Snippet: Xander's Rosy Future

["buffythebushkangaroo" <buffythebushkangaroo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jessica looked with pride upon her son.
"Oh, Alexander!" she gushed. "I'm so proud of you."
Xander boggled. "You are? Why?"
Xander's mother gestured about. Strange demony creatures paraded 
about the Harris residence. A large rabbit-monster was chatting 
amiably to Buffy, and a weird and warty creature was raiding Xander's 
fridge. "Out of all the circus freaks you have as friends, you're 
marrying the cute one!" she exclaimed.
Xander gazed over at his cuddly ex-demon fiancee. "Oh. Yeah."
Carol wandered over carrying a canape tray. "Hey you," she 
greeted. "I can't believe it! Little coz getting married at last!"
Xander nodded. "Let's hope I can make do with just having the one 
marriage," he teased.
Carol pouted. "Can I help it if I keep finding more and more 
attractive people with money who happen to like me?"
Xander shook his head, resignedly. "No, I guess not," he 
sighed. "How's Weezy?" He reached over to the tray and took a canape.
"Still single," Carol lamented.
"Aw," Jessica chipped in. "That's so sad!"
Xander saw his father grab Buffy's purse and vomit copiously into 
it behind Buffy's back. He slowly put his canape back on the tray.
Carol noticed. "Aunt Betty made those," she said. "Uncle Harry's 
making me hand them out, even though they taste like shit and will 
make everyone ill."
Xander nodded again, so wanting to die and end this eternal misery 
they called a wedding. "There is nothing on earth that can stop this 
wedding now," he said, lost somewhere in the gaping abyss between 
hope and hopelessness.
"Actually, young man, that's where you're wrong." An old man stepped 
through the suddenly silent crowd.
Xander stared at the old man. Faint recognition swept through 
him. "Who the hell are you, old guy?"
The old man stepped closer still. "I'm you, you doof. I bring a 
message to you from the future!" The old man passed Xander a glowing 
orb, not unlike the Dagon sphere. "Willow made this for me, bless her 
soul."
"I still get to do magic?" Willow said somewhere in the crowd, tipsy 
and overloud. "Cool!"
Xander reached out and touched the sphere. It glowed, bright and 
opaline. Mists swirled within, and it grew bigger until the whole 
room could see it. Then the mists cleared and the crowd took a 
glimpse of the future. It sucked.
"Hi dad!" a small girl with rabbit ears waved. At the back of the 
pre-wedding-party crowd the rabbit-demon who'd been chatting to Buffy 
made a smart getaway. "I'm Sarah, your daughter!" She waved again and 
Xander noticed she had a small carrot in her hand.
The viewpoint shifted again, subtly. "Heya pops!" another child was 
waving now. It seemed wrong, somehow. Strange and feral. And more 
than a little scary. "I'm Josh!" the child declared.
Xander gulped.
"Cookie-face!" A heavily mascara'd and overly-pregnant Anya waved 
from the future. "This is just a message to say we're so blissfully 
happy! I now sell cosmetics! Can you believe it? No wrinkles!" She 
gestured to her obese form with pudgy fingers.
"Yeah!" A future Xander chipped in. He had a huge beer-gut and 
lightly-greyed hair. "I'm... so fucking miserable! Run! Run now, boy! 
Run before its too late!"
The orb faded and disappeared. Along with the old man who'd been 
carrying it.
"Wow," Willow said into the silence, and the vacuum made by the 
Xander-shaped hole in the present.
Anya looked round. "Somebody stop him!" she wailed.

*

Buffy sat in a chair at the Espresso Pump facing a distraught 
Xander.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
Xander shrugged. "Just keep on running, I guess."
"Can I come with?" Buffy asked on impulse.
Xander blinked. "Why?"
Buffy sighed. "Because... Because I kind of missed my chance with 
you, didn't I?"
Xander nodded. "Never too late," he smiled.

*

Anya glared down the empty high street. Her eyes were black with 
tear-streaked mascara. "Buffy, when I find you, you're going to *beg* 
me to let you be my slave!"
Willow stood beside her. Willow's eyes were equally dark, but hers 
were filled with the power of witchcraft. "No," she said. "You get to 
deal with Xander. Buffy's mine!"