Know Thyself

Xander was robbed. He felt incredibly angry about being robbed. Then he felt angrier at feeling angry about being robbed, and in his bed after many failed day-loops, the downward cycle continued exponentially. Staring up at his disgusting, yellow-water-stained ceiling, he thought back to the first thing he did upon looping back to Halloween day. Xander found Buffy right away and screamed unholy profanities at her.

At the school’s front entrance, Xander yelled at the top of his lungs, calling Buffy a liar, a whore, and the worst person to ever enter his life. The irate teen shocked the large gallery of gawking students at the scene, but worst of all, he shocked Buffy traumatically. Under the stinging distress of her eyebrows, her stricken greenish-blue eyes looked at him in acute confusion. Her pink lips opened and closed without a word uttered, completely lost on how to respond to his rage. She was nearly fearful, and it couldn’t be more evident that she had no idea why he was accusing her of vile obscenities.

Xander was robbed of any solace his broken heart deserved, because she had no idea what he was talking about. That clueless and hurt expression on her innocent face, like a cute little puppy being abused by the owner that was supposed to love them, made him feel like trash. Worse yet, Buffy held her textbooks tightly to her chest and walked past him without uttering a word. The blonde girl looked close to tears but was holding it in.

Willow would find and yell at him for hurting their friend’s feelings, finishing with, “I’ve never, in all my years as your best friend, been more disappointed in you, Xander. Never!”

After another three desperate attempts to forcibly take the catharsis from the new Buffy, Xander was forced to accept that the confused and hurt slayer that stood before him wasn’t the one that deserved to be yelled at. It made him feel like a monster when he had every right to this anger and her shame.

When Xander couldn’t tolerate appearing like the villain in their eyes, he switched to taking his retribution from Spike. However, after killing the English vampire a multitude of times, the results barely made the time looper feel better. Xander couldn’t take his anger out on either Buffy or Spike because they weren’t the same. He couldn’t kill them without looping back, and no one could ever understand. It all felt so meaningless, and Xander didn’t know how to continue.

After looping back once again, Xander quite literally stayed in bed for what felt like months, which became odd. Like anyone else, his now-flaccid body was capable of going a day without eating or drinking water. When he reset, he would go that entire day-loop without eating or drinking again, and then he’d do it again, never quite feeling full or starved to the point of getting up. Eventually, Xander went weeks without eating or drinking anything. His circumstance was the same when using the bathroom.

Xander would just urinate and defecate in the bed, because after the third or fourth time of waking up, everything would reset and his body’s wastes would be gone. Other than ignoring the rank smell, Xander lost count of how many day-loops passed like that. Done with the world outside, he remained in bed, under his smelly sheets, for what could’ve been months. No one saw or called the distraught teen throughout that entire time.

Not long into the months of day-loops, the shut-in began talking to himself; mostly about Buffy, but also anything & everything that came into his mind. Xander would repeat all the knowledge he learned from Eitri verbatim, then badmouthed Buffy. He would talk about how Sherlock approached dozens of unique crime scenes, then denigrated Buffy. He wondered about the complexity and difficult challenges of Willow being a lesbian when she seemed so in love with Oz, then vilified Buffy. Xander debated the merits between Spike and Angel as potential lifelong partners for Buffy, then cursed her for making him hurt this much.

No wound inflicted by any fist, kick, or weapon ever hurt this much, and he knew what it felt like to be castrated. Xander felt like he exploded into a million pieces, with no hope of ever being put back together again, and cried often at the loss. The boy who loved Buffy more than himself was gone.

“I’ll never be the same again,” he sadly voiced to his Skeletor action figure.

When Xander ran out of thoughts to repeat aloud, he became interested in his mother’s sleeping pills. Taking them felt like a good way of staying unconscious for as long as possible; the closest to an end he could get. Sleeping all day was more than enough of a reason to drag his flaccid body out of bed. Completely oblivious about the time of day, Xander shuffled into his parent’s room, and found his mother’s sleeping pills in the bathroom cabinet. Ignoring his reflection in the mirror, the heartbroken boy dropped five white tablets in his palm, then turned on the faucet to wash them down when his mother barged in.

‘Alive and well,’ he glumly thought at the sight of her.

Jessica Harris was a woman who was quite beautiful at one point, before she stopped caring. At the moment, her red hair was flattened to one side by her pillow and her pale skin had a sheen of sweat over it, amusing him in a way he wasn’t expecting. It was the first emotion other than anger or sadness he felt. Her slow blue eyes looked at him before noting the orange pill bottle in his hand. Then her face slowly morphed from confusion to outrage.

“Dear God!” she yelled, adding, “Are you stealing my pills?” The hefty woman moved toward her son before quickly backing away in disgust. With her forearm covering her nose, Jessica looked at his soiled PJs before asking, “Why do you smell like piss and shit?!” Leaning close to yank her bottle from his listless grasp, she yelled, “You know I need these for my insomnia!”

Without a care in the world, the callous Xander mocked, “You mean getting shit-faced isn’t for your insomnia?”

Her mute face slowly morphed into one of complete shock, eyebrows raised, mouth opened, and Xander snorted a chuckle at her reaction. Anthony Harris then shuffled lazily into the room, sniffing and coughing loudly. When he noticed them in the bathroom, he asked, “The hell is going on here?”

“Your son is stealing my pills,” Jessica yelled at Anthony.

“No. No, he wouldn’t,” Anthony replied, slowly walking toward Xander. He eyed the orange bottle in the teenager’s hand as he gravely added, “Cuz I raised my boy better than that, didn’t I?”

