"So what brings you out on the open road?" Xander asked.
"At first it was to get a message to my parents, let them know I was okay," Sam replied. "I was kind of stuck on that for a while, but after they passed I realized I could get out, see the world. So, I hit the road. You?"
"I grew up in a small town, it was nice at times, but it was also confusing and I couldn't seem to get out, not even for a second. Friends of mine would go on trips and tell me about the things they'd seen, but when I tried to leave something always went wrong. School trips were cancelled, buses broke down. Hell, once lightning even struck my bike so my plans of pedaling to the next town were ruined," Xander explained. "Of course I was never one to give up on what I wanted, so I saved up money, bought a car, and the moment I graduated high school I left to see all the states."
"And what do you think?" she asked eagerly.
Xander grinned. "It was worth the wait. I've gotten to see some of the things my friends talked about, met new people, did things I never even thought possible."
"Yeah, that's what I love about the open road," Sam said, "infinite possibilities."
"Thunder Junction All Abilities Park?" Xander read the sign. "Huh. Feel like seeing what that's about?"
"You know what? I think I do," she said with a grin.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Dr Fate found one of their new prospects making a keening noise while the lycanthrope she was dating rubbed her back. A number of heroes were gathered around. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"She just discovered a friend of hers is pretty much one of the spandex club when she thought he was a weakling," Constantine said, more than a little amused. "How she thought that about someone who was crazy and tough enough to spend his school years attacking bloodsuckers with the traditional pointy stick? I'm not quite sure."
"We did it all the time," Oz offered, accepting a paper bag from The Question and holding it over Willow's mouth.
"I'm lacking context," Dr. Fate told him.
"Alexander Lavelle Harris, age nineteen, just graduated Sunnydale High. He was the one who filled his high school library with homemade explosives, planned out the destruction of an Old One, and trained the senior class in vampire slaying to reduce casualties," The Question explained. "While on vacation he was giving the police lectures on how to identify and neutralize vampires and zombies, taking care of a couple of situations of the same, and broke up a child trafficking ring, as well as a cult sacrificing young women to a demon. The police have also called him in to consult on the case John is working on."
"It's only been a week!" Willow moaned out before quickly hyperventilating into the paperbag once more.
"Buffy sent a copy of the travel log her younger sister is writing to keep track of what he's been up to," Oz added. "There's more than just that."
"May I see it?" The Question asked.
"Opsec," Oz replied.
The Question nodded. "Sensible," he said, sounding pleased.
"It's why we never mentioned him by name until he said we could," Willow said, calming down. "Xander was big on opsec."
"So his idea of a vacation is to hunt down supernatural problems across the US?" Constantine asked.
Oz shrugged. "He notices things."
"And once he notices it he has to fix it," Willow explained.
"Sounds like a hero to me," Vixen offered.
"He doesn't have powers and a costume… um, before anyway," Willow said worriedly.
"He's got a mask, enchanted dagger, and a god forged shield," Constantine offered with a smirk towards Zatanna who elbowed him in the side.
"But he's normal," Willow protested.
"Dating history," Oz said bluntly.
Willow winced. "Um… I meant other than attracting supernatural women."
"Halloween, hyena, swim team, breaking a prophecy," Oz listed off.
"I…" Willow groaned and facepalmed. "Why didn't any of that occur to me?"
"Xander suggested everything was the Mayor's fault, blame him," Oz said.
"We can't…. Actually we can," Willow said. "I just… I worry about him."
"Would you like me to scry for him and show he's okay?" Dr. Fate asked.
"Or just bloody call him," Constantine said dryly.
"Seeing is believing," Dr. Fate said.
"Eh, that's true enough," Constantine conceded, "just make sure he's not in the loo."
"Of course," Dr. Fate replied and gestured, causing a ring of light to appear and slowly alter until it showed a young man sitting on a theme park train laughing with a blonde haired young woman who's features flickered as she seemed to glow beneath her skin.
"That can't be good," Constantine said with a frown.
"Who is she?!" Willow demanded.
"A powerful spirit," Dr. Fate said as he tried to get a feel for the being.
Willow quickly fumbled for her phone and dialed Xander's number. "Pick up! Pick up!"
Everyone watched as Xander answered his phone. "Hey Wills, what's up?"
"Xander, there's a ghost sitting right next to you!"
Xander rolled his eyes. "And?"
"What do you mean, and?!" Willow demanded.
"I mean and and," Xander replied, "the word that in this case asks what the problem is."
