Fic: Spike/Dawn
Title: Bending Spaghetti
Author: Dead Soul
Pairing: Spike/Dawn
Timeline: BtVS, mid-Season 5. Part 1 is set just prior to the episode Crush and Part 2 is set just after Forever
Rating: R
Warnings: sexual situations involving a minor
Dedication: for darkinnocent in the What If Spike...Ficathon
Requested Premise: What if Spike had fallen for the littlest Summers instead of Buffy?
Requirements: Spike/Dawn, mention of Spike's family (Dru, Angelus, etc), Tara, leather
Thanks to: darling_effect, lillianmorgan, and ladystarlightsj who all gave early input. The story is unbeta'd beyond that.
Author’s Note: Refers to my story, O, Little Breath of Oblivion
Summary: A spell goes awry, as they are so wont to do. Love is re-directed, but love, as it is also wont to do, goes where it wills.





Bending Spaghetti


Part One

"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. Now is the time for all good men..."

Tara continued to chant the old typing exercise. It helped to center her, to quiet her mind. For this spell to go right, no outside influences could be allowed to intrude. And especially, she could not allow any of her many doubts to creep in; no matter how sensible they were. Now that she'd decided on this course, she had to be fully committed.

She'd have preferred to do this spell with Willow. Willow had so much more raw power, so much more pure talent, but Tara was afraid that Willow was too emotionally connected to the problem; that she'd go for revenge rather than subtlety. That she'd want to blast the problem into oblivion rather than delicately re-direct it.

The problem. Tara focused on the problem as she continued to chant. She saw things that the others were too close to see. She saw how Spike watched Buffy and she saw what it meant. Spike’s kind of love and obsession could burn them all and would be a dangerous distraction from their fight against Glory and from their fight to save Dawn, the key.

Finally, she felt ready. Without opening her eyes, she reached for the ingredients she'd placed carefully around her within her sacred circle and changed her focusing chant into the words of the spell, "Aphrodite, hear my plea..."


One week later

"Did you know that the Chinese invented spaghetti?" Dawn asked Spike as they ate their takeaway dinner in the Summers' kitchen."

"'Bout everyone knows that, Bit. Marco Polo an' all that."

"And did you know that you can't break spaghetti in half? It'll always break into three pieces. It's some math thing."

"Don't know what you're going on about spaghetti for. This is Japanese, not Chinese."

"'Cause I don't like fish eggs," Dawn said, gesturing with chopsticks disdainfully dripping noodles towards the California roll that was halfway into Spike's mouth. "They feel like I'm eating zits."

Spike's bite didn't hesitate, nor did he hesitate over something so poncy as not talking with his mouth full. "Been a few years since I had one of those," he said through a mouthful of sushi positively riddled with popping fish eggs. "Spots, I mean. Care to give me a few of yours so's I can compare and contrast?"

Dawn's hand flew up to cover the tiny blemish on her chin that she was convinced was big enough to be seen by the Hubble telescope. "Eww, gross much, Spike?"

"Not to worry, love, your nose is still the biggest bump on your face – or anywhere else, if you take my meaning."

"I'd be careful about mentioning bumpies if I were you, fang-face. And what do you mean, 'anywhere else'?" Then she noticed where Spike's eyes were focused. "Oh, you so didn't!" she accused, crossing her arms over her chest. "When I tell Buffy you were looking at my boobs, she'll, she'll..."

"Most likely biff me on the nose again – not that she needs any reason to do that. Just any old day that ends in 'y'."

"Yeah, she does like to do that. Is that why you go away sometimes – you don't want anyone to see it all purple and swollen?"

"You're too young to be thinking about things that get purple and swollen."

"I so don't have any idea what you’re talking about, nor do I ever want to know. I'm just so, so ignoring you for the rest of – forever. Is forever long enough, or will you still be disgusting then, too?"

"I yam what I yam, and more so than most."

Unable to refute this, Dawn, for once, said nothing besides a muttered "Aye, aye, Popeye" choosing instead to take the high road by trying to unravel individual udon noodles out of the cardboard Japanese takeaway box with her chopsticks. Buffy had always said she should be armed at all times.

"I guess this ends the amusing banter portion of the evening," Spike said after a moment, as charming as listening to Dawn slurp noodles was. "'Bout done? Or do you plan to continue to make like a Hoover and..."

