Chapter Text
After about twenty minutes of silence, Buffy realised Spike was in a quiet mood, tonight.
Which made her realise several other equally disturbing things.
One, she had gotten completely used to patrolling with him. It didn’t happen literally every night—although, now that she thought about it, yeah. Kinda. Sure, last week he’d had that poker thing keeping him away, but that had been once in, uh. Two entire months?
Two, she wasn’t just used to it. She liked it. Like, actually liked spending time with him. He was ridiculous and kinda obnoxious and so loud, always needling and teasing and cheering for the bad guys when she took more than two seconds flat killing them. All while still taking some kills from her when she “clearly needed help from a professional”, which. She was going to punch him for that, one of these days.
Three, she wouldn’t punch him one of these days. Because he felt more and more like a… dammit, like a friend. And you don’t punch friends. Especially not friends that fire you up so much and make you feel like maybe one punch wouldn’t be enough and you’d end up wrestling on the ground and—
Four. The quiet. When had she started enjoying even his quiet company? At first he’d been a fun distraction from lonely nights and that absurd, bittersweet melancholy that had filled her after Glory’s death. Like there had been something missing, some shoe that had never dropped, some door that had opened in her future and had been supposed to close with that final battle and… just hadn’t. Like stopping a portal to infinite dimensions from being opened and killing a crazy god hadn’t been final enough.
Well, Spike’s constant jibbering had distracted her from that feeling, soothing it away more and more every night. So she’d let him tag along; besides, you can’t entrust someone with your sister’s life, have him deliver on his promise to protect her, and then tell him, “Nah, you’re still not allowed to patrol with me”. It just wouldn’t have been right.
But how did she get from that to here? To feeling… good when he was around, even just hanging in the quiet night?
“You all right, Slayer?”
Then again, maybe she should stop asking herself questions.
She met his mildly concerned gaze with a perky grin. “Thinking about what’s wrong with you, actually.” Ok, so he didn’t look pretty, with that raised brow and the cheeks and the pursing lips around that cigarette… Ugh, stupid brain. “You’re usually blabbing about some dumb soap thing at this point of the night. What, has Timmy finally died and you’re too sad to think about it?”
And no, he didn’t look pretty with that affronted expression on behalf of a tv doll, either. “Oi, don’t even say that! Writers would never do that, they know better than to lose their best asset.”
“Seriously, Spike. When your best asset is a living doll…”
“And that’s why I’m never gonna let you decide what to watch on tv night, Slayer.”
She pffted, trying not to imagine Spike inviting her over to his crypt to watch soaps. It would be in the afternoon, which is morning in vamp world, which is just too cuddly to share with a former-enemy-maybe-friend. Would he have a raspy morning voice and rumpled hair? Obviously he wouldn’t be wearing PJs as he gestured her to the armchair with him, because he was a vamp and just, no. But that begged the question of what exactly Spike wore to bed, which couldn’t possibly be jeans because this vamp was a slob but one who liked comforts, and so what would he—
“Starting to worry me there, Summers.”
His voice pulled her out of a daydream which was getting disturbingly adult-themed, and she realised she was staring at his chest and wondering what he would look like without a shirt and wow. She was starting to worry herself, too.
He kept talking around his dumb, lip-pursy, unattractive-making cigarette. “Should be telling me how I’m barely invited to tv nights anyway on account of Dawn being a brat who doesn’t know better and blah blah at this point.” He gave a last drag before throwing away the butt, tilting his head as he turned towards her. “You’re not catching some bug or some other nasty human shit, are you?”
And the head tilt! It was just so dumb. Like he was a cute dog, which obviously he wasn’t. Not a dog and definitely not cute. So it made it dumb, and she was just about to tell him when he snapped his head to the side, staring into the dark woods beyond the cemetery’s walls. Which, you know, was much better than him doing the not-cute head tilty thing or looking at her with all that… intensity.
It wasn’t like she liked being looked at as if she was the most important thing in the world.
“Tell me later, Slayer,” he said, “evil’s afoot.” He turned back to give her a brilliant grin. “Better keep up or I’ll help the bad guys.”
And then off he was, racing out of the cemetery, into the woods.
“I hate you,” she yelled, running after him. “And if you try doing that again I’ll really knock you out this time.”
“As if you didn’t have fun!”
“You are the worst,” she said, running as fast as she could to gain on him, starting to hear a wailing cry in the night. Stupid long legs that aren’t even that long. “Those demons were destroying the church and you helped them!”
He turned with another stupidly huge grin as he ran down an increasingly shoddy path, getting closer and closer to the sound. “As if you wouldn’t have liked to pick up a hammer and join in, too!”
Buffy didn’t growl, because growling was for monsters and characters in books. “I was too busy saving everyone from your pals, like decent people do!”
“Oh, come on,” he panted, still one damn step ahead of her, as the shape of a lit, large shack appeared down the path. “You had it under control, and besides, got to maintain some sort of evil, here! Bloody domesticated—”
She gave one last push and ended up smashing through the double doors to the shack at the same time he did, both doors smacking so hard against the walls that the whole place trembled.
Four tall, reptilian-looking demons snapped to them in a moment of shocked silence. Which was enough to show the source of the noise: a toddler bound to the floor in the middle of an intricate circle made of candles, paint, and gemstones that sparkled in the torchlight.
