Chapter Six: Toil and Trouble. Yet another Shakespeare quote. I thought it apt.

"Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." –Macbeth (Act IV, Scene 1)

Xander came awake instantly, shifting in the space of a breath from sleep to wakefulness. He lay still for the space of exactly two and a half seconds, just long enough to figure out that there was a body on top of his- a naked, room-temperature body that was much to big to be Spike and not Angel, because Angel was snoring behind him- and then sat upright, tossing said body to the floor with a terrific heave.

The unknown-vampire-thing leapt up, stumbling over another, human body in the process, and then all three of them froze. Xander, sitting on the bed, looked in astonishment at the Xander wearing camo, and then at the Xander with a vampire face. Oh, this was bad.

"What's the situation?" Camo-Xander demanded, and Vamp-Xander snarled back at him, "Got split apart, you dumbass."

"You know, I have to say that this really isn't a good thing," Xander told them both. "Anyone agreeing with me?"

"No," Vamp-Xander snapped. "Fuckin' heartbeat."

Okay, that was succinct. "Camo-Xander?"

"Strange," was all that he said. Xander rolled his eyes and then glanced behind him at the rest of the bed. Angel was still out cold, but Spike was awake and staring at the other two Xanders with an expression that was half shock and half... lust?

Oh, no, he thought. No sex with me and my doubles. Bad Spike. He opened his mouth to say all these things, but what came out was, "Look, it's me in soldier gear, just like you wanted."

A half-smirk, half-smile spread across Spike's lips. "Trust me, luv, I noticed."

Shit.

Scrambling for a way out of this potentially very embarrassing situation, he found a lifeline in the shape of the still-sleeping Angel. "Hey Deadboy," he hissed, and poked the vampire in the shoulder. "Wake up. We have a problem."

"Wha?" he said, struggling awake. Thinking back on what he knew of Angel he had to think that he must have been hurt rather badly the night before, because Angel seemed the type to snap awake rather than struggle.

"I said, wake up, we have a problem."

Angel looked at the other two Xanders for a long moment. "You do indeed have a problem, don't you, boy?"

Vamp-Xander leered cheerfully at Angel. "Hey, it's the puppy."

Angel's glare appeared, and it was sudden, intense, and vicious. "I'm nobody's puppy, fledge."

"Seems to me that's not quite how it happened," Vamp-Xander said. "Seems to me you were everyone's playtoy when the Master rose."

Angel snarled at him, and Spike smacked a hand on his chest. "Watch it," he told the older vampire. "Don't take 'im apart, he's Xander too. Just more sodding annoying."

Xander started to get a bad feeling. He reached under his pillow and picked up the little pouch, then looked at his doubles and Angel. "A spell for binding..." he murmured. "Spike, is reverse magic something that a Chaos mage would do?"

Spike caught on quickly. "It unbound your different parts. Vampire and soldier, and I guess the demon magnetism and the hyena are still in you."

"Yeah. Still have my sense of smell and everything. But that's not the real problem here."

"Yeah?" Spike asked, but Xander could see in his eyes that he'd already figured it out.

"Angel isn't entirely Angel anymore," he said quietly. "But at least he's not entirely Angelus either."

Angel glanced at him, and his gaze softened into something very like fear. "What do you mean?"

"Willow gave me'n Spike a spell," Xander told him. "To bind us closer. It was her way of giving her blessing, I guess. Anyway, you were attacked by Drusilla last night, said that she was with a Chaos mage. And if I remember some of the stuff from all the incredibly large and dusty books I've been forced to look through in my time, then one of the provinces of Chaos magic is reversing spells. As in, forcing them into their opposite effect. So it unbound my parts, but only sorta unbound your soul."

"Only sort of?" Angel demanded. "Oh, that's so very comforting to know that it only sort of unbound my soul. Not that I'm complaining, but why are you all separated and I'm only wavering back and forth between me and my demon?"

"Because I didn't get this way by being tied together with a spell," Xander explained irritably. "It was more of a thing where I channeled all of them into one person. You were bound together by magic, and by Willow's magic, no less. She's pretty friggin' strong. Much stronger than that aging Chaos freak."

There was a moment of silence while Xander and Spike both remembered Willow's part in the attack on Glory and how it all ended, but they shook it off. Xander felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Vamp-Xander, staring down at him with something like concern on his face.

That provoked another question, and he turned around to leave Spike to deal with Angel and focused on his doubles. "Okay, we have some stuff to work out. Vamp-Xander, do you have a soul?"

"Sort of," Vamp-Xander said. "It's not so much 'Don't kill him, you'll regret it later,' as 'Don't kill him, the other Xander will regret it later.' I don't have a conscience, but I do have yours." Then he looked at Camo-Xander. "Notice I said "other Xander," singular, soldier-boy. Got no use for you."

"That makes sense. I think," Xander added, and ignored his double's slur in order to move on to Camo-Xander. "Do you have all my memories?"

"Yes, sir," Camo-Xander said, and Xander shook his head. Now he knew why he never wanted to join the military- look what he'd be turned into!

