A/N: I'm feeling a little more loved recently, but keep the reviews up. Thoughts, emotions, impressions, ideas, complaints, sexual propositions, I'll take what I can get.
Disclaimer: You want normal disclaimers? The kind where I just state it's not mine? You want them short and to the point? Well screw You! It'll never happen! BWA HA HA!
Last time, on Crushed: William was embarrassed. Buffy and Dawn argued. William tried to leave but didn't. Spike was off in L.A. getting drunk after losing all his cash in kitten poker. Glory wanted her minions to find out someone new in Buffy's life. Then she tried on shoes. The shoes were nice. Will those shoes be imprinted into poor William's... cough?
What the Hell is going on here?
Dawn was unsure as to how she should feel about William. It felt, to Dawn at least, like a betrayal of the friendship Spike and she had been forming the other day in the crypt before Buffy had showed up. On the other hand, he was just as much a hottie as Spike and he was not in love with Buffy. She thought. Dawn realised she should probably make sure.
"So, Will. You in love with Buffy?" Dawn asked the only other occupant of the lounge room in a nonchalant tone. They were watching TV. He seemed just as fascinated with it as Spike was. It was bizarre. She turned her head to see William's face and judge his reaction to the question. He just sat there red faced.
"No! I mean, no." William ducked his head, in the cutest way, when he realised how that could be taken. "Not that you're sister is an undesirable women. I'm sure she has many fine qualities that any man woul-" the young British man was cut off by a very unlady-like snort from Dawn.
"Yeah, she's a real catch all right. Every single one of her boyfriends has left her, you know. Angel, Scott, Parker and now Riley. She scares them away. It's the slayer thing. No guy likes it when his girlfriend can kick his ass." Dawn shifted in her seat so she could face William more easily.
"Um, I- I can't imagine." Dawn decided that William was just as gorgeous as Spike but in a different way. Where Spike had confidence and sex appeal coming off him in waves, William seemed shy and withdrawn, like a kitten of some kind.
"So... are you seeing anyone? Or where you? How does hat even work?" Dawn asked in a puzzled tone. Her questions were not, in any way shape or form, out of her personal interest in the possibility that this incarnation of her crush might actually be available.
"Well, not as such no. But I am in love. Or I was." At dawn's confused look, he continued. "It was... Cecily. A young lady I knew back in my own time. "I could never have told her about my feelings though. She deserved a better man than me. All I could do was write her poetry that did not do her justice. could not do her beauty, her intelligence, her life-"
"You wrote poetry?" Dawn asked, half frantic to get his attention off the girl from his past. At his nod, Dawn smiled in satisfaction. "Then maybe you could help me. I have to do some english homework on poetry, only I don't understand it." Dawn smiled when she saw William's attention return to the present.
"Of course. I'll do all I can to help. Who are you studying?" The young man's face became much more animated when he spoke of studying, Dawn noticed. A lot like that time Spike told her some of his tales from the old days, before the chip.
"I dunno. Some hopeless guy called John Keats. I don't even know what he's blathering on about."
Xander opened the door to the Summers home with difficulty. He came bearing pizza after a call from Giles, who'd had a call from Joyce, who'd said she was working until nine that night and she needed someone to feed Dawn. It was occasions like this that allowed the Xan-man to step up and save the day.
"Hey, Kiddo. You in here?" the dark haired man called, carefully navigating the open door and the hall just in the door. He cocked an ear for the inevitable response. Well, not inevitable on the Hellmouth but it wasn't Tuesday so Dawn was probably still fine.
"Yeah, we're in here Xan" Xander head towards the muted sound of the adolescent girl he was feeding then watching. Just before reaching the lounge room, he realised she'd said we. His speculation on who she was with was cut short as he saw Dawn leaning forward in her chair talking to an animated William.
"Hey guys. I got pizza. What's going on in here?" Xander asked, dropping the pizza box on the table next to an assortment of books.
"William here was explaining the poetry I have to do for English class" Dawn stated, opening the pizza box and grabbing a slice. Xander looked from Dawn to William then back again, before bursting out laughing. William turned red with embarrassment and dropped his head to his chest.
"I- I'm sorry. It's not the poetry. It's the fact that Spike, William the Bloody himself actually knows poetry." Xander managed to squeeze out, in-between giggles. William did not look appeased by this, he looked mortified.
"I- I'm still called William the Bloody after I became a vampire?" At their nods, he looked close to tears. "I must have been absolutely useless at that too, if I couldn't even get people to stop calling me William the Bloody Awful Poet."
Xander felt like he had been punched in the stomach for all the air he could draw. He took a deep, calming breath before thinking about the concept again.
"So what you're saying is, that you earned the Name William the Bloody because you are a bad poet?" At William's nod, Xander couldn't restrain himself. Half the houses on Revello street wondered, briefly because it is not safe to be curious in Sunnydale, who was laughing that loudly.
