Summary: Yet another Halloween fic. With demons.

Disclaimer: I own... hmm. I own nothing. The bank owns any money I make, at the moment.

Feedback: Why not? It helps me write more and better...

Pre-fic Comments:

Wow, gotten up to part 10. Who'da thought I could pay attention to something that long?

* * *

"Really?," Giles asked. "And the two of you just changed back in class?"

"Yeah," Xander said. "Lucky us."

"Could've been worse," Willow said lightly.

"I turned into a snake demon in front of Cordelia," Buffy said flatly. "It doesn't get much worse than that."

"I could've stepped on the wrong bit of ground and caught fire," Willow said, unhappy.

Xander strode over to his old friend Willow immediately, delicately lifting her chin upwards with a finger. He was careful to avoid clawing her with his newly sprouted implements of destruction.

"You're my Wills," he said, "and I know that that Resolve Face is gonna come out soon. Kinda like a fart in a small room."

"Xander!," Willow gasped. "You're comparing me to a /fart/?!"

"I didn't mean it like it sounded!," he defended himself. After a moments thought, he added, "Uh, I didn't mean what I said, I meant something else."

Giles interrupted. "Gripping as this may be, we have more important pieces of trivia to mull over."

The tip of Buffy's tail raised itself from the floor, waving between Xander the Incubus and Willow the Vampire. "Yeah, like this."

"Well, we shall assume that after the two of you changed back to a human form last night, you stayed in that shape while asleep?," Giles asked.

"Sure thing, G-man," Xander said. "Trust me. If these meat knives came out while I was asleep, I would've woken up in a pile of strips of rags, rather than a few raggy sheets."

Giles nodded. "Around ten to twelve hours or so, then. The answer as to maintaining the illusion of a human shape in public would seem to be obvious -- only use it as needed, rather than using it when sleeping."

"Mum is gonna freak," Buffy predicted. "Mum is gonna freak and it's all gonna be that Ethan jerk's fault."

"Rest assured that a Council team will be taking over his care this evening," Giles said, adding to the collective dark look being shot at the sleeping chaos mage.

"I hope you've been teasing him by having English stuff like tea and crumpets in front of him," Xander smirked, "then not giving him any."

"For your information," Giles sniffed, "England is famous for things other than tea and crumpets."

"Are you sure?," Willow asked.

"They can't make a decent beer," a familiar voice said from the shadowy shelves. "If you want a decent pint, you have to go to Ireland."

"A-Angel!," Giles said. "We could have used your help last night!"

"Angel!," Buffy said, launching herself at him and wrapping her body around him. "Last night was god-awful, and me and Xander got turned into demons by an assface by the name of Ethan Rayne."

The souled vampire wheezed out an answer as Buffy, unused to her new form, constricted him with her tail and six arms. Just what he'd always wanted, to know what it was like to face down a python. Who was... hold on. He realised what the thing holding onto him was and went stiff as a board.

"Angel? Captain Hairgel?," Xander said. "Buff, he's gone dead silent on us."

Giles groaned at the horrible pun.

"Er, has anyone told him what's happened last night?," Willow asked. "Because I'm thinking that he's thinking that there's a real Marilith demony thing trying to kill him."

* * *

Once they managed to explain to Angel what had happened, the Irish vampire was lost for words.

"This was nice at first," Xander complained, "but I want to be normal again. After last night, I feel like I'm some kind of skanky man-ho."

He was curled against the end banister railing, wings spread slightly. Buffy had two of her elbows on the table, the hands for them supporting her head, with the rest of her coiled up underneath the table. Willow and Angel were standing in the shady part of the sunny library, while Giles had gotten himself another cup of tea and was paging through an old book.

"I've found the spell that Ethan used," Giles announced.

"Great, wonderful," Willow said. "How do we fix this?"

"Bearing in mind that I have nothing to do with the spell and it's details, I'm afraid that there is... no... way of reversing it, short of petitioning Janus as the sponsor god."

"Sponsor god?," Buffy asked. "He gets Ethan to wear shirts saying 'Janus' and stuff?"

"Not quite," Giles replied. "In this context, sponsor means that Janus is the deity powering the spell and thus has the final say on whether it gets reversed."

Everyone's eyes were dragged over to the somewhat battered Ethan. They hadn't been exactly gentle with him.

"I don't know about you," Xander said finally, "but if I were Janus, and you guys beat up my priesty dude, I'd tell you where to shove your petition."

Everyone sighed, deeply.

"Can't we ask some other god to do something, then?," Willow asked.

"The only gods who would fix this to spite Janus would change it to something terrible to spite /us/," Giles said.

"Someone remind me why those Greeks worshipped these flakes?," Xander asked.

"Janus was a Roman god," Giles corrected him.

"Whatever. Man..."

Buffy looked up from the table. "Giles, you're it."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm not doing it. You are."

"If I knew what you were referring to, I might be able to offer an opinion."

"There's no /way/ I'm telling my mum about this. You're it."

* * *

"I can't believe that Harris is still like that," Harmony said.

"Believe it," Cordelia said. Reality was hard.

"Does this mean we have to be /nice/ to the guy who dresses in the dark, now?," another Cordette asked.

"Not me," Harmony sniffed. "I wouldn't touch him if he were the last... male... on Earth."

Cordelia refused to let this opportunity go past her. "Who, exactly was shrieking 'Oh yes you sexy Hellgod, lick me right there!'"

Harmony blushed bright red. "We agreed to never talk about last night again! We swore!"

"You swore," Cordelia smirked. "I didn't. And, come on, he /was/ good."

The Cordettes nodded, stupid grins on their faces.

"Maybe we can improve him," Mary, another Cordette, said. "You know, make him dress right, get him in a sports team."

"That's not such a stupid idea," Cordelia said. "What team? I mean, he's too nice for grid iron."

"Martial arts!," Susan said. "He'd be perfect for that, once he got some muscles on him."

"Oooh, improving on perfection...," Harmony said, drooling slightly from her stupid smile.

* * *

Post-fic Comments:

While I partly agree with Angel (I like Guinness far more than I like British beer), British beer isn't all that bad. Giles was just the obligatory guy-to-get-picked-on for that scene.

I have no idea what Americans call their sport where guys run around in body armour.