That wide mouth wailing desperately switched something in Buffy’s chest, fury replacing that strange, warm fun that Spike’s antics had started sparking.
The next moment, the demons started hissing and throwing some sort of green beams at her, but she was already in motion: she had her stake lodged in one of the bastards’ throat before he finished casting whatever spell he was trying, and by the time she’d wrenched it free she was turning the demon and crashing its back onto her knee, the cracking sounds of its bones breaking soothing her rage.
“Seriously,” she panted, dodging a beam and grunting when another hit her shoulder with blistering heat. “Tying a child to the floor in the middle of the woods?” She tackled the next demon, glad Spike was not helping the bad guys, for once. “What is this, a crappy horror movie?”
“That would’ve had a sexy lil’ virgin,” said Spike from the other side of the large room. “Children are—ow!—lil’ bit less mainstream—fuck,” he grunted, one particularly strong slam making the walls tremble.
The demon started grappling with her, forcing her to grunt out her words with the effort of keeping up. “If you start saying these guys aren’t too bad—”
“Just saying—bugger—they’ve got no style.”
With a grunt of effort Buffy managed to wrench away the demon, slamming it against the floor hard enough to stun it. “You”—she twisted it belly-down—“are”—she grabbed its head—“the worst.”
With a satisfying crack, there went another snake-y toddler kidnapper.
“Seriously?” Spike demanded, growling before biting savagely down on Snake Boy Three. He grunted at the beams Snake Boy Four rained on his back but didn’t let go, tearing at the scaly neck like he was trying to behead Three via vamp bite.
Buffy pounced on Four from behind, wrenching back its head so she could plunge her stake in one of its eyes. “Ugh,” she said while it wailed beneath her, trying madly to dislodge her and only causing her to crush down on its chest with all the strength of her legs. “You are!”
The stake came out of its head with a disgusting squelching sound, and then back inside by way of its bared throat, dark green blood spurting everywhere as the demon finally let go of its sorry existence and made them both fall to the floor.
Spike had evidently munched on enough of the other’s throat, because that too crumpled down. “Fucking disgusting shite, Christ,” he said, shaking his head and spitting to the side. “And you’re a bitch! How is church-demolishing worse than child stealing, huh?”
She got to her feet, grimacing at her soiled stake. “You’re still the worst. Talking about style when there’s a child strapped to the floor? Ugh, don’t think I’m using this again…”
“Squeamish lil’ princess. Stop posturing and help me save our eardrums, yeah?”
The bastard was already smashing through the circle around the child. Dammit, she couldn’t let him be first in—
The moment Spike’s boot broke through the innermost layer of the circle, the child’s voice reached inhuman levels and a blinding flash of light streamed out of that section of the floor. There was a moment of dead silence as Buffy tried to blink away the light, and then the wailing started again, human-sounding again—but much louder and closer than three seconds before.
Buffy looked down, confused. What had been that light? Everything looked off somehow, like… farther away? And when had she stepped inside the circle?
“Uh,” came a strange voice behind her. A female voice. A female voice that sounded horribly familiar and yet strange. “Buffy? Think we have a problem.”
She took a deep breath and tried to ignore the loud crying for a moment. Because that had sounded too much like her own voice, coming from exactly where she should be… right behind her.
“Please no,” she said. And yes, of course. What came out was masculine, and horribly familiar-yet-strange too. “God, no.”
“Christ, that’s weird.”
With another deep breath—that no, did not feel normal, because of course it wouldn’t—she finally turned to the voice. The voice that was one hundred percent her own, coming from her own body, which was standing just a couple of feet too far from her consciousness for her tastes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, all low and… male.
Something had swapped her and Spike’s bodies. And she was stuck in his body. And, worse… he was stuck in hers.
*
Too bloody weird. When was the last time he’d seen himself so fully? Wasn’t even like a mirror, what with the whole thing with Buffy moving his body instead of him.
Christ. What a trip.
“I knew the bleach worked wonders for me.” He tilted his head, studying the lines of his face. “Makes the cheeks sharper, don’t it? That and the gel thing, ’course—”
“Spike!” she cried—sounding all male. “Don’t you think we have more important things to think about than how good your cheekbones look?”
He smirked, sauntering closer. “Noticed, have you?” Christ, it was weird to walk in this body. “You’re right, forgot about the child.”
And then he stepped past her, forcing himself not to look as weirded out as he felt to be shorter than Buffy.
“How bloody tiny is this body anyway?” he complained as he bent down and started hacking at the bonds with the gored-up stake in his hand. “You’re so short.”
“Yeah, like you’re Mr. Height,” she grumbled, turning and bending down to take care of the child’s opposite limbs. “Are you seriously not with the freaking about this?”
“Wot,” he said with a shrug, freeing one tiny, wriggling foot—which promptly hit him in the nose. “Ow, bloody fuck—”
“Don’t curse in front of the child!”
“Oh give me a sodding break!” He worked on a tiny wrist, being careful not to nick the skin. “As if he cares about a little fuck when—”
“Spike!”
He forced back a growl, finally getting the arm free just as Buffy did the same with the other one and picked up the child—only to gasp when she righted him enough to see him in the face.
His rather bluish, reptilian face.
“Don’t gasp while you’re in my body,” Spike grumbled, squinting at the child as it writhed and cried, still desperate in Buffy’s arms. “Bad for the image.”
