DISCLAIMER: Joss Whedon owns all.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a response to the Challenge at the Heroes Award archive.
The "cow" challenge
Willow gets drunk your choice is why and she messes up a spell. By accident she turns Riley into a cow (a female cow).
Musts:
- Buffy milking him.
- If you choose to turn him back as a human, he has to have been a cow for at
least 6 months.
- He has to wreck everything in sight, being the big cow that he is...
- There has to be a debate on where to put him...
- Spike has to mock cow-Riley at least five times in this fic...
Funny suggestions:
- Riley having an encounter with a bull....
- cow-Riley having a 'little' one...
- Riley has to see a vet...
This story takes place during the episode SOMETHING BLUE, after Willow has done the spell to have her will done. After that, I veer off canon quite a bit…
SOMETHING BLUEBELL by Aristotle Freud
"Why doesn't she just go marry Spike?" Willow asked for the second time that night, glumly looking at the ground as she walked down the empty street. Oz was gone, and she had a rumbly feeling in her tummy that he wasn't coming back anytime soon. The tummy rumbling was off set only by the acute pain that she was sure was either some twisted mutant form of indigestion or the feeling of her heart breaking.
The neon lights of the bar sign caught her attention. "Sure," she muttered. "Happy, bright colored, radioactive bar lights." She shoved her hands in her pockets. "I'm not even twenty-one yet." She lifted her head and looked up at the sky. How was a girl supposed to drown her sorrows without a fake ID?
"It's not like the beer fairy is going to bestow a great mourn-y gift upon me," she said, looking back down at the ground.
As she spoke the words, an enormous bottle of vodka and several festive shot glasses appeared at her feet.
"Now that was a little weird," Willow said out loud, "but who am I to question the beer fairy when I'm all mopey?"
She sat down on the sidewalk, poured herself a shot of tequila, and choked it down.
Two hours later, the world was blurry, and for some reason, a jockular mannerless automaton had just pulled his freakishly large lips over his head and swallowed. How very odd, Willow thought, but in her drunken state, her thoughts drifted from the point.
Odd, bod, mod, cod, fish, here fishy fishy fishy.
"Here, fishy-fishy-fishy," she said out loud. A large fish fell out of the sky and started flopping around on the sidewalk. Willow looked down at him, a resigned frown on her face.
"I hear you, buddy," she said, a distinctly drunken cadence in her voice. Then she shook her head and sighed. "I'll drink to that," she said.
"Willow?" a voice asked from beside her. Slowly, she turned her head and looked up at a very confused and very constipated looking Riley Finn.
"You have an abnormally large head, square jaw boy," Willow drawled, a goofy, drunken smile on her face. Riley sat down next to Willow. He looked at her out of one super straight edged eye.
"Are you drunk?" he asked. Then he shook his head. He really didn't want to know. All Agent Finn really wanted was to drown his sorrows in his mother's potato soup and scratch Bessy, his lucky cow back on the farm, behind the ears, just the way she liked it. Riley knew just what Bessy liked. He knew his cows, if nothing else.
"What's your trouble, Bub?" Willow asked.
Riley was about to tell her that his name wasn't Bub, but all of a sudden, a wave of confusion settled over his mind, and he decided that there was a distinct possibility that his name was Bub.
"I just saw Buffy," Riley said. "She's getting married."
Willow, too drunk to know what was really going on, just shrugged and patted him in commiseration on the shoulder. "It could be worse," she said, her eyes glazing over. "Your werewolf boyfriend could have left you."
Riley's forehead knotted in confusion. The same fuzzy feeling settled over his brain. He didn't have a werewolf boyfriend… did he?
"You could be a cow," Willow said, continuing on her drunken ramble. "A nice, fat, female, sexually frustrated cow." Willow stared off into space. "Yeah," she mumbled, standing up. "A cow."
In the next instant, Riley was gone, and standing in his place was a nice, fat, sexually frustrated cow.
Willow wrinkled her forehead. Something was just a bit off here.
"You do what you want for the wedding, pet," Spike said, stroking Buffy's hair, "but the honeymoon is all mine."
"Oh dear lord," Giles said. "We aren't talking about this again, are we?"
Casting a quick look at Buffy, Spike elegantly flicked his middle finger at Giles.
Buffy smacked his finger playfully.
"Ow," Spike said, rubbing his hand and putting it in his mouth. "It's not as if he can see me." Spike gestured to Giles' eyes. "Blind," he reminded Buffy.
Buffy, ogling Spike, leaned forward to kiss him.
"Not blind," Xander said. "Not blind and wishing I was."
The sound of loud banging from outside made Buffy jump to her feet. "Trouble," she said. "I should go see about this." She smiled slowly at Spike.
"You know what slaying does to me," he murmured.
"Not deaf," Xander said. "Not deaf and wishing I was."
Buffy, her arm around Spike's stomach, sauntered to the door, Xander and a very uncoordinated blind Giles on her heels.
Buffy opened the door, and what she saw forced her mouth open.
"Is it a demon?" Xander asked. "Things have been way demon-y lately." Xander still hadn't quite figured out the significance of Willow's demon magnet comment.
Buffy shook her head. "No," she said slowly.
"It's a heifer," Spike said, pulling Buffy closer to his body. At the sound, Giles shuddered. "A sodding mad cow."
"Mad Cow?" Xander asked. "As in Disease comma Mad Cow? Mad Cow Disease," he explained after a moment pause, crossing his arms over his chest.