Father and son were face to face. Anthony was unshaved with dark circles under his eyes. His forehead glistened with sweat and his thin brown hair was a mess. The larger father looked at his son with daring and Xander could see the promise of violence behind the drunk’s putrid brown eyes, however, he didn’t feel an ounce of fear. Moreover, for his bulldog of a father to try any intimidation on him felt laughable to Xander. It started slowly, from deep in his belly.

“Uuuhhhaa… UhhhaaaHahahaHAAHAAHAA,” he started, then hummed, looking at his parents and their confused faces. Xander laughed harder than he had in a long time. “HAHAHAHAHA HHHAAAAHOOOOOO… HHHHOOOOOO… HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!”

His parents looked at him with a mixture of trepidation and disgust, only making Xander laugh harder. He had no clue why he thought they were funny. He’d been heartbroken for what must’ve been months with zero contact from anyone. For his neglectful mother to admonish him about her prescription drugs and his abusive father to play dutiful dad, Xander found them to be hilarious. He was laughing so hard, that he had to lean against the sink to hold himself up.

“Jesus fuck,” Jessica cursed before trying to wrestle the pill bottle away. She hollered, “He must’ve already taken some! How many’d you take?” When the cackling Xander couldn’t answer, Jessica shook her head in disgust before looking at Anthony, saying, “Why didn’t I listen to my mother when she told me you’d be the biggest mistake of my life? She told me!”

“Oh, here we go again!” Anthony yelled, making Xander laugh even louder. “Cue the fucking violin! Poor Jessie’s going to sob about how great her life would’ve been if she hadn’t gotten knocked up by the baddest guy on the block! Like we both don’t know what a psycho you turned out to be-”

Jessica Harris slapped Anthony hard across the face, sharply rotating his head to the side. His shoulders instantly flexed and broadened. His traps hunched angrily as he stepped threateningly forward, glaring venomously down at his wife. The cross woman stepped forward with her chin raised, glaring just as intently into his eyes, holding her ground, almost daring him to lay a hand on her. Xander had seen them like this many times, and it only added to the hilarity of it all, making him hold on to the sink to keep from falling.

When Anthony couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take out his anger on his wife—the mother of his child—he grabbed his cackling son’s collar, and yanked him out of the bathroom with all his pent-up rage. Xander’s body instinctively rolled over the bed before landing on his shaky feet.

“IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?!” Anthony yelled to both Xander and Jessica as he shoved his laughing son out of the room. “IS THIS WHAT I MARRIED INTO, YOU COLD-HEARTED BITCH?!”

Anthony kept shoving the listless Xander from the hallway, down the stairs, through the living room, and to the kitchen, all the while yelling obscenities at both Xander and Jessica.

The mother of the house coldly replied with hurt in her voice, “I never wanted you to begin with. You chased after me; wanted me more than anything. And you ruined me. Your son ruined me. I could’ve been somebody important if not for you and the son you shackled me with.” Her voice was low, yet the malice embedded within carried to their ears.

As Xander effortlessly dodged or slipped his father’s poorly thrown punches, he was losing his mind from laughing so hard. Though Anthony couldn’t land a single hit on the laughably inattentive teenager, he managed to shove Xander out of the house through the back door, yelling, “DON’T COME BACK, YOU HEAR ME? NEVER COME BACK YOU FUCKING BLIGHT!”

Xander had heard the threat enough to not worry about being homeless. His laughing settled to silence the more he absorbed the fresh air once again. He was so accustomed to the stale, rank, and musty smog of his room, to be out in the cool, slightly humid night air nearly felt alien to his skin. Goosebumps erupted up his arms and neck, making him shiver.

The dead grass on the unkempt yard crunched loudly under his bare feet as he walked the side pathway around his house to the street out front. Xander decided on a brief vacation from his self-imposed withdrawal. He was still in his PJs, still smelled of piss and shit, and barefoot, but the wayward teen wasn’t bothered. Getting kicked out of the house was a minor inconvenience that would be rectified with time. Soon enough, he’ll be back in his bed, safe and away from everyone.

Wandering the neighborhood, Xander made his way to the main street and soon heard screaming and destruction. It was clear that Ethan’s Janus curse had begun, however, Xander couldn’t care less. Running adults and children in terror from monsters of all kinds didn’t phase him. He simply strolled around his neighborhood in the chaos, content to be far enough away from Buffy and the gang to run into them.

Cars crashed, a few street lamps were knocked over, and every innocent, confused soul was running for their life. Xander was hoping for a monster to finish him off so he could return to bed and nab his mom’s pills before she woke up, however; luck wasn’t on his side. The more his bare feet smacked the cold, hard street, the more he was ignored by the surrounding pandemonium. It made him sigh in disappointment, and that’s when he noticed a boy—no older than ten—alone, on the sidewalk between two stores.

Amidst all the surrounding chaos, Xander focused on the brown-haired boy, dressed in blue overalls, a red long sleeve shirt, and white gloves. With his red hat that had an M written on it, the boy was clearly supposed to be Mario from the Mario Brothers. It was a costume Xander appreciated, and would wear himself, however, he thought the young boy was ruining the costume by crying.

Likely, because of all the scary chaos going around, the boy was crying terribly and pointing into the alley, however, Xander voiced, “Mario wouldn’t cry.”

The detached teen shook his head in disappointment and walked over to educate the boy on what’s expected as a man, and as a Mario. Upon reaching him, Xander heard a wailing scream coming from the alleyway to his right; the one the crying boy was pointing to. Mildly curious, Xander looked into the alley and noted a heavyset Caucasian woman with blonde hair wearing a puffy pink dress.

‘Princess Toadstool,’ he thought, only, her dress was heavily stained with mud and a boot print on her back. She was being harassed by four older men in regular street clothes. These middle-aged men harassing one of his favorite princesses were clearly brutes someone would send to rough a person up. They were all unkempt and drinking as they shoved the heavy-set woman between them.

