Disclaimer: I own nothing, I borrow everything, don’t sue me cause I have nothing. ;-)

Author note: Answer to a challenge fic using an unconventional couple, Giles losing his glasses, Willow not being able to get online, and a Puffy Xander joke.

Tainted Love

Willow and Tara sat together on the floor of their room. It was dark and they had lit several candles around themselves forming a circle. There was incense burning around them and they had a spellbook in front of them.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Tara asked unsure.

"Well, I figure it’s the least we can do. Buffy’s got so much to deal with right now, and the last thing she needs to worry about is Spike and his crazy obsession." Willow explained.

"But sometimes spells like this can go wrong." Tara said.

"Relax, nothing is going to go wrong. We’re just going to do a simple de-lusting spell so that Spike won’t have these crazy feelings for Buffy anymore."

"Okay, if you’re sure." Tara said nervously.

They joined hands and began reading aloud from the spellbook.

Spike was sitting at the Bronze nursing a beer when he saw Xander and Anya walk in. He looked up and thought about going over to see if they would tell him how Buffy was doing. He knew that her mom had died and that she must be in really bad shape.

He had wanted to see her himself, but realized that she would probably stake him on sight, the condition she was in, so he stayed away. He took a last swig of his beer and got up.

He approached the table that they were sitting at. They were deep in conversation and didn’t even see him standing there.

"Hey." Spike said to them.

They looked up and both started shifting nervously when they realized who was talking to them.

"Spike, get away from us." Xander said firmly.

"I just wanted to see how Buffy’s doing. Is she okay?" Spike asked.

"What do you think? Get lost before I throw you out of here." Xander said rising to a standing position.

"Yeah, Xander will throw you out." Anya said proudly, beaming at her love.

"Relax. I don’t want any trouble. You people are so bloody touchy. I just wanted to see if she was alright." Spike said with irritation.

Back at Tara’s room, they were finishing up the spell.

"Let the love that has infected the heart be gone" Willow recited.

A bright beam of white light shot through the air and out the window. Willow and Tara were thrown back at the force of the powerful magic, and lay on the floor clutching each other.

"Did it work?" Tara asked quietly.

"Uh, I think so." Willow whispered back.

Spike turned around to leave Xander and Anya’s table when Anya stood up and grabbed Spike’s arm to confront him.

"You just don’t know when to quit, do you mister? If I had my powers back you’d be in big trouble!" She shouted at him, then smiled at Xander.

Spike turned around to face her.

"Is that so?" He said sarcastically.

Just then the white light zoomed into the room and enveloped Spike and traveled into Anya who was still clutching his arm.

Spike stumbled a bit and Anya collapsed onto the ground.

"Bloody hell! What was that?" Spike mumbled to himself as he leaned on the table for support.

Xander rushed to Anya’s side and lifted her up.

"Are you okay?" Xander asked her with great concern.

"I’m fine." She said a bit disoriented. Then she looked at Xander. "Let go of me!"

"What?" He said completely confused.

"Let go of my woman." Spike said loudly.

Xander looked at him with total disbelief and laughed.

"Your woman? Are you insane, Spike?" Xander laughed.

"That’s right. I love Spike, now. Sorry Xander." Anya said calmly as she walked over and kissed Spike passionately.

Xander’s laughter quickly faded.

"Hey! What the hell is going on?" He asked dumbfounded.

"Sorry pal, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be." Spike said with a smirk and Anya laughed.

"Is this a dream?" Xander asked pinching himself hard on the arm. "Ow! Okay. Not dreaming. This is not good. Anya, please! You have no idea what you’re doing." He pleaded with her.

"I’m sorry Xander, but things change. I don’t know how I ever could have loved you anyway. Spike is strong and powerful, and you’re just, well…not." She explained calmly.

She took Spike’s arm and they walked out of the club together as Xander watched in horror and dismay.

Xander ran to his car and sped towards the magic shop. He knew this must be some kind of spell or curse. There was no way this was happening. Giles would know how to fix it.

He ran into the shop out of breath.

"Giles! Giles! I need your help!" He shouted frantically.

Giles emerged from the back room quickly wondering what was going on.

"Good lord, Xander. What is it?" Giles asked.

"Something’s happened to Anya." He panted, still out of breath and in the midst of a panic attack.

"Oh dear. What is it? Demon? Vampire?" Giles asked.

"Spike." Xander blurted out.

