Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended
I haven't written anything in a while. But this challenge sparked my muse, so here's a new story! This is a response to Banner no. 78 by Twinkles for the Elysian Fields 'Artistic April Challenge' Month. Hope you enjoy it!
Special thanks to Aspasia for helping me with this story as a Beta. I appreciate her effort doing such a good job in editing my work.
(O.O)
"How long do you have to keep making these?" Anya asked as she accepted another plate of cookies from a guilt-ridden Willow and started munching on the delicious sweet treat.
"Oh, until I don't feel so horribly guilty. I figure about a million chips from now. Also, I have to detail Giles' car," the redhead replied before she took the plate from Anya and walked over to where Xander and Giles were sitting.
"Time," Xander said.
"A-ha.. Five past two. Thursday," Giles responded
To Giles, Willow offered a plate.
"Look, cookies. A very not-evil thing I did. Oatmeal?"
She watched nervously as the ex-Watcher removed his glasses, and took a cookie with a scowl.
"Yes, very funny, they're chocolate chip. I can see them. I still need my glasses, though. You could be more specific and give me 20/20," he said to her, earning a smile from the little redhead.
Willow then walked over to Buffy and Spike, who was once again tied up to the chair.
"Eat a cookie; ease my pain?" she said, offering the plate.
The Slayer took one, before taking a bite on the sweet choco goodness.
"Mm. Better?" she said to the redhead.
Willow shook her head, before answering, "Well, baking lifts about 30% of my guilt, but only 7% of my inner turmoil. Guess that'll just take awhile."
"It'll happen," Buffy consoled.
"Don't I get a cookie?" Spike interjected.
Buffy glared at the vampire.
"No," she told him.
The blonde vamp rolled his eyes before he responded, "Well, I gotta have something. I still have Buffy taste in my mouth."
"You're a pig, Spike."
"Yeah.. Well I'm not the one who wanted Wind Beneath My Wings for the first dance," he said out loud so Giles, Anya, and Xander could hear. They all turned to stare at Buffy from the living room.
She looked at all of them in response. "That was the spell," she said, sounding a tad defensive.
Embarrassed, she left the room and headed straight into the kitchen. Willow scowled at Spike, before shoving a cookie in his mouth.
The redhead then followed Buffy into the kitchen.
"Did I mention about the sorry part? she said.
"We may be into a forgetting spell later," the Slayer said before looking really astonished. "I loved him."
A sad look then took over her features.
"I didn't think of anything else other than making him happy. It made me happy too. We were happy and we were betrothed."
Realizing what she just said, she made a face.
"Well, at-at least you were getting along," Willow said, trying her best to console her friend.
"But we weren't. I mean, I wasn't even nice. And the bad-boy thing — over it. Okay, I totally get it. I'd be really happy to be in a nice relationship with a decent, reliable-Oh my God! Riley thinks I'm engaged! Buffy exclaimed, with a horrified expression.
"What?" the young red haired witch asked, looking confused.
"Riley. He-he-he saw me. What the hell am I going to say?!"
"Oh!" Willow uttered, looking equally horrified, "Ma-maybe a forgetting spell is not such a bad idea?"
Buffy scowled at Willow's suggestion.
"Or maybe you could have more cookies?" The redhead offered her plate to the Slayer.
Buffy took another cookie. Before letting out a deep sigh.
"So much for moving on-" Buffy said as she munched on the chocolate cookie.
"Buffy, I am really sor-"
Ding!
The apology was cut short and the pair looked at the little timer above Giles' oven.
"Oh! Looks like the next batch is done! I better get those," Willow said, before handing the Slayer the plate of cookies, "Here! You can have the entire plate. Maybe take some for Riley as an apology?"
This earned her an unimpressed expression from her friend.
"Or not," Willow muttered as she watched Buffy leave the kitchen with the plate and walk back into the living room.
The redhead sighed as she went to take the rest of her cookies from the oven. Despite what she said, making cookies for everyone did not alleviate her guilt. She was still pretty much all guilt girl with a dose of self-loathing and disgust.
The real reason that she felt that way was because she wasn't at all upset about what she had done the night before. In fact, she was proud of herself for doing such an amazingly powerful spell that affected all her friends.
However, it was because she felt that way that made her guilty and angry at herself.