"Um," Willow said, at a loss as to what to say.
"Wills, I love you, but you didn't want to go on my road trip with me so you can't exactly get mad that I took someone else," Xander said reasonably.
"But she's not alive?" Willow offered.
"Neither is Angel and while I do tease him I don't make a big deal about it… anymore," Xander told her. "And how do you know all this? Did you bug my car? No, you're playing with the mojo now. Are you scrying me? Cause I gotta say that's a bit hinky."
"I just got a copy of Dawn's list of what you've been up to," Willow said numbly, "and I kinda panicked."
"Oh, perfectly understandable then," Xander said. "The train ride's almost run its course and we're going to go ride the carousel so I'll call you tonight, bye."
"Bye?" Willow replied lamely before the line went dead.
"It's okay," Zatanna said, "I recognize the spirit from one of Xander's stories, it's the Vanishing Hitchhiker. She's an urban legend and not at all harmful."
Dr. Fate dropped his scrying spell.
"He's catnip to supernatural birds, eh?" Constantine said. "I know what that's like." He winced as Zatanna elbowed him again, but kept smirking.
"And he's the one you consider normal in your group?" The Question asked curiously.
Willow sighed. "We thought he was normal," she offered lamely. "Blame the mayor," she suggested.
"It's official Scooby policy," Oz agreed.
"Seems to have his head on straight at least," Constantine offered, "not everything supernatural needs to be kicked in the bollocks. I looked into him when I ran across him on the latest cult case I've got, he's an interesting character, but not a baddie."
"I'm still compiling my report on him," The Question offered, "but the digitized copies of both the lectures he's given to local police and the recording of when he was tortured by William the Bloody, a vampire of some renown, are already in the station's archives."
"Torture?!" Willow exclaimed.
"It was some years ago," The Question said, "you and he were being held captive."
Willow winced. "Oh yeah. It wasn't really torture, just a bit of punching."
"He took lethal amounts of damage, but survived by draining three vampires of blood," The Question said.
*thunk*
The Question winced at the look Oz shot him. "I apologize, I forgot she'd be unaware of that fact."
"I look forward to the official report," Dr. Fate said.
"Let's get her to the medbay," Vixen suggested, helping Oz pick up the passed out witch.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Where to next?" Sam asked as they left the dinosaur themed park.
"Some food and then… back to the road," Xander told her.
"Not sure I can do restaurants," she admitted, "I mostly hitch rides, which apparently includes the ones in parks."
"Drive thru?" he asked.
Her eyes lit up. "I think I can do that."
"Good," Xander said, "because a burger and fries sounds really good right now."
"I can't tell you how long it's been since I had a burger," she said, "I kinda stick to roads, can't get away from them."
Xander nodded. "Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers," he said, "sounds good."
"It really does," she agreed, almost bouncing in her seat.
Xander pretended not to notice as she seemed to hold her breath as they pulled into the drive thru, only relaxing after a few seconds had passed, a relieved look on her face.
"Welcome to Freddy's, what would you like?" the speaker crackled out.
"Burgers, fries, milkshakes, soda, and a couple of bowls of frozen custard," Xander said, "large everything. Make it the way you'd want to eat it."
Laughter came from the speaker. "You've got it, pull around to the second window for your order."
Xander pulled around and paid the amused cashier before a large amount of food was passed out to them.
Shortly they were back on the road eating as they drove.
Sam's eyes were closed in bliss as she nibbled on a fry, making him grin as he ate his own.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"I thought you were staying at your mom's house for the night," Beastboy said after Buffy appeared in a flash of light, having JL approval for limited teleportation access. His starfighter crashed on screen while he was distracted.
"I was actually planning on just staying until dinner, and coming back to meet up with my boyfriend, but my little sister was annoying me," Buffy said.
"I have sympathy for you," Starfire told her. "Assassination attempt?" she guessed.
"What? No." Buffy shook her head. "There was a bit of gloating over her seeing one of my best friends better than I did and then some major gloating over sleeping with him. I swear she gets more annoying by the day."
"Isn't your sister only fourteen?" Robin asked, looking up from the report he was typing as he mentally went over the research he'd done on their newest member.
"Yes, however she actually means sleeping," the annoyed Slayer explained. "Dawn said the fact that he'll sleep with her without requiring sex or nudity means it counts more than just sex would."
The Teen Titans all stopped what they were doing to consider that.
"I hadn't thought of it that way before, but it rings true," Cyborg said. "It's not necessarily romantic… or maybe it is."
