(Author's Note: For people who wanted to know where all this body stuff came from, it's just me trying to illustrate that change has consequence. I've read fic where Spike gets his reflection back in one way or another and that's just it. Now I know human nature and I'm pretty sure vampire nature isn't far behind, and this would have a pretty big effect on how you see yourself. Spike didn't really react to the other changes he's seen so far because they weren't very far from the mark of what he had with the gem. He was invulnerable for months, etc, etc. He didn't really react to the empathic thing because he was always pretty perceptive and this was just cranking it up a notch. But something that affects his self-image would really hit Spike hard, mostly because he is pretty insecure about certain aspects already. So that's where it all came from, if you wondering.)
Spike wiped away tears of frustration. Crying like some whiney girl's blouse was just disgusting.
He glowered at the scale. One week. An entire week had gone by. He'd tried so damn hard. He lived at the gym. He drank down all that supplement sewage. He ate nothing but blood and protein.
One hundred and sixty pounds. The number mocked him and the needle refused to budge under the violent contempt he had for it.
Buffy walked into the bathroom and jumped, “Oh, sorry. I didn't know you were in here. Er, what are you doing?”
Spike got off the scale quickly. He didn't want her to know how little he weighed. He gingerly kicked it under the sink, “Nothing, love. Having a break from studying, then?”
Buffy smiled sheepishly and shifted a bit, “Well, it's kind of a necessary break…”
Spike raised his eyebrows and smirked, “I'll just get out of your way then.”
Buffy looked at the floor, her face turning red. The minute he was out the door she shut it and bolted for the toilet.
While peeing, Buffy bent down to look under the sink. Spike had been acting oddly lately. She, Tara, and Willow had been caught up with school finals and thoroughly tired and distracted. They hadn't even really talked to Xander about what had happened. Buffy's mind skittered away from that subject; she just wasn't ready to deal with it yet.
But he'd been doing strange things. He had actually gone out and bought three more of those huge black hoodies. One with the Sex Pistol's 'God Save the Queen' union jack on it, one with The Ramones, and another with the Dead Kennedys ' Too Drunk to Fuck' image from the album cover.
He wore them all the time now.
And he had started wearing pajamas to bed.
Now, it wasn't that he had never worn them before, he had several sets and quite a variety of sleep pants as a result of living with Tara and of having the Scoobies over so often now.
But he was even wearing them when they were in bed alone together when before he had just slept naked.
Buffy was starting to miss his skin.
She'd been too preoccupied and exhausted from the workload to get up to much of their usual activities.
Well, they were down to once a day anyhow, Buffy considered that a serious decrease.
But even when they got it on, he was already under the covers by the time she turned around, or he stripped in the dark.
What was going on with him?
Buffy flushed and exited the bathroom, she walked determinedly to the bedroom she considered 'theirs' and shut the door behind her. Good, he was downstairs.
She remembered him scribbling in a notebook covering it covertly when she had come in. She had a strong suspicion where it might be. Getting down on her hands and knees, Buffy fished around under the bed.
Pulling out a bunny slipper, she rolled her eyes and tossed it in the direction of the closet to join its mate. That's where it had gone.
She found two lip glosses, one bottle of Sunrise Sensation nail polish, a leopard print thong, her missing tank top emblazoned with a popsicle print, last month's Cosmopolitan magazine, some gum, the psych notes she'd been looking for this morning, and finally Spike's plain black notebook.
She felt a bit guilty invading his privacy but it wasn't like he was all with the talking about himself lately.
She opened the first page.
* * *
Meanwhile, Tara was looking for a jar to hold spell ingredients and was rooting through a little used shelf where she was keeping containers she was planning on using to make jam that spring.
When her searching hands encountered the large plastic bottle she pulled it out.
What the Hell?
It was a very large bottle of protein supplement. She opened it, sniffed and winced. She looked back into the cupboard and found a bottle of creatine and several other various weight-gain powders.
Her mind refused to process this at first. Who would-?
