities about him you like. Try to focus on that.” Buffy nodded and was then surprised when Nox hugged her. He softly voiced, “If he’s still not the right fit, find me, and I’ll hold you down and fill you up until you’re a quivering mess and begging me to stop.”
He could feel her soften in his arms, and when he pulled back, her face was red. Nox left the Slayer and stopped by Angel’s apartment to get packets of animal blood before returning to the mansion. He gave Angel a cot and blankets to sleep in and told the brooding vampire, “I have some contacts I need to meet. I won’t be back for a while. Don’t touch my stuff.”
Xander spent his school day practicing his stitching in preparation for his rune-embroidered gear. He stitched geek-culture emblems like the Autobots, GhostBusters, and the Mortal Kombat logo on simple white cotton fabric. Every once in a while, he wondered when Buffy might ask him to talk in private. The thought that she was constantly thinking about ending their romantic relationship provided another layer of intrigue to his long, monotonous days. Toward the end of the school day, she seemed primed to talk. However, Xander invited her to see his first swim meet instead.
“Swim meet?” Buffy repeated curiously. “Swimming to meet who?”
Xander shook his head, amused, before reminding her, “I told you guys I joined the swim team.”
Her eyes bulged before exclaiming, “We thought you were joking. Did you seriously join the swim team?” At his nod, Buffy shook her head before realizing, “Wait, when do you even practice? You said you work at the forge after school.”
“Coach lets me practice whenever because of my job, so I just go when I have free time.” At Buffy’s skeptical eye, he assured her, “I’m really on the team!”
Buffy, along with Willow and Cordelia, wouldn’t truly believe he was on the swim team until they witnessed it themselves. The girls traveled with the team to UC Sunnydale’s Olympic-sized pool for the first round of the tournament. The large facility on the college campus had seating on three sides of the large pool for nearly two hundred people. As it was the beginning of the tourney, friends, family, and fans of swimming came from both sides, filling a third of the stands.
Buffy and Willow were seated behind Cordelia and the cheerleaders when each member of the Sunnydale swim team was introduced. When Xander stepped out and unzipped his team jersey in front of the sixty people in attendance, standing in nothing but his speedo, he instantly caught everyone’s attention. He didn’t have the lithe physique every other boy around him had. Xander was cut, with round, broad shoulders. His chest and lats were sculpted like a football player’s, rippling with power. The teenager even had a six-pack. His chiseled back and legs looked just as strong as the rest of him, and there wasn’t a drop of fat on his athletic frame. Buffy, Willow, Cordelia, and all the girls in the room feasted at the sight of Xander in nothing but tight swimming briefs, inciting a lot of private discussion among the crowd.
Every meet in a swimming tournament followed a standard order of events. All the boys competed in four strokes: freestyle, butterfly, backstroke, and breaststroke. Additionally, each race had a specific distance of 50 yards, 100 yards, 200 yards, or 500 yards. The race was long and arduous for every teenage boy that wasn’t Xander Harris. He didn’t wear his ring while he swam each event, because, after months of nightly, high-level training and rapid healing—and decades of fine-tuning his motor skills—Xander’s physical performance was at the upper echelon of human ability. Thus, he didn’t wear his ring, not because it wasn’t allowed, but because he simply didn’t need it.
During the freestyle event, Xander’s smooth flow of each stroke was insanely powerful. Every flex of his versatile muscles propelled him effortlessly through the water. His form during the butterfly stroke was so perfect, he nearly shot himself out of the water from the smooth flow of energy pumping through him. His back and breast stroke could challenge marine animals. With his level of strength, Xander dominated every event, trouncing the competition with plenty of energy to spare.
“Oh my God, Xander!” his friends cheered from the side. They couldn’t believe he was so phenomenal.
