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This turned out to be an optimistic estimate. They arrived at the studio four hours and an extremely traumatized Arby's later. They were met by a profusely-sweating suit. When he saw Willow he let out a little whimper, then smiled wanly and jogged over.

"Ms. Rosenburg? I'm John Galt. The," he took her hand and shook it a few times, "head of contestants coordinations. I believe we spoke over the phone?"

Willow nodded regally. "Yes, we did. These are my friends, and this is Tara McClay."

John turned to Tara with a desperately wide smile. "Ms. McClay. Lovely to meet you, just lovely."

Tara, for her part, merely eyed the nervous man's poferred hand until he retracted it. He straightened, patting at his jacket like he was looking for something, anything, to grip. "Yes, well. I would just like to say, on behalf of the studio and it's affiliates, how much we appreciate your understanding in this matter. We realize this is a ...delicate subject, and. Um, we would just like to thank you for the maturity with which you have approached this, and not raising a lawsuit..."

Willow cocked her head, furrowing her brows in confusion. "I'm sorry, did we say that?"

Spike and Buffy set their, well, Buffy's bags down and watched.

Spike smirked with shared evil while the two witches manipulated the increasingly panicked studio representative.. His respect for the brunette rose astronomically watching her play the part of the deeply offended underdog. Good to know there was a spirit there, after all.

Not that he didn't already have seatbelt burns as proof of that.

They'd moved on to the part where they detailed exactly what would be necessary for them to forget this 'unfortunate incident' had ever occured. Yep, he stuck by his previous assessment. Pure evil. Too bad he had to experience in vicariously these days. About all he was good for now was mischief. Like a bloody leprechaun, I am, he thought. His eyes went to the little blonde leaning against the wall. Then again, it does have it's perks. Like all the feels he'd copped during their little tussle in the backseat.

"Wonderful!" he heard Galt exclaim.

"Hey," Spike nudged the blonde, "looks like we're up."

Buffy looked up from her brooding. "What?" John Galt slipped past the smug looking witches to shake Spike's hand.

"How nice to meet a friend of Miss Rosenburg. I'm John Galt, and we're so pleased to have you on the show, Mr..."

"Sangue. Spike Sangue. 'S not my christian name, but it does me during the day! And might I say how very excited I am to be here," Spike said, shaking firmly.

Galt winced, and pulled his hand away. "Pleasure's ours," he turned to the small blonde standing slightly behind Mr. Sangue, like the perfect little housewife. She looked young. Probably threw away an education to get hitched to this inane loser. He put on his ignorant people voice. "And you must be the little missus! You keep this devil in line? *wink wink*"

There was a pregnant pause.

"I certainly do my best," Buffy deadpanned. She heard a snort from the vampire beside her, and studiously ignored it.

"Good good," John said, shaking her hand. Yowch! Like husband like wife. He pulled his hand away, discreetely massaging life back into it. "I didn't catch your name, ma'am," he tried to stick to the script.

"Buffy Su--"she shot a glance at Spike, who was not-so-desperately attempting to stifle his inappropriate mirth, "--Buffy Sangue."

"Well, Buffy, it's just great to meet you. Are you excited about being on the show?"

Buffy's face went carefully blank again. "Golly, I'm so excited I just don't know what to do with myself."

"So excited," Willow cut in, before Buffy made Spike explode, "that they just had to see the studio before tomorrow. Would it be alright if we took a quick peek?"

"Well, I--"

"He'd let us do it if we were straight," Tara stage-whispered to Willow. John Galt's face took on a panicked sheen.

"Be my guests! Please, look around all you want, ladies, and --er-- gentleman. I'd be happy to show you around the entire premisis. It's just, there's a meeting starting in about--"

"Oh, we can let ourselves out," Willow said, urging Buffy and Spike down the hall.

John hesitated. "That's not really--"

"What, you think we're going to steal something?" Tara asked, offended. "Is that what homosexuals do?"

The head of contestants coordinations let out an eep sound and retreated down the hall as fast as his spindly legs could take him. The - usually-- demure witch watched him go.

She turned back to the other three, who were standing stunned, and smiled.

"This whole 'bitch' thing's really fun."

@ @ @


An hour later.

"Wow," Buffy said with little real enthusiasm. "It is a sound booth. Neat."

Spike, on the other hand, was looking around the mostly black enclosure with wide, excited eyes. Most of the small room was taken up by control tables, which were in turn filled with lit switches and slide adjustors, glowing brightly in the darkness, like extremely organized stars.

"Look at all those buttons," he said in a reverent murmer. He leaned in to Buffy conspiritorally. "Could do some damage in here, pet. Give Bobby the shock of his life with a flick of the finger."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "You know, the more time I spend with you, the more I think you're lying about your age. 200? I don't think so. I'm leaning towards," she waved an open hand in a see-saw motion, "eh, eight, nine years old." She pulled her suitcase from his hand and started dissassembling it on the floor. Toothbrush, toner, floss, moisturizer, shamp--she stopped. "Shower. There's no shower, is there?" she looked up at Spike, horror dawning across her face.

He offered her a solomn headshake.

The Slayer let out a little whimper and collapsed on the carpet. "Why does life hate me?"

Spike plopped down in a desk chair and gave it an experimental spin. "Dunno," he said off-handedly. "Maybe you pissed 'im off."

"This is all Willow's fault," Buffy lamented, pulling herself off the floor. "She loves doing this kind of thing to me. She and Tara are probably eating my fruit basket as we speak!"

The vampire left off 'adjusting' the toggles on the sound board to raise an eyebrow at her. "Your fruit basket?"