The leader of the group was leaning against the wall watching, and Xander heard him say with growing frustration, “The sooner you tell us where he is, the faster this ends. You wanna get to your boy, don’t you?”

“Please!” she cried, holding her side as if she were in deep pain. “I don’t know where Jonathan went!”

“I guess she don’t love her son,” the leader told his friends, making them laugh.

“I promise you,” she begged. “I don’t know!”

The leader shook his head before pushing off the wall and leaning down to threaten, “Stop lying. We know you know. Charlie heard you talking to him over the payphone. So, this is how it’s going to go. You either tell us where Jo-Jo went with our money, or I take your boy with us-”

“No!”

“And you’ll never see him again!”

“No, please,” she begged through heavy tears.

“This bitch is getting on my nerves,” one other stated.

“Beat her ass,” the leader ordered.

“Help!” she screamed before she was punched in the gut. With all the chaos around them, Xander doubted anyone would help, and he didn’t care enough to do so either.

‘Why even bother when everything’ll reset, anyway?’ Xander thought.

The leader then looked to the entrance of the alley where Xander and the mini-Mario were standing and added, “And bring the kid over. Let him see his moms get what she deserves for protecting that thievin’ shit!”

Xander noted one of the old men walking toward them, but he didn’t care. In fact, despite how serious the situation he stumbled into was, he was more annoyed by the mother than the men. It was yet more proof of parents caring more about themselves than their children, and despite how emotionally gutted he’d been for months, he couldn’t help feeling thoroughly annoyed.

The crying from the Mario beside him didn’t help matters, and despite the clear threat walking toward them, Xander knelt beside the wailing boy, with heavy tears streaming down his face. He made the boy face him, then said, “Crying isn’t going to solve your problems.”

Xander felt something akin to disgust when the boy’s crying got louder in his ears. The melancholy whining echoed insidiously in his head and it quickly irritated him. He was ready to yell at the costumed boy to shut up when the little Mario was no longer just a stranger, but him.

Xander saw himself, as a child, crying just like the first time he witnessed his parents fist fight each other in the living room. As a young boy, he didn’t know what to do or how to help, so he ran to get help. Child-Xander screamed at the top of his lungs for thirty minutes, hoping anyone living, walking, or driving in his neighborhood would come and stop his parents from hurting each other. But no one came. Xander went hungry that night and cried all alone in a dark room.

This mini-Xander in front of him was waiting for help—just as he had—and it was the first time in a long while that Xander felt a modicum of drive to do something other than wither away in his filthy room. He found the foreign sensation odd, but allowed it to move him. Xander raised his hand, ready to slap the crying boy as his own father would him, but the brunette boy put his little, white-gloved hands up to defend himself, arresting Xander’s movement.

The fear that he would be like his parents, like his father, made Xander want to save his younger self from his older self. He wanted to save himself so much; that he began crying. Hot tears flowed down his cheeks as he dropped to his knees and apologized; not just to the boy, but to himself.

“Hel’p mmma Maamaaa!” the boy intelligibly cried.

A request of any kind was refreshing to hear. No one had asked him to do something in what felt like forever, and Xander nodded, saying, “Okay.”

“Who the fuck are you?” the adult thug asked as he reached a gently crying Xander. At the smell of the teen, he recoiled, twisting his face away as he asked, “And why the fuck do you stink?!”

Xander stood and faced the taller, more built man. Though his body felt quite sluggish compared to the epitome of the physical prowess he had when he faced Spike, he still had more than enough experience to take on four regular humans. The middle-aged adult didn’t expect an attack, let alone a feint drop to the right, as if he was going to punch low with his right. It made the man brace for a low assault, before getting clocked in the chin with a straight right punch.

Immediately, Xander’s unconditioned knuckles were vibrating with pain, but ignored it as he walked forward, certain the adult was knocked out cold. The remaining three suddenly became far more alert to the smelly teenager. Despite being outnumbered, Xander’s body felt like it was on autopilot. The confrontation felt so expected; he wasn’t worried when they surrounded him. Like a card counter at a blackjack table, he could tell who would attack first and where they would target.

Xander wasn’t surprised when the biggest man, a six-foot-five black man with large muscles, charged first with a swing to his head. Xander stepped into the punch with his guard up, and blocked the large punch with his left arm, while rotating his body from his feet, through his waist, and then shoulders. The rotation gave Xander more momentum to knock the larger man out when the dense bone of his elbow connected with the black man’s chin.

He dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, forcing the remaining two to attack him in unison. Despite Xander getting punched in the face at the very moment he blocked the second attacker, his highly trained reaction allowed him to counter with a strike to the jaw and liver of each man with pinpoint accuracy. When the pained men stepped back in surprise, Xander attacked relentlessly, striking each one in turn. A barrage of punches and kicks to their face, neck, liver, knees, and feet. In less than a minute, three were knocked out and one was clutching his stomach in pain, groaning to be left alone.

Xander walked back up the alley to the chaos created by the Janus curse and the waiting mother and son. She was holding her crying child dearly to her chest and thanked him for saving her as he approached. Xander only grew annoyed with her. She was acting like a mother when it was the easiest; when it wouldn’t require sacrifice, and he rolled his eyes at her.

“You think I’m gonna be around to help you next time?” he coldly asked. “They’ll be back, bring more people, and I won’t be there. So, you got two choices; either you give a damn about your son, and tell them what they want, or you throw him to the wolves and save his deadbeat dad.”

Hoping to encounter a powerful demon that might stand a chance of killing him, Xander turned to leave when the large woman called out to him, “Wait! Wait… if I give you some money, would you protect us?”

