Hank Summers wanted these lunatics to wake up so he could go to the bathroom. After

the girl had stopped glowing green (and that had to be a trick of the light), he'd been tied

up in a kitchen chair and set in a corner of the living room. Only Joyce had left the living

room to go upstairs. She had told the young man giving orders that she was perfectly fine

and was going upstairs to check on Buffy. Whoever that man with her upstairs was, he

should not have been left alone with Buffy. Maybe he was Joyce's boyfriend? No, he'd

been punched by jealous boyfriends before, (all part of being a real man) and the Brit was

definitely Joyce's boyfriend. Besides, Joyce was too much of a prude to date more than

one man at a time. The kid giving orders had called the man dad, so the kid must be

Buffy's boyfriend. He must be just as bad a parent as Joyce. He had been supporting

Buffy's delusions! Joyce had come back downstairs long enough to tell everyone that

Buffy was asleep before wishing them all a good night. Good night! It was seven in the

morning! And where was the kid's dad! It was now noon, he was surrounded by sleeping

bodies and his bladder was about to burst. He couldn't even ask for a bathroom because

he was still gagged!

The front door flew open with a bang and a smoking blanket covered figure darted in and

ran for the stairs. Hank had a good view of the results of the noise from where he was

sitting. All three of the young men were instantly awake, sitting up and pointing various

guns at the form under the blanket. The two older girls were slower to sit up but when

they did their hands were glowing. As the figure struggled out of the blanket, Buffy and

the kid's dad charged down the stairs carrying a sword and a crossbow. Good god, these

people really were lunatics! Hank thought. When a blond man emerged from the

blanket, all of the weapons were lowered.

"What are you doing here Spike?" Buffy asked.

"Whelp didn't come home this morning and he still wasn't there when I woke up." Spike

shrugged, not wanting to admit he'd been worried. "Besides, I was hoping to get some of

your mum's hot chocolate, slayer." He looked around checking to see that everyone was

still ok. "Who's that?" he asked the room at large.

"This?" Xander asked, getting up and slapping Hank in the shoulder. "Well this would

be a present for you Spike." He winked at the vampire where Hank couldn't see him.

Spike got the message. Whoever this bloke was, he had screwed up big time if the white

hats were playing this kind of game with him. He let the wanker see the predator in him

as he walked over and oh, so casually, examined him. Buffy turned around on the stairs

so Hank couldn't see she was about to break out into giggles. She didn't want to spoil

Spike's performance just because she knew he couldn't hurt the man.

"No bite marks, Spike." John said in a slightly raised voice. He was more than willing to

go along with the Xander's idea. "We don't want to have to explain why we let him get

eaten. We don't want the local demons nervous."

"Slayer!" Spike pouted. It was all John could do not to break up laughing. So that was

what Dawn had meant about Spike's pout.

"No bite marks, Spike." Buffy said as she headed up the stairs, careful not to allow Hank

to see her face. "You can still feed as long as you do it from cuts."

Spike turned back to Hank still pouting. "But I wanted to play with him." he said in his

best imitation of his sire in a snit.

"Don't be sad Spike." Xander moved to put an arm around Spike's shoulders. "I tell you

what. I'll cut him into a nice pretty pattern for you. He'll be nice and bloody. Heck, I bet

I can even manage to make it look like he'd just been thrown face first through a window.

How does that sound?" Spike noticed that from the way the wanker's fear scent spiked

when Xander had put his arm around Spike's shoulders, he was one of those overly

macho homophobic types. He could work with that if Xander would let him. And from

what Xander was already doing it wouldn't take much to let that stew in the blighter's

brain. Add in the demonic aspect and maybe he would get lucky enough to give the

wanker a heart attack. Spike leaned into Xander and let his face shift from human to

demon form. Hank pissed his pants. Inwardly Spike was delighted, it had been a long

time since he had been able to get that sort of reaction from a human. Dawn slipped into

the kitchen so Hank wouldn't see her shaking with laughter.

"Could I have some hot chocolate luv?" Spike asked, resting his head on Xander's

shoulder. He would bet that he was the only one who could tell Xander had stiffened up

when he did so. "He stinks too much right now."

"Sure Spike." Xander said going along with the vampire. "I'll even make sure it has

minimarshmallows." Xander turned towards the kitchen and they followed everyone else

out of the living room.