And of course, logic supplied the answer and Tara felt like crying.
It made perfect, twisted, sad sense. Everyone had body issues but they dealt with them in very small amounts when they looked in the mirror every day.
Spike hadn't thought much about himself physically in years, he just got a huge dose of self-image problems all at once. Why hadn't she thought of this? Why hadn't she been talking to him about it and helping him deal with the big changes he had gone through in a very short period of time?
They hadn't even helped Xander after his Angelus' experience. Tara felt horribly guilty about that but Xander was only really a friend by-proxy, she didn't know him that well and it wasn't her place to bring things like this up. If it were Spike that was another story entirely. She and Spike hadn't already talked about everything after it happened.
But she hadn't even noticed this.
She looked towards the living room where Spike and Xander were watching television and thought about all the times Spike had told her she was pretty.
It was really all the time. Every time she wore a new outfit, she was 'gorgeous.' Whenever she wore something revealing and felt self-conscious he told her she was 'lush'. Sometimes for no reason at all she'd been standing in a patch of sunlight and Spike would comment on how beautiful she looked.
He did the same thing with Buffy, Tara couldn't count how many times she'd heard Spike voice his hearty approval of her looks, her hair, her clothes, her everything.
Even Willow and occasionally Anya were complimented.
She tried hard to remember if she'd ever told Spike he looked good.
She couldn't think of a single instance.
* * *
Buffy stared at the pages, flipping through them without comprehension. Arms: twelve inches. Waist: 26 inches. Thighs: 18 inches. It went on to catalogue every nearly every body part.
What was this?
Was he measuring himself over and over? Eight days were carefully dated and marked out. All the measurements were the same. Buffy began to wonder if Spike might be going insane under their very noses.
Then she flipped towards the back of the book. Three pictures of Vin Diesel were pasted there along with a recording of the actor's own measurements.
Buffy got a very sick feeling. Oh God.
She put the notebook under her arm and quietly walked down the stairs. She met Tara in the kitchen. She was seated on the floor surrounded by supplement bottles.
Buffy took one look and sat down beside her.
Tara licked her lips, “Do you ever tell Spike that you like how he looks? Did you ever say anything about his body?”
Buffy looked a bit dazed. She concentrated hard. Spike whispered words of worship about every part of her. He talked about her vagina as if it were the Holy Grail.
She thought about her own words. They were mostly encouragement for whatever he was doing.
She loved his body, she thought about it whenever it was in reach and even when it wasn't. She'd wasted many an English class daydreaming about his chest.
But she'd never opened her mouth and said that she thought he was hot. She never said she thought his skin was too perfect to be real, or that he had the best stomach she had ever seen, or that she loved to watch him walk away just to check out the rear view.
Thinking back it seemed ridiculous to be so shy about something that would make someone else feel good.
She shook her head sadly.
She remembered now going on about Vin Diesel's stupid bulky form and felt horrible. She didn't want Vin Diesel.
She followed Tara gaze towards the living room and putting the notebook on the table she walked over to the doorway. Tara followed her and they both stood, looking in at Xander, who was becoming a permanent fixture, sprawled on the couch.
Spike, who otherwise would have been right beside him in a similar position, was curled up in an armchair, enshrouded in one of those damn hoodies. Buffy was starting to hate the damn things. She missed his tight cotton t-shirts.
She walked over to the armchair and perched on the edge. Spike looked up from 'Invader Zim' to smile at her. His smile looked strained and Buffy felt a tug on her heart. She slipped down to the space he left and was pleased to find they both fit comfortably.
Spike did not look so pleased. He kept glancing at the small space they took up. Buffy felt like crying. Why did he think he had to be bigger?
She wrapped an arm around his waist and felt him tense and forcibly relax himself. She laid her head on his shoulder and he immediately shifted so she could move in closer.
When the cartoon was over, Xander stretched and went in search of food. Buffy prepared herself.
“Spike, you know I love you, don't you?”
Spike blinked at her in surprise, “Um, yeah. I love you, too.”