Turning to her with a look of derision on his face, Xander shook his head in growing disappointment. Then irately rebuked, “Why do you hate your kid? He loves the shit out of you, but instead of returning the favor and giving him a good life, you’d rather protect the asshole you had him with. He stole money, you idiot! Get it through your thick skull that the only guy you should be considerate of is the one that’s right next to you! He didn’t do anything wrong! So why are you punishing him?!”

“Who do you think- You think just because you saved me, you have a right-”

“Shut up,” an irate Xander interrupted with a wave of his hand. Realizing the depth of his own words and how they reflected himself, he groaned in annoyance before telling the heavyset princess, “I’m just projecting. Go home before you get yourselves killed.”

Xander didn’t even let the haughty woman continue, turning to leave. The raven-haired teen found a steel pipe and spent the rest of the night fighting demons and vampires until the curse ended. Then he went home. Soon enough, it was Halloween once again, and Xander considered staying in bed, as was his only mission. But he soon felt he couldn’t do that anymore. Xander had a gnawing curiosity in his mind that wouldn’t let him sleep, and had to leave his room to find answers. He didn’t meet his friends, however. He walked through the streets of Sunnydale until he was standing in front of Ethan’s Costume Shoppe. Looking at some costumes on display, the long blue robe made him think of the one person who might help him sort out his chaotic thoughts.

The time-looper manipulated Ethan for the costume he wanted, then waited for the curse to start. Stroking his long, white, fake beard, Xander’s chief inquiry was the anomaly of Buffy’s love life and how someone so amazing could stomach being with someone so undeserving. Despite how devastated he felt, Xander needed to know the fundamental reason liars, cheaters, and bad men like Spike, Casanova, and to a lesser extent, Angel, were chosen over men that are objectively good. After all, he knew for a fact Cordelia and Willow have expressed attraction for Angel despite his being a vampire who had killed people before.

When Xander was finally taken over by the spirit of Merlin, he quickly stated the key phrase, ‘Coated in Illusions,’ then explained the situation to the sage warlock. Xander did not hold back in his retelling of everything that’s happened thus far, and far too soon, they only had a few minutes left.

Clearing his throat, the legend answered, “I lament the hardships and tribulations thou hast been forced to survive. For thee to seek me out after suffering such sorrows shows me a tremendous resilience.”

“Thanks. That’s nice to hear, really,” Xander spoke out into the pitch-black void. “But can we get to why some girls don’t make sense?”

“Of course,” Merlin’s echo-y voice said. “The presence of mutual ecstasy at finding a beautiful person, inside and out, with the rare capacity to cause thee happiness is typically expressed as love.”

“Sounds about right,” Xander said as he wondered why it couldn’t be so easy.

“A warm and inviting notion, it most certainly is,” Merlin agreed. “Twas imagined as a way of bringing an end to unhappy relationships that resulted from the old way of finding a partner; known as an arranged marriage.”

Thinking of his own wounded feelings for Buffy, Xander sadly voiced, “It seems like you’re going to say that trusting our feelings is a disaster in the making.”

From the pitch-black darkness around him, Merlin’s old voice continued saying, “The question of choosing those we fall in love with is as enigmatic as it is arduous. Because, all who subscribe to the ideology of romanticism are told, above all else, to trust thine feelings.” With squinted eyes of skepticism, Xander nodded in acknowledgment because he didn’t think there was anything wrong with trusting your feelings.

“Following thy feelings is not unlike following thy instincts,” Merlin continued. “And instinct hath been little better than calculation in underwriting the quality of our love stories.” Xander was squinting his eyes, trying to see the deeper meaning behind what the old man was saying, and figured the elder meant that intuition was usually bad at picking a significant other.

“The struggle with following one’s instinct then becomes being attracted to the familiar rather than those who genuinely care for them in ideal and moral ways.”

The Merlin-possessed-Xander reached Ethan’s and put a stop to the Janus curse, forcing Xander to kill Spike so he could loop back faster and continue talking to the sage. Again, they only had a few minutes after Xander explained everything, but at least Merlin picked up where he left off.

“Adult love can be modeled on a template of the love created in childhood, and can thus be entwined in problematic attractions in adulthood,” the wise man continued. “They may very well believe they’re seeking happiness in love, but alas, with instinct, it is more likely they’re searching for familiarity; recreating the very feelings one knows so well in childhood with a potential suitor. Some of those feelings can include wanting to comfort an adult who is often sad, out of control, being deprived of a parent’s warmth, or being scared of their anger.”

That made Xander wonder if Buffy had some sort of familiarity with men in childhood she was using to pick the men in adulthood. It was weird to think of the similarities—if any—between Buffy’s unavailable dad, Angel, and Spike, but if there was some trait in the three men that Buffy might respond to, it could be that they all may have felt unavailable to her. If she wanted her father’s attention, she could also want Angel’s and Spike’s when they don’t give it. However, without knowing Mr. Summers’ personality, Xander couldn’t be sure because he didn’t know, so kept listening.

“Oftentimes, our suffering in youth plays out in the things we’re attracted to in adulthood, Merlin said..” Is it any wonder one may reject a suitor, not because they are too wrong for them, but because they are slightly too right, and such rightness may feel foreign or unearned? Thus, that suitor is rejected because it is not the love they are familiar with.”

Xander couldn’t help but apply that premise to everyone; Buffy, Willow, Cordelia, and himself. Flashes of Buffy and Angel, or Buffy with Spike—whether his experience or Old Man Xander’s—Cordelia and himself, Willow and Oz, or Anthony and Jessica Harris all had love in them, but through the filter of time, never lasted. Is it possible that no one around Xander, including himself, truly knew what it took to choose the right person for them? It didn’t feel possible, but Xander continued listening.