John walked the rest of the way down the stairs. Instead of heading for the kitchen after

the others, he untied Hank and keeping him covered with the crossbow, took him to the

bathroom. When Hank reached for the gag, John shook his head. Hank was shaken up

enough to not want to push and left it while he took care of his business. John made sure he cleaned up the mess he had made in the living room and then retied Hank to the chair. The point of the crossbow bolt never left his skin the entire time.

Once in the kitchen Spike let his demon face slip away and stood up away from Xander.

"What did he do?" He asked, jerking his thumb back at the living room. "Not like you

white hats to actually play fun games like that."

"He scared Buffy." Dawn growled, glowing slightly green once more.

"Yeah, but we're going to have a lot of fun teaching him exactly how he screwed up,

Dawn. Right?" Sam said as he wrapped his arms around her. She leaned backwards into

his embrace and stopped glowing.

Spike threw a questioning look at Xander. "Apparently when Buffy burned down her old

high school's gym before she came to Sunnydale, Hank threw her into a mental hospital

because she told him it was full of vampires. Joyce got her out. When John and Buffy

came in this morning they were talking about the difficulties in cleaning up after slaying.

Hank was here and heard them. He started throwing a fit and Buffy had a panic attack.

We tied him up. You know the rest."

"I take it you lot want to cram the truth about vampires and the like down his throat?"

"We don't want to kill him Spike. He wouldn't learn anything from that. But what he did

was wrong. He didn't even try to listen. If he had tried, Buffy could have shown him

vampires were real." Willow was ripping a flour sack towel to shreds. "Then after the

divorce he kept standing her up and he finally stopped even calling her. I'm pretty sure he

never paid Joyce child support. He ran off to Spain with his secretary!"

"Actually his company shipped him off to Spain because his boss was getting too many

sexual harassment complaints." Dean said. The Scoobies all looked at him. "What?

Like we're not going to check the creep out? He's Buffy's dad and Dawn has memories of

the jerk. I'm all for shoving the existence of what goes bump in the night so far down his

throat he's shitting it for the rest of his life."

Spike smiled. "I like the way you think!" He rubbed his hands together. "He's already

scared of Xander and me after that little song and dance in there. What else we gonna do

to the wanker? I want to bleed him a little."

"You just want the fresh blood." Xander sniped.

"That too, pet. I don't get fresh very often you know. Besides, how better to prove to him

what I am than for me to feed a little." Spike pointed out in what he thought was a

reasonable manner. He knew they wouldn't let him kill, but if he worked this right he

might be able to get some blood from the source.

"Can we bind him Giles?" Willow turned to the ex-Watcher. "Make him do something?

Like, like..." She stumbled to a halt so upset she couldn't articulate anything that would

be bad enough.

"Being nice to women?" Tara offered.

"Celibacy!" Sam and Dean chorused.

"Watcher training!" Dawn piped up. They all stared at her. "That takes everything away

from him and locks him away with the books, which he doesn't like and he's American

which they don't like and every day he'll be looking at stuff which is gross and we have to

fight."

"Not to mention that it adds to the ranks of the light, thus helping to redeem him and the

council is very strict with people sent to work for them under these conditions. Excellent

ideas, all of you." Giles smiled proudly. "Yes, all of that is possible. No one will pay

him any more attention than they do any one else sent to them under that type of geas."

"Then let's do all of that." Willow was all for charging in and doing the binding now.

"After we give Hank a tour of Sunnydale's nightlife." Dean held up his hand to Willow.

"I want my turn at him. Even if it is just holding him while we follow Buffy on patrol."

"Dean is correct, Willow. It will make a greater impact after a tour. Say a quick turn

through one of the cemeteries and then a stop at Willie's?" Giles offered. A nod of heads

all around sealed Hank's fate. "Now Dawn, about your recent bouts of glowing."

"It's the Key." Dawn interrupted him. "You remember the big glowy magical energy

blob?"

"And you can access it?"

"Well, duh! Just because I don't know what to do with it doesn't mean I can't touch it. It's

a part of me." Dawn rolled her eyes at Giles thick headedness.

"Well then, I'll have to arrange for a teacher. One for both you and Willow. Hmmm."

Giles wandered off to the stove and began to make a pot of tea. This triggered a mass

hunt for food.