Fic: Operation RSFA
Title: Operation RSFA
Rating: G
Characters: Dawn, Willow, Andrew
Summary: Dawn is devious. Willow and Andrew are her minions. Buffy and Spike are the marks. 900 words.
Setting: Late summer 2004 in England.
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine, they belong to Joss, etc, etc.
A/N: This is a little…strange? I thought of the dialogue while running on the treadmill and couldn’t resist. I also wrote it between 11 PM and 1:00 in the morning, if that tells you anything…
Dawn looked from one cohort to the other, her face solemn. “Ready to begin?”
“What about Xander and Anya?” asked Willow. “Aren’t they coming?”
“They’re still in their honeymoon period,” said Dawn. “I figure we can give them a few more days of mooning before we put them to work.” She steepled her fingers on the table in front of her. “And that’s the point of today’s meeting. Now that Anya and Xander have finally gotten the sticks out of their asses and are together, we can focus our attention on our other two idiots.”
“I think these sticks are longer and more deeply lodged,” noted Willow.
“Agreed,” said Dawn. “Never let it be said that Buffy and Spike do things halfway. But that’s why they have us. It’s our job to get them together. Are you with me?”
Andrew nodded like a bobblehead.
“Yes,” said Willow. “But what’s your plan? Buffy won’t make a move, and they already spend half their time together.”
“We’ll start out small,” said Dawn. “We’re going to throw them together at every opportunity. Meanwhile, we’re going to make Buffy super jealous so that a “move” becomes inevitable.”
“Inevitable?” repeated Willow. “Buffy was super jealous in May, and she didn’t even ask him to come to Europe.”
“I know, but that’s because her pride was so badly hurt,” said Dawn. “Now that they’ve reached an equilibrium again, we’re going to make her jealous in a very specific way.”
“What way?”
Dawn smirked. “Other slayers. Willow, your job is to throw into conversation comments about how well Spike gets along with the slayers; how they view him more as a friend than as a teacher; how he clearly has some sort of affinity for them if he can teach them as equally well as he can kill them, etc.”
Willow raised a marginally horrified eyebrow.
“Buffy is under the delusion that Spike only fell for her because she was the slayer and now that there are thousands, he’ll inevitably fall for someone else,” Dawn explained.
“That’s ridiculous!” exclaimed Andrew.
“Obviously,” said Dawn. “The idea of Spike falling in love with another slayer is as believable as a Jewish pope. An ugly rainbow. Buffy giving up slaying for good Angel never frowning again in his life. Ross and Rachel not being endgame.”
Willow and Andrew stared at her.
Dawn flushed slightly. “I’ve had to come up with a lot of these. Buffy won’t see sense.”
“Can you blame her for being insecure?” said Willow sympathetically. “He didn’t tell her he was alive.”
“Do you really think Spike is going to fall in love with someone who’s not Buffy?”
Willow loosed a little snort. “Not even when hell freezes over.”
“Which it probably has in another dimension,” said Andrew.
Dawn sighed. “See, now if only Buffy were that rational. Anyway, just talk about Spike and the slayers a lot. Drusilla had long, dark hair, right?”
Willow blinked; it took her a moment to answer the non sequitur. “Um, yes.”
“Then try mentioning that Jamie- that newbie from Kensington with the posh accent- looks like Dru. She’s been hanging around Spike a lot during lessons. That’ll put Buffy in a jealous tizzy.”
“You’re slightly evil,” observed Willow.
“Well, they leave me no choice,” said Dawn. “My sister and my vampire are pigheaded morons. I have to be underhanded and conniving.”
“You do it very well,” said Andrew.
Dawn beamed at him. “Thank you!”
“What’s my job?” he asked eagerly.
Dawn shifted to her right. “Your job is to drive Spike out of the apartment so he spends as much time with Buffy as possible. Whenever you know he plans to spend an evening in, put on Dr. Who or Star Trek or some other geeky sci-fi show that will send him fleeing to our apartment. Then I’ll find some reason to disappear, and he and Buffy will be alone.”
Andrew’s eyes lit up. “Will you come up and watch Star Trek with me?”
“No. You can turn it off as soon as Spike leaves.”
“You promised you’d try another series!” Andrew crossed his arms and stuck out his lower lip in a way that was more pathetic than adorable but still almost as hard to resist.
Dawn sighed; she had. “Fine, but I’m only watching the lady captain.”
“But Captain Picard is the best-”
“Lady captain or nothing, Andrew!”
He subsided with an aggrieved grumble, lips returning to their normal pursed, perpetually slightly petulant position.
“And what are you going to do?” asked Willow.
Dawn’s gave a self-satisfied smile. “I’m going to procure two tickets to a West End show and then mysteriously get sick the night of the performance so that Spike ends up going in my place. Heads up, Will, I may need you to brew a potion to make me look green around the gills.”
“I can do that.”
“Great. Then I guess everything’s set. We start off with these ploys and if they’re not responsive, we up the ante. Any questions?”
“What time frame are we looking at?” asked Willow.
“ASAP,” said Dawn immediately. “I can’t believe it’s been three months already. I thought they’d be jumping each other’s bones weeks ago.”
“Me, too,” said Andrew mournfully.
“We’ve got time to make up for,” continued Dawn. “At the rate they’re going on their own, they’ll still be single during the holidays. I am not letting that happen.”
Willow gave a delicate shudder, remembering last year’s melancholy Christmas. “Definitely not.”
“So it all sounds doable?”
“Yup,” said Willow.
Andrew sighed. “I love this job.”
“Excellent,” said Dawn. “Operation Remove Sticks From Asses is a go. We’ll convene again for progress updates in a few days. Meeting adjourned.”