AUTHOR: Tisienne Blue

E-MAIL: tisatko@msn.com

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns everyone you know from TV...

RATING: PG- PG-13

DISTRIBUTION: Charity can have it if she wants... also Vampie...

FEEDBACK: Umm... OK...

DEDICATIONS: to Nutmeg, Jessica (tried to e- you... didn't work!!!), Jesmin, Charity, Ryan, Susanne, Vampie, and Kim...thanks for the feedback on Bedtime Story...

NOTES: As I said, this is a companion piece... it's not a sequel, exactly, and should make sense without reading the first story... of course, that one didn't make too much sense, so...*g* Those of you who have read any of my other stories know that this is not my usual style, so please... if this sucks, don't be too mean about it... my ego is fragile... (Yeah, RIGHT...*teehee**teehee**tee-bloody-hee*

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Spike sighed to himself yet again as he heard the sounds of his little 'niece' playing up in her room... he must have gone upstairs and put her back in bed at least a dozen times in the last hour and a half! He wondered, as he made his way stealthily up the stairs once again, just how exactly he'd let his poof of a former Sire talk him into this 'babysitting' gig... not that he didn't love Katie. She was a smart, sweet, beautiful little girl... of course, he attributed all of those qualities to her mother. She was also a stubborn, tempestuous, irrational child at times, and he knew that she got those traits from her bloody ponce of a dad! He crept silently to the little girl's bedroom door, opening it a crack, and peering in through the gap. What he saw brought a tender smile to his lips... his little niece was playing with her dolls, but that wasn't the cute part to Spike. Oh, no, for Spike, the cutest thing about it was that dear little Katie was holding the Ken doll's mouth to the Barbie doll's neck while making slurping noises!

"Here, Katie-pet... what do you think you're doing with those dolls?" He asked, trying to hide his amusement as he opened the door fully and stepped into her frilly, lacy little girl's bedroom.

"I'm playing 'vampire and friend'." the little girl said solemnly, only her dancing eyes belying her tone.

"Well!" Spike said admonishingly as he scooped the girl up and dropped the dolls on her dresser, "This is not the time to be playing, luv... It's hours past your bedtime! Now, go to sleep, girl!" He placed the girl gently in her bed, and pulled the covers up to her chin, placing a soft kiss on her forehead. "What?" he said, seeing the accusing look in her eyes.

Katie wrinkled her nose up, staring at him. "Mama always tells me a story when I can't sleep," she said, deliberately sounding sad. "Tell me a story, Uncow Spike!"

Spike sighed, knowing that the little girl had him firmly wrapped around her adorable little finger. "Fine, princess, what do you want to hear? Maybe... Sleeping Beauty?... or Snow White?"

"No!" Katie said almost angrily, "I want the 'Bad Bunny' story!"

"I... I don't think I know, that one, luv..." He saw her face begin to turn red, and rushed on, hoping to forestall an eruption of violent temper... yet another thing that he attributed to the girl's father. "But, maybe if you started it..." He sighed in relief as she began to speak, not even noticing the oddity of a vampire being afraid of a six year old human girl's anger.

