Title: The Long Haul
Author: Becka
Chapter 3: Rurouni*
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It's been two weeks. Xander looks like shit and he knows it. The black circles under his eyes are pronounced, but every time Xander tries to sleep, he wakes up screaming. The last motel he stayed at complained about the noise, only letting it rest after he'd palmed the owner a couple of twenties.
Xander figures, what the fuck? He buys a sleeping bag and starts camping out along the road. Near as he can tell, he's in the middle of Utah.
Most nights, he just keeps riding. He doesn't stop, because he knows when he stops, his body will shut down and force him to sleep. He can't deal with that.
It's the fucking nightmares that get him, every time.
The nightmares aren't enough to keep the real life monsters at bay though. See, originally he wasn't worried about demonic activity because he figured the Hellmouth area was concentrated, and that the rest of the world wasn't going to be so bad.
That illusion has long since been shattered – ever since he took a pit stop, walked into the bathroom of a shady little gas station, and ended up in the middle of some sort of demonic sacrifice. Not even noon, and three scaly lizard creatures already had a little kid tied to a makeshift altar.
After all's said and done, Xander's amazed that Utah also has the level of denial to accept PCP-gang bullshit.
Knowing the lizards' weakness had been dumb luck. He remembers coming across them during a random research-fest, and he'd thought it was interesting that the bizarre demons were deathly allergic to Clorox Bleach. That little tidbit of knowledge is the only thing that saved him and the kid from everlasting suffering at the hands of some random lesser demon lord.
The next day, he buys a thick, leather-bound journal into which he begins recording all of his know-how on various vampires, demons, and other uglies of the night. It's a precautionary measure, really, and probably too paranoid for his own good. Still, in the unlikely event that he ever gets amnesia, either from a spell, a side-effect of killing demons, or a good ol' fashion boot to the head, he wants to know that he'll be able to take care of himself.
He's not looking for trouble. No, sir.
But trouble does have a nasty habit of finding him.
Maybe that's in his blood as well.
It's sort of nice, in a way. He's never thought that he was a particularly good artist, but in the dead of the night, pages illuminated by the moon overhead, he manages to jot fairly accurate sketches of the various critters he's encountered. Names, general background information, whatever demonic entity they might worship, and pointers on what the easiest ways to off them are carefully noted in the margins. Thanks to Spike's influence, he even knows some choice phrases guaranteed to either scare them off or piss them off.
All in all, Xander's amazed at the number of creatures he documents.
Still, it helps keep his mind off… other things.
Generally, he does everything in his power to avoid being found by said demons. But it never hurts to be prepared, and the soldier in Xander's head usually shuts up as long as he pays attention to his surroundings.
Of course, the soldier doesn't _really_ leave him alone until he's bought a couple of extra handguns off the black market, and a handful of grenades.
He can't blame the rocket launcher on the voices in his head, though. That one's pure self-indulgence.
His new supplies make travel a bit more complicated, and he ends up getting a nice, classy pickup truck. His bike gets secured in the back, his duffel bag is stowed on the passenger's side, and he's perfectly fine with keeping the rocket launcher under his seat. One of the perks to this arrangement is that he doesn't need to find a flat area to camp out; he can pull over just about anywhere and set up the nice comfy sleeping bag next to his bike.
Right now, he's just killing time. Killing demons when they cross his path. Killing a six-pack of beer at the nearest bar whenever it gets to be too much.
Don't think about it, Xand-man, he says to himself in the dead of the night, staring up at the starless sky. Ignore it and it'll go away.
If he tells himself this often enough, he thinks maybe he'll start to believe it.
He's got nothing but time on his hands, now, and since he doesn't exist to anyone that matters, he thinks he needs to figure out what to do with himself. He needs something to keep him occupied.
He knows he's running away.
But the further he runs, the easier it is to forget what he's running from.
So he wanders, beats the hell out of his kick-ass truck and thanks to odd-job #41, two months as a mechanic at PepBoys, he can open up the hood, tinker around a bit, and he's back on his way. From coast to coast and back again, one month, three months, six months, and he doesn't think it's odd that the creatures of the night now know his name.
Okay, maybe that's a lie. He was a bit wigged out when he was in the middle of rescuing some faceless blonde and the run o' the mill vamp who'd been trying to suck her blood took one look at him and fell to its knees. It didn't help that said vamp started crying and blubbering about Caducus, the Angel of Death, and proceeded to beg for its life.
Yeah, he admits to himself, dusting off the ashes, it's wig-worthy.
Being known to the demon population has its ups and its downs. Fledges, young demons, and cannon fodder usually run screaming into the night when they figure out who he is, but on the other hand, the big bads on the food chain actively start to seek him out.
Having a rep is all well and dandy, but honestly, backing it up is more trouble than it's worth.
So he keeps killing demons, keeps jotting down descriptions, names, and notes in the margin of his leather book. As the months fly by, he starts picking up choice words in various demonic languages, starts understanding the insults that fly his way when he's slicing through bodies and getting covered in nasty goo.
Isn't this what I was running from? Xander thinks to himself.
But no matter how fast or how far he runs, there are always more faceless blondes to save. There are always demonic sacrifices to break up. There are always demons out for his blood.
Demons out for his blood. Hah! They're in his blood.
The killing is a part of him, and he can't escape it. The killing is killing _him_ but he can't stop because he doesn't remember how.
The nightmares are still with him – flames licking at a body that's wearing his face – but at least he doesn't wake up screaming anymore.
He's sitting at a little bar in Philadelphia, now. He's sipping his beer and staring at the calendar and wondering if it's really been a year since _that_ night.
It has.
Which is why he's drinking. It's the one-year death-day anniversary of his first human kill, and Jesus, maybe it might be easier if he knew what the kid's name was, but he doesn't think so.
Xander hears a couple of guys snickering in the background. They're pointing at him and laughing at the worn leather trench coat. They're eyeing his spiky blonde hair and saying he's a fag. They're whispering that he's probably got some money on him, and that he'll be too drunk defend himself.
Xander's hearing hasn't always been this keen, but the hyena incident spiked his senses, and a year on the road has honed them. Xander can pick up the sort of bullshit these guys are mouthing despite the fact they're on the other side of the room and the din in the bar is deafening.
There are five of them. Xander knows this because he can hear five heartbeats quickening. One of them is making his way across the room and to his side. Xander knows this because when they were talking, he memorized their breathing patterns. The guy is going to stumble into him in a minute and pick a fight. Xander knows this because it's what drunken assholes do.
The guy jerks forward, about to trip into him, when Xander stands smoothly and moves out of the way. He sips his beer as the guy crashes into the empty barstool.
"You should be more careful," Xander's mouth says, accompanied by the twisted parody of a smile. "You could really hurt yourself."
The guy – dark hair, dark-eyes, maybe an inch taller than Xander is – growls something. Xander translates the grunts to, "Let's take this outside."
Xander complies because he's got nothing better to do.
And Xander already knows how this is going to play out. He knows that they'll go outside, and that the guy's friends will follow. He knows they'll come at him all at once – strength in numbers and that sort of shit. He knows that it'll only take him a moment to break the first guy's arm, shatter the second guy's kneecaps, knock out the third and fourth guys by slamming their heads together.
He knows that it'll only take him about two minutes to do all this. And at the end of that time, he'll be holding his gun against the last guy's head and staring into wide, dark eyes.
What Xander doesn't know is whether he'll be able to stop himself from pulling the trigger.
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Note: A rurouni is a Japanese term which basically means "a wandering swordsman with no destination." Rurouni travel to make up for their past sins, never staying in one place for to long, never forming any attachment to the people they meet.
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