Away from the 'Dale

Away from the ‘Dale


Disclaimer: All things ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Dawson’s Creek’ do not belong to me. They belong to the people who own them (obviously). I am gaining no profit from this, except writing experience and fun.

A/N: Timelines may be a little off (or a lot off) I don’t care, its fanfic. This takes place after Season 6 of BtVS and Season 5 of DC. Its set in the Summer, but classes haven’t quite finished yet.

Spoilers for both shows up until this is set, especially BtVS S6 and DC S5

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Xander wondered for the thousandth time what he was doing here. Okay, so he technically knew how he got himself into this, it all had to do with his lifelong desire to do the cross country road trip thing. The thing he’d failed to do after High School. Though not for want of trying. So he’d been offered this chance and jumped at it. He had to admit though that he really hadn’t thought it through.

Faith had escaped from prison three months before. Buffy had been informed by the Watchers Council, but she’d said screw it. Much to Xander and Willow’s dismay. She couldn’t be bothered to fight the other Slayer anymore. It seemed to Xander she couldn’t be bothered to do a lot of things since coming back from the dead.

Her excuse had been: “She’s a human being. Not my jurisdiction. As long as she stays out of my town, I don’t give a damn.”

At the time too much other stuff had been going on anyway. Xander had been only weeks away from the alter, and they were all still trying to help keep Willow on the straight and narrow, and Dawn, the little sticky fingered monkey. Plus, unbeknownst to the rest of them, Buffy was screwing Spike left, right and sideways, which probably explained why she was too busy.

“Ya put a Slayer and a Vampire in the sack together – you gotta be talking a stamina fuck fest.” Xander muttered to himself with an almost-smile.

A few people looked his way, but he just glared at them until ttopptopped.

Then it all went to Hell in a hand basket, whatever the heck that meant.

Xander found he couldn’t go through with the wedding. He didn’t even know why and he felt like such an asshole over it. He couldn’t say he didn’t love her, ‘cause he did with all his heart, he just knew deep down inside, that if they went through with it he’d end up hurting her really badly and she deserved so mmoremore than that.

What she thought he deserved was to have his entrails liquefied while they were still inside of him. He totally agreed. Which just made her more mad. He hadn’t understood that one at all until a few weeks later when he found out she’d gone back to her old job and was just pissed that she couldn’t curse him herself. A part of him wished she could have, if it made her feel better. The other part was thinking: “Oh thank God.”

Tara had died and saying that Willow had taken it hard was like saying World War Two was a land dispute between neighbours. She was still in England with Giles now, some kind of magical rehab at a coven in England. Xander didn’t have a clue how taking Willow to a real live coven was going to help her with the magic addiction, surely it would be more like locking a kid in a candy store and saying “Don’t touch.” Like that was ever gonna happen. Giles had tried to explain to him over the phone that it was about her learning to control the mojo inside her as it would be impossible to quench it all together without more disastrous results. Xander hadn’t really listened to the old guy; he was still pissed at him for deserting them in the first place.

Spike had raped Buffy, or tried to, whatever. It was all the same to him. How many times did he have to say “I told you so” before they started listening to him the first time ‘round. He wanted to stake his skinny white undead ass immediately, and he would have to if he hadn’t been busy saving the world at the time. He’d gone to Spike’s crypt a couple of days later, against Buffy’s wishes, but he only found Clem sitting there watching Disney classics.

Clem told him Spike had left, something to do with the Slayer not loving him or something. He said he didn’t really understand, Spike had been kinda out of it at the time and not making a whole lot of sense. He’d offered Xander the comfy chair and put a bowl of Cheeto’s on his lap. Xander wasn’t sure why he’d stayed, but it was better than going home to an empty apartment again. Buffy and Dawn had been visiting their Dad in L.A. for a few days while he made one of his infrequent stops in the country. They polished off a bottle of single malt Scotch between them and Xander had cried when halfway through the Fox and the Hound Copper tried to kill Todd.

“But they were friends.” He sobbed. “Why does the world suck?”

Clem had agreed it was sad.

