Washing Up

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Summary: Fun with ordinary tasks.

AUTHOR: Elsa Frohman
EMAIL: elsa@frohman.net
RATING: G
PAIRING: Buffy/Spike
SPOILERS: none
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Redemption Week challenge response
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Buffy couldn't have more surprised when Spike volunteered to help wash the dishes.

Dinner was over. The pot roast was history. The roast potatoes were a fond memory. The peas with little pearl onions were the stuff of future reminisce. The peach pie was a few crumbs left in the Mrs. Smith's box.

Willow, freshly returned from her rehab in England, was getting out the Yahtze set. Giles, who had accompanied her back to help her settle in, was sipping at a tumbler of Scotch. Anya watched her business partner with hopeful, affectionate eyes. Xander and Dawn were locked in a mock battle over the TV remote -- Dawn insisting that Touched By An Angel play in the background as they played the dice game, and Xander pushing for WWF Smackdown.

"You don't want to play Yahtze? I can get the dishes. No problem."

"I'd rather help you."

"OK, suit yourself. Wash or dry?"

"I'll wash."

Buffy leaned back against the counter to watch the fair-haired vampire with his hands immersed in a sink full of suds. Just fair-haired now, she mused. The platinum was almost gone, replaced on all but the very ends by a light, golden brown. She liked the two-toned effect and was almost sorry that it would be pretty much gone with his next haircut.

"What you looking at, Slayer?"

"You -- the Big Bad, the Scourge of Europe, William the Bloody -- fighting the evil of baked on grease on the roast pan."

Spike flipped a bit of soap suds off the tips of his fingers at her.

"Not all the evil we fight is demonic!" he said with mock righteousness. "Somebody has to stand up against water spots on the glassware and ring around the collar."

"Household Hints from the Hellmouth," Buffy replied earnestly. "The world should be grateful that the Slayer and a noble vampire stand guard against the horror of untidiness!"

Spike chuckled. "I think we're losing that battle," he said, looking around pointedly at the general disarray of the kitchen.

"Hey! Hyper-critical much? I cooked a dinner for six here tonight."

"And a fine repast it was. I just wonder how the nunchaku came into play -- tenderizing the meat, pet?" He cocked his head toward the weapon, which was sitting on top of the sugar canister.

Buffy frowned. "That's where that went!" As she passed behind him to retrieve the offending object, she snapped his behind with her dishtowel.

"Ow! I thought we agreed -- no hitting."

"That wasn't me hitting you, it was a dish towel," Buffy said.

"Spirit of the law, not the letter," the vampire said with a dramatically wounded air.

Buffy stuck out her tongue at him. She took the nunchaku and tucked it into the back of her jeans to be put away in the weapons chest later.

"Think fast!" Spike said, launching the plate he had just finished rinsing into the air, rather than putting it into the drainer.

"Hey!" Buffy dived and caught it. "That's breakable!"

"Knew you'd catch it."

"Catch this!" She threw the carving knife in his general direction -- taking care that it was going handle first.

She hadn't thrown it directly at him, so he had to move to get it -- but he snatched it out of the air effortlessly. He immediately tossed it back up, causing it to cartwheel through the air -- then he turned around and caught it behind his own back. His little demonstration complete, he dropped it into the sudsy water.

"Have you always been this big a pain?"

"What can I say -- I've always been bad..."

Spike rinsed another plate. He was about to set it in the drainer when he changed his mind.

"Go long!" he said, tossing the china -- Frisbee-style -- in a direction away from where Buffy was standing. She had to use all her slayer speed to get to it before it hit the wall.

"Stop that!" she commanded, giggling all the same.

"Make me!"

The next item he brought out of the suds was the knife he'd dropped in moments before.

"Do you trust me?" he teased, weighing the blade in his hand.

"Never!" Buffy said with a wink.

He threw the knife directly at her -- just in time to force Giles to duck as he came through the kitchen door to get more Cheetos. The former watcher flattened himself back against the doorframe. Buffy caught the weapon easily.

"Giles! Sorry!" Spike said. "Didn't mean to..."

"No... quite all right," Giles said, shakily.

"I know this must look ..." Buffy began guiltily.

"Quite the contrary," Giles replied, straightening up and removing his glasses to clean them. "There's a certain reassuring familiarity about this. I can return to the game now knowing all's right with the world." He picked up the bag of Cheetos off the counter.

"Carry on..." he said as he left the kitchen.

The end

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Elsa Frohman - elsa@frohman.net