“I can’t believe you,” she muttered. “Spike, we’ve just been body swapped by a weird magic circle while saving a demon child.”
He shrugged. “His head was all thrown back, we could only see that gaping mouth as it wailed, yeah? Didn’t exactly stop for a proper look.”
“Oh my God, that is not the point!” she said, vehemently enough to actually shake the kid with it.
“Christ, Summers, don’t do that,” he complained as the child wailed even harder. “Gimme that,” he said, letting the stake roll away to take the child from her, holding him close to his chest as he tried to remember what Dru used to do to her lil’ victims before she killed them. Or after. Or meanwhile… suddenly the memory twisted a little distaste in his belly and he pushed it away, concentrating on trying to soothe the child. “There, there,” he murmured, “you’re ok, yeah? No more yelling. God’s sake, were you trying to make them bleed their brains off their ears to save yourself? Wager you might’ve managed.”
He kept rocking until the child finally stopped trying to wriggle free and started holding him back, hard enough to make something else twist in a strange way inside him. A memory of a long, long time ago surfaced, of a too-sweet boy taking care of his little sisters before they died, and a shudder went through him.
Fuck that, he thought, pushing the thoughts away. Lil’ fucker don’t stop crying and I’ll bloody eat him.
“Spike?”
His own voice sounded so weird, all low and breathy and soft like that. He turned to frown at Buffy, with a confused little frown on his—her, dammit, her face. This was messed up enough already without a bloody pronoun war; she was still a she and he was still a he, to hell who the body technically belonged to.
“You make me look weird, Slayer.”
“Are you comforting the demon child?”
He sniffed. “Wanna hear the racket? It’s calming him down, ain’t it. Gonna keep on until my ears stop wanting to bleed, if that’s all the same to you.”
Had to wonder whether his face looked so expressive when he was the one wearing it. Buffy looked so confused, and… impressed? Was that what impressed looked on his features?
Was he impressing Buffy?
The usual wave of longing crashed through him, and he let it pass, like he always did these days. Loving a woman who had just barely learnt to see him as a man meant doing this over and over again; meant recognising something in her eyes, feeling an ocean of hope hit him, and then ruthlessly forcing himself to remember that letting it go was the only thing that let him keep her close. That if he ever tried to act on it again, she’d stop, go back to barely ever noticing his existence, stop letting him in.
It never stopped being devastating.
When she shook her head, the moment broke. “I’m just saying,” she said, all casual now. “I can’t believe it’s actually working.”
He acknowledged the wave on its way out, knowing it would rear back soon enough. “’S just that you keep underestimating me.” He raised a brow as he very pointedly started raining kisses on the kiddo’s bald, tough-skinned head. The crying trembled down to mostly sniffs and big, heaving breathing, and Spike gave a satisfied sigh, laying his cheek against that strange skin. “See? ’M good at the cuddling thing.”
Something bright and curious went through Buffy’s expression, and another wave of hope hit him. Bloody fucker couldn’t leave him alone, could it?
And suddenly he didn’t mind having a little thing holding so tightly to him.
“Ok, that is… so many levels of weird.”
“What?” he demanded, but softly enough not to jostle the kid. “Think vamps can’t cuddle?”
“Have you even just said that?”
“I’ll have you know I’ve spent a bloody century cuddling Dru,” he insisted as she stepped closer. “Granted, it tended to have a bit more blood. And a lot less clothing, most of the time. And—”
“You know what, you don’t wanna end that sentence,” she said.
Christ. He was sure he never looked that holier-than-thou.
Worst part was, she was right; he didn’t want to tell her the sordid details, because he craved that look, and he never got it when he shared that kind of stuff. And wasn’t that a right kicker; knowing that the woman he’d do anything for could never fully accept him. Would never even want to try.
He forced the thoughts away. “Goody two shoes,” he mocked.
“Soulless thing.”
“Boring bint with a stick up your arse.”
“Baby cuddler!”
And no matter what, here she was, making him grin with that dumb triumph in her eyes—even when they were technically his. “You’re just green about me, the evil monster, being better with children than you, the hero of the people.”
Affront definitely looked ridiculous on his face. “I’ll show you who’s better with children—” she reached for the kid and tried taking him away, but he immediately started crying again. When she relented with the saddest little pout, he didn’t know whether he was more endeared by it or offended she was making his face do that. “Oh.”
“Don’t take it all personal like,” he said as patronisingly as possible. “It’s probably the whole body thing.” He waggled his eyebrows at her frown. “Boobs make for excellent cuddling.”
“Oh my God,” she said with an eye roll. Then she snapped her wide eyes back to him. “Oh my God! Those are my—I mean you’re—”
“Oh yeah,” he said, giving her his nastiest grin. “Figure I could just…” He slipped a hand down the kid’s back, towards his own Buffy-shaped chest, and chuckled when she reached out to snap his hand away.
“Don’t you dare!”
“You’re too bloody predictable,” he said, nuzzling the child’s head to make do for the missing cuddles as the Slayer protected her divine tits from her own hand.
“I mean it,” she said, and this time her voice came out more strained than he liked. “Spike, as long as this goes on, I swear to God, if you…”
Her voice trailed off, but the lack of a real threat killed the fun right out.
He turned his hand until he was holding hers. “Hey there, was just joking, yeah?”