After they won, Xander noticed a positive change in Buffy. She didn’t avoid his kiss that night, which began gently. However, their teenage hormones soon took over and their mouths were locked together for several minutes. Xander’s hands caressed her sides and lower back with deft technique, making Buffy moan in his mouth. Xander was instantly hard, but Buffy pulled away, taking several moments to catch her breath. He felt an urge to voice the powerful attraction between them, but refrained. She bid him goodnight with a gentle kiss on the lips, and on his way home, he could feel she didn’t want to end things with him just yet. She still wanted to keep their relationship a secret, but only so Buffy could talk to Willow first.
—
After school the following day, the Scoobies all gathered in the library. The sun had gone down, and it was awkwardly silent. It was odd for them to see Spike in the library, casually snooping around and not attempting to kill them. And vice versa, Buffy—or Angel—was trying to kill him. Regardless of the lack of homicide, Xander enjoyed the newness of it. He still wasn’t a fan of Spike and Buffy being in the same room together—It seemed to him he’d always feel that sting in his chest—but it was still new, and that was enough.
Spike snapped his fingers before pointing to Xander and asking Angel, “Shouldn’t that tosser be dead? How’s he still alive? You don’t bounce back from a snapped neck like you fell and scraped a knee.”
Willow gasped, whipping her head around to her childhood friend, but Buffy quickly explained to those who didn’t know that Nox had healed him.
With a smirk, Xander loudly asked the room, “Shouldn’t William the Bloody be feeling more guilt for all the terrible murders he’s committed against men, women, and children throughout his long life?”
Spike looked angered and then ashamed, and then angered for feeling shame. He groaned and smacked his head—as if trying to punch the guilt out—before eventually yelling, “Ugh, I bloody hate this thing!”
Dropping her hand to Slaymore’s handle, Buffy cheerfully offered the blond vampire, “I’d be happy to take the pain away.”
Focusing on the topic at hand, Giles asked, “Spike, we need to know what you’ve decided to do. Will you help us?”
The blond sucked his teeth in annoyance before rehashing the deal. “I help you fight, you shackle my Dru with a soul, then you let us go—no harm, no foul—yeah?”
Giles nodded, answering, “That’s the deal, yes.”
“And more than you deserve,” Jenny added.
“Aww, hurt your feelings, did I?” he asked the pretty teacher with a mockingly insincere expression. He looked at all of them as he cynically asked, “I didn’t try to kill you before, did I? Cuz, I don’t care! B’sides, I’m a forcibly neutered vamp now. That’s gotta count for something.”
“Spike,” Buffy warned.
“Yeah, alright,” he called back. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist. You got yourself a deal. I need to hit something, anyway.”
“Then we do it tomorrow,” Buffy asserted.
“We should recon tonight,” Angel suggested. Buffy nodded, and soon afterward, the three fighters left.
Less than an hour later, Nox watched Spike, Angel, and Buffy go to the Bric & Broc factory from afar. He was nearly caught after they went in because they soon came right back out. Nox overheard the three argue, and it was evident that Drusilla and her crew had abandoned the building. Spike insisted they not perform the ritual as planned.
Nox overheard him yell, “If you stuff a soul in her surrounded by those vile animals, they’ll either kill her, or do worse! And I swear to you, if she suffers, I’ll do everything in my power to get rid of this thing and hunt you all down!”
From a payphone, Buffy relayed to Giles—who relayed to everyone else—that casting the ritual was canceled until they located Drusilla’s new hideout. For the next couple of weeks, Angel, Spike, Buffy, and Nox fought an uptick of demons and vampires almost every night, but they didn’t kill many. The evil forces were given express instructions to run at the first sign of their loss, thus not many died before they all retreated. It was as if the four fighters were being tested nightly; as if someone new had come in with a crew of their own, absorbed Spike’s old crew, and was engaging the Scooby Gang in little skirmishes to figure out their weak spot. They couldn’t even chase after the vampires for fear of being separated and falling into an ambush.
Xander had to admit the addition of Spike made the fights easier. Despite being more of a brawler, he was a high-level fighter. However, Nox ignored Angel and Spike whenever possible. If the four of them were fighting together, Nox made sure none of them died, but other than that, he barely even spoke to them. Since Buffy was dating Xander more seriously, Nox barely spoke to her, either. The masked hunter simply showed up, fought, then left.
