I put on the zeppo cause I love it, and I had the thought of what if xander hadn't survived that episode? what if he'd became a zombie?
the whole plan was to resurrect him immediately, just like o'toole obviously had been, so it's not like it's really... noticeable. that he's dead. they didn't get him anywhere obvious, nowhere anyone would be seeing anyway. if he changed his clothes it'd just look like he got in a bit of a scrap and nothing more.
he doesn't tell anyone how he saved the day in his own special way that night. he doesn't speak up about the whole being dead thing, either.
the big noticeable sign that something's wrong is that he stops eating. when he does snack runs, or sits with the scoobies during lunch, he doesn't ever actually eat anything in front of them anymore. he doesn't drink, he doesn't seem to consume anything at all. surprisingly to xander, it's giles who either notices first, or simply decides to say something first. and xander shrugs it off, as he always shrugs everything off. maybe he's just grown a better palette, or maybe he's just trying to eat healthier, or, hey, who knows what goes into the cafeteria food, ever think of that? so he's fine. really.
and, sure, maybe it hurts that none of the closest people in his life nor his parents have noticed he's dead yet, but. well. guess that just means he's done a good job keeping it on the down-low, or whatever.
then, during a research party about their latest big bad, when xander decides to stretch and call it a night, his hand tears off and falls smack dab into willow's open book. there's silence. buffy and giles are frozen across the table. willow slowly turns to look up at him. xander leans down to stare at his hand. then willow screams, throwing her book and xander's hand away from her. giles stumbles away from the table, rushing for a weapon, any weapon he can immediately grab. buffy leaps out of her chair and across the table, slamming xander down onto the ground. xander would nervously laugh if he could move his chest under buffy's hand.
buffy shouts at giles to hurry up! before she begins to question xander. who are you, what are you, what have you done with the real xander? xander wheezes and motions her to get off of him so he can even talk. not that he needs air now, exactly, but talking doesn't happen without it. he tries to reassure her that he is the real xander! willow would know! willow could tell you!
they go through the whole song and dance. kind of literally. once they're sure, it's giles who asks the dreaded how long. how long have has he been.... because it's glaringly obvious neither of the girls are going to. whether they're aren't ready for the answer or simply don't want to know, they weren't going to be the ones to ask. he raises his arm to scratch at the back of his neck, and his hand twitches from across the room. willow shudders. after a moment, xander awkwardly confesses he died the night they were all fighting the creature from the hellmouth.
he died when they'd all left him out, pushed him away, tried to protect him by keeping him out of the dangerous parts of their world. he died because he was in it alone.
all three of them space out, doing the mental calculations. it's willow, again, who reacts first, bursting into sudden tears. oh, god, giles breathes. buffy turns pale, looking as though she's seconds away from either completely shutting down or blowing up. despite the chaos he's caused, xander edges his way around the group for his detached hand. cringing, he turns and asks if maybe they could help him... put it back... on. willow seems to cry even harder. giles looks like he doesn't even comprehend the question. buffy swallows and nods. yeah, she says. we got you.
so xander holds his hand up to his wrist, and giles leaves to find one of many first aid kits he's prepared in case for what was originally supposed to only ever hopefully be used for buffy, and willow's sobs fade into hiccups as she tries to think of a spell that could help dead flesh heal, and buffy leads xander to sit up on the table as she waits with him. with the other two occupied, buffy hesitantly asks how he died. they know the when, now, but not. what happened. and xander squirms, because it's... kind of embarrassing, really. out of everything in their insane lives, he was taken out with a simple knife. so he jokes, and says while they were all prepared for vampires, no one ever saw the zombies coming. and buffy grimaces because she knows he's giving her a non-answer, but pushing isn't exactly a scooby special. so they just go back to silence instead.
when giles is stitching him back together, willow still searching for a spell, and buffy is leaning into xander's free side, xander confesses he got ganged up on. there was a guy, who'd been, uh, harassing him, in school and out of. except it turned out the guy was a zombie, and he'd been using xander to cart him and his other zombie friends around. and then they'd all wanted to turn xander into a zombie too. so they grabbed him and stabbed him. repeatedly. and resurrected him pretty much straight after he'd died. which, compared to the other guys, really, he says with forced grin, at least he still looked okay, so it's not like the worst deal in the world. willow clutches onto her book so hard the pages wrinkles. giles accidentally pokes him with the needle. buffy grabs onto his free hand so fiercely it hurts, but he lets her anyway.