She swallowed, tense as a bow. But she didn’t move her hand away, tightening her hold instead.
He shifted the child in his arm so he could hold him better, never taking his eyes off hers. “Buffy. I was joking. Not gonna…”
A range of images passed through his head; of getting alone even for just a minute, just to feel the softness of her skin, see how easily her nipples wrinkled, whether she was shaved smooth, what that perky ass felt like…
He took a deep breath, telling himself to ignore the way even just the thought made something tighten in his—Christ, his womb, he guessed. There was a small tingling between his legs, but that strained look in Buffy’s face brought too much shame to enjoy the intrigue of it.
“I promise you, Buffy,” he forced himself to say. “I promise you that I won’t touch your body.” He went on when she opened her mouth. “I promise, Buffy.”
Something roared inside him at that. Why the fuck should he promise something like that? He wouldn’t hurt her. Do it right and she’d never even bloody know, for fuck’s sake, what was the harm in that? He knew he’d never have her, and this was probably gonna be the only way he could ever dream of touching her.
Why the fuck shouldn’t he just get the scraps if he couldn’t have the whole thing?
But he held off that voice. Because nothing compared to Buffy looking more and more relaxed at those words, to the trust that it entailed.
You’re a bloody addiction, woman.
With a sigh, her hold on him went down a notch from clawing. “Ok. Ok, I…” She looked down. “I guess I’m gonna have to trust you.”
Before he could stop himself, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, as softly as he could. Figured he could as it wasn’t really her skin he was touching, was it?
“I’ve got you, Buffy. Won’t disappoint you.”
And there it was: that gleam in her eyes, hitting him like a weight train to the chest, no matter what colour they looked like. That gleam that told him that she saw him, saw Spike, not just a talking pile of useless dust.
Her hand squeezed, just for a moment, sending a storm through him.
And then the kid started fussing and her lips turned up in a more relaxed smile. “Come on,” she said, letting his hand go. “Kid needs two-handed vamp cuddles, apparently.”
It was harder to let the waves go, but he did it, going back to rub the child’s back. “Technically, these are dainty human Slayer hands,” he said. He even managed a silly grin. “Was gonna say—he’s probably enjoying the cuddles more just because it’s a woman’s body doling them out, yeah?”
She looked unimpressed.
“Cause women are meant to take care of children, you see?”
She kicked his leg. “Yeah, I see. I see you’re a pig and need more punches to the nose.”
“Oh yeah, baby. Give it to me goo—ow,” he laughed when the kick came harder still.
“Sick, twisted pig.”
“Baby mama just waiting for the right body.”
“You are bent!”
He waggled his eyebrows. “But in such a pleasant way. And by the way,” he added giving her—his own damn body—a sly lookover. “You can see all you like. Check around, see how everything’s hanging—”
“Oh my God,” she cried, actually pressing her hands to her ears. “Shut up!”
This time, when he laughed, the kid giggled too and finally dislodged himself from his shoulder enough to lean back and look at him.
“Look who thinks she’s hilarious, too,” Spike said, grinning back at him. He had a cute enough face, with those chubby cheeks and the weird ridges over his dark eyes. “You kinda look like a weird vamp, don’t you?”
The child giggled again, letting go of his neck with one chubby hand to pat at his face, more or less randomly.
“Oh yeah, we got a smart one. Lady just got finished saying she doesn’t want her body to be mauled by evil demon hands. Didn’t you listen to a bloody word?”
The kid gave another small laugh and patted some more.
“Shut up,” Buffy said with a soft smile of her own, stepping closer still.
Spike pretended that he didn’t wish he was back in his body to smell her instead of himself and the blood of those bloody demons.
“Will you seriously not let me touch you?” she asked the little one, this time just reaching out with a finger to stroke his hand. He grasped it, happily jamming it against Spike’s cheek. “Or we could annoy Spike, yes. I like you already.”
Spike was glad she was fully engrossed in the child, because he was sure he had one of those big smiles on his face. The ones that spelled every drop of love he felt for this crazy woman, that made her look flustered before she moved her eyes away and cut right through the tension with an offhand remark, always leaving him a little colder than before.
When he spoke, his voice was lower than Buffy’s normal. “You’re both big fat arse—”
“Spike!”
“Bottomholes.”
She didn’t have time to chide him, because Demon Kid decided she wasn’t that menacing after all and leant towards her. He wondered whether he looked quite that happy when Buffy gave him that look: she looked all pleasantly surprised, and while it was endearing when she was the one inhabiting that face, her everything was endearing. It would have to look bloody ridiculous on him.
And then Kiddo started slapping at the green blood that still painted her mouth.
“Oh God, I hadn’t even noticed—you’re nasty, Spike.”
“Me? Ain’t the one who didn’t clean up after having freed the child! See, it’s all about priorities. Can’t believe you’d want me to prioritise cleanliness over saving an innocent—”
“Oh, shut up. Doesn’t this coat have any kleenex somewhere?”
He gave her a look.
“What? You’ve got all sorts of shit in here,” she grumbled, grimacing at Kiddo’s dirty hands.
“Just use the shirt.”
“The one I’m wearing?”
“No, the one in my pocket.”
“Why do you—”
“Yes, the one you’re wearing!”
She gave him a scandalised look. Which made him think of his days of William and Christ. Just no.
