A/N: I couldn't abandon my public for another fiction. Besides, William is just so much fun to write. If any of my readers want a chance to chat, my e-mail is and I am always willing to chat with readers or writers. Excuse any discrepancies with the actual American college system. I am Australian. We don't even call it college...

Disclaimer: I am running short on nonsensical disclaimers, having to spread them over several multicoated stories. From now on, the disclaimers shall present how I felt at the time of writing. I feel itchy.

Last time, on Crushed: Dawn walked in on William in the shower. Oh my! Everyone thought Buffy had a date but she only had patrol with Spike. Dawn said she had a thing for Spike. Buffy maintained there was no thinging or having of any kind where Buffy and Spike were concerned. Then Spike got angry because Buffy was dressed for a date, and he left. Poor Buffy? Poor Spike? Let's find out what happens next...

Some things are new and some things... aren't

Willow was nervous. She really was. She and Tara had volunteered to watch William for the first half of his first day at college. Not even the whole day. Just a few hours before his first class, before Buffy came in and went to the class they shared together with him. How hard could it be?

He'd been really tired. He'd admitted, somewhat sheepishly, that he hadn't gotten much sleep last night, so it was doctor Willow to the rescue. Diagnosis: not enough sleep. Cure: Coffee from the Espresso Pump. Side effects: a William consuming five coffees with no seeming effect, before heading off to the bathroom and returning hyperactive.

Willow wasn't even sure how that worked. She was pretty sure that coffee effected you pretty quick. Within half an hour at least. It had to be some weird, Hellmouthy effect that, an hour after consuming coffee that had done nothing beyond make the young man alert, he had started bouncing on his heels and looking, eerily, like Spike.

She didn't understand that. She got that William was Spike before he got all vampy and fangy, but how did William consuming a lot of coffee make the young man grin, a little bit sinisterly, and unable to stand still? It was like watching a really bored Spike try to convince everyone to come out and kill things with him.

What made the whole experience really surreal was the fact that his speech remained relatively the same. All those Britishisms, 'terribly sorry', 'astounding', etcetera ad infinitum, were coming out of his mouth rapidly. Thankfully, he was saying 'Oh dear Lord' so he hadn't developed some mystical familial connection to Giles. Yet. This was still the Hellmouth, after all.

Now he was going to the toilet again, and Willow was nervous. She wasn't going to say, even in her head, that nothing bad could happen because that was just asking for trouble, and on the Hellmouth trouble was always happy to make guest appearances. The redheaded witch glanced at her lover, her worry clear in her eyes.

"I'm sure he's fine" Tara assured Willow gently. Willow felt some of the tension leave her and she smiled at the blonde witch, getting a soft smile in return. She leaned in and kissed her lover softly. The two girls looked up, startled, as their table jostled. William was standing there, looking shocked. His face was completely red and he fidgeted uncomfortably.

"Oh dear Lord" he murmured, dazed.

Buffy was not having a good day. Actually, Buffy was not having a good couple of days. Spike had been avoiding her for the most part and she didn't even know why. He still showed up for patrol, but every single time he took one look at her and spent the night completely silent, tension rippling through his hard body.

No, bad Buffy. There will be no thoughts of Spike's body in any way, shape or form. No thinking about the way his muscles ripple when he fights, or the way he would probably look coming out of a shower- NO! Bad Buffy. No Spike thoughts. No naked Spike thoughts. Especially no wet, naked Spike thoughts... Mmm. Wet naked Spike.

"ARGH!" Buffy screamed, smacking her head on the desk in front of her. This dramatic gesture may have been less conspicuous if she had been in her home, or at least somewhere not very populated. As it was, she was in the middle of English Literature.

"Ms Summers, I understand you may not like having to write this essay but that was completely inappropriate." Mrs Bateman, the professor, stated sternly, her disapproval obvious. William just stared at Buffy in shocked, open mouthed horror.

Which was another thing. Well, two other things. Whatever. He was more of a homework stickler than Willow. It was almost obscene, the way he had all his homework done before the next day. Even the major assignments. He actually asked for more assignments to do. Not for extra credit, either. For fun!

And the other thing, how dare her look so much like her Spike? Okay, maybe it was a bit unreasonable, but Buffy was not in a rational state of mind lately. All these lusty wrong feelings she had been having lately were not helped by having a Spike-a-like hanging around so much. Buffy thought about that particular thought. Not that she was having lusty wrong feelings about Spike, because that's what they'd be. Wrong, not lusty. Although, if they were lusty wrong thoughts, wouldn't they have to be both?

Wait a minute... since when is he my Spike? Not my Spike, no matter how much I want him. NO! No wanting of any sort. Wanting of any sort leads to the wanting of bad sorts which led to sweaty fun time... which is very, very fun and Spike is probably very goo- NO! No having, or wanting or sweatiness about Spike in any way shape or form. No having, wanting or sweatiness period. Not even on Buffy lone time. Especially not on Buffy alone time. Not at all. Ever. For anything.

Now she was babbling in her head. About Spike. No, about lusty wrong feelings for Spike, which she was not, and should not be, and most importantly again, was not having. It didn't matter how compact yet muscular her was. Buffy smacked her head down on her books again.

"Ms Summers!" The sharp reprimand from her professor was counterbalanced by a sympathetic look from William. Who looked so much like Spike, who was so very- Buffy dropped her head onto her desk and kept it there.

