“Complain all you want Dawn,” Buffy said firmly. “Uncle Charlie said that Bella is having boyfriend issues and she needs a place to crash. Family is family, after all.”
“But it’s not fair. Why is this always happening to me? This makes me so upset that I may have to play with my secret stash of stolen jewelry!” Dawn’s voice was a high-pitched mosquito-whine of concentrated teen angst.
As the door slammed in Buffy’s face, she knew it was going to be a very long summer.
When Buffy got to the airport, she wasn’t surprised to discover that Bella was not waiting for her at their pre-arranged meeting spot. Instead, she was sitting near the small first aid station near baggage claim, her head swaddled in white bandages.
Cousin Bella was afflicted with an almost paralyzing clumsiness. Merely walking across the room was a minefield of potential disasters. This time she’d managed to trip on the in-flight beverage cart, severely scalding half a dozen passengers and acquiring a very nasty bump on her head.
“Mrgh, hggn,” Bella sighed, while biting her lower lip.
“Can’t understand you. Could you pull your lip out of your mouth and give it another shot?” Buffy asked.
“Oh, hi cuz,” Bella sighed, morosely from behind the curtain of hair which totally obscured her face.
“Yeah, so, where’s your luggage?” Buffy asked.
Bella sighed, yet again, as she gestured towards the small tower of baggage which was stacked nearby.
Buffy gathered her cousin's assorted trunks, suitcases and three carry-ons, then led the way to the parking garage. Bella followed behind, careening off passengers and walls like a kind of human pinball machine.
When they arrived at the car, Buffy crammed the trunk and back seat with her cousin’s impressive baggage collection while Bella sat awkwardly in the passengers seat, sighing and wheezing loudly.
Climbing in behind the wheel, Buffy had to ask, “What’s with all the sighing?”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Bella sighed.
“There! You did it again!”
“Did what again?” Bella gasped.
“All the sighing and the wheezing whenever you speak. What’s up with that? Why don’t you just say things?”
“I’m afflicted with Meyers Syndrome. Sufferers end our sentences with sighs much of the time. Occasionally, I even croak,” Bella whimpered.
“Sound tragic,” Buffy said.
“That’s only the beginning of it. You should hear about my boyfriend problems,” Bella breathed, noisily, and then burst into song.
“I Have Huge Emotions” (Sung to the tune of “Going Through the Motions:”)
Every single day, I am in torment,
I don’t know which guy to choose.
And I cannot help but feel that somehow,
No matter who I pick, I lose,
I've been angsting so, but I don’t know
Which one of these guys blows.
It’s just that I have huge emotions,
Drama is my friend,
I really wanna drag out the – end.
Choice number one, he’s a vampire.
That means he is kind of hot.
You might also think sexy and dangerous,
But when it comes to this guy? Not.
He has a hidden thing that’s amazing,
A kind of skintone bling.
It gives me huge emotions.
He sparkles in the sun.
And he wants me to remain a - nun!
Choice number two, he’s a werewolf,
But without the charm of Oz.
And he’s unable to wear a t-shirt,
Bare-chested, he makes you
Sensuality, it seems to me
Is not the enemy.
And therefore I have huge emotions.
Muscles might be fun.
But he wouldn’t twinkle in the – sun.
She ended her song with a wheezy flourish and then looked at Buffy with a sigh. Buffy smiled and hit play on the car’s CD unit, pumping the volume to 10.
Bella bit her lip, sighed deeply, then bit her lip with a sigh.
It was going to be a very long summer indeed.
~*~
Spike stood in his familiar spot beneath her window on Revello Drive, his fist curled around a whiskey bottle. He drank deeply, then cast his gaze back to Buffy’s window and made a significant adjustment to his crotch region.
He’d seen lights on earlier. Some cousin or other had arrived, he’d heard tell. He'd watched a flurry of activity as they settled in with the new arrival; girly silhouettes in the window, breathy sighs and strange crashing sounds echoed down to where he'd waited. For the past two hours, however, he'd heard nothing but silence from the house. He was about to adjust his crotch again, when movement from the rooftop startled him from all penile-related thoughts.
It was a tall figure. Tall and almost anorexically thin, creeping across the Summers’ roof.
Oi. Peek in Buffy’s window? Not hardly, mate. Being Buffy’s voyeur is my job.
He couldn’t have been more surprised when the stalking figure settled before Dawn’s room, instead.
Not the niblet. I may be a Peeping Tom, but there are such things as standards.
He flew up the roof, a rush of black leather and whiskey fumes, and yanked the stalker down to the ground in one smooth movement.
“Just what do ya think you’re doin’?”
Spike whirled the thin man around to face him and was astounded to hear the faint swell of violin music rising in the background. As he looked into the stranger’s face, he observed a devastatingly beautiful, inhuman, almost godlike, angelic, celestial, seraphic, otherworldly, transcendental…” Then he collapsed to the ground, clutching his head in pain.
“Why’d the bloody chip go off? I didn’t hurt you!”