Joyce Summers, mother to Buffy and Dawn Summers, parked her car in the driveway. Closing her eyes briefly, she leaned her head back against the head rest of the drivers seat. Her life had not been easy as of late. She had found out her youngest daughter was not even her daughter, but an ancient energy called the Key made to be her daughter.
Then she had found out she had a brain tumour, which had been treated thank God. Her eldest daughter Buffy had moved back in to help her look after Dawn a bit, but between Buffy's slaying and her working at the gallery they were relying on Buffy's friends to keep an eye on Dawn in case Glory came.
Today had been one of the longer days. She'd had a headache for most of it. Not a bad, brain tumour headache, just a regular, too much to do kind of headache. It had almost been a relief. Of course, the shipment due in today was late and she lost two potential customers who were only interested in what had been in the shipment that didn't show up.
Unbuckling her seatbelt and getting out of the car, Joyce stretched some muscles. She couldn't wait to just get into her house, send Dawn to bed and just climb into a bath. She walked through the front door and heard voices from the living room. Xander. Poor Xander was almost always the one who got Dawn duty.
She walked into the lounge room only to be met with a bizarre sight. Spike, with light brown hair and in nice clothes similar to what Riley would have worn with a pair of black rimmed glasses on, chatting amiably with Xander.
"Spike! This is a surprise." Joyce managed to get out, her shock evident in her tone. What surprised her even more were Dawn and Xander's twinned expression of amusement. Spike got up and turned to her, giving her a weak smile.
"I'm terribly sorry. It's all awfully complicated, but I'm not Spike. My name is William."
Spike was not drunk. Yes, it was true he'd had two bottles of scotch and he was halfway through a third, but it took a lot more than a little drink to make a vampire of his age and experience drunk. Vampire constitution stood for something.
At most he was a little tipsy. So his decision to return to Sunnydale had nothing to do with the large amounts of alcohol he had consumed. Nothing to do with it at all. He'd just remembered he'd left his favourite lighter in his crypt was all.
So can he really be blamed that, when he arrived in town, he head towards Buffy's house? It was only quarter past ten so the Slayer was probably still out patrolling. So it's not like her was stalking her or anything. Just paying a visit to the nibblet and her mum.
So one can imagine Spike's surprise when he arrived at the Summers home only to see himself walking out the front door. It was at this point that Spike conceded that he may have had a bit too much to drink. Blinking his slightly blurry vision clear, he noticed that this ponce only looked a lot like him. His hair was the wrong colour, and he was wearing clothes only a poofter would wear. Plus he had the exact same hair style as Peaches.
"Who the bloody hell are you then?" the vampire asked, putting on his most cocky Big Bad facade. He put in a little extra swagger into his step, because a swagger never hurt anyone, and he sauntered over to the look-alike.
The doppelganger's reply was cut off completely when a whole bunch of scabby looking demons with long, greasy black hair wearing brown cloaks stepped out of the shadows. Spike blinked. He must have a lot more alcohol in his system than he thought if he missed all thirty of these creatures.
"Gentlemen! I'm so sorry to intrude, but I wondered if I could beg a moment of your time" one of the scabby little things stated. Spike noticed the other ugly demons inching closer to him.
"Friends of yours, mate?" Spike asked his copy quietly. His question was answered when one of the scabby things rushed at it and punched it in the chest, sending it flying into the house. "Guess not."
Spike gave a start as about five of the others charged. He ducked under the first one, spinning on one heel to land a backhanded blow on one of the others. A swift kick to his side took out another of the worthless things. Spike let out a gleeful laugh as he grabbed a third, snapping it's neck.
The peroxide blond vampire gave a grunt when one of them managed to land a blow. The bloody things may be hopeless fighters, but they were strong. Spike blocked then countered the next punch thrown at him, before finding his arms pinned to the ground as they swarmed all over him, doing with numbers what they could not do with skill.
"Careful with him. She will want the Key intact." the leader of the scabby things ordered above the grunting of the others. Spike's eyes widened. These annoying little meatbags worked for that Glory bint.
"Key? Who's the key? I'm not the-" his words were cut off completely as he was struck across the back of the head. The leader of the minions smirked evilly.
"The Slayer is crafty, trying to fool us with the decoy. Clearly the one with power is the Key and the other merely trying to deceive us so her glorious iridescence Glorificus would not succeed. Leave the other one. Glorificus will be most pleased by this turn of events."
The minions dragged the prone vampire across the street into the sewers through the manhole, leaving an unconscious William and the corpse of one of the minions.
A/N: So come on peoples. I am working in the actual episodes of the show, quite well I'd like to think, so show me love. Review if you want to see the next part. Reviews provide incentive and occasionally inspiration. So Review already!