Title: Acid Trip
Author: Yahtzee

Summary: Xander takes a long, strange trip.
Rating: FRT
Setting: This story takes place in the fourth season between the episodes "SomethingBlue" and "Hush". Disclaimer: The characters herein are the creations of Joss Whedon and the property of Mutant Enemy Productions and Warner Brothers. This story is written without permission, intent of infringement, or expectation of profit.

Note: Illegal drug use is referenced within; while this is not portrayed as positive behavior nor as a habit of Xander's, you should know that this is included. Also, this story contains descriptions of a m/f sexual encounter; it's not [FRAO], but those who are underage should use their best judgment.

"You want to copulate with her."

"Anya, no." Xander held his hands up in front of him. "Most of the time, the jealousy thing is cute. But I am finding this very uncute."

"YOU'RE getting angry with ME?" Anya's eyes went wide. Her hands were balled into fists, and Xander had the sudden sure knowledge that he could end up ontheir receiving end.

"I'm not angry. I'm just saying that this being human deal is a little new to you, and you might be jumping to the wrong conclusions --"

"New to me?" Anya stepped close and Xander unconsciously flinched. "I spent over a thousand years working vengeance on unfaithful men. I putrefied the entrails of unfaithful men. I extracted the livers of --"

"Got the picture by now, Anya."

"Well, wouldn't you agree that I can recognize an unfaithful man when I see one?"

"I've never been unfaithful to you."

"You were unfaithful to Cordelia," Anya pointed out. "So I should have known better. I should have known you really wanted Willow all along."

"Anya, we're not gonna get anywhere if you drag Cordelia into this. Where Cordelia is, sanity is not," Xander sighed. "I was hanging out with Willow. Talking. That's all. That's fair, right?"

"Talking is fair. Talking and wanting to copulate is not fair."

"Anya --" Xander was out of breath, out of words. Because she had him, dead to rights. Sure, it had been a while since he'd last thought of Willow that way. But she was still pretty, still sweet, still closer to him than just about anyone else. And lately Willow seemed to be making more time for him; she seemed to get a lot out of being together. He got a charge out of it. She did too. Maybe his thoughts wandered -- that way -- from time to time. Like this afternoon. No problem, not really, at least not until Anya walked up on them in the ice cream place and started making a major scene.

"We were having a good time," he admitted. "But she's my friend. You're my girlfriend. Even if that could change, I wouldn't want it to."

Anya looked at him for a few minutes as she weighed that. Then she shook her head. "I don't believe you."

"Then I can't help you."

Anya's face softened as her jaw dropped in shock. "So this is breaking up?"

"No, it's not," Xander said, taking her hand. "Come on, Anya, think this over--"

She pulled her hand back. "It is too breaking up. I know all the signs. My eyes are getting watery, and I want to hug you and hit you at the same time, and there's this weird craving for chocolate that I don't understand, but it's there." Anya's voice choked off in a sob, which seemed to surprise her. "I don't like this. I hate this! It hurts!"

"So don't do it. Let's skip the breaking up and move right to the making up --"

"You mean sex," Anya said, eyes narrowing again. "That's what they all mean."

"No," Xander said, trying hard to pretend that wasn't what he'd meant.

"No wonder I used to get so much work," Anya said. With that, she ran up the basement steps. A few moments later, Xander heard the front door slam shut.

He slumped down on his bed, exhausted and upset and wishing vaguely for a time machine; he could just pop back to, oh, 4 p.m., say, "Hey, I'm not your evil vampire twin; I'm just telling you not to split a double-scoop of Daiquiri Ice with Willow," and come back to find Anya happy and waiting for him. Maybe even in the same bed where he was now lying alone except for a Pop Tarts wrapper from breakfast. Surrounded by basement walls that leaked when it rained and sometimes when it didn't. Where the smells of mildew and All-Tempa-Cheer were locked in a perpetual battle for dominance. With Uncle Rory overhead, sleeping off his latest hangover or earning another one.

