"From Buffy's stories-" Joyce began.
"Which are often more full of holes than Swiss cheese," Dawn interrupted.
Joyce chuckled. "From my older daughter's stories, you often… tripped over things, but I thought that was mainly because this was Sunnydale."
"That was probably part of it," Xander said, "but apparently part of it was just being me."
"Kinda like how Buffy is the Slayer and is attracted to or attracts vampires?" Joyce asked.
"It's looking that way," Xander agreed. "An angel told me I turn bad luck into good and I can't do that unless I run into bad luck."
"Buy me lottery tickets for my birthday," Dawn told Xander with a grin.
"Not sure it works that way, but sure," he agreed. "So, first town I got to I was reading the obits out of habit and realized they had at least one vampire."
"And you poofed him," Dawn said confidently.
"And I poofed him," Xander agreed, smiling a little wider at the confidence she had in him. "Turns out the cops were listening and I talk to myself so they tailed me and saw everything."
"Did you get in trouble?" Dawn asked worriedly.
"Nope, I got to give a lecture to the police on how to identify and defend yourself against the undead," Xander said.
"Really?" she asked excitedly. "That's so cool!"
"They even filmed it because apparently no one even shares this kind of thing with them," Xander said.
"They really should," Joyce said. "Keeping it a secret isn't helping anyone."
"Yeah," Xander agreed. "Which reminds me." He reached up and undid a clasp around the back of his neck, pulling a silver chain with an arrowhead on it out of his shirt. "Here."
Dawn squealed again and turned around in his lap, lifting her hair out of the way so he could put it on her.
"Your very own, Xander chipped, arrowhead necklace," he told her as he put it on her and she spun around to hug him once more.
"Made it at the museum where they let you try to let you make your own," Xander said. "It was a lot of fun."
"Thank you," Dawn said, snuggling into him.
"Next stop was a diner in a small town for lunch where a pair of archaeologists ran in yelling about zombies," Xander said. "One zombie, intelligent, compelled to kill whoever opened his tomb. I borrowed an axe and he warned me about everything he was going to do because he didn't want to kill anyone and just wanted to rest in peace."
"That had to suck," Dawn said.
"Luckily a farmer who was half deaf had built his home against the hill the cave was on so Jason could listen to the TV through a crack in the stone. Found that out when the archaeologists interviewed his torso on the local news station."
"You didn't kill him?" Dawn asked.
"The archaeologists begged him to let them interview him before burning his body and he agreed," Xander replied.
"George, the farmer who lent me an axe and gave me a ride, spent a couple of days teaching me metalworking in his barn as we coated an axe and some knives with silver. I'll have to show you the stakes he made, they don't dust with vamps so you can reuse them and he helped me forge a dagger which Hephaestus, the Greek God of metalworking, complimented me on."
The two Summers women just stared at him for a moment in disbelief.
"I'm getting ahead of myself," Xander said. "Anyway from there it was straight to Jump City."
"That's where Buffy is, she's training with the Teen Titans," Dawn said proudly.
"Huh, she wasn't with them when I ran into them," he said.
"You ran into them?" Dawn asked, surprised.
"Almost literally," Xander agreed. "Knocked Raven into a wall and almost gutted Robin." Seeing their wide eyed stares he chuckled. "I'll explain. I called the police and arranged a lecture, because they do need to know about these things. However, this time I planned things out so they weren't so random and had Linda and Bob, the owners of a burger restaurant, read things over to see what they thought."
"Probably better than winging it," Dawn said.
"Yeah, it was a much bigger audience and went pretty well," he said. "However, as I was finishing the lecture, a patrol officer asked me about a case they were working on where a bunch of young women had been kidnapped recently, one of which was Harmony."
"The hoe?" Dawn asked.
"Dawn!" Joyce chastised her.
"What? That's really mild compared to what Buffy and Willow call her," she defended herself.
"She's not that bad, though she is really annoying," Xander said. "Anyway, I recognized the signs of them being the sacrifice to a big snake, since we dealt with the same thing here."
"Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?" Dawn said in a bad Indiana Jones impression.
"Good reference," Xander said with a broad smile. "So, I named the frat and the demon and sent the police off to deal with them since they could actually just shoot the problem and grabbed a motel room."