“To choose partners wisely,” Merlin slowly orated. “We must suss out how certain compulsions within us may be playing themselves into our feelings of attraction. The person could stand to discover that slightly distant and or, possibly, sadistic people do always seem more interesting than what could be considered an amiable partner. That ought to make a person stop and think; for they may develop a clearer understanding that their vision of what love should feel like, may not be an especially good guide to personal happiness.”

Xander felt fairly sure he understood what Merlin was saying. The deeper meaning of his explanation and how it affected his life was right on the tip of his tongue. Fortunately, Merlin clarified by saying, “From my observation, where the feeling of love is concerned, we tend not to fall in love with those who love for us in ideal and moral ways. We fall in love with those who love us in familiar ways. This, sadly, has a high possibility of being entwined with problematic relationships.”

“Okay…” Xander gasped, feeling dizzy from the deep psychoanalysis. Without enough time at the moment to properly think about everything Merlin said, Xander simply asked, “So, if I want real or, I guess, wise love, what do I do?”

Xander could feel the smile on his possessed face before the old spirit answered, “Examining our emotional histories, we learn that we can’t simply be attracted to anyone. We’re limited in the types we have because of certain things that happened to us in our past. Now, what do you do, you ask… Know thyself, and only then willst thou be able to shift the pattern, my young time lord.”

After a few repeats with similar endings, Xander thought long and hard about what shifting the pattern meant. The only thing he could think of was to become the familiar thing a girl sees, then slowly change into someone more ideal to them. He immediately saw drawbacks, such as Cordelia becoming less attracted to him if she became wise to the subconscious root of their relationship. It almost seemed to suggest that anyone who liked him, likely didn’t understand why they did, and in that same token, anyone Xander liked was likely not the best person to like. Stomach-turning flashes of Buffy and Spike together made him agree wholeheartedly.

‘Know thyself,’ Xander randomly thought.

Waking up to the blaring alarm in his room, Xander felt the tiresome weight of a decision; to keep going or stop. Turning his head to look at He-Man, then Skeletor, Xander felt a slight ray of hope at the thought of the darker half, and vocally decided, “Fuck it. Why not?”

Xander got out of bed, but made no plans to see his friends and play the role of the Xander they were familiar with. Before he began any forward progress, Xander needed cheap thrills and began by spending dozens of day-loops in LA reconnecting with Tiffani Amber Thiessen, Pamela Anderson, Yasmine Bleeth, Christina Applegate, and though he never watched the show F·R·I·E·N·D·S, he’s seen more than enough pictures of Jennifer Aniston to figure out how to sleep with her. Fortunately, the gorgeous sex symbol was at the shit-end of a failing relationship she couldn’t stop complaining about. It didn’t take many loops to figure out the bewitching words and teasing caresses she needed to sleep with him that very night.

Xander then became Achilles, Sherlock, and the Navy SEAL dozens of times to refresh their mental patterns in his mind. He became Eitri and an Avalonian elf again and felt a sense of pride at having adopted as much of their vast knowledge as he could. To spice it up, Xander convinced Ethan to make a costume of Nikola Tesla. Though extremely knowledgeable and an amazing engineer, Xander had the hardest time recalling all the math and equations for his thought patterns after the curse lifted. The complexity of long equations, proofs, and unending lines of numbers was just too confusing for his neurons to properly retain. Lastly, it took little convincing for Ethan to make Xander a mechanic’s costume.

After gaining a general knowledge of automotive repair, Xander took the Jenny route into the week-loop, and the night with her was better than with any of the celebrities he’s slept with. He had history with Jenny, which made burying his cock into the drenched folds of her tight sex all the better. The way she’d bite her lower lip to keep from groaning in pleasure, or how her hips shivered helplessly while her pussy, overflowing with her sweet honey, meant more to Xander. He kissed her hungrily as he filled her insides with load after load of his potent seed and the lovers quivered in ecstasy.

Come morning, he only promised they would never have sex again if they did it one more time, and he repeated the Jenny route several times, since it took Xander many week-loops to learn how to rebuild a motorcycle from the ground up. At first, Xander needed a couple of loops to find a gifted mechanic in Sunnydale, then he bribed Mr. Danh with a thousand-dollar scratch-off to teach him the finer points of motorcycle repair.

Mr. Danh was a tall Vietnamese man, baby-faced with long black hair and broad shoulders. He had an offensive sense of humor that could make nuns laugh, and Xander got along well with him. With the brilliant mechanic’s help, they visited junkyards for the best option. At the mechanic’s recommendation, Xander bought a weathered 84 Suzuki GS400, then took the junkyard motorbike to his personal shop.

The old junk was in quite a state; dirty, rusted, didn’t start, malfunctioning systems, seized kick-start, missing wires, broken mirrors and lights, torn seating, and all-around unappealing. But at least the frame was intact, and the bike was dirt-cheap. Week-loop after week-loop, Mr. Danh instructed Xander through the thousand steps needed to rebuild a motorcycle to the very limits of automotive performance; From disassembly of the entire body and each system, such as braking, electrical, exhaust, and the engine block, to cleaning, welding, and repair. Even applying paint took more knowledge than the teenager expected.

From the beginning of the rebuild, there were certain things Xander couldn’t do as it would take longer than seven days to receive unique parts, so Xander used more loops to learn to fabricate what he needed from scratch, such as the crusted and torn seat. It took Xander dozens of week-loops to retain everything Mr. Danh had to teach him, then longer to do it at a professional level. Fortunately, he had a lot of heartache to ignore and nothing else to divide his attention. When the old mechanic rarely needed to tell him anything, the time-looper felt ready to move on.