—
Due in large part to Xander’s superb swimming, their team qualified for the finals in the state championship. His friends made it to each of his swim meets, and Xander gained a bit of a following, but despite all the beautiful girls coming up to him, he only hung out with the Scoobies, especially Buffy. They’d been on five official dates, held hands, and even kissed in public, though not so much around their friends. Willow was reserved around them, meaning Buffy talked to her, but with Oz’s help, she tried to be happy and supportive of her friends.
Before any of the other swimmers were irrevocably changed into walking sea monsters, Xander alerted the group about the oddities he’d been seeing. As they had done in previous loops, the Scoobies uncovered the coach’s scheme to dope his swimmers into winners, and the team was subsequently disqualified from the state finals. Though Xander had the test results to prove he wasn’t doping, most of the student body didn’t believe him—not with a physique like his.
When Kendra finally arrived, Xander had one mission: keep the Jamaican Slayer alive. He didn’t worry about the statue of Acathla being stolen or how this new crew might try to release the demon. He just wanted to make sure the sexy girl didn’t die because he couldn’t save her.
Considering Xander owned the mansion they typically stored the statue in, finding and destroying it was now more difficult; not that he minded the excitement of the unknown. It wasn’t as if the bad guys never dropped clues about their hideout, and with Nox’s enhanced abilities, Xander was never worried about finding them. But for the extra bit of suspense, he allowed his friends to do most of the information gathering, simply to see if they could figure it out on their own. The possibility that they were getting closer to Acathla bringing about the end of the world by swallowing it in a vortex to another dimension gave Xander such a rush.
He almost wanted to see the majestic chaos of it—the destruction, the despair, the panic all across the world—but then Angel and Spike found where Drusilla was hiding, and Xander felt empty again. He felt so close to allowing it. If he wasn’t dating Buffy—if she didn’t look at him with a growing sense of affection, as if she was growing happier dating him—he would have let it all come to an end.
As it stood, the Scooby Gang planned to launch their attack on multiple fronts. Spike, Angel, and Buffy would go to the new hideout while Xander, Giles, Oz, and Kendra watched over Cordelia, Jenny, and Willow as she performed the ritual. When Willow began the Soul Restoration ritual, Xander expected Drusilla or something to show up, but no one did. Willow chanted the words. A light emanated around her, disappeared, then the redhead slumped over, physically drained. It was when they were checking a nearly comatose Willow, that the group heard clapping coming from the entrance of the library. They all turned to see a black man Xander recognized from previous loops as Mr. Trick. However, he wasn’t supposed to be here so early.
‘That’s new,’ Xander thought with some appreciation.
What wasn’t new was the threat he brought along with him. Mr. Trick brought far more vampires than Xander had ever faced at one time, even with Buffy and Angel. As the blood-suckers filed into the library, Xander wondered why this moment in every year loop had to always be so difficult. There must’ve been thirty vampires looking at them like they were lunch. The time looper debated calling Dreadnought to him, as it was stashed nearby—along with Hellguard—but that would mean he’d be found out. When Kendra stepped forward, doggedly prepared to single-handedly defend the Scoobies, Xander felt like he had little choice.
Eying the growling vampires at the entrance of the library, Xander ordered the Watcher, “Giles, get them out of here.”
Giles quickly scooped up Willow in his arms, Mr. Trick didn’t wait to order his men.
“Kill them,” he said, and the blood-sucking monsters swarmed Kendra like a tidal wave of fanged terror. Giles, with a worn-out Willow, Oz, Cordelia, and Jenny rushed to the emergency exit. Sadly, Mr. Trick had the exits covered and Giles was forced to retreat into his office, where they barricaded the door.