"Yeah, you can't just kill a bunch of frat boys even if they deserve it," Dawn said, "and this way they'll go to jail."
"Exactly," he agreed. "Now I had a book on angelic runes I'd been working on and I tried one that is supposed to let you find someone, not expecting it to work even if I got it right because my connection to Harmony is just finding her annoying."
"But it worked?" Dawn guessed.
"Big time," he agreed. "Suddenly I had to go to her. So I got into my car and drove across town sensing she was in a closed museum."
"You should have called the police for backup," Dawn said. "Don't be the white couple in a horror movie."
"You are one hundred percent a person close to me," Xander said, "and I don't mean just sitting in my lap."
"Yep," she agreed happily.
"So, I stopped at a phone booth, called the police, and told them I located her and was breaking into the museum so they should back me up," Xander said.
"Smart," Joyce said.
"I shattered the front door with the hilt of my dagger and rushed in, snagging a war hammer and shield off a Norse display while en route to the screaming," he said. "The Teen Titans got there just after me and not knowing what was going on just attacked everyone."
"Kill em all, let god sort them out?" Dawn asked.
"Basically," Xander agreed. "The rune on my dagger tossed Raven into a wall when she attacked me and Robin gave me a minor concussion with his staff."
"War hammer time?" Dawn asked with a blood thirsty grin that he'd often seen on Buffy.
"Nah, I'd thrown that at the demon snake and Harmony was using it to defend herself," he said with a smirk. "She may not be the brightest girl in the world, but she paid the closest attention when I was teaching everyone to defend themselves. Anyway, since my bell had been rung and I was a little out of it when Robin started whaling on me I responded like I would a demon and cracked the chest piece of his armor. Harmony yelled for a stake and I threw her one and she staked the demon like she was Buffy herself."
"You need to train me," Dawn said, a little jealous of the compliments he was giving the girl.
"After my trip," he promised. "The police flooded the place, cleared up any misunderstandings, and I kept the war hammer and shield as they turned out to be replicas."
"Was Harmony grateful?" Dawn asked curiously, worried she'd decided to 'reward' him.
"As much as she ever was," Xander said. "She thanked me and left."
Dawn smiled and relaxed against him.
"Next stop was San Francisco where I noticed a vamp, tailed him, met a girl in costume, and foiled a child trafficking ring," he said.
"Superhero?" Dawn guessed.
"Mercenary," Xander said. "She was there to rescue one of the girls for her family. This time the lecture I gave to the local police was a lot more effective because I had a vamp on hand."
"That would help," Joyce agreed.
"And the mercenary girl?" Dawn asked.
"Stole my wallet to copy down my bank info so she could send me ten percent of the reward," Xander said. "No idea how much that is as I haven't checked."
"I think your life is actually quieter in Sunnydale," Joyce said.
Xander nodded. "There was a metalworking festival the next town over and I wanted to get the shield worked on because it was artistically battered and had a number of frat boys' teeth embedded in it."
"Can't say they didn't deserve it," Joyce said.
"Now, Wonder Woman was scheduled to show up and considering my relationship with the Greek Gods I wanted to avoid her, so I went a couple of hours early and ran into a woman named Diana Prince."
Both Joyce and Dawn just stared at him in disbelief once more.
"I explained I was avoiding Wonder Woman, which she found amusing and we went out for coffee."
The looks of stark disbelief increased.
"After explaining why I was avoiding Wonder Woman, she took me to her uncle Hef who had his own stall and he reforged my shield in like five minutes," Xander said. "I had to duck out because I didn't want to be there when Wonder Woman arrived, so I got a pamphlet on the worship of Hephaestus from Uncle Hef, scheduled a date with Diana for later that night, and went to buy myself a cell phone."
"Xander… you do know…" Joyce trailed off.
"Not at the time I didn't," Xander said. "She helped me set up my cellphone and we went to take in a ball game. She had to teleport away because her work called near the end of the date, but I got a good night kiss and decided to hit a library to see how common teleporters were and what else I may not know about because of the Mayor."
"And then you discovered…"
"That MTV didn't play music videos all the time and that Reality TV exists," Xander said with a shudder.