Buffy had returned from L.A. alone. Dawn had wanted to stay with their Dad for a while longer. He’d said he could keep her at least until school went back. Buffy had decided it was for the best after everything that had happened. The poor kid had definitely had a tough couple of years; she needed a break from all things Sunnydale. Plus there was the new big evil, wasn’t there always. Xander was so tired of the big evils, and the little evils and all the middle sized evils too, but of course he rallied, because it was what he did.

Things had been strained, there was only the two of them now after all, and this evil was, well, evil. They needed help. Buffy phoned Angel but he’d disappeared too. Some woman called Fred had answered the call and explained to her they had no clue where he was. Buffy had been frantic with worry. Turned out Cordelia was missing too, and that got Xander worried. She asked for Wesley but apparently he was in disgrace and banned from ever setting foot on Hyperion soil again. Fred didn’t go into details.

So they were stuck for help, with a whole new problem thrown in for good measure. Buffy could see only one option left. She wanted to find Faith. If she really had changed, then great, she cared about Angel, she could help find him. If she hadn’t changed, well then Buffy wanted someone to hit anyway, so all was good.

Xander had pointed out that of course Faith hadn’t changed – she’d escaped from jail, hadn’t she. Buffy hadn’t said anything for a real long time. Then she responded with:

“Lucky for us – she wouldn’t be able to help us stuck in a cage.”

Xander had said nothing to that and the next day they’d jumped in his car and set off on the search.

And here they were, and he wished he wasn’t. Boston was hot and sticky in the middle of Summer it turned out, even now at nine thirty in the morning.

Buffy had said they needed to find Faith ASAP, ‘Cause if she wasn’t going to help they needed to get back to Sunnydale sharpish before they lost the town completely to the underworld. He had concurred. They’d arrived the night before, and after booking into the first cheap motel they could find, he crashed, he had been driving all day, and she took a quick shower and went out looking, with a photo, hoping someone would recognise her.

Buffy had returned just after dawn and reported no luck. It was his turn to walk the streets of Boston and her turn to sleep. He’d been walking for three hours already and was getting more than a little sick of it. Hence the in-head rant he’d been doing for the past half an hour about how he’d let himself be talked into this. They should have stayed in Sunnydale and dealt with it alone.

He’d been wandering down a street filled with restaurants and take out bars for the last ten minutes, which is when he spotted an ice cream stand on the corner.

“Zeus, you merciful bastard, I love you.” He said to himself as he his pace picked up. His tongue was practically hanging out while he waited in line.

He was finally at the front and about to order the biggest cone they had when a guy called out from the front door of a restaurant across the street:

“Hey Sam, hit me with a triple choc fudge cone with sprinkles.” The guy was making his way over now.

The ice cream vendor rolled his eyes as he started putting the monster cone together. “Don’t you got your own ice cream in that fancy restaurant of yours?”

“We do, but yours is better my friend, and more importantly that fancy restaurant is no longer in business as of about five minutes ago.” The guy, a brunette about his own age, was grinning. Xander wondered what kind of idiot grinned when their restaurant was closed down.

“Really? I can’t believe you pulled that off.” Sam, the ice cream guy said.

“Believe it. And you should have seen Alex’s face, man I wish I’d had a camera. In fact no, I wish I was an artist so I could capture it forever on canvas.” The guy grinned again and took his ice cream from Sam. “Being unemployed has never felt so good.”

Xander was staring at him like an idiot and the other guy seemed to notice he was there for the first time.

“Hey, sorry, did I cut in line. I’m a bit jazzed, I didn’t even realise.”

“Uh no, no.” Xander spluttered. “Well, I mean, yeah you did, but it’s cool. I’m kinda having one of those days.”

“I know the feeling.” He handed Sam some money and took a lick of his ice cream before it dripped down his hand. “If you’re stuck for choice, get one of these babies’s.” He indicated his cone by raising it slightly. “They’re the best in the city.” He took his change back, smiled at Xander and walked away.

“Ookay.” Xander said quietly. “This town has its equal share of weirdo’s.” He turned to Sam and spoke normally. “I’ll have what he had, please.”

He accepted and paid for his cone and walked away again, coming to a stop a while later outside the gates of the Boston Bay College campus.

“Hmm, college campus equals frat guys. Faith like frat guys. I like sorority girls. I can think of no better place to look.” Logic justified in his over-heated mind he walked through the gates.