After another day of fruitless searching through ancient text (rescued from the ruins of the Initiative by Angel, who got a very mixed reception for doing so: Giles was thrilled, everyone else who would have to get back to research was decidedly less so), Dawn groaned and flopped her head down on the ridiculously thick but currently completely useless tome in front of her.
Giles looked over. "Dawn, please do be careful – that is one of only two copies of Ghrome's Occult Encyclopaedia left in existence." Fortunately he had turned away and was walking out of the room as the young woman lifted her head to shoot a glare in his direction.
Andrew snorted. He was sitting nearby and had therefore witnessed the whole thing - well from the moment that Dawn's head had thunked down and snapped him out of a pleasant daydream where he was fighting Darth Vader alongside Luke Skywalker whilst Hans Solo watched on in admiration. "See, that's the problem right there - they just don't appreciate our hard work at all. What we need..."
Dawn turned her glare from the door that Giles had left out of to Andrew instead. "Shut up." It made her feel a little better to see the young man pale a little at the rebuke.
Andrew stopped talking but pouted at the rude interruption then wisely chose to fall silent.
Dawn sighed and pushed the pointless book aside and lifted another. After flipping pages absently for a few minutes, she stopped and looked over at the blonde again, weighing up her options for a few moments before speaking again. "I'm probably going to regret this but, what do we need exactly?"
Before he could do more than open his mouth and draw breath, Dawn spoke up again: "Be warned - if this has anything to do with you and I having sex, I will get Willow to turn you into a toad!"
Andrew grimaced at the thought. "Ew, no." Despite the fact that Dawn wouldn't touch Andrew with a barge pole, she couldn't help but feel a little affronted at the speed at which he rejected the possibility. She pushed that tiny niggle aside – she definitely would never go there.
Andrew shook his head to try and get rid of the unwanted mental image. "Maybe if you looked like Seven of Nine... or... admittedly you could pass for a young Kathryn Janeway... in a certain light of course - if it was in that light, and you were wearing the uniform, with your hair up, I could consider it. Maybe..."
Dawn shuddered and for the sake of her sanity, interrupted his reverie. "Andrew, continue that thought and so help me, I will batter you repeatedly with one of the many stupid books in front of me," she gestured to the weighty tomes in front of her, "just tell me what you were going to say originally - if you can actually think back that far with that goldfish memory of yours."
Andrew glared at her. "I resent that Dawn - I remember lots of stuff. It's not my fault that Star Trek and Star Wars et al is just so much better than 'real' life."
Annoyed even further than she thought possible, Dawn slammed her hands down on the book sitting on the table in front of her, it made a pleasingly loud noise and she couldn't help but smirk at both the way Andrew jumped in shock and the fact that Giles would have hated to see her do it. She stood and moved over to his table.
"Andrew, I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear the inverted commas you put around the word 'real' so that I really don't do you physical harm and now, for the last time, tell me what you were going to suggest originally!" She gave him the most threatening look she could manage which, given that it had been deliberately copied from Buffy and was therefore quite intimidating, appeared to have the desired effect.
Andrew gulped then nodded hurriedly. He took his gaze away from the scary woman and hunted through his pile of books. "I was gonna say we should do some of the spells in here." He triumphantly held up a book and passed it over. "I mean, you want to learn real magic, right?"
Dawn took the book from him - a book that looked decidedly homemade – the cover was a drawing of a wizard, who looked remarkably like Warren apart from the bulging muscles apparent in the picture, battling a dragon. It wouldn't have even been so bad if the wand he was using wasn't pink with a glittery star on top. She sighed and eyed the writing underneath. "Basic summoning spells for dummies." She took a deep, slow breath as she mentally counted to ten. When the young woman spoke, she sounded calmer than she felt. "You're talking to - and therefore annoying - me to show me this garbage?"
Andrew frowned. "It's not garbage. Well okay – I admit that the original wasn't great but the spells were modified by myself and Jonathan and now do what they were meant to do."
After considering that for a moment, Dawn flicked open the book. "Who would want to summon a rain of toads... or a giant carnivorous marshmallow? Ooh wait - the chocolate could be good..."
The blonde shifted around, embarrassed. "NOT to be eaten by anyone who doesn't want to sit on the toilet for a couple of days - we could never create proper chocolate, only stuff with laxatives."
