"No Rest For the Wicked

By:  Morrigan


A/N:  Here's another continuation that I've been procrastinating on.  Once again Beta'd by Blacknblue2, who I owe many a thanks, since this chapter is set in OMWF and song-fic is not her thing.  She's such a trooper.  *NOTE* Song-fic isn't really my thing either, and this is NOT a song fic.  But, due to the time frame, there may be a few smatters of musical sillyness here and there.  I promise this is only in the beginning, though.  Please, please, bear with me.  I'll try to make it worth the effort.  *L*


Disclaimer:  All characters are property of Joss Whedon and ME.  I wish Joss would do something with them again, but since he isn't, I'm glad he lets us take them out to play.




Buffy awoke from sinfully delicious dreams, very late the next morning.  She yawned and stretched slowly, stopping with a little yelp of pain that came as her pillow case brushed against her neck.  Her eyes snapped open as her hand flew up to the wound.

Gently running her fingers over the lightly throbbing mark, she thought, 'No...  No, no, no... I dreamed that, right?  It was only a dream!  A very bad, naughty, so wouldn't ever really happen, kind of dream...'

Sitting up and flinging her legs over the side of the bed, she made her way, gingerly, to the bathroom.  Her worry increased as each ginger step she took made her more aware of the soreness between her legs.

Upon reaching her destination, she leaned close to the vanity mirror, pulled her hair to the side and looked upon the angry, red twin puncture wounds, shattering any hope she held of them being a figment of her dreams.  Her own green eyes stared back at her accusingly, while her little proverbial boat sailed away down the river denial, leaving her to stand on the shores of harsh reality.

She had slept with Spike.  She had been *bitten* by Spike.  And worst of all, she had gotten off on it.

The sudden, ear piercing squeal of the smoke detector, followed by Dawn's yelps from the hallway, startled Buffy out of her self pity.  Hurriedly, she dressed, donning a turtleneck sweater to hide the evidence of her guilt and headed out of her room to see what was going on.

Smoke assaulted Buffy's lungs as soon as she stepped through the door.  Dawn was jumping and waving a dish towel at the device on the ceiling, trying desperately to make it stop, and failing.  Passing her sister, Buffy took the stairs two at a time, the smoke getting thicker as she did so, and turned into the kitchen.  Grey smoke billowed out of the oven, making it nearly impossible to see her way through to the window, which she quickly opened to clear the air.  She then turned and felt her way to the back door, which she opened as well, fanning it back and forth furiously.

"Dawn!"   She yelled toward the ceiling.

A tinny crunch came from the upper level, and the noise abruptly stopped.  The sudden silence proved to be almost as deafening as the alarm had been, making Buffy feel almost as though someone had cupped their hands over her ears.

A few moments later, Dawn came downstairs, grinning sheepishly, a baseball bat clutched loosely in her right hand.  She stopped several feet in front of Buffy, hiding the bat behind her back, and shrugged.  "Um, I fixed it," she said, followed by a nervous laugh.

"Don't you mean, you broke it?"  Buffy asked, sarcastically, raising a brow and nodding, knowingly, at her little sister.

Dawn pouted as she brought the bat out from behind her back, though her eyes were filled with embarrassed laughter. "Well," she began, in way of explanation.  "The dish towel wasn't working."

"What strange concoction were you trying to make, anyway?"  Buffy asked, leaving the door standing open and striding into the kitchen to open the smoking oven to peer inside.  She wrinkled her nose in disgust at the charred mess that had bubbled over the pan, inside.

"It was..."   Dawn screwed up her face and bit her lip as though trying to decide what, or maybe what not, to say.

"Well?"   Buffy inquired again, waving her hand in front of her face, as the burnt smell wafted from the oven and into the room.

"I was..."   Dawn began again, looking even more frustrated, before her features softened, her eyes filling with an open pleading for understanding.  She released the bat, letting it fall to the floor, as she sank to her knees dramatically.  After staring at the floor for a few seconds, she raised her head, turning her regret filled eyes to the ceiling.  Suddenly, in time with tinkling keys of a piano, which began to echo through the house, Dawn opened her mouth and sang...

"It wasn't supposed to happen.

It sounded so easy.

I added everything.   She said, ingredient is key.

I thought I set the oven right.

preheated at 350.

I popped it in, and then began

a show that was so nifty...."

Dawn paused and looked her confused sister squarely in the eyes before the sounds of an old time jazz band began reverberating against the walls.  She stood up, quickly, and began to pace around, gesturing with her arms as she sang out her tale.

"I was engrossed!

The leading man was ever such the hotty!

You might think that I'm full of it,

but you should have *seen* his body!

If you were me, you'd understand.

I couldn't turn away.

I'd tell you that he looked like Spike,

but I know you'd only say..."

"Dawn!"  Buffy hollered out over the music, causing it to come to a dischordant stop.  Shaking her head and pointing once more at the steaming mess in the oven, she asked, "But, *what* was it?"

"Oh," Dawn shrugged her shoulders and nodded at the mess, replying simply,  "Baked Mac and cheese with spinach, bacon and parmesan topping."

Buffy scrutinized the baking pan again, curling her lip and wrinkling her nose, once more. Turning away from it and looking at Dawn, she said, "Ew," before turning and heading back up the stairs to finish getting herself together for the day, leaving her younger sibling to clean up the mess she had made.

A drum roll started in the kitchen as soon as Buffy reached the first step.

Dawn counted to three and smiled to herself when she heard her sister's predictable final comment float down to her from upstairs, right on cue.

"And Spike is *not* a hottie!"

The drumming ceased with a final *Ba-dum- dum!*

"Yeah," Dawn whispered to herself, while she rummaged under the sink for a scrub brush.  "Just what I knew she would say."

Meanwhile, upstairs, Buffy was back to pacing around her room.

"Okay, Buffy, think..."

"You slept with Spike...  Not the first time you've slept with a vampire, right?  And certainly not the first mistake you've ever made in doing so.  So... okay, No big.  I'll just avoid him. Avoid, avoid, avoid the evil, bloodsucking, menace."

Buffy nodded to herself, in agreement with this line of thought.

"Yes.  There.  Problem solved.  And," -

She walked back to the bathroom, and pulled the neck of her top down to inspect the marks Spike had left upon her neck, more closely than she had allowed herself to do, previously.

- "Maybe, I'll have Will come over and do one of those disinvite things
again."

She grimaced a little, remembering that it would not be the first time she had asked her friend to do so.

"Cookies will be in order," she mumbled to herself.  "Lots of cookies for persuasion, so that she will do this for me.  That way I don't have to worry about him creeping in here at night...  Possibly while I am sleeping!  Vulnerable and un-able to protect myself, totally un-aware as he slinks his sexy bod across my room and...  UGH!"

She gave herself a hard mental slap for her uninvited direction her thoughts had taken and removed her fingers from her throat, grimacing at her reflection.  After a brief pause, she pulled her sweater to the side again to continue her evaluation, careful this time, so as to avoid contact with the wound.

The punctures that adorned her throat still looked so fresh and new.  She winced at how garish they still appeared.  To her recollection, when she had been bitten by The Master... and by Angel, for that matter, the bites had healed much more quickly.

'Great,' she thought, letting her sweater snap back into place to hide the marks as she turned and marched out of the bathroom.  'I probably have Spike cooties, now.'