Spike was drunk. Mercifully drunk off his ass. It was no mean feat for any vampire, and a much harder one for Spike, especially after all the drinking he had done after Drusilla left him and then again after the chip. But this time, with the help of his friend Jack, Spike had managed to get drunk.

It had taken an entire day of consuming alcohol at a rapid rate. Four bottles of JD and two of scotch. He knew he'd made the right decision when he broke into that bottle shop after leaving the Slayer the other night. The drinking was her bloody fault, too.

No matter what the Slayer said, Spike was not stupid. He had been patrolling, on and off, with the Slayer for two years now. He was not deluded about certain aspects of the Slayer's life. Captain Cardboard had been evidence of that, if Peaches hadn't been enough to begin with.

The Slayer liked to have a man handy. Ironic, when she was stronger than any man she knew, emotionally as well as physically, but Spike figured that there was some part of the Slayer who was still a regular little girl, wanting the big strong man to protect her. That thought elicited a snot from the drunk vampire.

And now she was showing up to every patrol wearing makeup, sexy clothes and she was acting off. She kept squirming around, like she wanted to be somewhere else and she kept throwing Spike sideways glances. It was so painfully obvious what she wanted.

She had a beau waiting, or a potential poofter junior, and she wanted to go off and have a nice little snog. Clearly though, the Slayer was grateful that he had not told about lil' sis, because she hadn't told him to piss off once since that whole Glory thing finished.

Her patience was running out though. Every time they patrolled, she looked a little more done up and she was getting even more impatient faster. It was getting palpable. She wanted this mystery nancy-boy, and patrolling with Spike was cutting back on her chances to get a shag, and even though Spike was cutting patrols shorter every night, she was still getting pissy about it.

So, it was decided. Spike would just march up to the Slayer and tell her he wouldn't be patrolling with her any more. True, it would mean less time for him to be with her, but chances are it would make her happy. Happy Buffy meant that Spike was one step closer to getting Friendly Buffy, which was a few steps from Lusting Buffy, which was a short hop, skip and jump from Loving Buffy and, by default, Happy Spike.

His drunken mind running out the potential scenarios, he staggered to his feet and set off, determined to tell the Slayer immediately only to find the sun was still up. After a few minutes contemplating his newly burned hand, he head towards the sewers. She had to show up at the Watcher's shop sooner or later.

He began the trek through the Sunnydale underground, barely stumbling at all.

Xander walked in the front door of the Magic Box, blinking as the shift from bright, sunny, Californian sunshine to dark, cool, dry shop hit his eyes. His entire body ached from a hard day of construction in the hot sun, and he was looking forward to a little time with his lovely fiancée. What he saw instead made him blink again.

Anya was standing where she usually did when there were no customers, behind the register. However, unlike the usual, she was not counting the money. She was standing there, smiling so brightly and looking so nonchalant, that it was incredibly suspicious.

"Uhh, Ahn?" Xander asked, out beyond his depth. He had a frantic thought that pod people had taken his Anya, but he was reassured when the faux smile disappeared and Anya glared at him. This, he was familiar with.

"Oh, it's just you. Get in there. I'm on lookout duty" she stated, seemingly pleased. Xander was just confused, but that was okay. It was his standard frame of mind around the girl who was now counting money. It was part of why he loved her.

"Uhh, Ahn? Lookout duty for what?"

"For Dawn." Xander looked outside, then at his love. Then back outside again.

"Ahn?" he began, his voice carefully neutral. "You do realise it's 5 o'clock in the evening, right?" Anya stared at him blankly for a minute.

"Buffy's sister" she clarified, rolling her eyes. Xander let out a small 'oh' of comprehension, then slunk around the counter to head into the training room, where Anya had gestured.

What he saw there caused him to blink again. The third time in five minutes. That had to be some kind of record. Only not, because that wasn't a very impressive number of times to blink in five minutes. He could do that in thirty seconds. So that whole concept had been pretty stupid. But it made more sense than what he was looking at now.

A panicked Buffy, a flustered Giles, a glasses polishing William, a Tara holding a very large cake and a Willow covered in glitter. Not a very common thing. Well, the flustered Giles happened a lot, but that was beside the point. The William-polishing-glasses was the most disturbing thing though. He looked like a mini Giles when he did that, clothes notwithstanding.

"Uhh, what's going on here?" Xander asked, intelligently. He mentally slapped himself. He hadn't said uhh this much since Willow had tried to tutor him in math in High School. The panic left Buffy's face and the tension left the room.

"We're preparing for Dawn's party" Buffy informed him, turning back to her, apparently sticky, job of decorating. Xander nodded slowly, feeling like he was in the twilight zone.

"Good. That's good... What party?" Everyone in the room except William and Tara groaned. Willow leaned over and slapped Xander's shoulder, leaving a small, glittery handprint on his shirt.

"Her birthday party, you big goof. We're having it tomorrow." the redhead notified him with a grin. Xander's eyes widened and he poked his head out of the training area only to see Anya looking at him already.

"I already got her something Xander. I knew you'd forget, so I picked something up yesterday." Xander continued to stare at his fiancée. "She's a size 5 right?" Xander shrugged his shoulders, strangely not feeling reassured much.

A/N: I am pretty sure I've altered the time/space continuum for this chapter, but we're all having fun. Hopefully. I never saw Dawn's birthday on the show, so I brought it up when I felt it was necessary. Oh, yeah. It occurred to me that I should thank all of the people who review. It's for you that I finish these chapters. Keep the reviews coming and expect chapters to match. Or whenever I can get them done. This one took me five hours, what with all the little power outs that made me start again and again. And again and again.