Xander couldn’t hold back here. His right hand summoned Dreadnought to him, breaking through the entrance and slashing through five vampires, while Odin’s ring enhanced his speed, agility, durability, and power. Kendra didn’t even have time to be surprised when Xander caught the spinning battleaxe, but from the rear of his offensive, Mr. Trick grew concerned at the sight of the human. As Xander began swinging Dreadnought, Mr. Trick ordered more vampires to attack Kendra, as she only had a stake.
Despite their fighting prowess, Kendra and Xander were surrounded by supernaturally strong enemies. Like Kendra, Xander was attacked from all sides as he swung his battleaxe mightily, batting a vampire aside like a rag-doll while injuring another two, only to be kicked at that exact moment. Like water, Xander flowed with the momentum, and his footwork allowed him to always be in a stance that put power in his swings. So even if he got kicked in the back, he’d roll with it, spinning the axe to cut off being swarmed, and spring to his feet, hacking away with the constant spin of his weapon.
Xander couldn’t tell how Kendra was doing with all the vampires around him, but he heard amused hollering, some laughing, and, “Get her! Get her! Now, now, now!”
Xander summoned Hellguard, which took a little longer to reach his left hand as it was in his bag in his locker. A vampire slid low to the ground, under Xander’s swing, before clamping on his leg and biting down, drinking his blood as his Viking dagger finally cut through some unsuspecting vampires and reached his hand. Xander stabbed the vamp at his leg in the head before tossing Dreadnought onto a group of vampires. The unworthy demons instantly went down and couldn’t get up, allowing Xander more freedom to move.
With his dagger in hand, Xander went from vampire to vampire, kicking from one to the other like a ping-pong ball. He was trying to slash and stab his way closer to Kendra, who he couldn’t see over the constantly shuffling bodies. Xander couldn’t see her, but it felt like she was on the ground, and that made his heart sink. He chose not to let Acathla happen. The Jamaican beauty should live with everyone else.
Xander electrocuted the vampires stuck under Dreadnought before calling it back, before tossing it again. The teen warrior was ferocious in his attempt to get to her. A vampire could drain a human in seconds, so if Kendra was on the ground and they were biting her like he envisioned, every second mattered. Xander ignored the deep cuts from sharp nails, the punches that felt like sledgehammers, and didn’t stop hacking away at any vampire in the way. However, it wasn’t enough.
“Kendra!” he yelled when he saw her on the floor, motionless.
When it was apparent to Xander that she was being drained by five vampires, that moment of pause allowed two vampires to jump on top of him. Xander killed one when two more jumped on. Calling on his strength to keep from dropping flat to the floor allowed even more vampires to jump on. Then he felt fangs pierce his skin.
“Guah!” he groaned when it felt like four sets of fangs bit him.
He felt his strength bleed out along with his blood and instinctively called his battleaxe before shocking them all with millions of volts of electricity. Xander felt the painful burning in all his nerves, but he didn’t let up until he felt close to blacking out. The searing tearing of his insides began to heal as quickly as possible with the help of his magical items. However, he needed to get to Kendra. With all the strength he didn’t feel, he pushed up with his arms, rolling twitching bodies off of him.
It seemed like the electricity affected the entire area, downing most of the vampires and steaming some of the wood fixtures. Though struggling to move, Xander pushed himself over twitching bodies to Kendra, stabbing downed vampires in the brain with Hellguard. When he reached her, the panting boy placed his fingers against her bloody neck, looking for a pulse. He couldn’t find one, and she wasn’t breathing. Despite the small fires around the room, Xander placed his ringed hand on her chest and began administering CPR as he commanded his ring to heal her.
He mentally yelled, ‘Come on! Don’t let her die! Not again! Heal! Heal! Heal!’
Xander was bleeding from several gashes and puncture wounds, sweating profusely, but he performed a hundred chest compressions every minute for three minutes; pushing blood through all her organs inch by inch. When he thought it had been too long, and she wasn’t coming back in this loop as well, Kendra suddenly coughed a long exhale, returning to the land of the living. She gasped and heaved, trying to collect her breathing. Her trembling limbs were weak and aimless, but all that mattered was that she was alive.