"Spike? Spike has done something to Anya?" Giles asked perplexed.

"He took her. She-She thinks she’s in love with him. Giles, it has to be a spell or something." He rambled on.

"Relax, Xander, and tell me everything." Giles said as they sat down at the table.

Xander told him everything that had happened including the white light that engulfed Anya and Spike.

"Well, it certainly sounds like some sort of spell." Giles said scratching his head. "Let me get one of my books and see what we can find."

Giles picked out a book and sat back down. He reached into his pocket for his glasses and couldn’t find them.

"Where did I put them?" He said to himself as he looked around the shop.

"What are you looking for?" Xander asked anxiously.

"My glasses. I took them off over here, and now I can’t find them." He said searching around. "I can’t read a thing without them."

"Hurry Giles! We don’t have much time. I don’t even want to think about what Spike and Anya are doing right now." Xander said with a horrifying picture being painted in his head.

"Well then, help me look!" Giles said irritated.

"You know, this would be a great time to think about laser surgery." Xander mumbled as they searched.

As they searched Willow and Tara walked in smiling and holding hands.

"Hey guys. What’s up?" Willow asked cheerfully.

"We need to find my glasses. I seem to have misplaced them." Giles told them.

"Oh, and Anya and Spike have run off together." Xander said sarcastically.

Willow laughed and Xander shot her a dirty look. Her smile faded.

"What?" She asked confused.

"Yeah, I think it was some sort of spell. Giles was going to help me, but he can’t read without his glasses." Xander said despairingly.

"Spell?" Willow and Tara both asked in unison.

"Yeah."

"Uh-oh." Willow said softly.

"Maybe I left them in the training room." Giles said and they all followed.

"So what happened exactly?" Tara asked Xander as they walked into the training room.

"One minute, Anya was telling Spike off and the next minute she said she loved him and they walked out together. It was like some bizarro world, or something."

Tara looked over at Willow sheepishly.

"Look! I found them!" Xander exclaimed, holding the glasses up in the air.

"Where were they?" Giles asked.

"Right here by the puffy suit." He replied.

"Puffy suit?" Willow asked.

"Yeah, see I put this suit on and voila! I become Puffy Xander, and Buffy gets to kick my ass." He smiled.

"Oh, cool." Willow said smiling nervously. "Um Xander, I think Tara and I know what happened."

"You do?" Giles and Xander said together.

"Well, yeah. Tara and I were trying to do a spell to make Spike fall out of love with Buffy, you know, so he would leave her alone. I guess we must have mixed something up and it affected Anya too." She said sheepishly, embarrassed that another of their spells had backfired.

"You what? Oh great. Anya was touching Spike’s arm. Whatever you did must have passed through her and now for some reason they fell in love with each other." Xander said pacing the room.

"We better find a way to reverse this spell. Do you have the spell with you?" Giles asked.

"No, it’s at home." Willow said. "I can go get it."

"Wait. We’ve been putting all our spells on the computer, you know, organizing them. If Willow can get online, then we could download it." Tara said.

"Great. Let’s go." Xander said as they walked to the room with the computer.

Willow sat down and tried to log on. She kept getting a busy signal.

"Damn. This stupid thing won’t log on." She cursed.

"Come on, Will, let’s go." Xander pressed her.

"It’s not working." She said after several attempts. " We’ll just have to go home and get it."

"Find Anya and Spike and try and get them here. We’ll need them both if we want to break the spell." Willow told Xander as she grabbed her bag and headed out the door.

"Oh, Spike. This is a great place." Anya said as they walked into the crypt.

"Yeah, I call it home, Luv." He smiled at her.

Spike moved forward and took Anya in his arms.

"You are beautiful. Much better than what’s her name, the slayer." He murmured into her ear.

"And you’re much sexier than Xander. I knew the first time we talked that I should be with you and not him. We have so much in common." She said as she kissed him.

The door suddenly burst in and Xander charged in.

"Get your hands off her, Spike!" He shouted.

"Hey! You can’t come barging in here like that." Spike said annoyed.

"Xander, I told you. It’s over." Anya said to him.

"Look this is not real. It’s a spell, can’t you see that?" Xander pleaded.

"A sodding spell? I don’t bloody think so." Spike scoffed.

"Poor Xander. He just can’t accept that I’ve moved on." Anya told Spike sadly.

"Look, you both need to come with me." Xander said taking Anya’s arm.

"I’m not going anywhere." She said angrily.