“’S my body, Slayer, you think I’m gonna be embarrassed about seeing my own bloody abs or, God forbid! Nipples?”
She kept looking like he’s just proposed he took his shirt off her body. “I can’t… can’t just take off my shirt!”
For a moment, there was just the sound of Kiddo happily slapping at her face with blood-smeared hands, clearly enjoying his new role as an artist.
Then she huffed, shuffled the child until she was holding him one-armed, and struggled to raise the hem of her shirt. He settled in to watch her fumble between it and the coat, pursing his lips to hold back a laugh that might just get him a crippling-level kick.
“Will you stop gloating and help me already?” she burst out, staring stakes.
He couldn’t hold back the grin, but she was too busy being embarrassed to punish him, because she just let him take the shirt’s hem and tug it up enough to bare half of—well, his chest. But when the back of his fingers grazed that skin, his borrowed body didn’t seem to care about any such thing as logic, because it didn’t feel like he was dragging the shirt up his own body. It felt like he was doing it to her, to Buffy bloody Summers.
The tingling between his legs came back with a vengeance.
Clearing his throat, he said, “Try and hold him still, yeah?”
She nodded, suddenly silent. And maybe he was dreaming it, but there was a glaze in her eyes, and she kept avoiding his, and God. The fucking, unending waves.
Eventually, they managed to get Kiddo’s hands clean or at least clean enough, and then before he could remember how colossally stupid that was, he was helping her clean her own chin and face. The shirt had ridden up enough to show his nipple now when the coat shifted just so, and why, why the fuck would the bloody tingling grow tighter at that sight? It was his own fucking nipple. His own fucking chin he was cleaning, his own fucking eyes looking at him with that confused, scared-but-not-that-tense gaze as he did, so close he couldn’t think straight.
Of course, that was when Kiddo decided that he wanted to wriggle out of their arms.
The moment shattered and he let go of the soiled shirt, stepping back before he did something that wouldn’t just get a kick. Something like kissing his own damn lips just because she was the one wearing them.
“Right. So I guess Kiddo got enough cuddles, yeah?”
“I guess,” she said, tugging the shirt down and smoothening it before she got a tighter hold on the child, bouncing him a bit. “But I think we should go look for his parents rather than let him walk around.”
“So that’s a definite no on the baby demon killing?”
She held him closer, looking like he’d just proposed he kill a lil’ kitten. “I can’t kill him, Spike!”
“And what if his parents are big bad monsters, huh?”
She pursed her lips. “I’m not gonna kill a little child. He’s just…”
“Too cute?”
She bit her lip.
With a headshake, he couldn’t help a laugh. “Guess I should keep my wrinklies on more often, if that’s the effect.” He nodded at her forehead. “Gonna check what that feels like?”
After two adorable seconds of quiet sputtering, she bounced the child once more and then strode to the wide-open doors. “Just shut up. And take the torch! We can’t risk stumbling and hurting him.”
Chuckling, he obeyed, following her lead like her good little dog. Sometimes it was just too sweet for him to really mind, useless waves or not.
*
Everything was under control.
She was wearing Spike’s body, and he hers.
She had a demon child to take care of, because he was too cute to be slayed.
She had to find his demon parents, which could very much be people-eating parents, which would force her to slay them.
And she was having weird tingly… hardening things happening when Spike touched her. With her own damn body.
It’s the boy parts, she told herself sensibly. Everybody knows men are always… ready. So that has just moved over here.
Sure. Because if she’d been in her body when Spike had touched her chest like that, her chin, standing close enough to feel his breath on her skin… that wouldn’t have made her like ten times more fluttery.
Definitely wouldn’t have made me all hard-y.
She swallowed, trying to ignore the horrid taste in her mouth. Why did she have to go and have the tinglies for Spike? He was obnoxious, and a pig, and evil. He saved people every night, yeah, but he only did it to impress her, not because he cared or anything. And ok, he sometimes did it even when she wasn’t around—but that was just so he could boast about it to her, drive it in that she just underestimated him and that he could be a white hat “if he pleased”.
Still soulless. Still would like to eat people. Still will never regret anything he’s done.
For the hundredth time that summer, the image of the two slayers he’d killed came to her mind. They didn’t look particularly proud of her befriending their murderer.
It’s under control. We’re just friends, and he’s kind of maybe a little pretty, so it’s normal. It doesn’t mean anything and I’m ok and it’s all under control.
“To Willy’s, then?”
His voice drew her back to the present, and she shuffled with the child to try and look like she hadn’t spaced out on him. Again.
“You think we’ll find them there?”
“Think it’s as good a starting place as any,” he said. “Then we can get back to your pals and get this sorted, yeah?” he added, gesturing between them.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “The sooner the better.”
So I don’t do something dumb like following up on your invitation and see what is… “hanging”.
Not that she didn’t feel something. Because she sure as hell did. It was just so… there.
But feeling was different from seeing.
And no, that did not mean she could feel with her hand or anything, so her brain better stop being a horny hobag.
“Right on,” Spike said. “Everything’s too bloody tall in this body. How the hell do you cope?”
“Seriously? Spike, you aren’t even that—”
“Shut up! I’m not that short,” he said, a bit too vehemently.
A grin spread on her face. “Oh? Do I sense a weak point there?”
“Shut your mouth.”