Vamp-Xander had moved closer, and he leaned against his double unconsciously. Camo-Xander stayed where he was, and Xander suspected that he would remain there until he was ordered otherwise.

"Alright. Vamp-Xander... This is ridiculous. My tongue's getting tied up in knots."

"Can't have that, can we, luv?" Spike purred from right over his shoulder, and he turned to brush a kiss over his lips. Then a deeper kiss, just to make sure that his tongue wasn't really tied up in knots.

Vamp-Xander growled, and Xander looked at him, startled. His double gave him a toothy grin, and he just shook his head, not really wanting to get into it at the moment. It felt extremely wrong to be attracted to himself. He'd think about it later.

"Right, so... we need to see if we can get this fixed. Spike, Angel, any ideas?"

Both vampires looked at him with consternation- all three vampires, actually, since Vamp-Xander was staring at him with the exact same expression as the two more familiar vamps. "Right, so obviously none of you have any ideas. Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you have very good memories of how my plans turned out?" Spike said, with perfect seriousness. "And Angel's plans tended to get him sucked into hell."

"Of course, how silly of me to have forgotten." He turned to Vamp-Xander, following his double's lead and ignoring the soldier-him, because apparently too many years off in the ether before he was crammed back into Xander had changed him from a commanding presence to a robot that knew his way around a machine gun and a rocket launcher. "Are you as clueless as they are, or are you just pretending to make them feel better?"

"I'm pretending so I can laugh at them later, rather than now," Vamp-Xander said with a perfectly straight face. "Pleasure is sweeter when you delay it awhile."

"Good to hear it," Xander said with a little grin, and pretended he didn't hear the dark purr under his double's voice that simultaneously sent a happy little shiver down his spine and gave him the creeps. He was also pretending that he didn't know what sort of pleasures Vamp-Xander was really talking about, and that he the happy little shiver had never happened.

Denial was such a wonderful thing.

"How about this? Angel/Angelus-"

"-Puppy-"

"-Whatever will look for Ethan and Drusilla, and Spike will go with him-"

"-Because we can't trust either of them alone-"

"-And you and I will go find Willow, and see if we can deal with putting me back together again."

"Putting him back," Vamp-Xander corrected with a little nod towards Camo-Xander, who was still staring off into space with his hands folded behind his back and a blank expression on his face. "He's no good on his own, and I am." Xander must have looked doubtful, because Vamp-Xander added with a little smirk, "Besides, you think even Willow could honestly stuff me back if I didn't want to go?"

Xander considered briefly that Vamp-Xander knew the full reaches of Willow's dark power much, much better than he himself did. Then he pretended he hadn't considered that, and considered some of the more practical applications of this split-apart thing.

"I still have the hyena strength," he said slowly, working it out in his head as he spoke. "And you have vampire strength, of course." He grinned suddenly, and was mildly disturbed to see the exact same expression cross the face of his vampire double. "Okay, now this sounds like fun."

Spike and Angel had been watching this whole thing with great fascination, but at this Angel opened his mouth, apparently seeing some great unwisdom about this plan. Spike threw an elbow into his gut to shut him up, then smiled blithely at both Xanders and said, "Have fun at the witch's place."

Beside him, Angel snarled in a distinctly Angelus-like way, and Xander decided that now would be a prudent time to leave.

Right now.

To say that Willow was surprised to see three Xander's standing all in a row when she opened her door was a bit of an understatement. She was also experiencing a dizzying feeling of déjà vu, plus one. And then the Xander on the left shifted to game face, flashing fangs at her in a grin, and her eyes closed as she wished very, very hard that they'd just disappear.

Cautiously, she opened one eye. Nope, still there, unfortunately. "Please tell me you're bringing me cookies, or something."

Vamp-Xander held up a little plate with... hello, chocolate chip! Wrapped in translucent pink Saran wrap, too. She took it, then looked at the... um, three of them with wide eyes. "I was kidding, you know."

"We know-" Xander-in-the-middle started, but Vamp-Xander interrupted with, "It's a bribe." His voice was low and sort of purring, and it seemed sort of familiar, a fact which she determinedly ignored. "We need you to put him-" a nod at the Xander-on-the-right, who was dressed in camouflage gear, "-into Xander."

She just looked at him for a second. "And not you?"

He shrugged. "I'm bored."

Which, for Xander, even Xander's vampire-self, answered absolutely everything. Well, maybe not as much as it would have answered for Drusilla, of Willow's vampire-self, or even Spike... she was getting sidetracked. "And you think I'm going to do this why?"

"Willow," Xander said. "Look at him. Do you really want him left to wander around on his own?"

She took a moment to actually examine the Soldier-Xander, and thought that maybe Xander was right. He was standing with his hands folded neatly behind his back, his eyes focused on some point right in front of him that only he could see.

"It's like he's become nothing but a soldier," she said, fascinated. "Like all personality was wiped away somehow."

"It didn't happen to me," Vamp-Xander said. "And Xander's his usual self. It's just that one."

"I'd really love to figure out how-" And then she paused, and looked at the expression on Xander's face. "We don't have time for that, do we?"

