Title: The Long Haul
Author: Becka
Chapter 2: Unsavableo
Xander's done it.
Jesus Christ, he's staring at a corpse that's wearing his clothes, and it's like one of those accidents on the highway – you know the kind. It's a fucking six-car pile up, where all the passer-by slow down to take a guilty little peek, and there's that charred smell, crispy human flesh, scorching his nose.
Holy shit, he thinks to himself. I'm so fucked.
It was easier than he thought. It was twenty bucks worth of tequila and the benevolent offer to drive his double home. It was pulling over right near that vampire nest that's been giving his girls problems and letting his double puke his guts out. It was reaching out with trembling hands and snapping the poor guy's neck like a twig.
Jesus Christ, he thinks to himself. I'm going to hell.
It was switching the guy's skin-tight pants with his baggy jeans. It was swapping the guy's black mesh shirt for his nasty flannel. It was unlacing nice black shoes and shoving a pair of tattered sneakers on the guy's stiff feet.
Oh, God, Xander thinks, and he leans over and quietly empties the contents of his stomach into an unsuspecting bush.
There's no going back now.
And that's Xander, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. That's Xander, with the comfortable weight of the stake in his hand, slipping into the vampire's nest. That's Xander, emerging fifteen minutes later, covered in a thick layer of vampire soot.
Somebody, anybody, he thinks, please, help me.
But no one does. No one comes to his rescue as he drags the body to the edge of the nest, carefully arranging it to look as though he'd been making his escape when he was killed. He's choking on the smell of gasoline and it's burning his eye; that's what's making the tears stream down his face, right?
There's no one there to save him as he pulls a cigarette out of the shirt he's wearing, striking a match to it.
There's no salvation in the poisonous taste of menthol and the blackness stinging his lungs.
There's nothing left for him. And as he drops the half-smoked cigarette onto the ground, flames lick at the trail of gasoline, lick at the mockery he's called a life for seven years, and it's burning up around him, and _Jesus Christ_.
I'm not Xander Harris, he thinks, watching as the flames engulf his soon-to-be body. Xander Harris is a good man. Xander Harris would never do this.
He can't watch this anymore. He just –
I'm not Xander Harris, he thinks. I'm every monster he's ever killed.
o
Xander's feet start walking, but Xander's not quite there. The hamster in his brain seems to have spontaneously combusted. He's wearing a dead man's clothing – Jesus Christ, he's wearing the clothes of a man he killed.
He's a walking target right now. He's lunchmeat for the things that go bump in the night. He's the late-night Xander-shaped buffet, and God help him, he doesn't care.
There's no destination in his mind right now, because he's fucking praying for a vampire or a demon or whatever to take him up on his oh-so-gracious invite. He _wants_ something to take the choice away from him.
No. That's not right. He's already given up the choice. He doesn't have the right to choose anymore. He doesn't have a say in his life, death, or manner of demise. He forfeited that when he ended another man's life.
Oh, God.
Xander kneels on the side of the road, doubled over as he dry heaves.
Oh, God.
He just killed a man.
Xander knows that he's not innocent. But before it was justified. Vampires weren't _real_ people – never mind that they had been, once. Demons didn't have souls. It was okay to kill them, because they killed innocents.
Oh, God, he thinks. I don't even know his name.
Jesus, it was selfish. He needed a way out of his own life – fuck, he needed finality. But he didn't have the right to end someone else's life, just so he could come to grips with his own.
Does he have a soul?
Does he deserve to call himself human?
Xander pulls himself off the ground, stumbling forward as his feet decide it's time to start walking again. His mouth is dry, and there's bile in his throat, but he doesn't have anything left to throw up.
He doesn't have anything left at all.
o
Xander walks throughout the night. He ignores the uncomfortable pinch of the unfamiliar shoes. He ignores the chafe of the mesh on his skin. He just keeps walking.
He walks to the next town. He walks into the nearest bank. And he walks out with a suitcase of cold, hard cash.
