Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: PG-13 for now
Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine. Words are.
Warnings/Squicks: gender-bending.
Summary: Post-"Flooded." Spike gets hit by a spell that turns him into a girl.

Dead Girl Walking

by
Sorrel

Part One

Spike had made many mistakes in his unlife. First and foremost in his mind were the many times he’d gone up against the Slayer with absolutely no plan and had gotten his arse royally kicked. He tended to gloss over those times quickly though, not actually wanting to remember those in too much detail, and remembered the little things.

Like the one time he’d died his hair purple, and had been laughed at for a week straight before he’d given up and bleached it out again. Like getting into fights with Angelus over Dru- because God knows that ever got him anywhere. All the times he’d gotten so drunk he’d barely made it to shelter before the sun rose.

You know, little things.

This time, however, it wasn’t his fault. He was bloody sure of that much, at least. It was Buffy’s fault, was what it was, and he wished for the thousandth time that he wasn’t so damned wrapped around her littlest finger the way he was, because if he’d never fallen for her, he wouldn’t currently be standing in the middle of the Magic Box, wearing ill-fitting clothes and trying to pretend that the whole bloody Scooby gang wasn’t staring at him and trying not to burst into laughter over the fact that he was now a soddin’ girl.

It happened like this:

He and the Slayer had been out on patrol, making sweeps through the cemetery. Not talking, just walking side by side, all comfortable-like. Sure, Spike wished that she would love him the way that he loved her, but since she’d made it bloody clear that he was never gonna get that wish, he was happy to just spend time with her, fighting by her side instead of getting punched in the nose. She seemed to be happy just to have someone to be with where she didn’t have to pretend that everything was fine and that she’d been pulled out of some terrible Hell dimension instead of the peace of Heaven. He couldn’t help but notice that she gravitated more and more towards his side these days, and even though he knew it was just because she didn’t have to lie when she was with him, it made him happy anyway.

So he was patrolling with Buffy, not really expecting to find anything since the cemetery had been really damned quiet the whole night, when they ran into the demon. Normally this would have just been a nice bit of sport, a way to maybe work off a little steam, but this demon was different. Spike recognized the bugger at once, and made sure to grab Buffy and haul ass out of there before it could pound on them anymore than it already had.

When he deemed that they were far enough away to be safe, he gave in to the increasingly painful jerks on his arm and slowed to a stop. It took him a minute, but she finally stopped yelling at him for running away long enough to explain that it was a Garbresh demon, extremely powerful and unkillable except with magic. Which meant that they were lucky to escape with just bruises, and that it was time to go find Willow.

So she went to the Magic Box to explain to Giles what the hell happened, and sent Spike off to Revello Street, where the witches were having their big night in. Seems shy little Tara had gotten a bit pissy recently, on account of Willow using her magic more than she should, or somesuch, and Red had gotten everyone out of the house for the night so that she could stage some big seduction scene to jolly the Good Witch of the West out of her bad mood.

And Spike was sorry to interrupt her- well, not that sorry- but there was a deadly demon rampaging around Sunnydale, and he thought that he needed her skills a bit more than Glenda’s girly bits did. So he tested the door, found it unlocked for some ungodly reason, and rushed right in.

This was a mistake. He admitted that he probably should have knocked or something, but how was he to know that little Willow would be doin’ the down ‘n dirty right there on the living room couch? And how was he to know that she would react to his sudden entrance with a completely instinctive blast of magic?

Of course, considering what she was doing when she was interrupted, her magic was rather focused on sex. Or at least girls. Which was probably why things happened like they happened.

But it wasn’t his fault, damn it all to soddin’ hell. Sure, he’d made a little mistake in barging in without knockin’ or anything, but if the fault lay with anyone, it lay with Red and her soddin’ spell blast. And maybe a bit of Buffy’s fault for sending him there in the first place.

Either way, it had the same result. He was getting’ punished for being the good guy, again. He was getting really tired of that.

Red went off to deal with the demon, while Tara went rummaging through closets to get him some of Willow’s castoffs. The jeans fit fine, but even her loosest t-shirt strained over his newly bountiful chest, so Tara found one of her flowy wrap thingies and draped it over him. He grabbed a pair of Dawn’s sneakers- knew the Niblet wouldn’t mind- and made for the Magic Box, Tara trailing not that far behind, still trying to tell him that things were gonna be fine, and Willow’d get him fixed in no time, and had she mentioned that things were gonna be fine?