As the woozy Xander relaxed, he suddenly recalled his own injuries and bid his ring to help heal himself before seeing black. Xander must’ve passed out because Cordelia was shaking him awake while Jenny was treating Kendra, and Giles and Oz were putting out the fires in the darkened library.
The beautiful cheerleader leaned down and whispered, “Do you want me to hide the weapons?”
Xander didn’t feel well enough to speak and tried to nod his head, but his twitchy body wasn’t responding well, then passed out again. He was feeling only slightly better when Buffy and Angel showed up, but he didn’t open his eyes and he heard what had happened from them.
“Drusilla made a deal with a vampire named Mr. Trick,” Angel told them from a few feet away. “She’d be the bait while he took all their remaining forces here.”
Buffy felt closer to Xander when she said, “Somehow she knew she’d be re-ensouled.”
Angel added, “It didn’t matter to her if she was ensouled as long as Mr. Trick killed all of you.”
“Where is she now?” Giles asked.
Buffy’s voice seemed distracted, like she was looking at something unsettling as she answered, “Spike took her… and they ran.”
Xander could hear Buffy kneel beside him from the way her clothes stretched to her movements. With his weapons still in his hands, he could imagine what she was looking at; what she had to be speculating.
Cordelia seemed to sense as much and stated, “That Nox guy came by and let Xander hold his weapons. It’s probably healing him or something.”
Unconvinced, Buffy eyed Xander with growing suspicion before slowly raising the flat of her hand in front of her. The edge of her palm covered his face from the nose up.
“Buffy!” Cordelia yelled. Buffy turned to the brunette, who urged, “We have to get them out of here.”
Buffy carried Xander while Angel carried Kendra, and they all went to Xander’s house, forcing the recuperating teen to invite the vampire. Cordelia stayed with him throughout the night and the following day. Later that night, Angel returned with news from Drusilla. They were all gathered in Xander’s living room while Angel explained the deal Drusilla had made with Mr. Trick.
“If Trick kills us, he can take the statue,” Angel explained. The tall vampire told them where the statue was stored and who the next owner was. “It’s already on the road and if we don’t track it down, Acathla will be in the hands of Kakistos in two days’ time.”
Unexpectedly, Buffy got up and rushed upstairs. They were unsure of what she was doing, but when she came back down with Xander’s secret Go Bag and threw it at him, he knew.
‘Fuck… she knows,’ he thought to himself, mildly humored.
Irate, the scowling Slayer ordered him, “Let’s go.”
Willow and the others quickly protested, saying, “Buffy, he’s injured.”
However, Xander casually got up and unzipped his black bag. Giles, Willow, Cordelia, Jenny, Oz, and Angel were all shocked when he took out his black, hooded jacket and camo scarf. They were silently observing one person they thought they knew become another, and when Xander called Dreadnought to his hand, it was like two worlds colliding. Though he enjoyed their shocked expressions of disbelief, he walked to the garage with a silently fuming Buffy right behind him.
As their friends watch him and Buffy get on his NightHawk cafe racer, he imagined how disappointed they must all be, and how betrayed Buffy must be feeling. He imagined she wanted to strangle him, but knew that the mission came first and he was the only one with fast transportation. So Xander sped out of his garage, straight to the warehouse that had been storing the Acathla statue.
When they arrived, they found nothing in the building. It was gone. Buffy threatened the security guard with bodily injury if he didn’t talk, and they soon learned when it left, the route taken, and a description of the shipping truck: it was a white and baby-blue box truck, headed for Massachusetts. As it already had several hours on them, Xander sped through the streets of Sunnydale faster than he ever had before. When the police started chasing them, Buffy held on tighter—sometimes a little too tight, he felt—as Xander lost them off-roading in the night’s darkness. Soon enough, they spotted the box truck on the interstate near the California border.