“It’s not you,” the man said, mournfully. “It’s a sad condition of my tragic disease: Stephanie Syndrome. When people are near me, they experience the sensation of having a thesaurus jammed into their inner monologue. They’re overwhelmed with synonyms for “godlike” and “glowing.” Also, they notice how nice I smell.”
Spike had to agree that the air was scented with an odd vanilla odor, though he personally would have preferred Eau de Whiskey.
“Well it’s bloody annoying!”
“My name's Edward." He held out his hand. "I also have amber eyes. And I sparkle in the sun. Would you like to see my vampire teeth?”
Spike ignored the man's hand. “I dunno what you are, Nancy-boy, but you’re not a vampire. Vampires don’t bloody sparkle.”
And with that, Spike burst into song.
I've Got a Theory (Sung to the tune of "I've Got a Theory")
I’ve got a theory, that you’re a demon.
An Impotence Demon, no something isn’t right there.
But not a vampire, you’re bloody flaccid.
And as sexually threatening as a Care Bear.
I’ve got a feeling you should work this through,
Because it’s clear from here your balls should be turning blue.
I’ve got a theory, that you’re a Ken Doll.
All molded plastic with no working man bits.
Perhaps an angel? It’s why you sparkle.
And show no earthly interest in a girls' tits.
I’ve got a feeling it doesn’t matter what you do.
Since you’re not human I can beat the shit out of you.
Edward let out a high-pitched scream and ran towards his silver sports car, slamming down all the locks.
~*~
It was nearly dawn. The effulgent Edward had remained hidden in his car for the duration of the night. Spike could hear the faint sounds of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir wafting from the tightly sealed windows. He was about to call the night a total bust, when he saw a flurry of pink movement from the side of the house.
Buffy was dragging a garbage can toward the street. She was all rumpled and sleepy-looking, wrapped in a fuzzy pastel robe. Even in terrycloth, she was dead-sexy. Her bed-head hair pulled his mind towards all kinds of illicit thoughts.
He waited until she got to the curb and then slid in behind her. That bathrobe tie was just begging to be tugged. He was planning out the perfect low and sexy thing to murmur in her ear, when he felt the presence of someone creeping up from behind him.
Instinctively Spike whirled around and kicked the creature to the curb. The chip in his head, however, remained blissfully silent. Whatever this thing was, it too wasn’t human, even though it appeared to be a disturbingly large teenaged boy.
The boy whimpered in pain and then stood up quickly, meeting Spike with a fierce snarl.
“You’re a vampire,” he growled.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Spike nodded.
“Way to go with the keen observyness,” Buffy chimed in, her arms crossed. “You must be Jacob. Bella’s told me about you.”
For no apparent reason, the boy then ripped his shirt off.
“She told me about that too.” Buffy’s patience was thinning by the minute.
“I’m here to protect Bella,” Jacob woofed.
“From what?” Spike burst out with a laugh. “Saint Edward?”
“Don’t make me angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry,” Jacob barked.
“Seriously? Stealing from Marvel Comics as well as Joss? Do you people have no shame?” Buffy scoffed, then popped him on the nose, effectively laying the boy out across the sidewalk.
“How many more of these blokes are there? Bachelor #1 was a right pain in my arse. Wanker could really use a few pointers in proper stalking technique, too.”
“Tell me about it,” Buffy grumbled. “Cousin Bella’s just a wad of sexual frustration, brought on by the whole lot of nothing that these two assclowns are bringing to the show. You should see what she tried to do with Mr. Pointy…”
“Oh, seriously a case of Too Much Information, Slayer. Though if you’d care to demonstrate...” Raising an eyebrow and casting a leer in her direction, he was fully expecting the flying right jab aimed at his jaw, which he expertly dodged by feinting to the left.
“With what these three don’t know about creating sexual tension. They should write a book. Or start a ridiculously successful movie franchise,” Buffy said.
With that Spike and Buffy, quite naturally, burst into song.
Build Sexual Desire (Sung to the tune of "Walk Through the Fire")
BUFFY
Their sexual tension freezes me.
I look into it and it's black.
Why can't I feel
These characters appeal?
This story’s written by a hack.
Bella has no identity.
To please her man is her one aim.
Submissive chick, she kinda makes me sick.
Also the plot is lame.
You gotta build sexual desire.
But they’re as passionate as a fern.
You gotta build sexual desire.
And let it...
SPIKE
These tossers don’t know how to stalk.
Nor build a sex bot I would guess.
To show you care,
You steal her underwear.
Their libido is a mess.
You gotta build sexual desire.
And sometimes chain a girl up.
You gotta build sexual desire,
Stupid pup.
And with that, Spike sent a boot flying into Jacob’s midsection, where he collapsed on the sidewalk with a yelp.
Then, very faintly, they could hear Bella’s breathy voice, echoing down from the second floor.
“It isn’t right it isn’t fair
Hey I’m not wearing underwear….”
-The end-