TITLE: Lessons in Laundry
SUMMARY: In which Spike can't do laundry. Still. Mild, brief swearing; no romance. ONESHOT.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Buffy: The Vampire Slayer or any of the characters or locations herein. They belong to Joss. Please don't sue me, as I own nothing of value.
AN: This takes place in Season 7, after Spike gets his chip removed but well before the series finale.
*BREAK*
"Bloody hell!"
The shout startled the group of Potentials out of their happy, oblivious chatter—like everyone else, they were finding it difficult to sleep through the night, and made up for it by gossiping and trying to ignore the danger around them. They turned as one to see Spike standing before the clothes dryer, holding up a shrunken, purple shirt.
Spike strode angrily to the foot of the stairs.
"DAWN!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs.
There was a loud clang from upstairs, a muffled curse, a girly screech from a Potential, and the door at the top of the basement stairs opened. Dawn, looking frazzled and frustrated, stuck her head inside and glared at Spike.
"You made me drop a pot," she informed him coldly. "There's soup all over the floor and you are so going to help me clean it up. What's the matter?"
"My bloody clothes shrank again!" said Spike, holding up the offending garment. "And the color's gone off."
Dawn sighed. Having a house full of teenage girls was wearing on her, never mind the fact that she was a teenage girl herself. Dealing with Spike's seemingly daily crises involving one thing or another was just too much to handle.
"If it's shrunken, there's nothing you can do with it," Dawn told him. "Just throw it out and get a new one."
"Bollocks to that!" said Spike bluntly. "Come down and show me what I'm bloody doing wrong, at least."
Dawn sighed again. Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles were having a not-so-secret planning session upstairs, and Andrew was trying to eavesdrop with very little success. In the kitchen, she could hear the bustle of a number of Potentials cleaning up the mess she had made of the soup, Anya supervising with her usual barrage of brutally honest but unhelpful comments. At least that was being taken care of. Everyone else had something to do . . .
. . . which left her to deal with Spike. Damn it.
Dawn stomped down the stairs, trying to convey with each heavy footfall how much she disliked having to come down and help him. Spike was either oblivious to her temper or chose to ignore it, for he only held out the shirt. Dawn took it and inspected it. It was still warm from the dryer, and clearly recognizable as one of Spike's, except for the fact that it was a blotchy purple instead of black and would have fitted a three-year-old perfectly.
Dawn flipped the tag out from the back of the shirt and read it. Spike craned over her shoulder to see what it said, but as soon as he got a glimpse Dawn tucked it away again.
"First of all," said Dawn sternly to the taller vampire, "this is wool. Wool shrinks in dryers. You need to check what it's made of before you just throw it in."
"Well, how was I supposed to know that?" demanded Spike.
Dawn held out the shirt. "It says so on the tag," she said simply. "It says '100% wool' and that little symbol means you're supposed to let it air-dry."
Spike stared at the tag for a long moment. Finally, he muttered, "If you're supposed to air-dry it, it should bloody well say so, not use little pictures. Can't even read the damn things."
The Potentials giggled. Spike glared at them over his shoulder. "I can bite you lot now, you know," he said pointedly. The girls stopped and one of them even paled slightly.
Dawn hit Spike's arm lightly. "Don't frighten the recruits," she reprimanded him. "Anyway, that's why it shrank. How did it change color? What did you put in the washing machine with it?"
Spike gestured to the shelf above the machine, where the various detergents and fabric softeners were lined up. "That," he said.
Dawn's eyes widened. "All of it?" she asked.
"No, not all of it," said Spike in exasperation. "The Tide, and the little sheet, and the what's-it-called, the Clorox. I seen you lot do it like that."
Dawn bit the inside of her lip to keep from laughing. "You put Clorox in?"
"Yeah."
Dawn took a deep breath and turned to face Spike directly, laughter sparkling in her eyes. "Spike, do you know what bleach does?"
Spike stared. "Yeah," he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Hair, remember?" He gestured to his platinum-blond head.
"Well, I think it's gotten into your brain," said Dawn with a smile. "Spike, think about it. Bleach is used to lighten things. To change a dark color into a lighter one, or to take out stains in light-colored things."
"Yeah, I know," said Spike impatiently. "'S'on the bloody bottle, innit?"
"Spike," said Dawn, slowly and clearly, "everything you own is black. You have no need of bleach. So stop putting it in the laundry and your things will actually stay black."
Spike opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and closed it again. Dawn patted him gently on the shoulder, then trotted back upstairs to help with the soup clean-up.
The Potentials burst into a fresh round of giggles. Spike scowled at them.
"Too many women in this bloody house," he said in disgust. He threw the ruined shirt on top of the dryer, grabbed his duster from where it hung on the banister, and marched up the stairs, intent on finding something to kill before the sun came up.
*BREAK*
Those of you that read "The Waste Land," I swear I haven't given up on it. I just needed a break in the form of something lighter. Reviews, constructive criticism, and nice comments are very much appreciated. Flames will be forwarded to the ninja hit squad.