What kind of sick person does that to their friends and then feels happy and proud about being able to do it?
She didn't have an answer for herself and she knew that not a single one of her friends would be able to answer it for her either.
Hence, she focused her attention on baking cookies to get everyone, including herself, forget what a horrible human being she was.
She placed the freshly baked cookies on a new plate. Then she put it on the kitchen counter to cool off a bit, before she picked up the previous batch she left there earlier. As she walked back to the living room where everyone was, she picked up a cookie and took a bite.
"Huh?" She paused and looked down at the cookie.
It didn't taste right. Something was weird but she couldn't figure out what was wrong. It should taste good but for some reason her taste buds didn't.
"Guys, I know I made these cookies to apologize for what I did but I think I messed up in the baking process because I think this new batch doesn't taste ri-oh my god!" she cried as she saw her mentor and Anya on the sofa. "Giles, what are you doing?!"
The ex-Watcher sneered at the redhead before answering.
"Ain't it obvious, you daft bird? We're snogging," was the man's reply to her, before he resumed kissing the ex-Vengence demon.
Willow turned to face the rest of the people in the room and found that none of them were acting as they should.
Xander was in the corner with Spike, who was no longer tied up, and making a face at the pair. Spike had a book in his hand that looked like her Poetry and Advance Literature textbook that she was certain had been inside her backpack and looked like he was doing his best to ignore the pair. And Buffy, oh, god! Buffy was playing with her hair while looking quite taken by Spike and was doing her best to catch the vampire's attention.
"So, you like reading big wordy books, huh?" she heard the Slayer asked Spike, "I bet you're like really, really smart."
"I suppose?" Spike responded, giving her friend a really shy smile, "I'm only interested in poetry, really."
He sounded so much like Giles?! What the heck was going on?
"Ooooh, poetry, huh? I'm guessing you must use that to get all the girls. What with being all romantic?"
Willow watched her friend lean closer to the nervous vampire in horrified fascination.
She's really flirting with him!
"Umm, not particularly," Spike said, moving a bit away from the blonde.
"Do you know any good poetry?" Buffy asked with a sultry voice.
Willow saw Spike gulp at the question.
"A few," was the vampire's answer.
"You wanna come with me upstairs and share them?"
Spike and Willow's eyes widened at that.
"Um, I-I-I don't think that's appropriate, Ms. Bu-Buffy!" Spike said, looking scandalized at the Slayer.
"Well, if he's not taking your offer, Buffster, I don't mind coming with you and reading some Romeo and Juliet," Xander said, interrupting the pair.
Buffy gave Xander a disgusted expression and said, "Ew. Like I'd hang out with a loser like you."
Xander looked heartbroken, before giving Buffy an angry look.
"Oh? You have a problem with what I said, tubby?" Buffy asked, sneering at Willow's oldest friend, like Cordelia had done in the past.
She knew she should come to his aid. He was her best friend after all. But the redhead was so shocked at what she was witnessing that she just stood there frozen as Buffy said mean things to her friend while her best friend responded in return.
"Well, your hair is frizzy," Xander said.
"It is not! I curled them up, dumbass!"
"Who are you calling, dumbass, you blonde bimbo!"
"Nerd!"
"Freak!"
"Who are you calling, freak, freak?!"
"Alright, enough!" Willow jumped as she heard Spike yell at the two.
" You're both acting like children," Spike said, "Friends shouldn't talk that way with each other."
Willow didn't know her eyes could get any wider but it did as she watched Spike scold Buffy and Xander for fighting each other and then forced her two friends to shake hands and make up
"Yes! Put it right there!" The group turned to Anya, who was making wanton noises as Giles kissed her neck and doing god knows what with his hand.
This snapped Willow back into the reality of the strange situation she was in. There was no way she was going to stand still and wait for Giles to do whatever he was planning to do with Anya, while everyone was still in the room!
"Okay, stop! Everyone stop!" the redhead yelled. "Especially you two!" She pointed at the still kissing pair. "Don't make me snap my fingers and turn you two into toads! So break it up!"
This caught the pair's attention and immediately parted away from each other.
Willow smiled at this.
"That's better," she said and did a quick survey at the group.