Spike sat listening for almost five minutes as the girl recited the 'Bad Bunny' story, and found a smile quirking at his lips as he recognized the people and events... he almost burst out laughing when Katie got to the part about Princess Bunny and Farmer Smiley running away to the kingdom of Oh-My-Oh. But, as his sweet little niece reached the end, he realized angrily that something was missing. "So that's it, pet? There's no charming, handsome bloke named, oh... Nail?... or maybe Pike?" He held back a growl as the little girl shook her head at him to indicate that no, there certainly wasn't any such person in the story her mother had told her. He grinned a bit as he decided on just how he was going to... correct!... that little oversight. "Well, like I said, Katie, I don't know that story, But!" he said, before she could react at all, "I know an even better one!" He grinned at the little girl as her face went from angry to expectant, and he began to talk...

~~~~~~~~ and this is what he said~~~~~~~~~

Once upon a time... and a very long time ago it was, pet... in a land far, far away... across a great ocean, and all of a great big bunch of land... there was a thriving metropolis called... Blunden. It was a big, almost magical city, with lots of people, and lots of things to do! Now, in this city of Blunden, there lived a very handsome young knight... no, lord, NO! Prince! Yeah, Prince!... and his name was... Shrike. Now, young Prince Shrike was an interesting sort, and all the ladies of the city wanted to take him home and f... uh, feed him... I guess because he looked hungry all the time. But he wasn't always hungry, pet... just most of the time! So young Shrike, being a prince, had no need for a regular job, because that would just be stupid! I mean, who ever heard of a prince working when he didn't have to? Well, except for the one in your Mama's story, but he was just a... never mind. So, Prince Shrike, not being a working sort, spent a lot of time at taver.. uh, social clubs. He'd go to them, meet up with other... uh, nobles! Yeah! And they'd spend their nights playing cards and drinking ale... ginger ale, I mean, and shag... playing with the lovely girls at the... clubs... too. The prince really liked his life! It was great! Or it was until one night when he was leaving one of his favourite clubs, and he was approached by a very tall dark haired chap.

Now, this tall chap wasn't all that appealing to look at. He was unnaturally pale, and had this odd overhanging brow, but the prince, being a... tolerant sort, listened to the man when he said that he was lost and needed some help, 'cuz that's just the kind of bloke the prince was. So poor Prince Shrike tried to help the ugly man, leading him to where he'd been told the man was trying to go. It was just after they turned in to an alley to take a shortcut that the prince discovered exactly what sort of creature had bamboozled him.

The tall bastar.. guy... pushed the slightly smaller prince up against the alley wall! Now, the prince, being a prince and all, fought back with everything he had in him, landing no few solid blows on his heinous companion, and he would have won, too, if the ugly man hadn't bashed him over the head with a brick! So, while the prince was lying there, on the cobblestones of the alley, he could hear the other man speaking. 'My name is Jealous,' the man said, 'And you, Shrike, will be my own... my family!'

Now, Prince Shrike didn't really want to be Jealous' family, but... he really had no choice, and so... family they were! So then, this bloke Jealous, whose looks kind of grew on the prince, took him to meet the rest of his family. Shrike was amazed when he first met the two women. One was a smallish blonde thing, who he supposed was attractive enough, but the other! The other was just lovely, with long dark hair, and deep, beautiful eyes. Jealous introduced them, the blonde as Sparla, and the brunette... the brunette was, uh... Moosilla! Shrike smiled and told them both that it was nice to meet them.

Well, time went by, and after a few years, poor Shrike, who was a prince no longer, fancied himself in love with the beautiful Moosilla, even going so far as to call her his... Bark Goddess, mostly because she had the somewhat annoying habit of baying at the moon like a little dog... But she was pretty, and he was a man, after all... And when Jealous and Sparla decided to leave for parts unknown, Shrike didn't really care to complain... after all, he still had Moosilla!

Many more years went by, and then one day, Moosilla got hurt by accident, and the only way that she could get well was for her and Shrike to find Jealous, and try to kil... uh, get him to kiss the girl. So Shrike and his Bark Goddess took sail for... Charmerica! It took them a long, long while to find out where Jealous had hidden himself, mostly because he'd had a bit of an... accident... himself, and was now calling himself Gel, probably because of the amount of the stuff he had to use on his hair... So, anyway, pet, Shrike and Moosila finally found the blighter, but he refused to help! Finally, Shrike had to take matters into his own hands, and he... kidnapped the sodding wank... well, he kidnapped the bloke, hoping to make him give Moosilla the kiss she needed to get well.

Now, enter the villain of the piece! Shrike and Moosilla had found Jealous, or Gel, rather, in the small kingdom of Cloudyplain, and although they didn't know it, the kingdom was home to a hideous blonde hag by the name of... Scruffy! Scruffy was pure evil, through and through, and had decided that she wanted Gel for herself! Of course, Gel having had his own accident, well, he just didn't know any better than to let her bully him into a relationship! Gel knew, deep down inside, that he didn't really love Scruffy... he really loved Scruffy's friend... Minnow... but somehow, he thought that she was too good for him. He was right, but... well, back to the story.

Scruffy noticed one day that she hadn't seen Gel in a while, so she went out looking for him, and when she found him with Shrike and Moosilla, she went even crazier than she already was! She pulled Gel from Moosilla's arms right before he could kiss her, and with the help of Piles-- her Master, Gander-- her stupid friend, Spendra-- another nasty hag, and Minnow-- the only good one of the bunch, she managed to collapse the whole building on top of our hero and his Bark Goddess! Fortunately, though, Gel's lips had just managed to brush Moosilla's cheek when Scruffy pulled him away, so she was much, much better than she had been before, and she dug Shrike out of the rubble and took him off to their home!

Well, pet, a lot of things, both good and bad happened after that... Gel regained his sanity for a too-brief period of time and tried to get the nasty blonde hag to go away, a big blue bad guy tried to make things really... ucky for everyone, Gel went crazy again and left Cloudyplain because he couldn't stand the sight of Scruffy for even one more day... And one day, Moosilla went to Shrike and told him that he didn't love her, and that she was leaving! Well, Shrike was upset for about a minute, but then he realized that Moosilla was right! He'd just been with his Bark Goddess for so long that he was used to her!

Many things happened again... Shrike struck up an unlikely friendship with Scruffy's friend Minnow, and actually thought that he loved her for a bit... especially during that time right after the Stagnative put a cracker in his head that made him act all... woggy... and 'lo and behold, Scruffy took up with a farmboy named Wiley, although he was anything but!

Shrike somehow managed to survive, even with the cracker in his head, until one day, Gel came to him, and said that he knew how to get rid of it!

Well, after the cracker was gone, and Shrike was feeling like his old self, he went to see his old Si... uh, friend, Gel, in... Siliconia, which was where Gel had gone to get away from Scruffy, where he once again met a girl he'd known in Cloudyplain. Her name was Poordelia, and when they had first known each other, they hadn't gotten along at all... I think it was the frustrated sexu... uh, I mean, there was a lot of tension between them... But once Shrike moved to... Siliconia? Yeah, that was it... anyway, once Shrike moved, and started helping Gel, well... He and Poordelia realized that they really liked each other a lot... and when Gel finally was able to go and marry Scruffy's little friend Minnow, Shrike took over for him in Siliconia, with the lovely Poordelia by his side... And that's the story, pet... What do you think?

~~~~~~~~~ he stopped speaking~~~~

Spike looked curiously down at his little niece, wondering how long she'd been asleep. He smiled softly and kissed her forehead one more time before turning off the light and leaving the room. He shut the door quietly. "So what did you think, Peaches?"

Angel laughed. He should have known that Spike would be aware of his presence. "Well, Spike," he said, clapping the smaller man on the back, "I think it was an... interesting way of putting things... Not the way I remember them happening, but..."

"Yeah, well, chalk it up to the frailty of your now-human brain, you big poof!" He smiled at his former Sire, taking the sting out of the comment. "Now, where's Red?"

Angel chuckled lightly as he started down the stairs. "She's in the kitchen, making some coffee..." He sighed, "I don't know how she does it! I swear, this pregnancy is more tiring for me than it is for her!"

Spike laughed, hearing the exasperation in Angel's voice. "Well, Peaches," he said softly, as he watched the very pregnant redhead bustling about the kitchen, "That's what you get for marrying a witch!"

End.

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