"Let her go." Spike said loudly.

"Or what? You can’t hurt me, remember? I’m taking her, and there’s nothing you can do about it." Xander said confidently.

"Oh yeah?" Spike said with a smirk looking at Anya. She smiled.

She reached down and grabbed a lamp and hit Xander over the head with it. He fell down unconscious.

"There. Now he won’t be bothering us." She smiled. " But, I bet he’s gonna be really mad when he wakes up."

"Forget him, let’s concentrate on us." Spike said as he pulled her into his arms.

Willow rushed back into magic shop with the spell book under her arm.

"I’ve got it!" She exclaimed.

"Good. Well, Xander isn’t back yet." Giles said to her.

"I hope everything’s okay. Maybe they refused to come here?" Willow said with worry. "This is all my fault. I never should have tried this."

"It’s okay." Tara said putting her arm around her girlfriend. "We’ll fix it."

"Yes, well, let’s see what you have and figure out how to reverse it." Giles said.

He scanned the words that were written in the book and scratched his head.

"I see what happened. You not only eradicated the love inside of Spike, you transferred it to whomever he first laid eyes on, which in this case would be Anya. I suppose since they were touching at the time of the spell, it affected her as well." Giles explained.

"How do we fix it?" Willow asked.

"It’s really quite simple. We just need to do a basic reversal, but in this case we need to have both parties present." He explained.

"What’s taking Xander so long? Maybe we should go to Spike’s and see what’s going on." Willow said.

They grabbed all the necessary supplies for the reversal spell and headed out the door.

Xander slowly regained consciousness and realized that he was tied up.

"Hey. Untie me!" He shouted at them.

Spike was sitting in his chair with Anya on his lap, and they were talking and kissing.

"Quiet down. We’re trying to have a moment here." Spike told him.

"This is ridiculous! Let me go!" Xander said tugging on his restraints.

"Relax. We’re not going to hurt you. We just can’t have you meddling in our love. It’s nothing personal Xander." Anya said calmly.

Xander shook his head and willed the whole mess to be over with.

"I’m gonna kill Willow for this." He muttered under his breath.

The door swung open again and Willow, Tara and Giles walked in. They didn’t notice Xander tied up in the corner.

"Oh, this is bad." Willow said noticing Anya and Spike cuddling in the chair.

"Doesn’t anyone knock?" Spike said with great irritation.

"Hey! It’s about time you showed up!" Xander said loudly.

They all turned and saw him in the corner.

"Xander!" Willow exclaimed, running over to him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just undo the spell already. Hurry!" He told her.

Spike and Anya got up and walked over to where they were standing.

"Please leave now and you can take Xander with you. Spike and I would like to be alone." Anya told them.

Willow just shook her head and Giles started reading the reversal spell.

"What has been done shall be undone. Return the love to where it belongs." Giles said as Tara threw some powder on Spike and Anya.

The white light returned and encircled Spike and Anya. They both fell back onto the hard floor.

Willow rushed over to Anya.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

"Where am I?" She said with confusion.

"Spike’s crypt. Do you remember?" Willow asked.

"What?" Anya said rubbing her eyes then she remembered. "Oh god! Xander! Where’s Xander?" She asked concerned.

"Uh, right here. Tied up nice and tight." He said sarcastically.

"Oh no!" Anya said rushing over to him and untying him. "How’s your head?" She said sheepishly.

"Oh, it hurts." He said quickly. "You have a nice swing."

"I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I did this to you. Do you forgive me?" Anya asked with tears in her eyes.

"Of course I do. It wasn’t your fault." Xander said as he took her in his arms.

Spike got up and walked over to where they were all standing.

"So, um, how’s Buffy doing?" He asked.

They all turned and groaned at him.

"Just asking." He said throwing his hands in the air and sulking off to his chair to sit down.

"Let’s get out of here." Xander said to everyone.

"Yes. Please. I can’t believe I thought I was in love Spike. How weird and strangely disturbing." Anya said to them.

"It was even worse to watch." Xander said shaking his head.

They went out the door and walked in silence.

"Uh, Will?" Xander asked.

"Yes?" She said cautiously.

"No more love spells? Please?" Xander said with a smile.

"Right. Promise. No more love spells." She said nervously.

"Think we should tell Buffy about this?" Xander asked.

"No!" Everyone answered in unison.

"Right. She doesn’t need to know." He said in agreement as they all made their way back to the shop.

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