On the off chance the driver was unaware of the cargo and clueless about the existence of vampires, Xander didn’t destroy the tires with Dreadnought, possibly killing him. Instead, he drove right beside the transport vehicle, and Buffy leapt onto the cab step. She punched through the window, gripped the man’s neck, and forced him to stop. Xander cut the bolt to the back doors before opening the box, and inside, they spotted the gothic statue of Acathla. It was gravel before long, and for good measure, they scattered the sediment in the desert surrounding them. Xander took the sword that had been stuck in it for an immediate project that needed magical material.
Once the pair were back in Sunnydale, Xander stopped at a gas station, and that was when Buffy got up and left. As he filled his tank, he casually watched her walk to the sidewalk and down the street, all the while wondering what might be going through her mind. After all, they hadn’t said a word to each other about his secret coming out. He imagined she’d at least punch him. So lost in his thoughts about the rest of the loop’s viability, he was surprised when she came back.
The heated girl had her fists balled up, and was glaring at him. He expected a punch hard enough to send him back to Halloween, and activated his ring. However, upon closer inspection, he also noticed her red-rimmed eyes, telling him this was a moment of sadness for her, not anger. It hurt him more than he’d expected when she yelled, “HOW COULD YOU!?”
Buffy then walked away before Xander could reply. Once his tank was full, he caught up to her and followed a good ten yards behind. It reminded him of when she had followed him after he’d caught her and Spike. This Buffy felt as hurt and betrayed as he did in that painful loop, and he knew he should feel deep shame and remorse; so much so that it nearly felt like he did.
He asked himself, “I feel bad about this, right?”
The only answer he got back—the only one that mattered—was, ‘You’re going to loop back, anyway, you worthless idiot.’
That was enough to lose all hope and not care about anything anymore. Thus, the listless Xander didn’t try to explain himself. He was certain she was furious with him, but he let her be angry. Xander hoped she’d ask him to explain. That would’ve been a good sign that maybe he could escape the year loop. Sadly, she didn’t, and he didn’t blame her.
Buffy ignored him for the few remaining days of the school year, and it was hardly a surprise when Willow, Oz, and Giles looked at him like he was a stranger. Angel punched him hard across the face and threatened serious bodily injury if he didn’t stay away from Buffy. Jenny threatened to turn him into a toad for his manipulation. Willow and Giles were extremely disappointed in him. Willow’s crestfallen eyes were especially heart-stirring to see directed at him. But at the very least, she—along with Giles—wanted to know how he could betray them so terribly.
A casual Xander looked between them, and with an unexpected, yet genuine smile, he told them, “Sure. Let’s all meet up at Buffy’s tonight.”
With that, he turned and went to class, leaving them dumbfounded. After school, he entered the destroyed library and eventually located the specific book he wanted. He rode to the mansion and locked everything up, then he went home and prepared for an extended break. Xander figured Buffy was leaving Sunnydale, and he was quite done with that. Upon knocking on her door later that night, Buffy told him to leave and that she couldn’t stand the sight of him. However, a voice behind her pleaded with her, and she reluctantly relented. Willow opened the door, though still deeply disappointed in him.
“Thanks,” he said with a smile, baffling her further as he walked in.
In the living room, Xander found everyone already waiting for him: Giles, Jenny, Oz, Kendra, and Cordelia. He imagined they all had conversations about him before he arrived, but he didn’t care. Nothing they said would change anything for him. He still felt doomed.
After Willow took her seat on the couch beside Oz, and Buffy went to the farthest corner, Xander clapped his hands and said, “So, I promise this won’t take very long. I know a lot of us got some vacationing to do, and I wouldn’t want to keep you from all that summer lovin’.”
“Just get on with it,” an irate Buffy snapped.
Xander shrugged before handing Giles the book he’d taken from the ruined library, and said, “I earmarked the page.”
A confused Giles looked around the room a moment before opening the book to the page and read aloud, “A-Anima in senectute. Latin for A Soul in Age. It’s a spell to reveal the age of a person, like carbon dating the soul, as it were.”