and, and, willow sniffles, this all happened... while we were.... dealing with the hellmouth... without you, buffy quietly finishes for her. giles mournfully says, you were trying to get my attention, weren't you? and I.... xander's shoulders twitch, because he can't really shrug while they're fixing him up, but he tells them all that's it's okay. it's weird, but he's. surprisingly okay, all things considered. honestly. he's still their xan-man, just a little undead now.
the rest of the night is quiet after that. willow either finds a spell or makes one, he's not sure, because once giles is done she takes over and says something that seems to get his skin to rebind, like it never tore in the first place. she says to leave the stitches in all the same though, because they provide more structure for her magic to work around, see? he grouses that soon enough he'll start to look like frankenstein if this keeps up. giles opens his mouth and then closes it again. buffy grabs a bandage he doesn't need and wraps it around his wrist. so no one will notice, she says resolutely. which, xander thinks is a little counter-intuitive, but he smiles and thanks her all the same.
when he finally heads out like he wanted to earlier, he thinks he can hear something crash and voices start to rise as the door shuts behind him, but he doesn't turn to check.
it's not really brought up again after. sometimes, he needs a little touch-up from willow's magic or giles' threadwork, but generally he's just xander-who's-also-a-zombie. it's not too bad. during the summer of s3, willow visibly frets over not being able to take care of him if he's out traveling. he says that if he doesn't do it now, he might never get the chance! it makes her cry, which he swears he hadn't meant to do, but he promises he'll call her, okay? he'll call and keep her updated, so none of them will have to worry so much. they don't spend a ton of the summer chatting, but every time he gets to have both wil and buff on the line is his favourite moments.
when he comes back, after he's seen buffy all on her own and secretly tells her he never actually made it all that far, but at least he was out of sunnydale, y'know? and then finally gets to meet up with both of them, does he realize they look... different. not crazy different, but... there's change in them both. and he's still... exactly the same. his hair doesn't even grow anymore unless willow spells it to. and it suddenly hits him in a way that it did not before that he is going to be eighteen forever. his friends will grow up and the world around him will change and he is dead, and his body will only ever be dead, and he's like the rock in the stream. he will never move other than to be worn away.
the freshman year is not kind to the scoobies. xander takes everything especially hard, especially worse.
doesn't help when spike apparently joins the group. like, come on, xander is buffy's resident dead guy! they just got rid of angel, why is spike here?! spike doesn't much like him, either, because he's just wrong. the dead aren't supposed to get worse. they don't get along, except sometimes they do, because who else gets the dead guy jokes better than the other dead guy? it's annoying. they don't talk about it.
when willow introduces tara, it sort of hurts, until she's about the sweetest thing he's ever met. she offers to help willow with his healing spell, if he'd like, or if that would be too personal then she doesn't have to, and really maybe she shouldn't have said anything— xander's always had a mean jealous streak, but it's hard to hate someone like her.
riley inspires an odd mix of oh god he'd probably put me in a cell like spike and I could probably be friends with this guy. buffy has a rough go of trying to balance her new bf and all of her magical friends. the real kicker is when he freaks out about seeing xander's skin catch on something and tear off, though. xander sheepishly explains he's actually a zombie. as riley cautiously backs away, and buffy rolls her eyes and drags him outside. when she comes back inside, her face is wet and red, and she says that... they got into a little fight, but it's fine. riley's still willing to help them, alright? and he does, but xander still feels like he's the reason his best friend is having boyfriend troubles. they don't get back together, and riley never becomes his friend. but they appreciate his help all the same, and riley in turn thanks them for helping him when it's all over.
when the scoobies make up, xander hugs the girls so hard they squeak, and he buys giles extra jellies as a quiet thank you for still patching him up even when all of them were starting to fight. during the summer of s4, things are quieter, besides that first awful nightmare he had. the whole group simply hangs out, sans spike. except when he goes to hang out with spike at the bronze, but they don't talk about that, either.
his friends keep changing, and he stares at himself in the mirror as he counts his stitches.
xander tries to find a new job, come s5. it's harder than he expected. or maybe just hoped. he thinks he'd almost empathize with the way vampires live, trapped underground in dank basements, if they weren't evil and constantly trying to kill his friends. he takes odd jobs here and there, though his favourite was a class where he helped people learn how to start carving. night pizza is unfortunately is still the job that sticks around the longest, however. always in need of new hires.