"In my hotel room! Watching my complementary cable, and getting massages from my fully outfitted spa!"

"Well, actually, it's their trip and their fruit basket, and you're taking their tv appearence," Spike felt obliged to correct her. He shifted in the chair, and felt a sqeak. Ooh, what's this?

Buffy didn't respond, but didn't keep whining, either. Instead, she surveyed the limited floor space available to them. Yep. Her first impression had been right. There was no way they'd be able to lay out two sleeping bags in here. One would probably work, but she was refusing to contemplate sharing a sleeping bag with the vampire ...who was unscrewing the seat of the spinny chair?

She walked up and gave the wheel stalk a kick. "Hey! Stop that, you creep."

He treated her to an innocent look. "What?"

"Don't play dumb with me. You were unscrewing the seat. You ass."

Spike quirked an eyebrow, then did a little jig in his new chair. The squeak was gone. "Correction. I fixed the seat."

He fixed the seat.

Spike did a good deed.

Spike did a good deed? "Oh," she said, surprised. "Uh, okay. .Good for you."

The eyebrow went higher. "If you say so."

He turned back around and started playing with the switches. Behind him, Buffy was kicking herself.

Why am I being such a goober? It's not like I care if he thinks I'm a whiny baby or not. He's just the friendly neighborhood supervillain slash comic relief slash albatross. It doesn't matter what he thinks. I don't care.

It wasn't working. She stuffed all her toiletries back in her suitcase and yanked the zipper. The weird feeling wouldn't go away, so she fell back on the mental mantra that always made her feel better in situations like this.

I could totally kick his ass. She smiled. Yeah, that worked. All better.

"I'm going to find a bathroom," she said. Spike didn't respond in any way. She rolled her eyes and rolled her suitcase out the door.

When she was gone, Spike did look up. He watched the doorway for a few seconds, before shaking his head and turning back to the funtime world of electronics mischief.

@ @ @


Buffy found a women's restroom in the hall just outside the Newlywed Game studio. Since she wasn't sure if she'd be able to do anything more than fix her make-up in the morning, she performed a thorough scrubbing in one of the sinks. The studio had long since closed, but she still kept her suitcase propped against the door while she spongebathed. Make that sock bathe, she corrected herself, and wrung out the frothing sock.

One look at the industrial brown paper towels had been enough necessity to spur her spirit of invention into seeking another sponge. If there was one thing she was good at, it was improvisation. Drumsticks, pool cues, pencils... While she carefully ran the razerblade over her frothy legs, she considered some of the forms her stakes had taken in the past. Pumpkin patch signs, chair legs, and what's Spike's deal, anyway?

She paused at the sudden subject switch, then decided the deserted bathroom was a safe enough place to let her thoughts wander down that increasingly confusing road. She switched legs.

She'd been getting a really weird vibe from Spike lately. There wasn't any appreciable difference in his behavior, but sometimes, when they were arguing, or, you know, beating each other senseless, she'd pick up on some strange signals, like he didn't think it was fighting. Like he thought it was ...foreplay.

Of course, the thought made her shudder, Buffy hastily added to her internal monologue, and gave her legs a no-nonsense swipe to prove it.

So desperate was she to show herself who was boss, she failed to realize the less than wise combination of large, disgust-induced shudders and razorblades.

"Dammit!" The soap stung at the new wound. "Bastard razor," she muttered. That's what I get for thinking of Spike as non-disgusting. Lots of blood.

She hurridly finished the shaving job and patted the lather off with one of the brown paper towels. After a second, the blood welled up again in the pale slash stretching nearly from ankle to knee. She held the paper towels down with one hand and reached for her boxer shorts with the other. These self inflicted maimings usually stopped bleeding pretty quickly, but the scabs they left behind were always so attractive. She swore again when she realized the skirt she'd been planning on wearing tomorrow would probably not be the best option. Good thing I always overpack. Slacks it is.

After a few minutes, the bleeding had stopped, and she tossed the red spotted napkins in the trash can before finishing her beauty regimen and repacking her bag.

Next stop, lots of beauty sleep.

@ @ @
As it happened, 'next stop' turned out to be a loud row.

"No!"

"Oh, come on, Slayer!"

"I. Said. No. I don't even see why you care."

"Just because I don't feel the cold doesn't mean I shouldn't get a sleeping bag."

"Actually, that's exactly what it means. And since there is exactly one sleeping bag present, you in a sleeping bag," she jabbed a finger angrily, "and me in a sleeping bag," she rammed a thumb to her own chest, "equals us in a sleeping bag! And one thing I can guarentee you: In no version of this argument, in any universe, am I going to be sharing a sleeping bag with you."

"Why the hell not?? I don't see what the big deal is!"

Buffy stared at him incredulously, being sure to keep her eyes neck height or higher. "Maybe if you put your clothes back on," she said slowly, "it would be less of a 'deal.'"

Spike looked down at his own pale form in confusion. "I'm wearing clothes."

Buffy closed her eyes to keep them from drifting. "Correction: you're wearing boxers. That does not count."

"You're bloody lucky you're getting that," he muttered, but before she could do more then snap her eyes open in shock, he continued. "Besides, you're wearing boxers too, pet."

Buffy forcibly shoved the unwelcome images into a deep dark hole of her mind reserved for Bad Thoughts. "I'm also wearing underwear and a shirt. You are not."

"Yeah, I really don't see why you're being so bloody weird about this."

"I'm being weird about this?"

"Yes! You're," he cast about for an appropriate word. "You're wigging," he settled.

Buffy fell into angry silence.

Spike countered with one of his own, the two enemies glaring menacingly at each other across the sound booth.

@ @ @