God, it was weird to hear her own voice sound British. Weird in that grin-ny way that Spike managed to make most things. “I mean, you’re not that small, really.”
Ok, those were stupid words to say.
It was his turn to grin like a shark. “Right on the money on that, pet. Why, I think you can tell yourself.”
“You are dumber than this child, Spike,” she said, turning forward and stepping just that much faster. Which forced him to skip to keep up, and wow, she could get used to this longer-legs thing.
“Just tell it like it is, love,” he boasted, sticking his hands in his jeans pockets. Which, being women’s jeans pockets, were not meant for his dumb saunter, so he just looked ridiculous. “As I said, if you wanna take a gander yourself, you’re all free to go.”
“Pfft. You wish.”
Ah, there it was. The inescapable moment of awkwardness. When they accidentally reminded each other that yeah, Spike did very much wish. He hadn’t said it in a long while, but she wasn’t deaf or blind, and it was so obvious in, well. Kind of everything, with him.
She cleared her throat. “I really, really hope this little guy’s parents are nice demons. I mean, he’s so cute. They can’t be bad, can they?”
He accepted the shift of subject with a tight jaw and a nod, the tension slowly bleeding off his shoulders. She’d seen it happen so many times this summer, she kept thinking she’d get used to it; but no, every time it got a bit harder. The more time passed, the less she wanted to see him suffer.
Irony really, really sucked.
“Sure the cuteness travels through the family, yeah. Or you’re gonna get a new pet demon, yeah?”
Was that bitterness in his voice? God, she hoped not.
“It’s already hard dealing every day with one semi-good demon child. I don’t think I can deal with two,” she said.
He gave her one of those half-subdued, half-smitten grins. Maybe it was his way to try and hide how much it meant to him, that she saw him as more than just a monster, these days; after all, Spike’s poker face was all with the sucky.
“Bitch,” he said. It sounded like an endearment.
“Jerk.” Hopefully that sounded just friendly.
As they went, she eventually passed him the child. It was annoying, but he did seem better ìat calming him down. It came ridiculously natural to him to rock him in just the right away, shaking him just right to make him giggle and then holding him close, weathering his chubby fingers dragging everywhere with a chuckle and a joke about “handsy lil’ morsels”.
And none of it made Buffy’s chest tingle or anything.
Besides, just living in this body was weird on its own, there was no need for any more wackiness. And yeah, she’d technically been a vampire before; but she could feel the difference between a nightmare and reality, now.
She kept breathing, but it didn’t feel nearly as good as normal; it was a habit, not a necessity. Which was obvious in theory, but oh-so-surprising to actually live through.
The scents were so strong, she could smell Spike’s—well, her body, so clearly. The kid, too, who smelled so weird. And everything was clear even in the dark—still in shades of grey, but perfectly stark, like the shadows could do too little to blur the lines for her eyes.
And, yes, ok. She did feel it. With every step, she felt something between her legs. She could guess that it wasn’t obtrusive or distracting enough for someone used to it, but she very much wasn’t. Part of her kinda wished she could spend a few minutes naked somewhere, feel where it went when there was nothing to contain it. Ooh, she could do the helicopter thing!
And then she couldn’t help but picture Spike doing it, and she was giggling helplessly.
“What?” he asked. He was still grinning, probably from some dumb thing he’d been telling the child.
“Nothing,” she said. “Come on, let’s go!”
Quickening the pace was enough to make him grumble against her “bloody itty-bitty legs”, so, crisis averted. Now she just needed to get this child thing sorted, and quickly, so she could go back to her body and stop being tempted to impersonate idiot little boys (or idiot not-so-little vampires).
Which, of course, meant that they found absolutely no help at Willy’s.
“I can’t believe no one had any idea,” she grumbled as they left the place. The child was still in Spike’s arms, fussier than ever.
“Yeah,” he muttered, rocking him as best he could. “Little guy’s getting restless, too. Wager he needs a good ol’ nap, after all that nastiness.”
She bit her lip, looking at the child’s frown. “Think we should just walk around town and, I don’t know. Start knocking on doors?”
He gave her a flat look.
“I know, I know,” she admitted. “It’s just, it’s so late already. And we still need to sort out”—she gestured to herself. “This.”
“Yeah, we really do.” At her surprise, he shuffled his feet. “I, uh… think you need to take a piss.”
“No I don’t. I can’t anyway, not in—oh. Oh,” she said, dread descending on her. “Oh no you don’t.”
“Look, not like I can control this, can I?”
“Uh, actually, yes you can. You can and you will if you wanna stay undusty.”
Of course, that was when the child started kicking, one of his tiny feet hitting Spike right in the lower belly. He grimaced and thrust him into her arms.
“Get this bugger off me or I’ll soil your pretty jeans, princess.”
“Oh God,” she said, rocking the child as fast as she thought was ok. “Oh God, you can’t.”
“Well, if you won’t let me get on a toilet soon—”
“Just hold it in!”
“Haven’t done this in a bloody century, ok?” he complained, throwing his hands up. “Doing my best here, Summers!”
She forced back another threat, taking a deep breath instead and concentrating on soothing the increasingly limp body in her arms.
“Ok. Ok-ok-ok. We’ve got this. We just need to reach home, and then Willow will fix this.” She gave him a worried look, trying to keep any frustration out of it. “Can you make it there?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving a hand as he frowned at his midsection. “Should be fine. Just saying, we better get this kid thing done after you give me my non-pissing dick back.”