“Perfect,” Xander said, then walked to the kitchen table and grabbed a chair. He set it right in front of his confused friends before requesting, “Go ahead and use that on me.” They all looked at each other hesitantly, but Xander encouraged them, stating, “It’s okay. It’ll help.”
Giles cleared his throat and stood to perform the spell. Angel appeared midway through the casting with a traveling bag in his hand and stood next to Buffy. The Slayer explained the little that’d happened as the vampire glared at Xander, who just gave him the middle finger. Since the last time they’d done this spell on him, Xander had, apparently, now been stuck as a teenager for a hundred-and-six years, confusing the group, to say the least.
Giles, Willow, and Jenny used the spell on themselves and each got the right age, so when they turned to a knowing Xander, they had to ask, “How?”
“…That’s not possible,” Jenny gasped.
“Care to explain what this means for those who don’t know gibberish?” Cordelia asked the magicians.
Having given up on the rest of the loop, Xander stood up and told the gathered friends, “I’m leaving.” Their faces only grew more confused and, or, irritated, but he didn’t care. He was tired of being the one to stay in Sunnydale while Buffy went soul searching. This time, he was going to be the one traveling.
A struggling Willow pointedly asked him, “Why would the spell say you’re a hundred and six?”
Xander ignored her question and continued with his own topic of conversation. “I’ll only be gone for the summer, so not forever.” Looking at Buffy, he added, “Just in case someone else was planning on leaving the Hellmouth unguarded, you can’t now.”
Willow’s anxiousness was growing to fear when she admitted, “Xander, you’re scaring me.”
Xander leaned down, looked her in the eyes, and made an effort to reassure her with a comforting expression as he said, “Don’t be, Wills. I only had you guys do that spell to show you I’m still me and not possessed or something.”
Jenny demanded to know, “Why did you lie to everyone? How could you lie to everyone?”
Continuing with his monologue, Xander easily voiced, “I’ve decided to go with Kendra and visit her home country of Jamaica. I expect tons of beach fun, delicious food, and if I’m being honest, some reefer.”
Many of them turned to Kendra in surprise, but the pretty Jamaican only shrugged and said in her thick accent, “I have no quarrel with him.” When that failed to change their stunned expressions, Kendra felt an urge to add, “And he saved my life.”
Turning to Cordelia, Xander added, “Maybe I’ll visit Mexico after. I hear Las Palmas is nice this time of year.” Cordelia smiled a little brightly before returning to a serious countenance.
“Xander, please,” Giles pleaded, clearly agitated by the lack of accountability. “We’re attempting to understand how it is you could do something so-so... deplorable.”
“To us,” Buffy irately yelled, glaring at him. Xander only winked at her, unbothered by any of it.
“Is it because of your parents? Is this like a Batman thing?” Willow tried to understand.
Ignoring their queries, Xander continued, “While I’m away, I want you guys to play a little game I’ve titled, ‘Dude, What Happened To Xander?’” Turning to Angel, he quickly added, “Ah, everyone except you, Dead Boy.”
“Don’t call him that,” Buffy warned, and Xander rolled his eyes with a shrug.
“Just tell us what happened,” Willow begged him with her big adorable eyes. “Why have you been pretending to be Nox all year long? How are you even able to wield magical artifacts? Where did you even get them?”
“All stellar questions, Will,” he cheerfully commended. “This is why you’re going to be in charge of my mystery game. You’ll ask everyone here what you need to in order to figure out what happened to me-”
“This isn’t a game, Xander!” Buffy yelled. “Just tell us! Before… before I really start hating you.”
Her scowl had a hint of sorrow mixed in, telling Xander he’d genuinely hurt her. Unfazed by her and all of their collective outrage or supposed betrayal, a bored Xander just repeated, “Tell me, tell me, tell, tell, tell…. No. Nox has been telling you for a year now. Why don’t you try figuring it out on your own? Or let Willow figure it out for you.”
To avoid letting the conversation devolve into pointless yelling, Willow quickly asked, “Why me?”
“Because you know me better than anyone,” he easily answered. “Including me.”