"Heh - shame we couldn't change the spell to blood in that case - that would keep the ubervamps busy, huh? Then again, the whole point would be to keep them busy elsewhere and do vampires even use the toilet? No, they must do – Spike eats those onion things from the Bronze, right? It'd have to leave his system too, in that case. Hmm... I guess I could ask Spike, except... that'd be TMI and icky and gross and..."
The young woman stopped talking as she realised that she was rambling just like Andrew did. It must be contagious or something. She sighed and focused back on what Andrew had said. "Wait... the time that we got the two days off because of the bug all the teachers got... Was that you?"
Andrew had the good grace to look embarrassed. "We had hoped that a gift of chocolate would cheer them up – make them give us better grades - especially in gym. We never thought to check its quality first."
Dawn started giggling then and it was good - she felt certain that it was the first time she had laughed so hard since Mabel had been taken away to LA along with the other Potentials - maybe even in years. Looking at her, Andrew couldn't help but laugh too. It was a good ten minutes before their laughter calmed down.
eieio
Dawn found herself sitting down beside Andrew at his table, going through the spells in the book. "So why this book?"
Andrew shrugged. "It's the one I started with so it's pretty fool-proof. You want to learn something more interesting than the floating pencil trick that Willow has you practising, right?"
With a nod of her head, the young woman had to concede the point. "The floating pencil is really annoying. Alright. Which one?"
Andrew grinned as he took the book from her. "I know the perfect spell..."
eieio
As Xander and Anya walked into the store that the Scooby Gang were currently using for a meeting room, Buffy registered their presence and her face fell.
Xander felt more than a little wounded to see his friend looking so displeased at the sight of him. "Don't look so pleased to see us, Buffy..."
The Slayer sighed and stood up, moved over and hugged him. "I am glad to see you both, Xander. Mostly." She felt her friend tense in her arms so she hugged him just a little tighter. "Can you really blame me for wishing that you and Anya had taken the chance to leave Sunnydale and live a safe and normal life?"
The carpenter smiled faintly in understanding. "What, and miss all the fun? You know you'd all be lost without us."
Buffy smiled and released him. "We would. It's good to see you." She hugged Anya then turned her attention back to the male a moment later. "Xander... I'm sorry I couldn't stop Caleb..."
Xander cut her off before she could say anything further. "You don't need to apologise, Buff – this is all on me – as my good wife kindly pointed out, I shouldn't have been following you. At the very least, I should have made my presence known to you and Faith. As for Caleb, I should have ran the moment he came into the room."
Before either could say anything further, there was an ear-piercing scream. Buffy immediately went into Slayer/Worried Sister mode. "Dawn." She took off running in the direction of the noise, Spike following only a couple of steps behind. The rest of the gang followed as quickly as they could.
Buffy being Buffy, didn't bother to open the door of the room where the scream emanated from – she launched herself at it, the wood splintering and giving up. As the door fell over, she took in the sight before her in befuddlement. "Why... why are there... large bunnies everywhere?"
Both Spike and Buffy looked at either Andrew or Dawn as they stood on chairs, kicking out at any of the rabbits that got near them. Dawn squeaked as one got a little too close, grabbed a book off the table and dropped it on its head - much to Giles' disapproval. "We uh... cast a... spell. Buffy look out – there's one sneaking out behind you!"
Buffy blinked. "It's just a bun-" She squeaked and hopped out of the way as the creature near her displayed fangs, ready to sink into her calf. "VAMPIRE BUNNIES? SERIOUSLY, DAWN?"
Anya had been quiet until that moment – mostly because she hadn't been able to look into the room as she was at the back of the group. On hearing that however, she paled visibly. "Bunnies? Vampire bunnies? Xander, there are vampire bunnies in there! Aren't bunnies bad enough? I feel sick. Why would they do that, Xander? Why?"
Xander, sensing that things weren't going to get any more sensible decided it would be best to retreat with his slightly hysterical wife. "Okay people, you know the drill – a demon is a demon no matter how big or small – get stakes and dust... or squish whatever. Uh... I'll be right back." He ushered his trembling wife away from the scene.
Buffy sighed and pulled a stake out from her pocket. With a snort, Spike did the same and followed her into the room. "Kids!"
eieio
An hour later, a rather bloodied and tired group sat in the room – even Xander and Anya had returned (the latter only doing so when she was assured that the bunnies were all dealt with). Fortunately the bodies of the dead bodies had disappeared without a trace the minute they were dead. Buffy rubbed at her face then turned to her sister. "Why would you conjure up vampire bunnies?"