To save the lives of his lackluster parents, Xander didn’t need to think hard to come up with a plan. He bought a Powerball Lottery ticket with the winning numbers for the 5th of November and used it to bargain with his parents. The night of the fifth, his parents were in their unkempt living room watching TV when Xander walked in and argued with them until they changed the channel to the drawing. From a manila folder, he took out two sheets of paper with six numbers written on them, and handed them to his parents.

Eyeballing the paper with the numbers 2, 19, 24, 28, 35, and 26 written on it, the confused Anthony asked his son, “What’s this?”

“I bought a lotto ticket,” Xander casually told them as he sat down and laid the folder down on the counter. “Those are the numbers I picked.”

Anthony snickered as he mouthed, “Jesus, boy. Here’s a free piece of advice; wait a few years before you start making dumb decisions with your money. Garbage like this is just going to keep you stupid and poor.”

His mother shook her head as she snickered, but Xander said nothing and just showed them his authentic ticket. This was already the fifth week-loop, and he’d heard it before.

Pointing sternly at his son, Anthony asserted, “You ought to be paying us for all the food we buy. Feeding you ain’t getting any easier. You grow like a weed and are just as useless.” They snickered and joked about the futility of the lottery until the numbers were called. With each number, Jessica sat up a little straighter on the couch, and when all of his numbers were picked—as they had in the previous loops—his parents jumped and screamed at the top of their lungs with unadulterated joy.

Xander moved into the most spacious spot between the couch and the entrance of the living room for more elbow room. His exuberant father then walked up to his son and reached for the ticket, but Xander pulled back, looking at their jubilant faces falter with stern stoicism.

His mother was the first to realize, “You’re a minor. You can’t-”

“I know I’m not allowed to buy a ticket,” Xander casually interrupted. “But I happen to know a gas station clerk who couldn’t care less. I’m offering you guys a deal.”

The parents looked at each other before Jessica asked, “What deal?”

Xander proceeded to bluntly tell them, “We’re the exact opposite of a super caring family. So, I propose we go our separate ways. I stay here in Sunnydale, and you guys go travel the world and do whatever you want, so long as it’s not here.”

Growing angry already, Anthony gasped, “The fucking nerve of you, you ungrateful-”

Xander interrupted him, saying, “If you do everything I ask—everything—then you get this sixty million-dollar ticket.”

“Everything you ask- Boy! We’re your parents,” Anthony argued, taking a threatening step closer to his son. “You do what we tell you!”

“Anthony,” his mother called, asking him with her eyes to change his tact. Anthony backed off as she asked, “What do you want?”

“Not much,” Xander answered his mother. “You sign legal papers emancipating me. You give me the house, fully paid for. For the next five years, you give me a million per year. You’ll also have to leave Sunnydale without telling anyone you won the lotto, and I mean no one; family, friends, coworkers, drinking buddies, no one. Just leave.”

Anthony couldn’t stand it and stood right in front of his son, glaring at him as he threatened, “If you don’t give us that ticket, you don’t get any of that money.”

“Don’t need it,” Xander calmly told his father. “I have no problems ripping this piece of paper up right here.”

“How could you hate us so much?” his mother asked, as if she were a victim of abuse. “After everything we’ve done for you.”

Having heard that fake tone before, Xander ignored it as he casually answered, “I don’t hate you, mom. I just don’t want you here.”

“Let me see it,” Anthony asked. “To make sure it’s real.”

Xander handed his father the winning ticket for their inspection, and the parents huddled together to look it over. In previous week-loops, he didn’t give it to them because it was so obvious why they wanted it, but as that never worked out, Xander switched tactics. His parents snickered and heaved together in grand relief, and Xander asked, “Do we have a deal?”

Putting the ticket in his pocket before clapping a comforting hand on Xander’s shoulder, Anthony took a deep breath and eyed his son with empathy. “Listen, son. I may not have always treated you the best. I’m man enough to admit it. But you’re my blood, and a real father never abandons his blood. So don’t worry about deals or anything like that. With this golden ticket, the Harris family’ll be living in prime luxury for the rest-”

“No,” Xander called out, easily grabbing his father’s wrist, and twisted it. Anthony groaned in pain as Xander forced the man onto his knee, then reached for the ticket. When Anthony tried to fight the lock, Xander twisted harder, corralling his father’s attempt to break free by threatening to break his wrist.

As he searched for the lotto ticket, his mother yelled, “Xander! You’re hurting him! You’re hurting him!” Once he had the ticket in his hand again, Xander shoved his father back, who instantly massaged the pain out of his wrist. “How could you do that to your own father?!” Jessica Harris yelled.

“You have two options and only two options,” Xander yelled over them, shutting them up. “Agree to all of my terms and you get to live the life of luxury you’ve always dreamed of. Or, I destroy this ticket right here and you get nothing but the memory of what could’ve been if you weren’t acting so prideful.”

“...You wouldn’t,” his father dared.

Looking at them with heavy skepticism, Xander asked, “You really think I want to be around you two any longer than I have to?”

“You rip that ticket, you’ll be around us a lot longer,” the cherry-blonde mother noted.

“Don’t care,” Xander quickly rebuked. “Barely see you two as it is. Worse comes to worst, I’ll just move out.” His parents remained silent, and the room felt like a giant game of chicken, however, Xander wasn’t waiting long for an answer. Elevating the ticket in front of them, the thumb and index of each hand gripped the middle of the rectangular paper. Ready to rip it, he asked, “No? Okay-”

His arms barely made the motion before they yelled in unison, “WAIT, WAIT, WAIT! OKAY!”

“Okay. Deal,” Jessica hastily finished. “It’s a deal.”

“Good,” Xander cheerfully replied. The prepared teen grabbed the manila folder and slammed it on the coffee table, telling them, “I have a contract for you to sign that outlines everything I just said. Think of it as insurance, just in case you renege afterward and I have to send it to the authorities and they take it all back.”