Shaking his head, Giles removed his glasses for cleaning before dolefully stating, “I must say, Xander, you’re proving to be exceptionally uncooperative. All we’re asking for is the truth.”
“And you need that right now, do ya?” Xander quickly returned. “Don’t worry, G-Man. It’ll be a relatively slow summer for slaying. You’ll have plenty of time to play my game.”
“And if we don’t?” Giles asked.
“Then don’t,” he answered with a shrug. “I’m not forcing anyone. But if you want to know, you’ll have to play.”
Willow started to ask, “What do we do-” However, Buffy was moving to leave, having run out of patience. Willow ran to her friend and grabbed her hand, holding on as she begged, “Buffy, please!” With a pleading look from her friend, Buffy sagged her tense shoulders and reluctantly stayed.
“Like I was saying,” Xander casually continued. “Willow’s lead investigator. Answer any of her questions as honestly as you can and let her piece it all together. Simple.” Turning to his friend, he continued, “When you’re confident you know what happened to me, I’ll tell you everything. If you’re ninety percent right, I’ll do you the solid of filling in the blanks where you need ‘em.”
The room was silent, absorbing the twisted manner in which Xander stubbornly refused to be accountable for his actions. When Willow realized they would learn nothing Xander wasn’t willing to give them, she asked, “Where do I start?”
“You have a ton of questions already,” he pointed out. “Just answer them one at a time.”
“I take it I can’t ask you?” she inquired.
With a smirk, he shook his head before answering, “Sorry, that’d be cheating. But, while I’m away, I’ll answer one question a month.” Willow was unexpectedly excited to hear the bonuses if she did well, then recalled the seriousness of the situation and became dour again, which made Xander smile.
“Right,” he said with a clap of his hands. “That’s all for you guys.” Turning to the blonde Slayer, Xander asked as he pointed to the front door, “Buffy, can I have a quick word in private?”
“No,” she flatly retorted.
He clapped his hands together like he was saying a prayer as he childishly returned, “Pretty please with a cherry on top.”
The fuming Buffy walked up to Xander, and bitterly told him, “If you’re done, get out of my house… and n-never come back.”
Despite earning the full extent of her ire, Xander didn’t move. He simply took the moment to appreciate her face and how unfairly attractive she was, even when angry at him. Buffy blinked, and her mouth pressed down until her lips were a line. Buffy had never been great at hiding her emotions, and for a moment, Xander saw the hurt underneath her angry face. However, a large and irritated Angel stepped up to Xander—interrupting them to back Buffy up—with squared shoulders, balled fists, and a looming presence of danger.
Angel glared down at Xander as he angrily declared, “She told you to leave.”
Xander turned to his head, eying the taller man before stating with a small smile, “I don’t want to hurt you, but we both know it wouldn’t bother me one bit if I did.”
Angel made the mistake of forgetting that Nox was Xander and roughly grabbed the teenager’s collar, and upon drawing strength from Odin’s ring, the teenage warrior immediately grabbed the vampire’s hand with his right at the same time he placed his left forearm against Angel’s elbow and rotated his body to bend Angel’s elbow the wrong way in less than a second. Angel grunted at the pain of his hyper-extended elbow before Xander twisted Angel’s hand and forcibly bent the vampire over.
Buffy quickly pushed Xander’s chest, forcing Xander away from Angel before yelling, “Enough! We’re done. Leave.”
Looking deeply into her greenish-blue eyes, Xander softly voiced, “One sentence, Buffy. One sentence, then I’ll go. Promise.”
He didn’t realize his eyes were glowing a bit. Buffy looked away in growing turmoil, like her stomach hurt, before hurrying outside. Xander nodded to his stunned friends—winked at Angel, who was massaging his arm—and walked outside himself.
The blonde had her arms crossed and her back to him. She couldn’t look at him, so he simply told her, “Take your mom to the hospital and have them do an MRI scan of her brain.”
Then, Xander walked away, ready for a much-needed vacation.