Smoke filled the room, swirling around the 3 bodies in the room. Candles in hand, the 3 robed figures circle a cauldron, from where the smoke is coming from. They come to a stop, equal distances from the cauldron, and slowly kneel. They place the candles down in front of them, creating the corners of the salt triangle drawn on the floor around the cauldron. Placing their hands on their robed knees, they start chanting.
"Audite nos now, Gods of all, Take illa 3, Make lemma fall, Swap suum souls, Hear nostrum dico. Trucido. Veneficus. Vir."
A swift wind blows through the place and the candles go out.
"They will be vulnerable. We can attack."
In Buffy and Willow's dorm room, Buffy laid asleep in her bed, tossing and turning. Across the campus in Tara's room, Willow was doing the same, as was Xander in the basement of his parents house.
As all of Sunnydale slept, 3 distinct mists floated above. One yellow, one red, one blue. Where they rose from and where they floated to were different locations, but each in pattern. Where one rose, another landed. The yellow to the red, the red to the blue, the blue to the yellow. Unseen by anyone, the mists descended into the bodies of the three, and in the same instance, they woke.
"Holy frigoly!" Willow gasped, sitting bolt upright in the darkness, gasping heavily. Her chest felt tight and her head felt like it was going to fall off and roll around the floor if she sat up any longer. She dropped back onto the pillow, frowning slightly at the texture of the case, sure it had been different when she went to bed.
"Calm it Rosenberg, you're imagining things." She told herself, turning onto her left side, catching a glimpse of blondeish hair in the moonlight. Moving ever so slightly, she draped her arm across the figure in bed, pulling her close, causing the woman to moan slightly when pulled into a spooning position.
Wait a minute. Since when was I taller than Tara?
"Tara?" She asked the women who was slowly waking up.
"Tara? Who's Tara, Xander?" A shockingly familiar voice asked her back, as the woman, Anya, sat up and reached for the light switch. As light bathed the room, Willow sucked in a breath. This was Xander's basement. She looked at Anya. This was Xander's girlfriend. She looked at the mirror at the foot of the bed. This was Xander's body.
Buffy gasped awake in a cold sweat, flinging the covers off her body and swung her feet round to the side of the bed. Feeling like she was going to hurl, she dove for where the trashcan should be, but collided heavily with a wall instead.
There's no wall here. What the frilly heck is going on? 'Frilly heck'? When do I say 'Frilly heck'? God my head hurts. Who installed a wall without telling me?
Buffy fumbled around the dark room, looking for the light switch or a trashcan, she didn't care which. Just, anything.
Where the hell am I?
Just as she reached what she thought was the light switch, warm arms encircled her waist and held her close to this other person's body.
"Whatcha doing, sweetie?" The distinctly female voice asked, awfully close to her ear.
Sweetie? What's going on, where am—
"Willow?" The woman asked again, pulling Buffy round to face her. In the darkness, Buffy still couldn't figure out where she was and why some girl was calling her sweetie, but when her voice ran through her mind, Buffy stopped dead.
"Willow?" Buffy asked, frowning. The woman reached forward and clicked on the light behind Buffy's head, and Buffy got her first look at the woman in front of her.
"Tara?" Buffy asked. What was going on? Why was she with Tara? She'd seen her before, she helped out with the Faith situation a few weeks before, and she was with them during the Johnathon situation last week. But she was with Willow.
"W-Willow? Sweetie? A-Are you o-okay?" Tara asked, and Buffy frowned once again.
"Why do you keep calling me Willow, I'm—" And Buffy caught the sound of her vocal cords and the reflection of herself in the floor-length mirror on the other side of the room. "Willow."
Xander all but fell out of the single bed as she rolled over to reach for Anya. His throat was dry and he could feel a headache coming on. Nothing like the syphilis from Thanksgiving, but something somewhere in that region.
He pushed himself off the floor with surprising ease, glancing around the barely lit, empty room. It didn't look like his room, and he could just about make out the outline of a lamp. He fumbled for the cord, pulling down on the cord and completely ripping the cord out of the lamp.
"What the heck?" Xander looked down at his hands, squinting in the darkness. Where his hands always so small? Xander stumbled over to the wall on the opposite side of the room, where he found the door. And the door handle. Weirdly high door handle. When he could make out the light switch, he gently clicked it on. And that's when he got a real look at his arm. Small, female arm. In Buffy and Willow's dorm room.
Quickly, with minimal panic, at least that's what he'll tell everyone, Xander dived over to where he knew the mirror was, and got a good look at himself. Or, rather, herself.
"Xander? Are you feeling okay? Are you ill?" Anya asked, reaching a hand out and touching Willow's forehead. Or Xander's forehead. Goddess this was confusing. She gently shook her head, still looking into the mirror at her face. Her manly, unshaven face.
"…I'm not ill…" She distractedly replied, not once taking her eyes off her reflection.
"Oh, good! Then we can have orgasms!" Anya all but bounced onto Willow, who yelped in surprise and moved back up the bed with great speed, managing to hit her head on the headboard as she tried to disentangle herself from Anya. "What's wrong? I thought you liked morning orgasms? You are sick, you lied!"
"I-I'm not sick. I'm Willow."
"W-Willow? Are you feeling okay? Are you ill?" Tara asked, reaching her hand out to take Buffy's hand in her own, gently rubbing her thumb over the back of Buffy's hand. However, as Buffy saw it, it was Willow's body. And Tara.
Huh, that's weird. They must have some tight friendship here.
"…I'm not ill…" Buffy replied, looking up at Tara. The other blonde smiled, and led Buffy over to the bed, where they both sat down.
"Then what's wrong?" Tara asked, still holding Buffy's hand, still rubbing circles into the back of her hand. "You're warm."
"I'm Buffy."
Xander reeled backwards, colliding with Buffy's bed, tumbling back onto it, gulping loudly.
"Xander. You're just not felling okay. You're ill." He tried to reason with himself, feeling his own face as his reflection stared back at him.
"…I'm not ill…" Xander breathed, looking down at his body, Buffy's body, a body he shouldn't be in, and gulped again, looking back into the mirror. "I'm not Buffy." He told his reflection.
"I'm Xander."
A/N: Translation: Hear us now, Gods of all, Take these 3, Make them fall, Swap their souls, Hear our call. Slayer. Witch. Man.
I know, I know. "Finish your other storied first!" But I work best at 1am and I write what comes to mind. And there are not enough Bodyswapping fics out there.
As always, tell me what you think, any tips or ideas are welcome. Thanks for reading.
SWC
