She’s undecided on whether she likes Spike. He’s evil, and he did try to murder her only a few weeks ago, but he did it in such a nice, supportive way—sometimes a girl likes to hear that she’s biteable. And maybe Willow owes him a little bit after she made him propose to Buffy what with the whole Will-Be-Done spell. So she cares just enough to stop him from outright staking himself, which he tried to do when she visited Xander earlier. It turns out Spike stole some kind of magical doodad from Giles and accidentally activated it while emptying his jeans pockets for laundry. (“It was in a sodding wallet! What kind of git keeps magic trinkets in a wallet? Oh, right, forget I asked.”) So Spike’s jeans don’t fit anymore, because his hips are wider now, because the doodad made him grow hips and... breasts and stuff. Personally, Willow thinks he looks very cute, but Spike doesn’t see it that way. They called Giles, who laughed a lot and said airily that the effect would wear off in, oh, a week. And Spike had a meltdown. Willow couldn’t just leave him like that. You don’t do that to someone who has complimented your cookies in detail, even if it was only in order to get more cookies.
Willow remembers what it’s like to be the girl with nothing good to wear, a victim of bullying because she looked like a victim. Xander did try to point out that Spike wasn't any kind of girl, body aside, and was still an evil vampire. And Spike agreed, saying, “Look, you stupid SoCal brats, when you put on a, a Halloween costume or what have you, does it make you a different person?” (Really, this kind of thing depends on where you bought the costume.) But since Spike brought up Oz, she sees his point. Oz is still the same person to her, no matter if he’s wolfy at the moment. So Spike-in-a-new-body has to be the same person as regular Spike, too. But, now she’s started thinking that way, she thinks she still shouldn’t be nasty to that person. What if Spike didn’t choose to become a vampire, just like Oz didn’t choose to be bitten by his cousin? Maybe it isn’t his fault he’s a bloodthirsty monster. More importantly, Willow needs a way to keep busy, since she doesn’t want to dwell on Oz being gone and she can’t seem to get any girl time with Buffy, and she is not going down the path of stewing and resenting and near-vengeance-demonhood again.
So here they are. At the thrift store, because even though Willow wants to help, she wants to save money for quality spell supplies and laptop parts more. She knows the shop well—she comes here often with Xander.
Spike looks so good in this body, Willow thinks. He has the cheekbones and the lips and the confidence. Especially the confidence. These days, Willow doesn’t even try to look fashionable or feminine, and she likes her clothes, but sometimes she wonders. Was it all a wolf thing with Oz and Veruca, or was it the way Veruca carried herself? What Giles called “stage presence”? Spike has oodles of stage presence. All the world’s a stage for him. If anyone can look biteable 24/7, Spike probably can. On the other hand, not everyone looks biteable even when they look good, Willow muses. Tara from the Wicca group mostly looks snuggly. Not that one might not bite Tara, if one was a vampire—okay, off track. Spike seems like he’d go for some kind of dramatic femme fatale thing.
***
In the changing booth, Spike casts a critical look down. At least the breasts aren’t too bad. They look almost the same size as the Slayer’s: a fine size, as long as you're going to have breasts. As for the rest of it… it’s like he’s out of focus. The lines of his body have softened and wobbled out of place, and he knows his face must be blurry, too—blunted, bloated. People look at him like they think he’s cute.
Well, screw that. He won’t survive a week looking harmless, not when the chip keeps him from using fangs as backup. Most demons know that women can be just as dangerous as anyone else, but humans will assume he can’t protect himself, and they won’t be wrong. He has no illusions about any the Slayer’s human buddies protecting him in a fight. So he thought his days were numbered, and he figured he’d go on his own terms. But if the little witch is willing to help… that’s sweet of her. He’ll stick around, give it a try.
His look must now be armor enough to make people stay away. The rings have to go. They’re too much now, anyway, an overload of prettiness, what with the lush pout that he feels where his mouth used to be and these dainty wrists, and all those godforsaken curves, it’s too much. Off with it! He vamps out. That’s more like it. Fierce is the look he needs; he wants to be stark. His muscles and sinews used to do most of the job for him, but now he’s lost those clean, sharp lines, he has to look for other sharpness. Ditch the color, the red shirt is too warm. He wants to be the unforgiving light of a morgue, the paleness of damning pre-dawn, and the sharp promise of fangy death.
He’s reminded of the time right before he properly became Slayer of Slayers. That’s when he tried hardest to look dangerous, dressing for the job he wanted. He could use some version of that look now.
***
When Spike steps out of the changing booth, it isn’t the transformation Willow expects. He’s buying two pairs of plain jeans, and that’s it? More of the same, but in his size? If Willow had an excuse to play with completely different clothes, she’d have more fun than this. She files the thought away for later.
But Spike’s fun is only starting, it seems. He pounces on the accessory bin next to the counter and triumphantly pulls out a massive metal-studded belt, then inspects the small selection of jewelry and picks only the ugliest, clunkiest pieces. On the way back to Xander’s place, he pulls Willow into the mall, where he struts down the bath items aisle twice, loiters some more and abruptly declares he’s done while Willow is distracted looking at some green nail polish. He walks out without buying anything, but then he insists of dropping into the craft store, where he makes Willow buy half their stock of safety pins. (“What size should I pick?” she asks. “Just get all of them!”)
Back at Xander’s, Spike pulls out a piece of pumice with the price tag still attached and attacks two pairs of jeans. They leave Spike happily crafting away and go stop an apocalypse.
Willow drops in at Xander’s before going home. The carpet is strewn with the mortal remains of jeans fabric. According to Xander’s loud complaint, Spike has blunted a good pair of nail clippers and raided his sandpaper supply. But that isn’t what holds Willow’s attention. Spike has shaved one side of his head. The other side sticks in all directions, defying gravity, order, and the world at large. Sharp, fierce lines of makeup around his eyes make him look predatory as though he was vamped out. He’s wearing matte black lipstick (Lipstick?! When did he get that?), which makes him look even paler than usual and turns the plump lips grim, forbidding. His mouth looks charred, and his eyes are the only flash of color anywhere on him. There’s a honest-to-goodness safety pin in his eyebrow (ew) and even more jingly, clanky metal on his wrists and in his clothes; Willow thinks he’s trying to sound like a walking weapons chest. The jeans he’s wearing have obviously survived hours of violence. He’s kept his black T-shirt and leather coat, and he’s still wearing his boots and strutting with all he’s got.
Her mom would take one look at Spike and say that it’s a phase. Spike must be older than her mom, though, and he’s still doing phase things. Maybe you can just keep phasing. Maybe it’s not a bad. Obviously, in Spike’s case, anything he does usually is bad, because he’s evil. So Willow thinks she’d better not draw any conclusions from Spike’s style.
Especially not the conclusion that being evil might be worth it if you can look as cool as this.