Dawn huffed a little and looked down at the ground as all the people in the room (bar Andrew) turned to look at her. "It wasn't meant to do that. I did exactly what was written down in the book." She looked over at Andrew. "Right?"
Andrew nodded and reached for the book, flipping back to the right page. "Yes. We were so careful – it's a simple spell. Only an idiot could mess it up." He ignored the glare from Dawn that ensued then pouted as the book was snatched from him by Giles.
The watcher looked at the book and sighed. "Well, there's your problem – Dawn followed the spell for what was supposed to be a rain of glitter but you've got the wrong word in it – you actually have 'plague of vampire rabbits'. Well done you!" He looked at Andrew and shook his head disapprovingly before passing the book over to Willow. "I don't think either of these two should have this again."
Dawn looked set to protest but at the disapproving glance from Willow, she thought better of it. For about ten seconds. "There is only so much floating pencils I can do, Willow."
Willow snorted. "This doesn't exactly prove that you're ready for anything more, Dawn. What if you'd conjured.. oh, I don't know... Glory back?" Given that she was so focused on the younger woman, she didn't notice the way that the Watcher blanched a little. Fortunately for Giles, no one else did either.
Buffy then jumped into the discussion and after a moment it was hard to hear a thing. Xander sighed as he noted that a thoroughly chastised Dawn was shrinking in on herself. "Hey guys..."
They were too busy telling Dawn off to hear him - especially Anya who was freaked out still. A second, louder try yielded no better results. Before he could shout at them however, an ear-piercing whistle shocked them all to silence. As one, the group turned to Andrew.
Andrew's whistle stopped abruptly and his fingers lowered from his mouth. He decided not to be embarrassed though. "Xander is trying to say something."
Xander took a moment to think that maybe having another male around wasn't a bad thing, even if that male was Andrew - Giles didn't count. "Right... Uh, thanks Andrew. I do in fact have valid pointage here... Dawn just did a spell that went wrong. No need to lose tempers."
Willow started to protest. "Do I need to remind you of the time that Giles lost his sight, Buffy got engaged to Spike or I became even more of a monster magnet? Or how you decided to re-soul Angel very early on in your magic career?"
Willow blushed. "That's not fair, Xander - there could have been serious consequences."
Xander nodded slowly. "Right - like the time I managed to conjure up a demon, or the time - and no offence intended here, Tara - that Tara did the spell to stop us seeing her 'demon side'?
Willow's arm wrapped supportively around her girlfriend's waist. She sighed and conceded the point. "Fine." She looked over at Andrew and Dawn. "I'm still taking this book away though, Andrew."
eieio
Later, when everything had settled down and Buffy, some of the Gang and the Potentials were off patrolling, Dawn sought Xander out. She found him in the area currently serving as a kitchen, smiled as she realised he had gotten an ice cream machine working. "Ooh, can I have one?"
Xander turned and smiled. "Sure - but only if it's vanilla. The other flavourings appear to have gone off. Also, it'll have to be in a bowl. Sheena devoured the last packet of wafers earlier today. Don't be upset with me if I say that Potential is a little strange - of course, she could be pregnant... Wouldn't that be a recipe for disaster?"
Dawn took the bowl offered to her with a quiet 'thanks' then sat down at the nearby table. "Why?"
Xander shrugged. "This is a war, Dawnie - we're not all going to make it. We've all chosen to be here though but, if Sheena is pregnant, the baby didn't choose." He sighed and sat down opposite the young woman with his own bowl. "Care to wager that she'll be the first to die if she is?"
Dawn sighed and stirred the ice cream in the bowl. "Well, that's kinda depressing... I'll get her to do a test. Saw a bunch of them in the pharmacy when I went to get dressings for Dana's wound."
Xander smiled faintly then. "Thanks. Of course, she could just really love wafers, right? Hope she has some stockpiled away if that's the case."
Dawn grinned suddenly. "Don't know why you're so gloomy, Xander - we're going up against the First so we can be pretty sure we're all going to die."
Xander, with typical Scooby humour, laughed then too. "There is that."
Their laughter was cut short when 'Kennedy' appeared before them suddenly. "I'm glad you can find humour in your deaths for they're coming real soon - I think I'll kill you both first, in fact."