Robin shrugged and noticed Starfire watching him with a smile on her face and he found himself blushing and looking away.
"It's a lot of trust to share with another that way," Raven offered.
"Yeah, well, Xander is a big softie," she said with a sigh. "Oh, that reminds me. You know the demon hunter you ran into who almost gutted Robin?"
"Kinda hard to forget," Robin said, rubbing his chest.
"Yeah, that was Xander," Buffy said, causing them all to stare at her in disbelief. "You got between him and trying to rescue Harmony."
"That's what you consider a big softie?" Beastboy asked.
"Yeah," Buffy replied, unconcerned. "Turns out his summer vacation has been rather busy. I'll see if I can get him to apologize, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. He sometimes holds a grudge."
Raven looked at Buffy and raised an eyebrow, sensing she wasn't telling them everything.
Buffy sighed. "Okay, he not only holds grudges, he names them, brushes their fur, and takes them on walks during sunny days."
"Truthfully, I think we owe him an apology," Robin admitted, sounding like he'd rather be getting a root canal.
"Oh, well he's pretty good about accepting those, though he will tease you about it until you're more annoyed than sorry," Buffy admitted. "Still not sure if he does that to make me feel better or if it's just him being him."
*ring*ring*
Buffy pulled out her cell phone and glanced at the number. "Hey Willow, what's up?"
"Xander is going to give me gray hair," Willow moaned.
"What's he done now?" Buffy asked, bracing herself for the worst.
"He's riding around with an urban legend, but apparently that's not important," Willow complained.
"An urban legend? Which one? Is it female? It's Xander, of course it's female," Buffy said.
"She's called the Vanishing Hitchhiker," Willow said, "but that's not why I called. Do you remember when Spike kidnapped me and Xander?"
"Yeah, Cordelia almost died and there was a lot of relationship drama," Buffy said.
"Cordelia's not the only one who almost died," Willow said and sniffed. "Xander almost died and we didn't even notice! We're horrible friends!"
"What?! But Xander was fine the next day," Buffy said. "I mean, he was a bit sore, but he wasn't on death's door or anything."
"I don't have the whole story, but apparently he only survived because he killed and drained some vampires," Willow said.
"What?" Buffy asked numbly.
"You heard me," Willow said. "Anyway I got copies of the lectures he gave the police and the tape Spike made. I don't want to watch them… but I have to and I want you and Oz there for support."
Buffy turned to the Titans. "Would you guys mind if I had a couple of friends over?"
"I'll set up the big screen to watch the videos," Cyborg said.
"And I will start making the corn of popping!" Starfire said cheerfully.
"They're saying we want to watch the videos as well," Raven explained.
"That's fine, I don't think we want to watch them alone," Buffy said.
Typing By: Abyssal Angel
Beta By: Abyssal Angel and Mist of Shadows
TN: "Dawn said the fact that he'll sleep with her without requiring sex or nudity means it counts more than just sex would."
I have mixed feelings about this. Mostly the 'requiring' part, I think. Making love would easily trump both sleeping together platonically and 'required sex'. Unfortunately sex is cheap in this day and age…
AN: Exactly.
Joshua the Hand-Written's Omake
Everyone is taking Xander's chaotic lifestyle so calmly I'm half expecting Jessie to pop in to give us the dramatic overreaction we've all been expecting. Purely for the lols, but it's the polite thing to do. And in the DC universe, it's hardly without precedence. Maybe have them Roshambo for the fate of the world, so they can distract the big bad while the heroes line up a shot. There's enough necromancers in DC to make that a plausible encounter.
"Foolish Hero! You came prepared to face an enemy, but what about a lost loved one! Mwah ha ha ha!"
"Jesse!Jesse! Jinx you owe me a soda..."
"Roshambo for the fate of the world?"
"...you're on."
Cue two teenagers taking turns kicking each other in the testicles*
"What the hell is wrong with you!?" screams the tryhard necromancer with the Necronomicon.
Supergirl pops out of a manhole behind the tryhard and delivers the Wedgie of Justice*
Through a twist of fate, the ritual of Roshambo has caused Jessie to come back as a magical warrior that can fight crime. Jessie is given The Notebook of Exposition and reacts in an appropriately over dramatic fashion as befitting a best friend. "You had a threesome?! You started a cult?! You own a popcorn machine!? You dated Cordelia Chase?!"
Newly reunited bros drive off into the sunset to have adventures, sitting three feet apart because they're not gay.