"This officially sucks," Xander declared to the Pop Tarts wrapper. "I am not hanging around here."

His first impulse was to call Buffy for some serious moping. Then again, lots of things had changed, but Buffy was still the honorary grand marshal of Xander's failed love affairs. Besides, calling Buffy's room meant calling Willow's room, and that was probably a bad idea at the moment. She would still be washing Daiquiri Ice out of her sweater.

Spike was -- NOT an option.

Giles, maybe? Although Xander had never made a habit of confiding in Giles, he knew he could if he needed to. But then, he'd feel like a sadistic loser complaining to Giles about a girl walking out on him. He couldn't do that, not when Giles had lost the woman he loved so tragically; better to suffer alone than remind Giles about that time.

"But not here," Xander muttered, grabbing up his jacket from the foot of the bed.

Despite popular belief, there were places in town to go besides the Bronze. Most of them were scary as hell, even by Sunnydale standards -- but Xander had a feeling they were just about right for tonight.

"Are you new here?" said the girl with safety pins through her eyebrows.

"You're sharp on the uptake," Xander said. He was relieved to see her smile, though not to realize she had an actual spike through her tongue. Sure, a bellybutton ring was kind of sexy, but wasn't it possible to take this piercing thing too far?

Nobody in the club would agree, he suspected. Xander felt like the freak in his plaid shirt and jeans, but he was willing to stay on the freak side of the Force. Besides, nobody was giving him a hard time about it; as long as he kept dancing, he was making the scene.

Safety Pins shrugged over toward a nearby table. "My friend's got some stuff," she yelled over the cacophony of the band. "You want to party with us?"

"Stuff?" Xander said. Safety Pins pointed at her shoulder; what Xander had believed was a tattoo of a bleeding heart was running and fading already. Temporary tattoos? What the hell. "Sure, fix me up."

She led him over to the table, where a thin, Goth-looking guy turned to smile at Xander. "Been wondering when you'd get over here."

"You black eyeliner types are much less hostile than I had been led to believe," Xander said. Nobody paid him any attention. "So, got something kinda Betty Page?"

"I know what you need," Goth Guy said. He pressed a small patch of white paper to Xander's forearm. It stuck to the faint sheen of sweat he'd worked up while dancing; Xander peered down to see the design showing faintly through the paper.

"A little squiggly thing. With some foreign language on it. Not what I was looking for --"

"It's the eternal curve," Goth Guy said, with a silver-lipsticked grin.

"Okay, then, that's great --"

"You've got to dance," Safety Pins said, tugging him back out onto the floor. "It won't take if you don't dance."

So Xander danced. He hoped Safety Pins wasn't planning on dragging him back to her lair, but he didn't think so. It was enough to keep moving to the music, along with the lights -- and the colors --

Something is strange here, my friend, Xander thought to himself. This blue light is actually going through me. At least it feels like it. It feels great. And I think I am in serious trouble.

The words "blotter acid" floated up in his memory a few minutes too late. "This is the price of naiveté" he muttered as he put a hand on a nearby table to steady himself. He glanced down at his arm; the piece of paper had fallen away. The inked spiral -- along with the drug -- had already been soaked up by his body. Was the spiral moving? No, no, that was stupid. It was the tiles on the floor --

"Is this trip really necessary?" Xander groaned. Not that there was going to be much he could do about it at this point --

And he was dancing again -- no, dancing before, the paper still on his arm, Safety Pins still grinning at him. Had he hallucinated taking the paper off? Freaky --

And he saw fire -- green fire, sure, but fire -- and beyond that fire he heard a roar that reverberated through his very bones. Someone was screaming, someone who sounded a lot like Willow --

And then he was back at the basement, curled up in his bed. How had he gotten there? No matter -- at least he was home, and apparently not tripping anymore, and oh dear lord Jesus not alone --

Xander winced as he looked at the tiny figure on the far side of his bed; sure, he'd entertained a little curiosity about whether Safety Pins left those things in at night, but he'd never actually wanted to find out. But he realized it wasn't her lying next to him.