Buffy didn't really know how to go on. Tara fortunately came to her rescue.
“Spike, I found some things in the kitchen that I'm really worried about.”
Buffy felt Spike go stiff as a board.
Tara continued, “If you're trying to improve yourself for some reason, maybe you don't feel on your game or you think you can help Buffy more if you're even fitter, then I wouldn't worry about it. But I don't think that's what you're doing.”
Buffy finally found her cue, “You're a total hottie you have to know that.”
Tara winced but let a small smile escape, “I'm sorry we've never given you any positive reinforcement about your body. And I really should have realized that seeing yourself again would have consequences. Can you maybe tell use some things you've been thinking about that might help use understand what the problem is?”
Spike had been staring blankly at a commercial for car insurance but snapped out of it with Tara's question. He seemed to be thinking it over.
Spike was used to talking about his feelings, you couldn't live with Tara and avoid it. But these were so private and they just ate away at him. He worried voicing them would make them all worse.
But they were listening and maybe they could help him find out what was really wrong with him. Maybe Tara knew a spell or something.
“I'm just trying to get a bit bigger. I've always been too skinny, I just never really thought about until now.” Spike picked at the frayed string of his Ramones Hoodie.
“You're feeling this way now because of the big change that seeing yourself in the mirror every day brings. It must be overwhelming to have all these negative thoughts all at once. But I don't think you're too skinny. I think you're just right for your body type. Do you remember how I always used to think that I was fat?”
“You're not fat, pet! You're just perfect!” Spike protested heatedly, looking her in the eye finally.
“See? You see me more objectively than I do. I still have those thoughts every once in a while, especially since I'm the biggest girl in our group, but I can manage it and your support helps.”
Buffy swallowed, she didn't realize Tara felt that way. The girl couldn't be bigger than a size six. Buffy finally spoke up, “Did you think I wanted you bigger?”
Spike glanced at her from the corner of his eye, “That's how you like them, isn't it? Peaches, and that bloke from yoga, and the Teacher's Bitch from the bench.”
“First of all, I'm am SO over Angel it isn't even funny. And Angel's size had nothing to do with why I liked him in the first place. Second of all, what guy from yoga? I'm not even going to dignify the Riley comment with a response.”
“That bloke you were staring at that had you so heated-“ Spike broke off here, figuring he's just given up way too much information.
Buffy's jaw dropped, “You think I was all hot for that Neanderthal? I was totally scoping out you in those yoga pants that should be illegal.”
It was Spike's turn to drop his jaw, before he could begin to formulate a response, Tara chimed in again, “Spike, this isn't all of it, is it? It's not just how skinny you think you are.” Tara asked, thinking about the morning he had smudge out his own image in the fog of the bathroom mirror.
Spike closed his mouth and sat back in the chair. The whole bloody lot had to be aired out then.
“ I just forgot how stupid my face was, alright?”
Buffy and Tara stared at his without comprehension.
Spike rolled his eyes, “Oh, come on. These fucking ridiculous cheeks? My girly, big mouth? My teeth aren't straight either, I'd forgot about them. I've got girly eyes, too. I don't look at all like a man is supposed to.”
“Are you on crack? You'd tell me if it was crack, right? Is it crack?” Buffy asked, finally finding her voice.
Spike blinked at her, “It's not crack. It's reality.”
“I would beg to differ.” Buffy cupped his face, “I LOVE your face! People would kill for this face. People probably have killed for this face, Drusilla springs to mind.”
“Spike, remember what I said about not being objective. You have a beautiful face, and as you happen to be man, I'm quite sure this is how you're supposed to look.” Tara sat down on armrest on Spike's other side and kissed his forehead, “And I've always envied your eyelashes. It's such a waste really, to have them on a man.”
Spike smiled slightly, but it looked a lot less strained, “You're welcome to them, pet.”
Xander came in at that moment, “So what's going on, it looks like GNC threw up on your kitchen floor. Oooh! Dexter's Lab! Never mind.”
* * *
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