Aghast by her son’s behavior, the mother asked in disbelief, “You’d go that far?”

Without a hint of sadness, the teenager nodded before stating, “I know it’s excessive, mom, but that’s only because I don’t trust either of you. As soon as it’s notarized, you get your ticket.” Though the parents signed the contract, his father looked upset, prompting Xander to joke, “Don’t look too happy, dad.”

His father only grumbled, “All that money, and people’ll just say I’m a dead-beat father for taking it and leaving you here.”

Shaking his head, Xander reassured his father, “First and foremost, you are a dead-beat father. Don’t ever doubt that.” Anthony tightened his unshaved jaw as he held back his anger. “Second, it’s my choice to stay here. Not yours. Third, I mean it when I say NO ONE LEARNS ABOUT YOUR WINNINGS! They don’t need to know! Just tell people you’re going on a much-needed vacation, and don’t come back.”

Xander had his parents start by leaving messages with attorneys’ offices to meet in the morning. With an attorney, they arranged Xander’s emancipation and notarized the deal before he handed them the winning ticket. The lawyer told him it would take a few weeks for everything to be finalized, but it was all in motion. When Xander was ready to make it to the one-month loop, he restarted from Halloween and happily took the Jenny route.

He used the week-loop to buy the scratchers for quick cash, then made his deal with Pete to work at Wild Dinks. Xander bought the junkyard 84 Suzuki GS400 motorcycle, ordered the parts he’ll need for the rebuild, bought the winning Powerball ticket, passed his driver’s license test for all the legal paperwork, exercised like a madman, destroyed Ted, then anonymously tipped the police off about its bunker. On the Scooby front, Xander begrudgingly warned Buffy about Ford, involved Angel when she didn’t believe him, made his deal with his parents, met with a lawyer to begin all the legal paperwork, and happily told Buffy off for not believing him more.

Xander’s tone was certainly harsher than before, but he couldn’t help the anger at the sight of her. Seeing her around school more alive than in the last long loop was grueling for his angry heart. His mind would torture him with images of Buffy underneath Spike, like disgusting animals, and it was enough for Xander to make excuses to leave; not that Buffy or Willow minded that much. As ever, they were too preoccupied with Angel’s love for Buffy to worry about him too much.

Once Xander passed the week-loop, he truly got to work. He had to deal with the Mark of Eyghon first, showing Willow the section on how it transferred from body to body, telling her to get Angel, begrudgingly saving Buffy from Ethan’s tattooing, then helping save Jenny from the monstrous demon. After a solid day of forging, he went to comfort her that night and the pair ended up sleeping together all night. Come morning, Xander feigned understanding when Jenny wanted to keep things strictly professional, then left.

Xander didn’t have to follow Buffy to her date with Angel to know where Kendra was going to be. As before, he approached her, spoke to her, offered her a place to stay, then slept with her. The combination of his experience, technique, and her complete surprise at the pleasure he could make her feel, made her climax around his cock more times than ever before. Even still, the beautiful Jamaican slayer was gone by morning, and by noon, Xander and Cordelia checked Buffy’s house, where they shared their first kiss for the umpteenth time.

After escaping the Latvian worm-assassin, Xander and Cordelia rushed to the library, where they officially met Kendra as the second Vampire Slayer. The beautiful Jamaican helped Buffy retrieve the weakened Angel, and in the final fight, they brought the abandoned church down on Drusilla and Spike. As before, Xander asked for Kendra’s help to retrieve the Du Lac cross so he could make his enhanced weapons. Despite her nervousness around him, talking to her made the ebony slayer feel more at ease. Xander had Kendra pass along his phone number to Zabuto so he could yell at her watcher for the idiotic way he had been training her.

Xander called Jenny and, aside from flirting with the adult beauty, he asked for her help in locating the details of Angel’s curse. Though Xander thought about letting Buffy learn about Angel’s curse the hard way, he didn’t feel right about putting innocent lives in danger just to spite her.

With the gold from Du Lac’s melted cross, he spent the weekend forging Dreadnought with more skill and focus than ever before. It took Xander three long weeks of intense labor, but after reciting the invocation, he was nearly blinded by the amount of light the infusion of magic produced. His lovely murder weapon felt electric in his hands, and Xander was thrilled to feel even more power in his axe than ever before. It cut through anything without losing its sharp edge, and the healing enhancement was much more effective; even helping him ease the muscle soreness from his intense daily workouts.

In the month since he gave Anthony and Jessica Harris the winning lottery ticket, they were checking off the tasks to be completed efficiently. Of the payment options the Lottery office offered, his parents selected the annual payments of two million dollars rather than the one lump sum, as Xander insisted, fearing they’d spend the entire amount at once if they didn’t take the annuity. With the first payout, they quit their jobs, paid off the remaining balance on the house, provided Xander with a personal bank account with a balance of a million dollars, rushed his emancipation, and transferred the house to his name. The eager and jubilant parents already decided on New York for their first stop across the world and the last thing they needed to do before they left was decide what they wanted to take with them.

The first week of December, Xander saw his parents off with no plans to ever see them again. Three sober Harrises stood awkwardly next to the taxi in front of their—now, Xander’s—home. Aside from the clothes on their backs, they only had three suitcases filled with their sentimental items. Anything else they needed, they were happy to buy brand new. The teen wasn’t sure where they were going to live between traveling, but he figured they could take care of themselves. The only thing he asked of them was that they call, mail, or email him with every location change in case he needed to contact them.