It was Willow. Fast asleep, totally and completely naked, just as he was, and frowning slightly even in her sleep.

"This is not the memory I want to lose," Xander muttered. "Think, man, think--"

And he was running. Running like hell itself was behind him, which in Sunnydale was always a fair possibility. He half-turned to see what was behind him, and wished he hadn't. Whatever was chasing him looked like the offspring of an unlikely affair between a gila monster and Crash Bandicoot. It also looked hungry.

"Xander!" Buffy yelled. "Move your ass!"

He looked ahead once more; Buffy was standing at a small door -- to where? Where were they? -- through which Giles was scrambling.

"Buffy, what's happening?" Xander said as he reached the door.

"You couldn't have picked another night to turn on and drop out?" she said, glaring at him. "You're no help now. Follow Willow and Giles. Now go!" Buffy pushed him through the door --

And he was back at the club, leaning against the table as Safety Pins stared at him, wide-eyed. "What's the problem? Bad trip?"

"I'm thinking that's a yes," Xander said. "What the hell did your friend give me?"

"It's good stuff," she said defensively. "Relax."

"These are not relaxing things I'm seeing. Not at all."

"What's happening, man?" Goth Guy said.

"It's like I'm here, and then I'm not here -- this is not gonna make any sense," Xander groaned. "Sometimes I'm here before I'm here -- like, sometimes this thing's on my arm and sometimes it isn't yet --"

"You're out of sequence," Goth Guy said. "Your brain is processing events in a different order than they happen. Weird trip. Takes about two days to come out."

"Oh, great. Just great," Xander said.

"Nothing to do now but enjoy the ride," Safety Pins said --

And he was at Giles' house. Xander glanced at the nearby clock; just after ten. Willow was asleep on the sofa; one of Giles' blazers was draped over her and she clutched it close, her hands tight even in sleep. Giles did not seem to be anywhere around. Xander heard his stomach growl; if this was all a dream, it was a very real one. Regardless, he might as well get something to eat. As he stepped in the alcove leading to the kitchen, he saw Spike; the vampire was sitting on the floor, his back against the bathroom door. The look on his face -- it wasn't like anything he'd seen from Spike before --

"Spike -- you can't be -- sad?"

Spike slowly looked up at Xander as his expression shifted to a glare. "Tell anyone and I'll welcome the migraine I earn kicking your ass."

"Hey, I didn't see it," Xander said. "I hallucinated it. Actually, I probably did."

Xander began sifting through the disappointing contents of Giles' refrigerator; had this man never heard of junk food?

"Xander?"

"Yeah, Spike?"

"What happens to me now?"

Xander frowned and turned back to answer Spike --

And orange sunset light was streaming through stained-glass windows. Xander heard the chapel doors shut behind him; he took a moment to glance around in confusion. Had he converted or something? "Better this than the Moonies," Xander muttered.

He was definitely dressed for an occasion; he had on his good suit and his least-scuffed shoes. The only question was: what occasion?

Lots of people he knew were there, all standing around speaking softly --Jonathan, Devon, that cute girl who lived in the dorm room next to Buffy and Willow's, what was her name --

The cute girl stepped aside, and Xander's stomach seemed to drop.

At the front of the chapel was a coffin.

More than anything, Xander did not want to walk up there and discover who had died. But he started moving anyway, as if pushed by something beyond his own volition.

Thank God, Willow was there; she was sitting in the front row, talking quietly with that guy Buffy had been talking about, Riley what's-his-name. Giles too -- Giles was standing in the corner of the room, his hand on Mrs. Summers' shoulder.

Xander stepped a little closer. He could see into the coffin now, just a little, enough to catch a glimpse of black cloth, of slim, folded hands, of sun-gold hair --

"No. Oh, no," Xander whispered. "Not Buffy."