It's a Stretch - Twins: Separated at Birth
Joyce answered the door and burst out laughing as she saw Xander in a suit that looked like it belonged to a used car dealer and wearing a skullcap that made him look like he was going bald.
Xander sighed. "My ego is not going to survive the night."
"Sorry, Xander," Joyce apologized, "but it's a very funny outfit and the last thing I expected to see you in."
"You can thank Buffy for that," he replied morosely. "She and Willow made a bet and since she won, she got to choose what we all dressed up as."
"And you got roped into it?" Joyce asked.
"I saved you from getting beat up, that's gotta count for something," Buffy complained, posing at the head of the stairs in a fluffy, multilayer dress.
Joyce turned back to Xander with a question in her eyes.
"I was arguing with a guy in my class because he made some disparaging remarks about a female of my acquaintance," Xander replied tonelessly.
At her mother's frown Buffy shrugged. "What? I'd do the same thing if it had been Willow!"
Joyce winced. "She gets it from Hank."
"I figured."
"And which girl were you defending?"
"The one who can't tell the difference between me and Willow. Of course now I'm going to have to get into about a dozen fights to prove I'm not a coward hiding behind her skirts," Xander said with a groan.
"No fighting!" Buffy burst out, rustling down the stairs. "I don't want you getting hurt!"
"I'd suggest just putting it all on her," Joyce said ignoring her daughter.
Xander looked horrified.
"She broke the social contract," Joyce said bluntly. "It means nothing if it's not enforced. If anyone says anything, just say Buffy heard him calling her a whore and you aren't going to defend her as she can apparently defend herself."
"What?!" Xander's look of horror had shifted to Buffy's face.
Xander looked thoughtful and slowly nodded. "That's fair and puts me in the clear." Xander turned and spotted Willow standing at the head of the stairs dressed as Batgirl. Willow grinned as Xander stumbled toward the stairs like a zombie, not even noticing Buffy speaking or the arguing she was now doing with her mom.
"W-wowsers," he stuttered. "I don't think the actual Barbra Gordon could do half as good a job filling out that outfit, Wills."
"Thanks," Willow said blushing brightly.
"Time!" Buffy called out. "If we're late, Snyder will skin us!"
The three quickly hit the street.
"Did I really screw things up that badly?" Buffy asked, once they were a block away from the house.
"Yes," Xander said bluntly. "You interfered in a man to man fight in a way that implies I'm not a man and then stole my soda."
"The soda I got slamming him into the machine?"
"I had already put my money in, Buff," Xander said. "So you castrated me in front of the whole school, stole my soda, and then dressed me this way! The only way this could get worse-"
"Buffy," Angel said stepping out of the darkness dressed in khaki short pants and a short-sleeved business shirt.
"And my night is complete," Xander said dryly.
"Why am I dressed like this?" Angel asked.
"The movie Twins with Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger," Buffy explained.
"And I'm?" Angel asked.
"The perfect man," Xander said in a terse voice.
"And you are?" Angel asked wondering how anyone could mistake those two actors for twins.
"The funny one!" Buffy quickly blurted out.
"I'm the leftovers, the assorted crap that was cast aside," Xander growled out before storming off.
"I didn't mean it like that!" Buffy called out trying to go after him.
"You don't want to talk to him right now," Willow said grabbing Buffy. "Trust me. Let him cool down first."
"What happened?" Angel asked.
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*
"Dressing as your future self?" Larry called out, dressed as a pirate and did a quick feint only to receive a punch to the throat from his target and a blow to the sternum that knocked the wind out of him.
Realizing what he'd done, Xander quickly left leaving Larry wheezing on the ground.
"Are you making fun of me?!" Snyder demanded when he spotted Xander.
"What?" Xander asked confused.
"Nothing," Snyder barked out when he saw Xander didn't know what he was talking about. "Who are you dressed as?"
"Vince from Twins," Xander replied.
"Ah, the perfect man," Snyder said satisfied.
"I thought that was Jules?"
"Please," Snyder snorted. "Jules is what society says the perfect man is, but when the chips are down which of the brothers is going to come out on top?"
"Vince," Xander replied barely having to think about it.
"Exactly," the principal agreed. "Smooth enough to seduce one of his teachers, who was a nun no less, while still in grade school. Remember Jules got everything while Vince had to struggle for it!"
"Yeah," Xander agreed finding himself nodding along. "You can't really get a fair comparison when they weren't given the same advantages."
"Jules wasn't the perfect man, he was the idealized man," Snyder said firmly. "Remember how Vince was referred to as a cockroach?"
"Yeah?" Xander asked curiously.
"There is a reason people say cockroaches are the perfect survivor, they adapt to conditions that would kill anything else."
"Yeah," Xander agreed straightening his shirt. "Jules the idealized man and his twin Vince… Darwin's proof."
"Survival of the fittest," Snyder nodded. "Glad to see you've learned something here." Snyder turned and walked off.
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*
"Vincent!" A pale, but well-muscled, man yelled in the middle of what appeared to be some sort of riot.
"Jules?" the badly dressed, balding man asked.
"You look different," the two chorused circling each other. "But I can still feel you here." The two tapped their chests.
"So bro," Xander-Vincent asked Angel-Jules, "Any ideas?"
"I don't even have a logical framework to hang this on," Angel-Jules replied waving a hand at the surrounding chaos.
"I know what you mean," Xander-Vincent said with a sigh. "But first things first. We look for the girls and the kids."
"And help people along the way," Angel-Jules reminded him.
"As long as it doesn't put family in danger," Xander-Vincent agreed.
"Good, let's head for the center of town and search in a spiral pattern."
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*
Batgirl paused to catch her breath, a truly impressive portion of the population unconscious or tied up behind her, along with a large group of kids who cheered on their red-haired protector.
A woman dressed as a cat ran by screaming chased by a large hairy creature, but the creature saw the bodies piled everywhere and the figure standing there glaring at him and decided to retreat.
The children cheered, bringing a smile to Willow-Barbra's face as she kept an eye out for further threats. While she'd like to hunt down the source of the problem, she wouldn't abandon the children. She'd just have to wait and hope Bruce or Dick were on the case, though several of the children seemed convinced things would return to normal by morning.
"I hope they're right," she muttered as she saw several pirates approaching.
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*
Lady Elizabeth fled at the sight of another glowing eyed demon, thankful they seemed to fear plants as she searched diligently for a safe path to the church spire she could see in the distance.
Typing by: Bankrupt Samurai