Cow Riley was tearing up and down the street, destroying everyone in sight with his plump, sexually frustrated cow body.
Down the street, Willow ambled slowly after Riley, a ridiculous grin on her face. This guy was so much more fun as a cow than as a person.
Buffy rolled up her sleeves. "I'm the slayer," she said. "I guess I can handle a cow."
Spike smiled at the slayer, thinking a few thoughts that would have made Giles swallow his tongue had the older British man known what he was thinking.
Cow Riley let out a sexually frustrated cow scream and kicked over a trashcan. Buffy approached him slowly. "Easy there, cow," she said. "That's a good, uh…cow." She looked at him, and Riley's tail swished as he looked at her with sensitive yet masculine brown cow eyes.
Even just standing there, Cow Riley accidentally kicked over a fire hydrant, and Buffy took a deep breath. She had to get this cow under control. There was only one thing to do.
"I guess it's time to make with the milking," she said out loud. Placing a firm hand on the cows back, she held the cow still as she awkwardly reached down to milk Riley. A very thin stream of milk dribbled out.
Buffy wrinkled her nose. Cows so weren't a part of slayer duties.
"I've seen squirrels with more milk than that," Spike muttered, eyeing the cow with distaste.
Cow Riley let out a powerful moo.
Buffy looked at Spike with adoring eyes. "What do you think is wrong with her?" she asked, gesturing toward the cow.
Spike paused a moment. "Sexually frustrated," he said finally.
Buffy nodded. She laid her head on Spike's chest. He was, after all, her fiancé. "What do you think we should do?" Buffy asked.
"Find a very desperate bull," Spike drawled, wrapping an arm protectively around her.
Xander raised his hand. "A world of disturbed here," he said.
"What kind of demon is it?" Giles asked, shuffling towards them and trying to overcome his blindness.
"No demon," Xander said, just as a demon flew towards him. Xander yelped. Spike chortled. Buffy gazed lovingly at Spike. Cow Riley swished his tail and remained sexually frustrated.
"No demon?" Giles asked, tilting his head to the side as he heard Xander struggling against the demon.
"Demon," Xander choked out.
"Cow," Buffy said.
"Oh, as usual, dear," Giles said, "a cow demon?"
"Mooooooo," Cow Riley said.
"The cow's a soprano," Spike said.
Willow walked up to them, still a little tipsy. "The cow," she said, "is Riley."
Everyone turned to stare at her, except for Giles, who unknowingly stared in another direction.
"There's something really weird going on here," Willow said.
Buffy looked at Cow Riley. Then she turned to Willow. "Why isn't he a bull?" she asked.
Spike raised his index finger. "I can venture a guess on that one," he offered. In the awkward pauses that followed, he leaned down and kissed Buffy.
Willow did a double take. She'd heard of beer goggles, but somehow, she hadn't exactly imagined that vodka yielded sexed up vision.
Another demon flew from across the lawn and attacked Xander. Snapping to attention, Buffy went about slaying the demons, casting a few backwards glances at Cow Riley and several adoring looks at Spike.
"What's wrong with you, Giles?" Willow asked, rubbing her temples.
"I appear to be blind," Giles replied.
"Not doing much 'appearing' if you ask me," Spike muttered.
"Mooooooo," said Cow Riley.
Willow turned to look at Spike. "And you?" she asked.
"I could use a new leather duster," he said, poking Cow Riley in the ribs. Riley twitched his tail. Then he grinned boyishly at Willow. "And the slayer and I are getting married."
Suddenly, Willow realized exactly what was going on. Her spell had worked. She'd told Giles that he didn't see anything, told Xander that he was a demon magnet. She'd said that Buffy and Spike should get married, and somewhere along the line, she'd turned Riley into a cow.
"Moooooo," Cow Riley said.
"Moooooo," Spike mocked, "I'm a sexually frustrated cow."
Muttering the spell reversal under her breath as Buffy finished slaying the demons that were attacking Xander, Willow closed her eyes and pushed her own pain out of her head, ignoring the pangs in her heart and the rumbling in her stomach.
A bright light flashed against the night sky, and Giles blinked several times.
"I can see," he said. Then he looked at Riley. "And I must say that cow looks extremely unhappy and sexually frustrated."
Willow looked at the cow. "Spike," she said cautiously. "Are you and Buffy getting married?"
Spike looked at her incredulously.
"Didn't think so," Willow murmured. The spell was broken, and yet… Riley was still a cow. How very odd.
Buffy walked up to the cow and scratched it behind the ears. Riley stomped his back hoof. He loved having his ears scratched.
"So Riley's just stuck as a cow?" Buffy asked, wrinkling her forehead. "The first normal guy I meet in a long time, and he's a cow?!"
Willow shrugged. "My bad," she said.
"So where are we going to put him?" Xander asked. "Or her. Aren't cows female?"
Spike smirked and nodded.
"I guess we could, you know, find a barn until I get this spell worked out?" Willow suggested meekly.
"We can't just put Riley in some strange barn," Buffy said defensively. "He's a person. Sort of."
"And he's sort of a cow," Xander pointed out.
"We can't leave him in a barn," Buffy said, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Does anyone have a better suggestion of the non-barn persuasion?" Xander asked.
Spike raised his hand.
"Yes?" all of the others said at once.
Spike took a long look at Riley, who was looking very sexually frustrated, and then he turned to the group before giving his answer.
"I think you should chain him up in Rupert's bathtub."
THE END… A bit off, I know, but a challenge response is allowed that, right? Please review!