“Stop cursing in front of the child,” she hissed, holding his head closer to her neck. That was when she realised he’d gone completely limp, damp face smushed against her neck, and she gave Spike a hopeful look. “Is he actually asleep?”
He circled her to check, squinting. “Yeah, seem like it. Huh, so maybe he likes a bigger chest to fall asleep on.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you trying to imply?”
“Wider, pet, a wider chest. Or are you saying yours is wider than mine?”
She kept up her stare.
“Fishing for compliments, are we?” he said, grinning. “Want me to tell you that you have bloody fantastic tits? ’Cause you know I have no problem—”
“All right, shut up.” She did her best not to turn up her nose, or look flattered, or anything equally dumb-looking. “Let’s just get home.”
He stayed blessedly quiet, but she could feel his grin. And it wasn’t pleasant or anything.
By the time they reached her house, the child was still stone cold and Spike was full-on fidgeting. She stormed inside with the fire of embarrassment in her belly, striding to the living room, and tried not to get too angry at finding Dawn still out of bed at three in the damn morning, out on the couch along with Willow and Xander, Anya the only one still awake on the armchair.
“Wills!” she whisper-snapped, hoping to wake her up but not the child. “Wills, I need your help. Now!”
She ignored Anya’s mildly surprised look, but when Willow and Xander blinked their eyes open and just looked at her like she’d grown another head, a small growl came from her throat.
Huh. So she did growl.
“Willow!” she whisper-yelled again, stepping closer until she was towering over her. “It’s urgent!”
“Uhh,” she said, looking between her and Spike, who was fidgeting somewhere behind her. “Is it?”
“Ugh,” she said, finally realising the problem. “Of course.”
“Yeah, maybe the Slayerettes need some context here, Summers.”
All three waking Scooby heads swivelled to stare at Spike like he had grown another head.
“Body swapped,” Spike explained, gesturing between them. “Found this kid being held by demons, saved him, got body swapped by the circle that had trapped him, found out it’s a demon, and now I really need a piss and the princess here doesn’t want me to sully her virtue or summat.” A beat of silence. “Chop bloody chop! Red, get this thing undone so I don’t piss myself on the carpet!”
She finally fully sat up, blinking quickly between him and Buffy. “Oh, oh, ok. Spike—uh, Buffy—wow, this is confusing.”
“Confusing, yes, but please undo it first and figure it out later?” Buffy urged.
Willow frowned, but then she finally stood up and gestured to them to stand together. “All right, so a general reversal spell should do it. Can you let go of the… demon child?”
Buffy grimaced, not at all surprised when the kid just clung harder and started wriggling when she tried to dislodge him. “We just got him to sleep. Is it really a problem if he’s here?”
With another frown, Willow gave a shrug. “Maybe not? Let’s try.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then whispered a few words in Latin, repeating them three times, each time more loudly. Then she opened her eyes and a white little light left her hands, enveloping Buffy and Spike… and nothing happened.
“Huh,” she said. “Maybe it is.”
“Xander!” Buffy hissed. “Come and get him. He likes wider chests best.”
She ignored Spike’s chuckle beside her, gesturing wildly at Xander when he took three seconds to just gape uselessly.
“Look,” Willow said, “I’m just gonna grab a book, so we can get a more powerful one anyway.”
And then she was running away and up the stairs, all while Xan still just interpreted a fish on the couch.
“Uhh, yeah, sure,” he finally said when Buffy growled again, getting to his feet and shuffling to her. “It’s just so weird, ya know?” He gave her a crooked grin as he started prying the kid from her. “You’re, uh. Well, you look like Spike. And this is—whoa, yup, can see the demon. Hi, Mr. Klingon Baby,” he murmured.
Buffy jolted when Anya jumped up next to them, studying Xander like a hawk. “Be careful. Children are very delicate, you know.”
“Yeah, Ahn, I know… shh,” he soothed the child when it started fussing, fumbling until he was awkwardly holding him to his shoulder. “Sleep, please?”
“Christ,” Spike muttered, shouldering Buffy away so he could adjust him in Xander’s arms. “How are you all so utterly incapable of doing anything?”
And there it was again, that vamp-hand-cuddle magic fixing the problem in a matter of seconds. Made a girl wonder if it would work on human adults too.
No it doesn’t! No wondering for this girl. Or any girl. Anya better stop looking so impressed with him, too.
Thankfully, Anya did stop looking at Spike with appraising eyes, turning them to Xander instead once he got the gist of it and started rocking the child with another of his happy grins.
“Look,” he said, “it’s working!”
“I had no idea it would be so attractive to see you cuddling a child, Xander,” Anya said. Oh God, were those stars in her eyes?
And was that dread in Xander’s? “Uuhh. Thanks?”
Anya blinked quickly and dragged him to the sofa, snuggling next to him and starting to awkwardly pat the child’s back along with him.
“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Spike griped, crossing his arms.
Damn him and his cuteness. “Do I wanna know why and how you’re so good with cuddling children?”
His frown turned stormy. “No.”
Oh, right. Century of evil with a madwoman with a penchant for childish dolls. Buffy definitely did not want to know, or even be remotely reminded, considering how much the thought hurt.
Why can’t you stop caring for bad people?
