Startle

by Red Wolf

Something woke Spike. Without opening his eyes, he listened. There were faint street noises, but nothing from the apartment. He mentally shrugged and snuggled back into bed.

"Stop it!" Followed by muffled thumping.

An urgent whisper from outside the bedroom woke Spike completely.

"I mean it. Get off me and get your tongue out of my mouth."

Spike flew out of bed to defend Dawn and stopped dead in the doorway.

A slobbering chocolate Labrador was begging at the end of the sofa, his tail beating a tattoo on the floor. Dawn was ignoring Buster's plea for food as she had enough to deal with at the moment.

Dawn was standing behind the sofa. A wriggling, over enthusiastic Siberian Husky had his rear feet planted on the back of the sofa and his front paws around Dawn's neck, his tail had gone beyond wagging and was spinning like a propeller. The dog, puppy really, was licking Dawn's face.

"The Ginger Snaps are mine. Once I eat them, you can't take them out of my mouth." The pup stopped, looked at Dawn, then jumped onto the sofa cushions before disappearing into the bedroom, nearly tripping Spike over in the process.

As Spike recovered his footing, he looked up to see a bushy tail disappearing under the bed covers. "What was that?" Spike jerked a thumb behind him at the bedroom as he absented scratched the top of Buster's head. He noted that Dawn didn't look particularly upset by being assaulted by a canine vacuum cleaner, in fact she wore a ridiculously happy grin.

"That was Levi."

"And..." Buster leaned harder against Spike's leg, tilting his head to the side to encourage Spike to scratch him just below his ears.

"Rachel's place is getting painted, so I volunteered to babysit."

Buster had managed to get Spike to crouch beside him and scratch his throat the way he liked. Nose to the ceiling, he swivelled his head in delight. "I've still lost the plot on the white tornado that's taken up residence in our bed."

"Isn't he the most adorable dog. Rachel could resist him. He's got the biggest brown eyes and he's so soft and he's clever and he smells delicious..."

"And he's called Levi?"

"It's short for Leviathan."

On hearing his name mentioned, Levi shot out of the bedroom, successfully flattening Spike this time. The dog stood on Spike's chest, a big doggy grin on his face.

"I'm guessing that's because he has enormous paws." Levi's feet weren't excessively large, but Spike could be forgiven his mistake as his perspective was somewhat skewed by a paw that smacked him in the nose. He distracted the dog by scratching his cheeks, which turned him in a warm puddle of puppy goo that happily melted onto Spike before sliding off with a thump.

Dawn giggled as Buster wiggled between Spike and Levi to vie for attention. It looked like both dogs had decided Spike had the magic fingers that brought doggy nirvana if Levi's dopey expression and lazily circling rear leg were anything to go by.

"No, he's called Leviathan because he likes to sleep under the covers at the foot of the bed like a beast in the deep."

Spike sat up and looked at Dawn, resuming his scratching routine at the insistent nudges of the two dogs. "We really should have a chat to Rachel about her naming criteria. If she names her dogs Barnes Wallis and Leviathan, I fear for her future children."

"I was thinking of asking her how Levi got a taste for Ginger Snaps." Levi's head swivelled in her direction at the mention of the biscuit. "Look, he even knows what they're called."

Spike sighed. It was going to be a long night.

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Spike and Dawn — challenge #4: affectionate
Levi's introduction can be seen in Moonbeam's Covetous

Published Babble Horde — 26.02.2005
Published fanfiction.net — 05.03.2005
Published Forever Fandom — 05.03.2005
Published The Slayer's Fanfic Archive — 05.03.2005

buster | dawn summers | fan fiction | fiction | levi | london | spike

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