Part 5
Watcher panic did not ensue until they actually saw the dragon. Because,
after all, dragons do not exist. Vampires, demons and the Hellmouth, they
just wrote papers about, but dragons sent them into a tizzy. It had to be a
British thing. ‘Ok, that’s not very PC,’ Xander thought. ‘Maybe it’s just
the normal British people don’t join the Watchers and we get stuck with all
the Principal Snyder types.’ While the watchers were arguing with Giles
about the extremely large flesh rending beast a quarter of a mile away which
did not exist, Kelly and Willow had move on to the ‘kill it now, we can’t
just kill it’ argument.
That was originally Tara’s argument but Willow had taken over when Kelly had
done the Ares scowl thing, doubly effective when you happen to be holding a
broad sword, and Tara’s voice had trailed off to a whisper. All Tara had
suggested was that maybe they shouldn’t kill the dragon, being it was one of
a kind and all. But Willow now looked like she was going to change Kel into
something icky, and so help him if that guy raise his broadsword to Willow,
Xander would feed him to the dragon.
Dawn was staying close to Spike. He was excellent watcher repellent. They
hadn’t wanted to bring her, but there was no way they were leaving her alone
at the shop, and when they suggested dropping her at Giles’ place she had
said, “Your not leaving me, I’m coming with you.” And that settled that.
“We're not going to kill it.” ‘Hey did that come out of my month? Don’t I
sound sure of myself? I wonder what I think we are going to do with it.’
Now Xander had Willow looking at him like, ‘hey you have a plan,’ and Kelly
looking at him like ‘I already don’t like you plan.’
And Laura saying, “Why not?”
“Because if it smells this bad on the outside, we’ll probably all drop dead
if we open it up.” Which was an excellent point even if he hadn’t realized
he was going to make it. Dragons smell bad; really bad, eye watering, nose
running and maybe even skin peeling bad.
Dawn had inched over to him, Spike shadowing her, keeping one eye on the
watchers and one on the dragon. “That the one that came through the vortex,
before Buffy..” She has stood on her toes and pull on his arm to lower his
head to her, her voice hushed. She trailed off eyes big, looking at the
watchers, who were ignoring her. “It’s not from here; can’t we send it
back? Like the troll guy.”
Spike looked at Xander. Xander looked at Spike. They both turned to
Willow, but it was Xander who ask, “Wills, you think we can use the ‘Olaf
Maneuver’ on this thing?”
Well that put an end to the discussions. The watchers looked baffled. Giles
looked pensive. Tara looked hopeful. Laura still had that ’whatever you say
General Harris’ look, which was just wrong. Kelly looked suspicious, but
that could be the whole Ares thing working for him. Willow, well Willow just
looked incredulous and said, “On something that size? Xander do you have any
idea of the mass we’re talking about.”
“Mass? Um Physics? Not really my strong suit. Couldn’t you just use more of
whatever you used before?” Oh well that look just said Xander shouldn’t even
think about magic let alone make suggestions. But on the plus side it did
spark a flurry of activity. The end result of which was Willow, and Giles
taking Dawn and two of the watchers back to the shop to get books and
supplies, while Tara and the third watcher established a sort of base camp
to wait for them. Spike, Xander, Kelly and Laura were supposed to
cautiously circle the area and keep the dragon in sight ‘Do they really
think we’re going to loss something that size?’
‘The Battle of the Dragon’ was almost anticlimactic. Except for when they
had nearly been eaten. Giles had come back with about thirty disposable
hibachis. ‘Yeah Wal-Mart’ The watchers, and witches began filling them with
herbs and parchment, and sent the four who had been circling to lay out the
braziers in a large circle around the dragon. One second it was somnolent,
the next it was there, roaring. It snapped at Laura nearly taking off her
head, but Kelly slashed it across the nose and it reared back and howled in
pain. Apparently where ever it had come from, food did not fight back. It
futilely flapped its wings, bottom heavy from its resent meal. It didn’t fly
but sent great gust of air, full of hay and sand swirling around the area.
Xander and Laura scrambled to get the rest of the braziers lit. Crack. A
tree snapped by its flailing tail sounded like a gunshot.
Another crack, but it wasn’t a tree, one of the watchers had pulled a gun.
Not having thought to move far away from the base camp before he started to
fire, he was now drawing the beast attention to their most vulnerable area.
Giles, the witches, and the watcher who Buffy had nearly impaled, were on
their knees holding hands around a basin of water. Dawn stood well back,
with the lady watcher and the old guy.
Xander who had been running at full speed since he heard the shot, vaulted
the watchers’ rental car, tackled Dawn and shove her under Kelly’s pickup
truck; just in time to hear the lady watcher’s screams.
Since, the screams didn’t cut off abruptly and started to be interspersed
with “Bugger all” and “Fuck”, Xander ventured a look at the carnage. ‘Can
you be a watcher and say fuck?’ She wasn’t dead, or maimed. She had been
slimmed by Dragon goo, or ichor, or sap, whatever it was it wasn’t blood.
It was thicker, and smelled worse, a lot worse, and probably couldn’t be
removed from tweed. He hoped she wouldn’t have to shave her head.
Xander motioned for Dawn to stay down and cautiously looked around. It was
quiet. No sound of the wings flapping, no roars, even the watcher was
calming down. Tara was holding Willow and stroking her hair. Willows eyes
were closed and her nose was bleeding. Giles had removed his glasses and
pulled himself into a standing position, but did not look steady on his
feet. The other watcher looked, unconscious, or dead. ‘Nope, definitely
unconscious dead people don’t drool, except for Spike when he‘s sleeping.’
