Rating:  G

Feedback:  That would be very kind of you.

Spoilers:  Takes place during "Checkpoint" in season 5.

Distribution: Here.  If you're interested, please let me know.

Summary:  We never did find out exactly what happened after Buffy left Dawn and Joyce in Spike's crypt, did we?  One possibility…

Author's Note:  This fic is insane.  I am aware that any number of things that happen during it go against the laws of reality.  Tis for comedy's sake, so it tis.

Disclaimer: All characters are owned by Mutant Enemy (Joss Whedon), a wonderfully creative company whose charcters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy.  Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you.  Thank you.

Never Send Mom and Sis to a Vamp

Buffy had done her best to hurry back to Spike's after her meeting with the Council.  She had, in fact, left them there for only six hours when she once again crossed the crypt's threshold.  The picture that greeted her told her she had been gone about five hours and fifty-nine minutes too long.

"What the…" she began as she looked at the chaotic scene before her.

"Here.  Too. Traumatized. To. Talk."  The vampire slipped a few pieces of paper into her hand, then sank into a fetal position at her feet.  This is what she read.

I have begun to keep a log of exactly what these two are putting me through, since any sane human being would agree I deserve combat pay.  I swear on my undead life that I am not making any of this up.

8:15 Passions has finished and Joyce and I were having a perfectly civil conversation when the bite-sized one announced that she was bored.  I suppose I should learn her name before she leaves here.  I told her to go read a book.

8:30 I found Dawn (the kid's name) reading my diary from 1914.  There are a lot of pretty graphic passages in that book about some of Dru's and my exploits, and I'm not just talking about murder and mayhem, if you catch my drift.  I took it away from her and warned her severely not to read my personal stuff again.  I could actually hear her mouth move as she mimicked me behind my back.  She is beginning to irk me.  She appears to be scribbling in her notebook now, but somehow I still don't trust her.

9:00  Joyce has fallen asleep after taking a couple pills.  Poor thing is still recovering from that surgery.  Whatever those things were, they knocked her completely unconscious.  A rampaging elephant wouldn't wake that woman.  I looked over Dawn's shoulder and found she had drawn a remarkably crude picture of me with a stake through my heart, with the words "I hate you!  Die!  Die!  Die!" scrawled across the page.  That wasn't what threw me.  She'd used every last drop of my black nail polish to create this masterpiece.  I snatched the polish away from her and told her to bloody well find something to keep herself occupied.  I have decided to ignore her completely. 

10:00  Ignoring a thirteen year old is a tremendously dangerous idea.  While I was watching a horror flick on the telly, the little hellion did a number on my crypt.  I don't have any idea how she managed to cram all that stuff into her one small backpack, but almost every wall is now completely covered with posters of the Backstreet Boys.  They are the single most frightening beings I have ever seen in my unlife.  The eyes, they're following me…

10:15  She has headphones on and is listening to the most appalling excuse for music that I have ever heard.  Of course, with my hearing, every note is ringing clear as crystal in my ears.  She's staring at me.  She knows I can hear it.  The grin on her face… cor, she looked like Angelus for a second there.  I have slammed two blood bags over my ears in an attempt to blot out the "music."

10:30 All I did was suggest it might be time for her to turn in.  I was planning on giving her the pick of any coffin in the place (see how nice I can be, Slayer?), but she threw a fit.  I am once again washing my hands of her.  She'll probably just fall asleep anyway.  That's what the little tykes always do in books, isn't it?

10:45  She got into my peroxide.  The little witch got into my peroxide.  Not even Dru was allowed to touch the peroxide.  She pored the entire bottle out the front door while my back was turned.  Does she have no pity?

11:00  Answer to above question:  not one drop.  Now Buffy, you're going to hear some crazy story about a mannequin that the kid found stashed behind one of the sarcophagi.  I've been using it as a sort of practice dummy.  She seems to think it resembles you.  Pay no attention to the child.  None at all.

11:15  Just when I thought she could sink no lower.  She has actually broken open one of the coffins and is quoting the "Ah, Yorick! I knew him well, Horatio!" speech from Hamlet using a real human head!  Normally I would actually find this endearing, but somehow it disturbed me deeply, considering she's human.  I must be getting soft.  Your mum is continuing to snore.  Talk about a sound sleeper.  I tried to explain that taking a dead person's head is naughty, and she pitched the skull at me, conking me in the forehead.  I don't like having body parts tossed at me.

11:30  I tried to engage the precious child in conversation.  I figured she couldn't get into too much trouble if I had my eye on her incessantly.  If I hear the words "like" or "you know" once more, I am afraid my brain will turn into mush and run out my ear.  The next time I see Harmony I will praise her conversational skills to the skies.  What I wouldn't give right now for a game of twenty questions, even if she does pick a breadbox again.

11:45  The walls are closing in.  My head is aching like a crushed walnut and I haven't even done a thing to her… yet.  She has switched the CD to Ricky Martin.  I need aspirin.  Please.  Someone.  Stake me now.

12:00  I CAN'T TAKE ANYMORE!  GOODBYE, CRUEL WORLD!

12:01  She hid my stake!  For crying out loud, she won't even let me die again in peace!

12:05  The child is asleep.  Glory hallelujah.  After all I've been through tonight, I could do with a bit of shut eye myself.  Just a brief nap, mind you.  After all, the kid must be out until at least sun-up. 

12:45  I have developed a facial tic as a result of what has just happened.  How in the name of anything and everything did she move that fast?  In a matter of forty minutes, the monster in human guise has dumped all the blood in the fridge down the storm drain and removed any and all traces of masculinity in my ruddy home.  I woke up in the middle of what appeared to be a cross between a Disney movie and Barbie's dream house.  Stuffed animals litter every horizontal surface.  White lace curtains hang from my only window.  When I awoke, she was in the process of painting one of the walls PINK.  I have come to the conclusion she must be related to Mary Poppins in order to have brought all this in the one bag (and do not ask me how I saw that movie… it was all Dru's idea).  Her mother sleeps blithley on.  I am beginning to understand why.

1:15  I thought it could get no worse.  It has.  Harmony was here.  I was hoping she might actually help me out with this problem, not killing her, you understand, just, maybe, tying her up and gagging her.  That's not too much to ask for, is it?  But no, they  hit it off beautifully.  For half an hour, they chatted about eyeliner.  How can anyone talk for half an hour about eyeliner?  Harm never actually addressed a single word to me.

1:30  There is a limit, and I am now beyond it.  She took my duster and used a  Bedazzler on it.  I cannot bear to look at what is emblazoned across the back of my beloved leather.  I cannot do it.  No way.  Not going to happen.

1:45 NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! 

2:00 Mumy, kan I go hom now?   I be a good boy.  Dawn bad.

The Slayer looked at the apparently angelic face of her sleeping little sister, then around at the disaster area that was once Spike's lair.  A tremulous whimpering reminded her that the vampire was still coiled into a ball at her feet. 

"It's okay, Spike.  I'll buy you another bottle of peroxide, you big baby."

Suddenly, her eyes were drawn to the black leather coat that was clutched in one of his hands.  She gently pried his hand away from the fabric and examined the back of the duster.  Her eyes widened in horror.

"I'm going to have to speak to that child," she said as she tried to soothingly pat the nearly unconscious William the Bloody, fearsome creature of the night.

There, spread across the coat's back, big silver rivets formed a pattern of flowers and peace signs around the words "N*Sync Rules." 

"Spike, it looks like you've finally been destroyed… by the arrival of Dawn."