Enlightenment wasn't walking a mile in someone else's shoes.

Enlightenment was walking a mile in his own shoes which had never seemed so big when he had guy feet.

Big guy feet.

Though he still had guy-sized hips, only really not.

Whatever. At least his jeans weren't falling down.

Xander flip-stomped his way to The Magic Box thanks to the gods of Ace Bandage and Hanes Extra Thick Workman's Socks. "Okay. Research guy reporting for work."

Four pairs of eyes slid down Xander's body.

"What?"

"Guy?" Willow asked.

"If you can still do little girl voice with a pair of testicles, I can still use masculine pronouns with boobies." Xander threw himself into a chair. "Bring on das books!" He banged the table for emphasis - because let's face it, beating his chest was currently out of the question.

"I'm afraid it won't be quite that easy, Xander."

Xander looked at Giles. Giles and his classic jeans and a sweater - that fit. Really fit. Christ, it almost flattered and that was wrong. Also unfair. Giles looked as comfortable in his clothes as he had before it all went balls up - to borrow Spike's very very ironic turn of phrase. Either there was more to Watcher training than met the eye, what they said about English guys and cross dressing was true (and he'd ask Spike but Spike wasn't doing much dressing at all these days) or you could accomplish anything with a credit card and a red BMW convertible. And maybe a Wonderbra but that was territory Xander really didn't want to venture through.

And Giles was still talking.

Whoops.

"Huh?"

"There are no books on this subject."

Xander processed that quickly - too quickly - raced through all of the possibilities until he reached the solid wall of oh shit at the end of the tunnel. "That's what I heard you say - but what you meant is that there are no books on this subject in your collection and one is being FedExed from LA as we speak. Right?"

"What I meant is that Ethan created a unique spell for our benefit and does not know how to reverse it."

"Have you tried thumb screws?" Xander asked weakly. "I hear thumb screws are really popular for making people talk."

The shop door slammed on a cloud of smoke and Spike casually dropped his blanket into a display of fetishes. He strolled the length of the shop and hopped up onto the counter, crossing his legs. "Thumb screws are overrated, pet. Now, bamboo under the fingernails, that's a classic for a reason."

They all stared.

Tight black jeans looked a lot different on girls.

And that tight black camisole looked a lot different on Spike.

"I'm confused," Willow whispered to Tara, so quietly Xander almost didn't hear it - and then wished he hadn't. "I think I have an erection - does that mean I'm still gay or does it mean I'm straight now?"

"It means you're horny, sweetie." Tara petted her hair, the gesture no less natural to big man hands than it had been to slender girl hands.

Xander dropped his head onto the table and covered it with his own (please god, temporarily) girl arms.

Spike lit a cigarette. "His bird left a box of clothes in the closet."

Xander closed his mouth - quickly - before he could say anything that might imply Spike filled out Anya's clothes a whole lot better than Anya did - or that Spike was clearly a little bigger than Anya the way the clothes stretched. Either way, it was not something that should come out of Xander's mouth if he wanted to see another morning. "Those clothes were for charity," he said instead.

Spike shrugged. "I'm charity, luv. Think of the poor naked vampire with no clothes to call his own."

Xander tried to think of anything but the poor naked vampire.

The poor naked vampire with busy hands and no earthly inhibitions.

He heard Willow whisper about wishing she'd worn looser pants.

Xander moved very very far away from Willow and leaned against a book shelf in what he hoped was a casual pose. "So!" He said loudly before any more very disturbing whispers could reach his ears. "What are we going to do about this? This is where we break out the Scooby power, right?"

"This is where we wait." Giles took a seat on one of the benches and removed his glasses, tapping the stem against his teeth. "Ethan insists the spell is designed to wear off if we wait. I don't feel particularly inclined to trust him but it may very well be our best course of action until we learn differently."

"And when you say wear off - you mean when? Exactly."

"We don't know."

Xander stood - a man with a plan - boobies too, but most importantly: a plan. "Who's up for drinks at the Bronze?"

It was a really popular plan.

Having girl parts didn't seem to impair Spike's ability to drink. In fact, it seemed to encourage it as a steady stream of college type guys bought Spike beer after beer and Spike drank them all. Within an hour, Spike had learned just how to bat his eyes and angle his body and dear god in heaven, was he flashing boobie on purpose?

This had to stop.

And not only because nobody'd given Xander a second look except for one of the girls from Willow and Tara's old Wicca group. He didn't think she'd like waking up with him the next morning if the spell happened to end.

It was really wigging Xander out.

"Here."

Xander looked around to find a tall frosty glass of oblivion in front of him on the table and Spike sitting down on another stool. "What's this for?"

"To drink, pillock. Drink. Get drunk. Stop being a sad moping git while there's fun to be had."

"You call this fun?"

"Well, yeah. Been drinkin' free beer all night, pinched four wallets and had sex twice."

Xander paled. *Warp core breech is imminent!*

"Wasn't the best sex, mind. All that condom nonsense and the last bloke had a small - "

*Eject warp core!* Xander drowned out Spike's words with long, long gulps of bubbly frothing goodness and a quicker buzz than he'd had off one beer since he was twelve. "Excuse me, Spike. Time to dance the cares away. Right now." He pushed away from the table and staggered into Buffy - big Buffy. Big buff Buffy with muscles he was pretty sure she never had as a girl. "Hey, Buff. How about some crazy dancing?"

"Not exactly in the mood for crazy dancing, Xan."

Xander changed tactics. "Slow seductive dancing?"

"Really not."

"Non-dancing," Xander concluded, sitting down again.

"That's the one." Buffy slumped onto the third stool and leaned her elbows on the table.

"Where's Riley?"

"Not coming." Buffy grimaced and looked around. "I want a drink. Do you want a drink?"

"I want a drink," Spike said, lifting his empty hopefully.

"I wasn't asking you." Buffy snapped, climbing off the stool awkwardly, as unused to her extra height as Xander was to lack of the same - he put out an arm to stop her.

"Okay Buff - what's wrong?"

"Nothing." Buffy rolled her head on her shoulders, loosening up for a night of Bronzey fun. "I feel the need for beer."

Spike snorted and tilted back his beer, and Xander did not watch the way that smooth smooth throat worked the last drops from the bottle. Spike wrapped both hands around his bottle, toying with it in a way that made Xander...tingly. "I'll tell you what happened, mate. She went to make sweet love to Captain Cardboard and he crossed his legs tighter than a virgin on a pirate ship." He turned to Buffy and raised the bottle back to his lips. "What's the matter, pet? Wouldn't let you stick it in him?"

"Shut up, Spike!"

One moment, Spike's lips and tongue were doing casually obscene things to the neck of his beer and the next they were gone - along with Spike - down on the floor in a sprawl of limbs and broken glass and blood.

And angry young men coming closer with clenched fists and pool cues scarily erect.

Spike lay where he fell and smirked, wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand. He looked - happy. Scarily happy. "Shouldn't have done that, luv. People frown on this sort of thing when it's the tiny little girl who gets hit." Oh god - that was an unholy look of satisfaction in his eyes that looked way too much like Spike's expression after many orgasms.

Which was not an expression Xander had ever expected to know well enough to compare.

"Spike?" Xander crouched down, took Spike's hands in his and pulled until they were both unsteadily on their feet. "I think we should go home now."

"Why's that, pet?" Spike wiped at his bloodied nose once more and licked absently at the blood with a feral grin. "Floor show's just about to get started. Been waitin' for this all night."