despite of or maybe because of being a zombie, dawn's always taken the biggest shine to him. no matter how it's like now with the scoobies, he remembers when they excluded him for his own safety. he remembers that it, if not directly, is what lead to his death. so as dawn grows older and things are starting to get dangerous, he suggests that maybe buffy should start... not keeping her in the supernatural loop, exactly, but at least showing her how to defend herself. how to safely get out of a bad situation. she's already in it. it's worse if she can't help herself. and buffy reluctantly agrees, because the proof is standing in front of her. they all happily ignore how he died for the sake of dawn.
when giles opens the magic box, he tentatively offers xander a job. xander would hug the guy if that was allowed. he helps giles build a training room for buffy and dawn and he watches as willow gleefully wanders around and he snickers as giles struggles with customers and he thinks things are finally coming up xander.
when they learn about glory, xander practically watches as the world crumbles in around them. when they learn about dawn, xander hopes he just suggested dawn-training soon enough to matter.
joyce dies. he puts his hand through a wall and it doesn't come back out with his arm. he apologies when willow has to fix it for him right before they're supposed to meet with buffy. she tells him she loves him. he says it back. they do their best to look after the summers sisters with giles, after they've taken care of each other.
dawn tries to summon her mom as a zombie. though neither sister has spilled any detail of that night apart from that simple fact, xander knows she must've gotten the idea from him. he's glad it didn't work. being a zombie isn't all it's cracked up to be.
tara gets mind-sucked. they run for their lives in a big van spike apparently stole for them. giles won't stop sniping with spike and xander still gets motion sick even when he's undead. when dawn gets taken, when they all fail to protect her, he watches as buffy disappears into herself the way he wondered if she might back when he revealed he was actually dead. willow takes over with buffy out of commission, and he can't express how much he much he loves to see her confident like that, but he does his best by following her lead.
in the end, buffy dies. he feels as though his body must be falling apart with her. willow tells him a secret plan she's got, though, over the summer, and he keeps fixing himself back together because giles seems to have slowly stopped without any of them realizing that's what's been going on beforehand.
when they bring buffy back, xander doesn't get it. he doesn't understand what's... wrong with her. he died and came back just fine. generally. so why didn't she?
and then they learn where she'd gone when she died. and, for a moment that immediately makes him feel guilty after, xander wonders why he didn't as well.
when giles leaves for england, again, xander wonders if maybe the scoobies are finally breaking up. tara literally broke up with willow, and buffy feels as if she's still more dead than he is, and willow is always off doing who knows what, and xander... has his jobs, and nothing else, really. it's like they're all back in college all over again. it sucks. and without willow around, he realizes that, no matter when you're resurrected, the body always rots eventually.
when tara moves away and buffy gets shot in the chest and willow tries to end all of humanity after saving buffy's life, xander saves the world with his super awesome power of loving his friends a whole lot. it feels good. dawn rolls her eyes every time he makes a joke about it, and buffy starts to smiles more, and willow. is also gone. with giles. and even though buffy is finally getting better, there's a heavy spot in both their hearts as they comes to terms with the fact that he's getting worse.
one night, he somberly asks buffy if she'd be willing to... slay him, before he rotted away entirely. because that doesn't sound like a very nice way to die. again. and buffy, in an echo, tells him, yes. she's got him.
they keep it a secret. xander's kind of getting tired of those.
it turns out, when giles sent willow home to them, she was so nervous she made herself invisible. she cries when she finally sees them, though, and even harder once they're all safe and she realizes she's not been around to heal him. he's hard-pressed not to join her at any point. she hugs him delicately and promises she'll keep fixing him. she'll fix him forever. and she's sorry she's been so distracted lately, even if the distraction was for a good reason. he looks at buffy over her head and then hides his face in wil's hair.
spike's apparently been killing people again. except he doesn't even remember doing it, so buffy doesn't feel right dusting him, despite the fact everyone else is team kill spike. he bites andrew though, which is kind of gratifying if startling to witness. so, whatever. fine. he'll help her help spike. give him a place to sleep on the couch since his apartment's only got the one bedroom. but he thinks he should get to rub it in spike's face that he's still the better dead guy.
