095 Ficlet: Under the Cranberry Sauce
Title Under the Cranberry Sauce
Author Bruttimabuoni
Rating G
Word Count 288
Prompt 095 Happy Holidays: Thanksgiving
Characters/Pairing Dawn, Spike
“Under the table!”
“What?”
Buffy is brusque: “The Chumash are attacking. We don’t have time to look after you. You have to hide. Don’t come out, whatever happens. Even if…whatever happens, okay?”
And Dawn does as she’s told. Hides herself under the festive tablecloth, beneath the cranberry sauce and the pilgrim hats she laid out earlier. She doesn’t look, scared to be seen peeking out. She can’t help but hear though. There are screams. There’s the thud of projectiles meeting flesh (turns out to be mainly Spike’s flesh though, so that’s not too bad). There are the clash of weapons, the angry shouts of attackers.
A roar. A shriek from the vampire: “You made a bear!”
Dawn can see its hind legs, smell its musky reek. Knows that while the human attackers may miss her hiding place, the bear will smell her out. She can’t breathe, is scared she’ll pass out or wet herself or something else pointless and humiliating, while everyone else is playing their part in the fight. She feels utterly helpless. And alone.
After the battle, she huddles quietly in her chair, watching the grown-ups fix the mess and the dinner. She’s still a spare part. Doesn’t fit. Just baggage in the way.
Until Spike’s gag is removed, and he demands she act as his Thanksgiving food slave since they refuse to untie his hands. Buffy objects, but Dawn hurls herself into action, prepared to stuff the vampire with blood-rich gravy if it will make her feel less redundant.
“Fthanksh short shtuff-” makes its way out loudly through the sloppy meal, causing disapproving snorts from the gang, who pointedly look away from his feed. And then Spike’s voice drops to murmur. “God, that bear was terrifying, kid. And I couldn’t do anything. It‘s never as bad when you can fight.”
Dawn is thankful for fellow-feeling. Even from the evil dead.
Author Bruttimabuoni
Rating G
Word Count 288
Prompt 095 Happy Holidays: Thanksgiving
Characters/Pairing Dawn, Spike
“Under the table!”
“What?”
Buffy is brusque: “The Chumash are attacking. We don’t have time to look after you. You have to hide. Don’t come out, whatever happens. Even if…whatever happens, okay?”
And Dawn does as she’s told. Hides herself under the festive tablecloth, beneath the cranberry sauce and the pilgrim hats she laid out earlier. She doesn’t look, scared to be seen peeking out. She can’t help but hear though. There are screams. There’s the thud of projectiles meeting flesh (turns out to be mainly Spike’s flesh though, so that’s not too bad). There are the clash of weapons, the angry shouts of attackers.
A roar. A shriek from the vampire: “You made a bear!”
Dawn can see its hind legs, smell its musky reek. Knows that while the human attackers may miss her hiding place, the bear will smell her out. She can’t breathe, is scared she’ll pass out or wet herself or something else pointless and humiliating, while everyone else is playing their part in the fight. She feels utterly helpless. And alone.
After the battle, she huddles quietly in her chair, watching the grown-ups fix the mess and the dinner. She’s still a spare part. Doesn’t fit. Just baggage in the way.
Until Spike’s gag is removed, and he demands she act as his Thanksgiving food slave since they refuse to untie his hands. Buffy objects, but Dawn hurls herself into action, prepared to stuff the vampire with blood-rich gravy if it will make her feel less redundant.
“Fthanksh short shtuff-” makes its way out loudly through the sloppy meal, causing disapproving snorts from the gang, who pointedly look away from his feed. And then Spike’s voice drops to murmur. “God, that bear was terrifying, kid. And I couldn’t do anything. It‘s never as bad when you can fight.”
Dawn is thankful for fellow-feeling. Even from the evil dead.