All of which led to this, his newest humiliation in a life that had become nothing but humiliations. He stood there, crossed his arms over his chest, tried not to wince at the new flesh there, and glared back at all of the damned Scoobies who looked like they were about two seconds away from spontaneous combustion if they kept choking back their laughter like that.

All except Xander, Spike noticed with interest. Xander wasn’t laughing. He was just standing there and staring, his mouth a little agape.

He wasn’t laughing at all.

Part Two

Xander knew that he should think this was funny. And sure, in a few seconds, the cosmic-level irony was going to hit him, and he was gonna start laughing his ass off.

Any time now.

He couldn’t help staring, though. It wasn’t just the concept of Spike! Is a girl! that had him staring. It wasn’t even the sight of Spike as a girl that was throwing him so much.

It was the way that girl-Spike looked.

He’d been short as a guy, and apparently that was one of the things that translated over pretty well, because he barely topped 5’2”. He made Xander feel like a giant, and at six feet, Xander wasn’t exactly the tallest guy around.

Another thing that had translated over was his cheekbones. Those high, sharp-enough-to-draw-blood cheekbones, set in a female face that was softer and less angular, but slightly more tilted and exotic. His eyes were the same, with the same scar through his eyebrow, and his hair was the same length, but now fell into messy, natural spikes instead of being slicked back against his skull.

One thing that hadn’t changed over with him was the lean, flat planes of his torso. Instead he had rather... bountiful curves, including a fairly tiny waist, smoothly curving hips, and extremely generous breasts, of which Xander could see far more than he wanted to let himself see, what with the loose drape of Tara’s shirt and Spike’s braless state. Xander, thankfully for his sanity, couldn’t see what Spike’s ass looked like, but he was willing to be that it, too, was an example of feminine perfection, just like the rest of him.

“-Xander will have to take him in.”

“Huh?” Xander’s head snapped around to stare at Buffy, who had been speaking. “What’s this about me and the bleached wonder?”

Buffy sighed. “Weren’t you listening? We can’t leave Spike alone like this. I can’t take him in- Giles is already sleeping on the couch, and Willow and Tara are in the spare rooms. The only one who lives alone is you.”

“And me,” Anya pointed out. “But I won’t let Spike in my apartment. He’ll get blood on the counters and track mud over my carpet.”

“And we can’t have that, can we,” Buffy muttered under her breath, then added, louder, “So you see, Xander, that you’ll have to be the one to put him up for a while.”

“No, I don’t see,” he said. “Why can’t he stay in his crypt? For that matter, why can’t Willow just turn him back?”

“You really weren’t listening, were you?” Buffy said, sounding tired. Xander winced a little inside- she always sounded tired these days, but this couldn’t be helping. He resolved to be the good guy, the stand-up trustworthy Xan-man, and take a little of the burden off of her already overloaded shoulders. “Willow can’t turn him back until the new moon, which is two weeks from now. Something about natural cycles or something. And we can’t leave him alone in his crypt. Have you looked at him?”

Xander had, indeed, looked at him.

“What if some drunken frat-boy gets a little overenthusiastic? He can’t defend himself against humans.”

As much as he hated to admit it, he saw Buffy’s point. Spike, with his new female good looks, was just the sort of tempting treat some of the more aggressive cruisers that Sunnydale University had to offer would love to get ahold of. Spike couldn’t stay on his own, which meant that he had to stay with someone else. And, unfortunately for Xander’s libido, that “someone else” appeared to be him.

“Alright,” he said, and saw the shock leap across Buffy’s features. What, he couldn’t do the right thing occasionally? Thanks for the confidence, Buff. Just because he hated Spike’s guts didn’t meant that he didn’t feel kinda sorry for the guy. Xander couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to wake up with breasts, and Spike, who was easily the most masculine man Xander had ever met, had to be majorly freaking out.

“Xander, are you sure?” Willow asked, and he cast her an irritable glance. Sure, she said she was sorry for what she did, but he kinda wished that she would just stay quiet for now, since the whole damn mess was her fault.

“Yeah, I’m sure. C’mon, Blondie. Looks like you’re crashing at my place tonight.”

“Oi! Anyone gonna bother to ask me what I want to do?” Spike’s voice was different, too- not so much higher, per say, as lighter, though it still had the very slight smoker’s rasp. Not that Xander had been paying an undue attention to Spike’s voice, of course.

“No,” Xander answered him, making sure to keep his voice cheerful and mocking, to mask the pity that he felt. He knew that Spike wouldn’t appreciate it. “You get no choice, Bleachjob. You’re coming home with me.”

“Just what I always wanted, Mum,” Spike muttered, and followed him out of the shop.

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