Nothing. No wait…was that a bed spring? A floor board creaking maybe? (strain to listen)—because I so do not want to go near Spuffy’s room if heshe is not vertical, no, wrong visual--I mean walking around FULLY DRESSED that is and…
“Spuffffy! Come on, come down I wanna do something today….” Dawn turned away from the staircase muttering, “Wanna do something before I hafta go back to school…to a NEW SCHOOL…”
She projected to the balcony.
“A new school in my SOPHMORE year… where I don’t know anybody, Anybodies!”
Dawn putt-putted her way pouting into the kitchen and it slipped it just did—
“Fuck.”
Immediately Giles and Xander snapped to attention from their respective late morning reading materials.
“I don’t suppose there is anyway I can make it sound like I was trying to say something else?”
“Ah hem…” Giles cleared his throat and stifled any untoward unasked for instruction regarding young ladies use of the Kings English with a drought of tea. Ah! Libation solution.
“Cup of tea?” He offered
“Why don’t mind if I do--I could be drinking coffee and be half way through my first morning cigarette but not for the attention of CERTAIN parental role models.” She sat down heavily with a puff of air from her racing little engine.
“Is anybody else worried about Spuffy?”
“Lord…please…I wish you would stop calling them that.”
Giles pushed his glasses up higher on his nose and sniffed.
Dawn giggled.
“Spuffy…Spuffy, Spuffy…” She taunted and tested enunciating vowel and constantant enhancement.
“SSSpppuffffyyyy…I like it. It saves time. Why waste your breath on those extra syllables saying. Buffy and Spike. How much more economical to just say: Spuffy. Spuff. Spuf. Spu…no…no that goes too far—Spuff maybe, for something especially endearing…but not Spu. Spuff. No, no…Spuffy it is…”
“And to whom and I will refer to the afore mentioned words placed adjacently into apparent sentences as a soliloquy and not a monologue because I’m almost quite certain that the presence of Xander and myself is moot--so to whom, may I ask was that soliloquy addressed?”
“Why to the gentle reader of course. The omnipresent Spuffy lovers everywhere. Duh.”
“Yes, of course.” Giles murmured.
“And to you…whom. You who. Youuu Whoooo. Hey you guys! Can I have a little attention here? Seriously. Is anybody else a little concerned about the Spuffiness of Spuffy?”
Giles cleared his throat. Xander looked up from his newspaper once looked around the room as if doing a systems check and muttered as he looked back down at the paper.
“I’m sorry what was that you said?” Dawn almost shouted.
“I said: murrrkymuttermuttergrumphah.”
“O.K. Well good, I just didn’t want to be misquoting you. O.K. I’ll say it. I know I started the whole ‘Spuffy’ thang as a…you know cute new moniker, but hey, you guys--has anyone else noticed that you can’t pry them apart?”
Giles coughed himself close to apoplexy and finished off with a fine British round of: ‘Ah hems.’
“I don’t mean that…well; yeah I guess I kinda do, but not now. I mean good on them, honeymooning it, you know, I mean…you guys ever notice how they never seem to be further than ten feet or so away from each other? I mean, that last year in Sunnydale, they were together a lot, but this is like…”
“Separation anxiety…”
“You think?”
They all chuckled, so wise for the watching.
“O.K. and I almost can’t believe I’m saying this, but let’s cut them some slack. I know if…Anya were to come back.” Xander looked back at his paper. “I wouldn’t let her out of my sight.”
Silence.
“O.K. O.K. I get that.” Dawn nodded, taking it in, turning her gaze inward she waxed almost winsome, almost a child again.
“But dontcha sometimes just wanna be able to talk to one of them one at a time? Say remove the Buffy from Spuffy long enough to go…shopping maybe or maybe go with Spike to the race track.”
“When have you gone with Spike to the races?”
“Oops.”
“Dog racing?” Giles voice dripped derision.
“NO! No I would never want to see them torture the doggies teasing them with those fake bunnies…no…no…nighttime harness racing.” She tucked that last bit of info in quickly under the wire.
Xander sighed deeply but said nothing.
Dawn huffed a puff and pounced on their judgment.
“Oh Jese, see, now I hafta explain--it was…that summer, you know when Buffy was…gone…and Spike noticed all the horses, you know the statues in my room and how much I liked them and he used to rent me totally lame westerns, horses for me, violence for him, I think, and any other horse movie he could find until it was ‘My Friend Flicka’ and Flicka gets so sick and Roddy MacDowell gets in the creek with her to get her temperature down and let me tell you--Spike was plenty scared that was not going to end well so then movies were out and one day I was feeling so bad he took me to the Harness Races--I think for him, it was his version of a trip to the zoo…”
“Yes…well placed in that context…alls well that ends well…” Giles acknowledged
Dawn continued:
“So maybe we should help them with their separation anxiety, you know before it becomes an issue? Cuz we’d be helping them right?”
“You want to go shopping? Maybe a movie?” Xander interrupted.
“Totally.”
“Huh…”
“Yeah…but we’ll just separate them little by little so they don’t go into shock or anything, so they can get used to the idea that Mom and Dad won’t you know, disappear if you can’t see them.”
“Alright.” Xander said cracking the paper. “But in light of the aforementioned gambling and in the spirit of high stakes living in general, I propose we make it…interesting.”
His chuckle was muffled by his return to the real estate section but Dawn could have sworn he almost: ‘Hee hee hee’d’