She could hear Willow coming down the stairs and muttering lightly to herself when Spike shuffled closer, his eyes shifting to the side.
“When I was a kid, I had two little sisters. Twins, you see. Was a bit of a softie, liked taking care of them.” He tried for a shrug, but it was so stiff she could see the tension in his every cell. “Mum taught me how to hold ’em and shit.”
She stared and stared, trying to wrap her head around that image. Human Spike. Human child Spike. Human child Spike being cute and snuggly with his twin baby sisters.
It was almost weirder than seeing her own body worn by Spike.
“Died in under two years, ’course, so it’s not like I could practise mother hen all that much anyway. Surprised anything stuck at all,” he muttered darkly.
Willow had reached them, but she was so focused on her book that she probably hadn’t even realised they were even talking. And maybe that was why it felt so natural to reach out and touch Spike’s arm, squeezing it gently. Or maybe it was that he looked like her, less evil and scary and never-to-be-touched-ever. Or maybe she was past that with him, and a comforting touch was part of who they were now.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Confusion, awe, and then sheepishness raced each other on his face. She hadn’t even known her own features could be so expressive, but maybe it was all him.
“Was a long time ago,” he said, voice gruffer than she thought possible. “Don’t worry your pretty little head over it. Or mine,” he added with a grin and a nod.
She rolled her eyes, thankful for the break in the tension. Letting his arm go might have taken another squeeze and a couple of seconds more than strictly necessary, but who was counting?
“Ok, this is definitely it,” Willow said, emerging from her book with a triumphant little smile. “Ready?”
She and Spike both nodded, straightening up and facing her fully.
With another deep breath, Willow started chanting again, this time in some language Buffy couldn’t recognise. Once again, she repeated the same chant three times, every time louder, and then spread her hand towards them, bathing them in warm, pink light that blinded her for a second.
When Buffy could see again, she was standing exactly where she’d been before. With a sigh, she turned to Spike, who still looked too Buffy-shaped for anyone’s good.
“Bugger.”
“That’s not possible,” Willow muttered, staring between them and the book. “It should’ve—”
“Oookay,” Xander said, the panic in his voice making Buffy’s head whip to the side. “He’s awake and unhappy. How do I make him not those things?” He looked at Spike, then Buffy, then Spike again, trying and failing to stop the child from squirming away from his arms. “Spike-in-Buff’s-body? Help?”
“What’s happening?” came Dawn’s groggy voice as she finally started waking up.
“You not in bed at three in the morning is what’s happening,” Buffy snapped. “Why are you still here?”
Dawn looked like she’d spoken Arabic. “What the hell? Spike?”
“Xander, I told you to be careful!” Anya piped up, trying to push the child back in his hands.
With an explosive sigh, Buffy strode to him and picked up the child, rocking him to her chest until he stopped squirming. “You’re really bad at this, Xan.”
“Hey!” he said, all wounded puppy-eyed. “This is my first time holding a child! And, and it’s not even human!”
She tsked, bobbing him as she walked back to Spike, who was fidgeting again. “Please tell Dawn what’s happening and then send her to bed.”
“What the hell?” her sister said again, looking at Spike like he and Buffy had both gone mad.
“Yes, Dawnie,” he said with a grin. “Do as big sis says.”
With an eye roll, Buffy kicked his shin.
“Oi!” he cried, bending his leg to rub at it. “You know you’re gonna have to live with the pain, right, Slayer?”
“Worth it,” she said with a sweet smile. “Now stop touching me.”
“Well, stop kicking me, you hag!”
“What did you just call me?”
“Oh my God,” Dawn said, “who body swapped Spike and Buffy?”
While everybody tried to tell her what had happened, Willow was still muttering with her book. “This doesn’t make sense,” she said, “so what if I do—”
She said something in Latin again, waved her hand towards them, and purple light engulfed them. And once again, nothing happened.
Nothing except for the demon child giggling and clapping his hands happily at Willow.
“Like the show, lil mors—”
Spike’s words were cut off by a blinding light shining around the child as an honest-to-God bolt of lightning was conjured three feet above Buffy’s head and ran straight through the child, her chest, down her body and through the floor. Just as she registered it burning under her boots and a blaze criss-crossing down her chest, a deafening crack sounded above her, every Scooby in the room letting out a scream.
All while the demon in her arms giggled happily and clapped his hands with giddy abandon.
When the screams petered off into panting breaths, she finally took a breath, looking around her: Willow and Spike’s clothes and hair looked singed, while the floor was burnt black to a radius of three feet around her smoking boots.
Silence reigned, broken only by the child’s tinkling laughter as he squirmed happily into her stiff arms.
“So,” Spike finally said, voice just this side of shaken. “Got a feeling the body swap wasn’t on the circle after all.”
She swallowed heavily, meeting his eyes. Something too close to genuine worry filled them, which, you know, not very reassuring. Could do with a dumb joke instead, thank you very much.
Just when she realised that the dull sizzle in her chest would have felt very, very different if she’d still been in her body, the lights went off in the whole street.
“Well,” Dawn said in a dry voice. “No way I’m going to bed after that.”
The child in her arms writhed around until he could grin at her, pat her face twice, and then snuggle back into the crook of her neck.
See, a dark voice whispered. This is what happens when you get all friendly with cute demons.
Never say the universe liked subtle signs.