giles pops up on their doorstep with a whole gaggle of girls, and he finds he doesn't appreciate when some of them gasp at the sight of him. when he's out of the room, he hears a couple of them whisper, was he in an accident? do you think it was a demon? it's been a while since he's felt particularly motivated to check out a mirror, but once he does, he sort of gets it. he hadn't realized the damage had spread so severely. he'd just gotten used to willow and giles and buffy all patching him up, and none of them ever reacted anymore. and maybe he'd would've been able to connect with the girls more, as he abruptly realizes he's now closer to their age than his friends', but he guesses that's out the window when they're all too freaked out to actually talk to him. god, he does not miss being in high school.
when giles tells them he's a zombie, nevermind that he keeps talking about how xander is their friend and is not and has never been a threat to them, he notices the girls either skitter around the edges of the rooms he's in or are overtly in his space, like they've all got some quiet game going on that none of the adults are aware of. what irritates him though is that they do the same with spike, and that it gives them even more to relate about. they, of course, don't talk about this.
s7 is difficult with all the girls and the first, but with scoobies all having each other's backs, it's not near as bad as some of the other years as have been for xander. for them all. he hopes.
the biggest problem for xander is when his eye one day slips out and doesn't go back in. willow's borderline hysterical when her spell doesn't seem to be working, and buffy does her best to deescalate the situation, no matter how overwhelmed she is as well. giles gets him an eyepatch a day later. he doesn't even crack a grin when he comes home with it, but xander puts it on and makes a silly hook with his stitched up fingers anyway.
buffy takes some of the girls on a mission and comes back with less. everything goes to all hell when him and wils and dawn all try and make the argument that buffy needs to take a break and the potentials decide that they're taking it a lot more steps further and overthrowing her as leader with faith. in the heat of the moment, dawn says that buffy should leave. so she does. dawn says she didn't mean it, not really, she doesn't actually want buffy to go, and xander gets saying something mean when you're angry. he gets dawn a lot.
they wait for buffy to come home. spike tears them all a new one, and leaves to go find her. when she does return, she comes back with a shiny new red axe-stake-weapon, and a plan. they apologize. the potentials don't. buffy stares at xander before pulling him into a hug. and he knows why, because he'd hate for that to have been their last interaction. and he hates that they wasted their time fighting too when he's not got a lot of time left, no matter which way this battle goes. willow doesn't quite understand, but she gladly joins in when they pull her into them.
buffy heads downstairs with spike. willow grabs xander's patched up hand and drags him upstairs. it almost feels like when he and wil used to have impromptu sleepovers, except they might all die tomorrow instead of xander simply needing to sneak home by morning. they spend it talking like kids again nonetheless.
sunnydale becomes a big crater in the ground, thanks to spike. which, xander totally hates, by the way, because that means spike is the better undead guy. or maybe they're even. either way, he lost right at the very end, and spike doesn't even get to laugh about it because he's dead-dead. dust. but buffy's smiling, nevermind the tears in her eyes, so xander supposes it's not all bad.
it's not very long until xander finally goes to buffy and asks to cash in his wish. they won against the big bad, the first evil. buffy's not just not the only slayer anymore, but she's got an entire globe of slayers to support her. willow's got buffy still and she's been making friends with other witches. xander's... not needed anymore, like he feels like he was before. he knows he's wanted. he knows he's loved. but they don't need him, and the rotting never stops.
when they finally tell willow what they agreed to, she can't believe them. she says she needs him, they both do! they always have! he's been with her since they were five! and he kisses her forehead and hugs her as tight as his decrepit body can when she sobs, because his willow's always been a crier and he loves her. but he knows she understands why he's asking to be let go, because she carefully shrugs out of his hold and instead insists that she be the one to do it. buffy hesitates, because it's not like she wants to, but it can't be better to put willow through this. except willow says she can sort of in a sense reverse all the healing spells she's done, since it can from a harmful spell she simply modified, and it'll probably be easier on all of them than whatever buffy or him might've had in mind. so he agrees.
it doesn't hurt near as much as he'd been expecting it to. and he doesn't want his last thoughts to be about possible nerve damage, so he instead he thinks about how he technically made it out of sunnydale, if not exactly before he died. he wishes giles was there but focuses how buffy and willow are and how they always have been, and he loves them. he loves them.
and then he's freed.