Spike who was heading across the clearing toward Xander had also been doused
with dragon fluid, but not as bad as the softly sobbing lady watcher. It had
missed his head completely.
“What happened?” Xander asked, meaning Spike’s goo covered Docs and jeans.
Spike just shrugged and knelt down to look under the truck.
“You can come out.” He said to Dawn.
The old guy, who was looking back and forth from the goo covered lady to the
paddock which still contained the remains of the dragon’s meal, answered
Xander. “He, he” the watcher swallowed and Xander wondered if it was the
smell that made him look like he was going to hurl. “He impaled it with a
grounding rod.” The stunned watcher was back to staring at where the dragon
had been. “It reared back into the circle and vanished.” ‘I wonder what’s
got him more rattled, that William the Bloody saved their lives, or that
they were wrong about the no dragons deal.’
Xander didn’t think it would be diplomatic to point out that Spike would
have gleefully sucked out their eye balls for putting Dawn’s life in danger,
or that it had been Dawn’s location near them that had forced Spike to saved
them not any previously cut deal with the Scoobies. Instead he commented on
the vanishing part of the story, “Go super witches!” Willow opened her eyes
and gave him a weak smile. Tara helped her to her feet; and Dawn, who had
rolled out from under the truck, brought her a juice box from her knapsack.
Laura was bouncing beside Kelly, gripping his arm while telling him how
wonderful he was, and how it was too bad they didn’t have a video to show
all the other Rennies. Apparently Kelly worked weekends at the fairgrounds
up north for the Renaissance Festival. He was a knight, but just killed
other knights not dragons. He was surprisingly good with a broadsword for
an actor. After the rocky start, Willow and Tara had warmed up to the
Rennies. They were making plans to visit the fairgrounds, with Dawn next
weekend.
Giles was speaking softly with the other watchers. Xander really hoped Giles
took the opportunity to point out that there were no such things as dragons.
Dawn came over and stopped about six feet in front of Spike “Oh, you
really smell bad.” Spike snorted. Dawn giggled. “I saw a hose, follow me,”
she added.
~~~~
The Rennies, offered Spike and the goo covered watcher a ride back to town
in the back of Kelly’s truck. Xander wasn’t sure what happened to the lady
watcher, but he got custody of Spike. After removing all the towels and the
rug from his bathroom Xander showed Spike his clean up supplies. Beside the
first aid kit, which saw a great deal of use, he had a pile of rags and a
row of refilled twenty four ounce soda bottles all labeled with there
contents: gasoline; turpentine; mineral oil; vinegar; bleach; salt; baking
soda; powdered carbon.
“I’ve found that if you can’t get something off with some combination of
this stuff, it just isn’t going to come off.” He said in answer to the
strange look that Spike had given him. He knew most people didn’t keep this
stuff in their bathroom, but most people didn’t end up covered in dragon
juice. “By the way, impressive move with the grounding rod, not thinking of
changing your name are you.”
Spike snorted and started peeling of his clothes. Peeling being the
operative word since the dragon juice was no longer in a fluid state. It
sounded like a very large band-aid being removed. Xander thought it was
lucky Spike did not have a great deal of body hair, because he probably
wouldn’t have any by the time he was naked. Naked. Naked Spike. ‘Is it warm
in here? Ventilation. Fumes. Oh, I should probably do something about that.’
Xander flipped the switch and the bathroom fan whirred softly to life.
“You’ll want to watch the fumes on most of that stuff...” Xander trailed
off. Spike had just started to push the wet jeans down over his hips and
had stopped when Xander spoke. Xander in turn was staring at the fine
dusting of dark hair that seemed to form an arrow starting at Spikes navel
and trailing down the pale skin revealed by his partially removed jeans.
“Um...” Xander eyes almost audibly snapped away from the hypnotic flesh at
the sound of Spikes snicker. ‘Well your not going to get me to acknowledge
I was just checking out the semi-naked vampire; as if that would be the only
reason you have to laugh at me.’ “Right. Fumes. You don’t breath. Stupid
Xander. Just try not to set yourself on fire. I go make up the couch.”
Xander had fallen asleep while Spike was still trying to smell normal again.
He looked very clean and surprisingly young, when Xander shuffled by the
couch on the way to the kitchen the next morning. Spike hadn’t left the
bathroom a disaster area either. Which was unusually considerate, from what
Xander remembered from when they were living together. He poured a large
glass of milk and alternated drinking from it while peeling one of the three
hard-boiled eggs he had grabbed from the bowl in the refrigerator.
Hard-boiled eggs were cheap, portable protein; they were also the only eggs
he felt safe sleeping in the same house with since the whole egg baby
incident. He hoped he wouldn’t feel awkward around Spike after getting
caught checking him out. Most of the guys he knew casually maintained, you
could not find another man attractive and not be gay; but Xander had never
hesitated to admit if a man was physically attractive, even if he didn’t
like him, like Angel. But he did like Spike, and he remembered Willow
debacle. He didn’t want that estrangement with Spike, not when their
friendship was so new. Hopefully, Spike being a guy wouldn’t want to examine
all the sticky emotionally feeling and talk about what was happening. With
luck maybe they could both ignore it.
Part 6
Back to Reconstruction Main Page