With a quick, “Have fun and don’t die,” from Xander; Jessica and Anthony Harris left Sunnydale and all the evils they were oblivious to for a hopefully long life of luxury. Watching the taxi drive away, Xander felt an odd sense of detached loss, like finishing a mediocre TV series; it wasn’t amazing, but it was on for all of his life, and now it finally finished. Ultimately, he preferred this over their deaths, shrugged, and returned to the garage to work on his bike.

Later in school, Xander considered telling his friends about the significant change in his life, since it felt odd not to mention it, but when he got an egg for the class project, his news had to wait. Xander faked accidentally dropping the egg in the library to discover the evil parasite within and the gang took care of the mother Bezoar the same day. Rather than visit Cordelia afterward, he returned to his garage to keep working.

Rebuilding and modifying the junkyard motorcycle into a versatile, on-and-off-road scrambler bike turned out to be a bigger undertaking than he covered in the week-loops. All the parts he ordered were in and stacked in the garage’s corner, ready to be installed, however, the list of tasks was long. His scrambler bike was going to take a lot of work.

Xander fabricated different handlebars; replaced the tires with beefy off-road ones; repaired the rear lights, front lights, and turn signals; disassembled and cleaned the engine block; installed a supercharger; fabricated exhaust piping for the supercharger; replaced the headlight mount; installed a quieter muffler; replaced the grips; cleaned, repaired, and painted the gas tank; created a custom license plate bracket; painted everything stealth black; installed new & improved shocks; fabricated a custom seat; changed the front fender and rims; fabricated or modified stock parts as necessary; and installed new maintenance parts, such as filters, seals, rubbers, and fork gaiters.

Frustrated with another stripped bolt, Xander offhandedly wondered why he didn’t just buy a new motorcycle, since he had the money now. Then he thought, ‘It’s not like Batman would buy the Batmobile at a dealership.’ Additionally, for the missions he had percolating in his mind, he would need to know how to repair any damage his bike might sustain.

Growing impatient, Xander encouraged Jenny to work faster by mentioning how close he was to tracing the Romani people, and she handed him a printed translation within a handful of days. Rather than seeing Buffy and Angel at the same time, he just went to Angel. He gave him the evidence and warned him what would happen if he stayed with Buffy. Though Angel didn’t take it well and got in his face about it, Xander didn’t feel anywhere near as bad as he had the first few times he did this. It made him wonder if he was becoming numb to their heartache or losing more of his compassion with every loop.

‘Or Buffy fucking Spike,’ a small, wicked voice reminded him.

Holding back his choking ire in his chest, he bluntly asked the tall vampire, “How do you think Angelus would torture Buffy if he came back?”

Angel grew angry enough to show his vampire face, but even if he didn’t have Odin’s ring yet, Xander wasn’t bothered in the least. The pale vampire retracted his demon face, then kicked the teenager out just as Buffy was walking up to his apartment.

“Xander?” she asked curiously, and as ever, his stomach tightened at the sight of her. The confused blonde asked, “What are you doing here?”

He hadn’t expected to see her and just told her, “You should talk to Angel,” before walking past her.

Xander assumed Buffy was with Angel all night, since he saw her the following morning on the way back from his run wearing the same outfit. She was on his front porch dressed in the same blue jeans and pink spaghetti-strapped top, and looked a mixture of tortured and furious at the sight of him. Angel, no doubt, broke up with her, but looking at her red-rimmed eyes and irate face, it was clear she blamed him. Xander didn’t care. He felt nothing but pain. Having been forced to see the girl he loved more than anyone hook up with Spike, the pain scale felt fairly balanced to him.

Three feet from her, Buffy yelled, “How could you?”

Sweaty from his run, Xander just wanted to get to Dreadnought to heal his pain and casually asked, “Wanna come in?”

Stepping in front of him, keeping him from the steps of his porch, Buffy demanded, “Just answer me! No- Never mind,” Buffy cut herself off as the truth sprang to her mind. “I know exactly why you, of all people, would do this!”

Shaking his sweaty head, making his damp black hair mess about, Xander replied, “Uh, you mean to stop the demon half of your vampire boyfriend from murdering people, maybe? Pretty sure I did everyone a solid.”

Repulsed by his assertion, the angry girl stepped closer as she argued, “Do not pretend this had anything to do with saving lives! This was always about you! The only reason you did all that research was so you could figure out a way to break us up!”

Xander stepped forward as well, finding the retribution he was denied due to his looping. This Buffy may not have been the one that was with Spike, but she was certainly wrong here, and Xander had no problem stating, “And the only reason you’re so pissed off at me is because you think I’m some sort of doormat you can walk all over when your precious little feelings get hurt!”

Though thoroughly angry, he could tell she was also surprised by his sudden daring. It must’ve been ludicrous to her that he had any other option but to feel deep remorse, however, Xander was done with that. That boy was gone. He kept reciprocating, “But guess what, Buffy! I don’t care anymore! You can be angry at me all you want. It’s not going to change the fact that you can’t be with him!”

She looked at him like she was ready to hit him. He even heard her fist tighten, however, she restrained herself since he was only human and she was strong enough to kill him. Xander didn’t care about that either, and touted to the heartbroken slayer.

“Oh, you want to hit me now, Buffy? Go ahead! Hit me! Take it all out on me. It’s what you’re good at, right?” Moving much closer, the incensed Xander glared into her beautiful greenish-blue eyes as he yelled, “Don’t you feel betrayed? Huh? Like it’s some unspoken rule that we’re all supposed to ignore the risks to our lives just so you can feel loved by a dead guy.” In mocking, he snidely taunted, “Dumb jealous Xander couldn’t stand to see the girl he loves getting rear-ended by the dead-dick of a fucking fanged corpse-”

Due to the close distance, the super strong and pissed-off slayer slapped Xander so hard across the face, everything instantly went black before he could even react.