Giles and Anya were still sneaking lusty glances at each other. Buffy was doing the same towards Spike and Xander towards Buffy. Spike was the only one who didn't look like he was interested in anyone in the room, but he did look a bit nervous and uncomfortable at the attention he was getting from Buffy.
This was getting stranger and stranger by the minute.
Willow took a deep breath before finally addressing the big elephant in the room.
"Okay, anyone want to tell me how this all happened? I mean, one minute, everyone was doing okay and then I came back from the kitchen somehow I've entered this Twilight Zone, where Giles and Anya are a couple. Xander still has a crush on Buffy. Buffy having a crush on Spike and Spike turns into this Giles-like pod person! Somebody, tell me what the heck is going?!"
"I believe I can answer that, Ms. Willow," Spike said, raising his hand like one would answer in class.
"Okay," Willow nodded, giving the vampire permission to speak.
Not that he should need it. Willow thought.
"Right. I think something was in your cookies."
"WHAT?!"
Willow winced as she saw the vampire cower at her voice. She took a step back when she saw Buffy glaring at her for it.
Note to self, do not scare the sensitive vampire with an overly protective Slayer in the vicinity.
"I mean, what made you say that my cookies caused all of these?" Willow clarified her question gently.
"Well, other than the fact after everyone finished the batch you gave us from earlier and this happened-it also tasted funny," the vampire said.
"Funny? Funny how?"
"I-I don't know. I mean, it was good but it had a weird herbal after taste," he tried to explain.
With that information on hand, Willow did a mental recap on what she did with her cookies. She scowled as she realized she hadn't done anything wrong with the baking process. As Spike said, they tasted good. So it was probably the ingredients she used.
She then thought hard on what she put on those cookies but came up blank. She hadn't added anything special or different. She bought all her ingredients from the local Marty Mart and unless those guys were selling mind altering products, then she had no idea what was the cause of this newest disaster.
"Man! Your cookies are really the sweetest, Willow-measter," Xander said, as he munched on the cookie he took from the plate from her hands.
Sweetest. Sweet. Sugar. That's it!
Willow handed the plate of cookies to Xander and ran back to the kitchen. She began rummaging the cupboards looking for a particular jar she used earlier for her cookies' most important ingredient.
"Aha!" she cried, finding what she was looking for. She turned the jar and read the description on the jar.
"Arthopos' CannaSugar. Super sweet and will sure to get you the high of your dreams," she read out loud. "I don't see anything wrong with this that would have caused this."
Not knowing what else to do, Willow carried the jar back to the living room to show it to her friends.
"Oh! Come on! Stop the kissage already! Haven't you two had enough of it?!" she yelled at Anya and Giles.
"You can never have enough of kissing," Anya said, "Especially if the one who is doing the kissing is as good as Ripper here."
"Ripper?"
"T'is my name. Got a problem with that?" Ripper asked, draping his arm around Anya.
Willow merely shook her head, not bothering to answer the question. Instead she raised the jar of sugar in her hands to let him see it.
"Do you know what this is?"
"Blimey! That cannabis sugar? Didn't know you had it in you to buy such stuff, Red," Ripper said, looking mighty proud at her.
Willow turned pale at that.
"Ca-ca-cannabis Sugar?"
"Yup. And the demonic brand too. Actually, 'm pretty sure I had one of those in my kitchen," Ripper said.
"THIS IS FROM YOUR KITCHEN!" Willow yelled, losing patience in the older supposedly responsible British gentleman that had demonic marijuana sugar on stock.
"Oh," was all the response she got from the Ripper.
Willow growled at this. Like actually growled and was so close to turning the man into a toad or maybe a cockroach. If she wasn't so concerned about the rest of her friends, then maybe she would have.
"How long?" she asked.
"Huh?" Ripper responded, giving her a confused look.
"How long does the effect on this last?!" Willow asked.
Ripper shrugged. "Depends on the amount you put in. Normally, I'd add half a teaspoon of it in me mornin' cuppa on rare occasions. That usually is enough to get me unhinged for a day or two on a boring weekend."
"Half a teaspoon for 2 days of highness? I added 4 cups for my cookies!"
"Then I guess your mates will stay like this for a few weeks. A month at most."
"A month?!" Willow grew even paler at that.
"Can I get back to snogging her now?"
"NO!"
TBC
(O.O)