It's in these moments that he thanks Anya's paranoia. No one knows about this account. No one would know to check for it after he was gone. Hell, no one would even suspect. How could they? All of his clothes are Goodwill. He makes a big deal out of spending three bucks on a chocolate sundae for Dawnie, even though he always gives in when she uses puppy dog eyes.
Oh, God. Dawn. Lil' sis to Buffy. Attached at the hip to Willow. The light in Giles' eyes. Faith's mini-hellion.
Jesus, they should be glad he's gone. He doesn't deserve to know them. He's a fucking monster.
Don't think about it, Xand-man, he says to himself, hefting his briefcase. Ignore it and it'll go away.
The money he's toting didn't put a dent in his savings – didn't even put a dent in his interest – but he finds himself outright purchasing a sleek, black Harley and enough gas to get him to the next state. He does it because he needs a ride. It's another escape, but that's fine. An extra thousand insures that the name on the papers isn't his own.
That's his next order of business. With enough cash, you can buy just about anything on the black market, including a brand new identity: Alex Caducus. A legitimate birth certificate embossed with this name.
Armed with this, he finds his way to an Internet café. Thanks to Willow, hacking into the FBI, the CIA, it's second nature. With this name, he creates a new identity, a new social security number, a new life. He's got all the papers waiting for him, has them FedEx-ed to the shoddy hotel room he's staying in for the moment.
The last name was his idea. He's almost proud of it. After years of researching, speaking Latin is as easy as flipping a switch in his head.
Caducus. Falling. The fallen.
Caducus. Destined to die. Devoted to death.
Caducus.
That's the face that looks back at him when he stares in the mirror.
He hasn't slept in three days.
o
His next order of business is the clothes. He's still wearing a dead man's clothing.
During the day, he makes his way to the mall. He picks up some hair-dye at CVS. He snags some colored contacts at the optical department in Boscovs. He saves ten percent on the black leather trench because he pays for it up front.
It all kind of blurs together after that. He buys a couple of pairs of comfortable blue jeans, and two pairs of leather for when he rides his bike. He splurged on a set of Doc Martins. He picks up a pack of black t-shirts.
And thanks to his forged papers, he buys himself a gun – a Smith and Wesson, several extra clips, and the standard ammunition. He buys the supplies so he can carve the wooden bullets himself. He picks out a heavy axe, the kind that works miracles for decapitating demons, at the Home Depot next door.
The weapons are an afterthought. Oh, he knows he needs them – hell, he feels naked without them – but it had been… nice. Without them, he could almost pretend that he's normal, lulled into the falsehood that he didn't just kill a man four days ago.
Oh, God.
Xander stumbles to the bathroom, drops his bags on the tiled floor, and dry heaves into the toilet. He's almost relieved that he hasn't been able to keep any food down, because there's nothing in his stomach except the churning bile.
He doesn't know how he makes his way back to his shitty motel. Or maybe he does know how, but he doesn't want to admit it. It's the training. It's in his blood.
Keep moving, it tells him. Do what you need to do to survive.
His hands are shaking as he takes the scissors to his hair, cropping it close. They're trembling uncontrollably, but he frosts his tips blonde. He squirts some hair gel into his hands and runs his fingers along his scalp, coaxing the once-unruly locks to spike.
The baby blue contact slips into his eye with ease, the black eye-patch covers his empty socket. He pulls a black t-shirt over his head, shimmies into his black leather pants, hooks his holster around his waist and secures his gun. His axe gets stashed in the back of his belt, but the black leather trench hides it completely.
He doesn't look in the mirror as he packs the rest of his stuff into his duffel bag, can't bear to meet his own eye as he brutally erases every sign that he's been in the room. He packs his shit, secures it to his bike, and he's gone.
He thinks he'll just ride until he finds what he's looking for. Even if he occasionally has to pull over and dry heave.
He hasn't slept in five days.
o