"It's a bit complicated," he said ruefully. "It might actually take more time than we have to explain-"

"Drusilla and Ethan Rayne are in town, and Ethan messed with your binding spell, which is why there are three of us and Angel is wavering between Puppy and Angelus."

"Okay, maybe not that complicated," Xander said. "Um, but we really need to hurry. Because Angel is going after Ethan and Dru, and he's all wobbly, soul-wise, and Spike's with him. Do I really need to say any more?"

"No," Willow said, her voice a little faint. "No, you really don't."

"You know, I'm thinking that this occasion needs something a bit special. What do you think, William? Do you think we should perhaps get a present for our sweet Drusilla?"

"How about we give her the chaos bloke's heart, and send her on her way, and it's all even," Spike said, trying not to let his voice show how disturbed he was by this Angel/Angelus thing. Angel was a broody poufter, and the after-soul Angelus was someone that he was not known for getting along with, so the combination of them both was driving him nutters. "And you know, I really soddin' hate bein' called William. It's Spike, for sweet Christ's sake."

"William's a fine name," Angel argued, one eyebrow cocked cheerily and a familiar smirk lurking around the corners of his mouth. Angel or Angelus, he always had gotten a charge out of driving Spike to the limits of his sanity with just a few well-chosen words. "It suits you."

Spike clenched his fists, hard enough for his nails to dig bloody grooves into the skin of his palms, and opened his mouth, a vicious and scathing retort already rising to his lips. And then he stopped.

Xander would kill him if he let Angel bait him into starting something.

He sighed and forced his fists to unclench through sheer power of will. "Fuck that. Let's go. We have a Chaos mage to kill."

Angel looked disappointed, but knew, from long experience, when to push things and when to back off and wait for a better opportunity. He gave up for the moment and followed when Spike resumed his irritated stride down the middle of the road that led out to the old factory.

He stopped just a few steps later, when he heard the noise from the trees to his right. Angel opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on, or some such stupid question, but Spike held up one hand in a blatant request for him to shut the hell up and listened harder. There, just a few feet in front of him... He could see a shadowy figure, hidden in the shadows of trees, breathing with just a slight rasp. Not human. Some sort of demon.

"Who the hell is there?" he demanded, and laughter echoed out around him, harsh female laughter that was most definitely not human.

It was, however, very familiar.

Xander prowled down the empty street, his hyena side fully to the fore as he tracked Angel and Spike by scent. Vamp-Xander sauntered in his wake, slowly unwrapping a bright red lollipop.

Xander stopped dead with no warning at all and whirled on his double just as the vampire put the lollipop in his mouth. "You stole one of Willow's lollipops," he said, accusation heavy in his voice. "How could you? Haven't you heard of asking first?"

"Of course I stole it," Vamp-Xander said patiently if awkwardly, talking as he was around the lollipop tucked in his cheek. "I'm evil. Besides, she had them in a little bowl by the doorway. They were begging to be stolen."

"They were not begging to be stolen," Xander insisted hotly. "They were begging for someone to ask politely if perhaps Willow would be kind enough to-"

"They were begging to be stolen," Vamp-Xander interrupted. "Begging. With little whimpers and liberal use of the word 'please.' Besides," he added when Xander opened his mouth to argue some more, "I stole one for you too."

"Well, in that case, you're forgiven and fork it over." He held out an imperious hand, and his grinning double pulled a bright green lollipop out of his jeans pocket and dropped it into the outstretched palm.

A minute later Xander resmuned his hunt for the missing vampire, now with the white stick of a lollipop poking out of the corner of his mouth. He would have looked extremely stupid, but the loose-hipped prowl and the hot, hungry light in his eyes were too genuine and feral for him to be the object of ridicule.

He stopped again a hundred yards down, his head titling in such a way that it was obvious to Vamp-Xander that he was scenting the air for something. "They were here," he said. "They'd been angry... Not that unusual with Angel and Spike. Demon-scent from the woods over there, sharp shot of fear from Spike, confusion from Angel. Burnt ozone smell. Single drop of blood." There was a short, significant pause. "Spike's blood."

Vamp-Xander looked unconcerned at this, but a small growl was rumbling in Xander's throat. Anger crackled in his eyes, anger that was directed at the owner of a very familiar demon-scent.

The bushes at the side of the road rustled, and Xander heard Vamp-Xander shifting into a slightly more balanced position as the scent of wariness, mixed with a heavy dose of fear, drifted from his double to his nose. Someone wasn't as unconcerned as he was pretending to be.

"Anyanka," he said, feeling the heavy weight of inevitability descend upon him, and a small figure stepped onto the road. Her skin glowed, just a little bit, as if it had caught the faint light of the distant street lamp and absorbed it. Her features were twisted and demonic and oh-so-wrong to Xander's eyes as he stared at her for a long, silent moment.

"I heard it didn't take you long to get over me," she said finally. "Barely a week before you were sleeping with that vampire."

"What did you do to him?" he demanded, almost sub-vocally, the growl coming from so low in his chest. Anyanka just smiled at him, a malicious little smile that made his heart twist in pain.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"