"Suck? I'm disappointed in you, Spike. Usually your jokes are slightly more, um, inscrutable."

"Some little bird's been swotting on her vocab. Did I tell you the one about the..."

"Duh-uh! I mean, what else rhymes with Nantucket?" Dawn stabbed her chopsticks into the leftover noodles; stood and stretched, causing her shirt to ride up and expose about four inches of midriff. Spike lunged, blowing a deafening raspberry on her bare skin.

Dawn shrieked and tried to squirm away but Spike would not let her go. "Ewewewewew! Vampire Spit! Get off, get off, get OFF!" she screamed, laughing so hard she was crying. Her squeals were ear splitting, but then she remembered. "Spike, stop!" she whispered, "You'll wake Mom up!"

"But you want me to get that nasty spittle off you, don't you?" Spike segued from loud blowing to quiet licking as Dawn confined herself to silent squirming and sotto voce ews.



In the living room of the Summers' house, overhearing Spike and Dawn's roughhousing in the kitchen, Tara's heart, stomach and all the other bits that could sink, did sink. And flip and turn over and rise to lodge in her throat.

She'd been waiting to see the effects of her spell. When she saw that Spike continued to hang around as much as before she'd worried that the spell hadn't worked at all. Now she could see that it had worked. It had just gone horribly wrong. And she knew how. As she'd begun the spell her thoughts had still been lingering on Dawn and how important she was. The intent of her spell had been to change the object of Spike's obsession from Buffy. The problem with that was that she'd had no new object in mind and the spell had taken the image of Dawn from her mind.

But knowing what had caused the disaster didn't mean that now she knew what to do about it. All she could think to do was pray to Aphrodite that Dawn would not return Spike's love and she knew what a forlorn hope that was since Dawn had been half in love with him already. Now that he was focusing his charm on her as a suitor, rather than as a big brother, Tara was afraid that Dawn did not stand a chance. Perhaps Willow would know what to do.



Part Two

Dawn had sneaked away from her quiet house to the one place she knew she could find comfort. Now she lay in the bed that Spike had set up in the lower level of his crypt, letting him hold her and stroke her hair.

"Tell me a story, Spike," she said.

"What kind of story do you want, Bite-size?"

"I don't know, anything, I guess."

Spike was silent for a moment, as if thinking, and continuing to stroke her hair. "I could tell you about the time that Dru almost cut her hair."

"Okay," Dawn said, snuggling a little closer to him.

"See, it was the Twenties, flappers and all that and all the women were cutting off their long hair because they all wanted to look like this dead sexy film star named Louise Brooks."

"What did she look like?"

"All big dark eyes and bobbed black hair. A bloke could get lost in those eyes, like I could get lost in Dru's eyes."

"I've always wanted dark eyes. They're so mysterious."

"Never say that, pet," Spike chided. "It's your baby blues that catch me now."

"Liar."

"Never!"

Dawn decided to let him have the last word on that subject. "Hmph, well, go on with your story."

"As I said, Dru was thinking about cutting her hair. Her long black hair. I didn't like to think about it, but I'd have never forbidden her. I just suggested she try it first before deciding."

"A wig? Ew!" Dawn shuddered.

"Well, a wig of sorts. See, we killed this flapper chippy and Dru tried on her hair."

"How? Oh! You don’t mean she...!"

"Pretty handy with a flaying knife, was our Dru."

"That's the grossest story in, like, ever. So, did she end up cutting her hair?"

"Nah, decided she wasn't ready to come into the twentieth century just yet."

"Spike?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you tell me that story just to make sure that I'd never cut my hair?"

"Rumbled my cunning plan, did you?"

"Don't worry, I'd never do anything you didn't like."

"Don’t say that, love. Do as you like, I'll love you anyway. Always."

"You know what I'd like now?"

"What's that?"

"I'd like you to do that thing with your belt again, you know, and the headboard."

"Vixen." Spike rolled over onto Dawn, kissing her deeply while reaching down over the edge of the bed for his jeans and the leather belt threaded through the loops.



In a candlelit dorm room on the Sunnydale campus, Tara and Willow had joined hands within their circle, beginning the spell that Tara prayed would set things right.

"Aphrodite, hear our plea..." they chanted.


FIN