"It's okay, we're in a bowling alley," Dawn said solemnly for half a second before they both cracked up.
"Good one," he told her.
"Still no memories?" she asked.
"Nada, but I'm liking you for you and not because of who your sister is," he replied.
Dawn beamed and hugged him.
"So next day I went to the Oakland Zoo which is huge and ran into a were-cheetah in a trenchcoat," Xander said. "We kinda recognized each other as having things in common and I gave her a journal that helped me which she promised to send me a copy of because the original belongs in a museum and she knew some people that could make sure it happened."
"Red hair and spots?" Dawn asked, not at all surprised at this point.
"That's the kitten," Xander agreed.
"She actually goes by Cheetah, fights Wonder Woman a lot," Dawn said.
"Oh, she told me her name was Barbara," Xander said.
"Go out for coffee?" Dawn asked suspiciously.
"No, but I have her number."
"I'm beyond surprised at this point," Dawn told him.
Xander shrugged. "So I got a call from the FBI's Metahuman Taskforce while talking to her because they wanted to talk to me. Apparently vampire hunters don't often talk to law enforcement and they wanted to interview me."
"That makes sense," Dawn said.
"I showed up at the hotel we were to meet up at that night, since I didn't want to be late and ran into the male agent doing laps," Xander said. "Turns out Mulder and Scully were based on them. The actors were even chosen because of their resemblance, only the names are different."
"And I'm surprised again," Dawn said.
"Oh, almost forgot, cops pulled me over and had me examine a crime scene as I left the library and that's where I met the angel. He's a guardian angel of the eagle host named Jethro. He's the one who told me I turn bad luck to good. Anyway, that's investigation work that the police are better qualified for so I just gave them my take on the crime scene and left."
"You met an angel, an actual angel, and it's an afterthought," Joyce said.
"Demons exist, angels do too," Xander said with a shrug.
"And then you came back home," Dawn said.
"Actually me and the FBI agents went to a Wingnut museum in Berkeley the next day just for fun, cause it sounded interesting, and then I was heading for Lake Tahoe because I realized I hadn't even left the state yet. Diana called and teleported down into my car while I was driving and since the FBI agents had told me she was Wonder Woman, we teased each other about me knowing without saying it which has evolved into an inside joke where we both don't admit it and she said casual dating was fine but wouldn't be ready for a serious relationship for a number of years, probably a decade."
"Is that good or bad?" Dawn asked with a frown.
"It just is," Xander said. "I'm not about to jump into a serious relationship anyway, I kinda suck at them, though magic was probably involved and I really need to ask Diana about how to make proper sacrifices to the Greek Gods."
"Buffy's life wasn't half that crazy and she's the Slayer," Dawn pointed out.
"Huh," Xander said thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought of it like that, but you may be right."
"Yeah, and Buffy lives for drama," Dawn added, making Xander laugh while Joyce groaned.
"She'll grow out of it," Joyce said, "it's just a phase."
"Do I have to go through it?" Dawn asked, wide eyed and a little frightened.
"Maybe, a lot of girls do and a lot of girls don't," Joyce said.
"Just choose the type of drama you like in advance and play into it," Xander said. "No one says it has to suck."
"Hmm. Will you be dramatic with me?" she asked Xander, puppy dog eyes in full effect.
"Didn't you just say I had too much drama in my life?" he asked.
"Yes, in a roundabout way," Dawn admitted, "but this will be with me and thus more fun."
"Point," Xander said. "Alright, since it's you, when you enter your dramatic stage, I will play my part."
"Excellent," Dawn said, settling back into him with a smile.
"Have kids, Mom said. It'll be fun, she said," Joyce said dryly, her eyes glinting with amusement. "I suppose I better get started on dinner."
"Counter offer," Dawn said. "It's summer so we order pizza, watch bad movies, and fall asleep on the floor."
Xander hugged Dawn to him and rocked back and forth. "You even have better taste in pastimes than Buffy! Are we sure you're not a shapeshifter? You're a bit too perfect."
"I'll order two meat lovers," Joyce said with a smile.
Typing By: Abyssal Angel
Beta By: Abyssal Angel, Mist of Shadows, and Kyrin Fireheart