Disclaimer: Okay...i can do this...breathe in, breathe out....I, I, uh...I don't own it...Wow, therapy's really working... A/N: This is wayyy before all that soul stuff every happened. Spike and Xander can actually tolerate each other. Anya is not a demon....this was a time when Willow still stuttered. Got the picture?

Buffy lay in bed, staring at the ceiling of her room, sleeping but really just trying to as she listened to the steady, rhythmic, annoying ticking of her alarm clock. The day had been quite catastrophic. To put it mildly and in a non-swearing kind of way. Firstly, when she had woken up, she found Dawn inches away from her face, staring intently at her nose. Buffy had shrieked and batted wildly at her face, thinking that, why else would her little sister be staring at her nose if some icky crawly thing, wasn't well,...crawling? After several minutes of demanding explanation and receiving, obviously, none, she had gone into the bathroom and discovered, while in the midst of attacking herself, she had caused a thin cut trailing across her cheek.

"What is wrong with you?" Buffy said, exasperated, "Don't you realise that, as a vampire slayer, I don't appreciate being woken up to a pair of....gigantic eyes."

Dawn giggled. "I was just seeing how you would react. I was bored. God, paranoia."

"Well if you do that again, after beating myself up...again, I will seriously hurt you." Dawn only skipped out the room singing Justin Timberlake.

After making a mental check to buy more concealer, she exited the house, drinking orange juice, then spitting it on Xander as he walked around the corner when she realised it was the same orange juice that she had meant to throw out three days ago.

"Thanks Buffy," Xander said, his eyes closed with orange juice dripping down his front, "Well I didn't want to waste time tonight by showering anyway..."

Oblivious to his current orangey state, Buffy had been trying to wipe her tongue making interesting noises such as 'bleah' and 'ew'. Xander, quite frankly fascinated, rolled his eyes.

"No, no," He said loudly, trying to catch her attention, "Don't rush to apologise, I'm fine. Really."

Xander, not too pleased at acting the sink, had promptly disappeared into the house, and come back out with a confused and literally smoking Spike. Soon as she saw him, she had turned to walk off, only to stare at Spike's rapidly disappearing backside, yelling something about being too bloody slow and ash-tray contents.

"What in the bloody hell happened to you?" Spike grimaced at Xander, now wiping his face.

Without a word, he pointed to Buffy who shrugged and kept sticking her tongue out.

"Er, Mike, er're en eire," Buffy said, looking at Spike. He gave her a 'what' look and only realised what she said when he smelt the burning, gave a yelp and quickly ran off. Followed by a displeased Buffy and a whingeing Xander.

On their way to the magic box, Spike had mysteriously vanished and was discovered moments later, along with a beefy security guard, exclaiming that the vampire had stolen gel and refused to pay for it. A very angry Buffy turned to a cowering Spike, who was trying his best to look innocent but to the security guard, the whole lot of them had issues, what with the girl with that the cut on her face who looked like she was ready to literally spank someone, the guy wearing...orange juice? For decoration on his white shirt, no less, and the bleached blond hiding under a blanket wearing leather and telling him in a British accent that he didn't have money, only two tabbies in his crypt if he wanted them. With a sigh and a discrete kick to Spike's shin, Buffy had apologised and paid for Spike's gel, with Xander asking the guard what kind of detergent he would have to use to get the stain out of his favourite shirt.

"Oh there you are." Buffy noticed the guard, "Oh...there you are." Her tone more hostile.

"Ma'am this gentleman has shoplifted and he has told me that you would pay for the item."

The guard's eyes trailed from Buffy, to Xander, to Spike and he shook his head. After paying for the item and watching Spike attempting to clutch at his shin without dropping his security blanket out of the corner of her eye, she thanked the security guard who was trying to back away from an eager Xander.

When Buffy had arrived at the Magic box, she took a breath of relief. What with yelling after a running Spike why he didn't just use the sewers and listening to Xander demanding for the number of the omo hotline first from her, then from various strangers, at the same time. She had wanted to be around sane people...like, she had searched the room, to rest upon a perky Anya, chewing on a flower.and Willow.

Right. Willow. Sane, sane, fabulously normal Willow.

The mantra was comforting until sane, sane, fabulously normal Willow had stood up and gave Buffy a look at a her striped tail, apparently the strange effects of a dangerous spell.

"Willow, thank god. What's new?" Buffy said enthusiastically. Willow stood up and solemnly looked behind her. Buffy looked too. She was startled to find a blue and white striped tail.

"I was kinda trying a spell...it was really great until," She shrugged, "The tail happened...I think I added too much eye of newt.."

Shaking her head, Buffy had looked once again at Anya, with a curious Spike now joining her. Anya offered Spike a petal and Buffy had listened as she explained brightly that flowers made your skin smoother, because everyone's probably ugly and they all knew about eating flowers and they were keeping it secret and if she was still a demon, she would curse them all.

"Spike, try a petal. I swear, by tomorrow, your skin will be better."

Spike gave her a strange look. "I'm dead pet, I don't think it would help too much."

Anya nodded slowly. "Oh. Yeah. That... But don't worry Spike, beauty comes from the 'inside'." She said, placing a hand over her heart.

Spike stared at the petal in his hand. "Thanks, luv."

Anya turned away from him and scoffed, "Inside...Yeah right." Followed by an eyebrow raise complimentary of Spike, who could still hear her.

Anya then turned a threatening gaze at Buffy, probably for not telling her about the wonders of plant eating and Buffy turned away abruptly and soon had to listen to the sounds of choking and a few minutes later, cursing in British slang.

She remembered trying to explain to Xander that if he wanted to use a crossbow for patrol later that night, he would have to learn to use it so that he wouldn't shoot himself, and everyone else in the process of trying to look cool.

"But Buff, I swear, I can use this! I am fully capable!" Xander said, swinging a crossbow wildly from one hand to the other. Buffy ducked as the crossbow momentarily came to aim at her.

"Will you stop that? I'm allergic to inexperienced people doing circus tricks with loaded crossbows, thank you very much." Came a muffled voice from under a table, which Spike had long ago disappeared to, prior to seeing Xander trying to handle a five-foot sword.

"What are you yapping about? I am not inexperienced, I can handle myself and a weapo-," Xander said, aggravated, as he tossed the crossbow up and caught it, setting it off, only to be caught by Willows strange tail, which seemed to be growing longer, "-oops." Xander trailed off.

Buffy gingerly took the crossbow from an apologetic Xanders' tight grasp and placed it back into the weapon's cupboard.

The day had then seemed to settle in a normal-ish pattern except for Willow's tail, which seemed to enjoy tripping people at every other opportunity. Especially including an already annoyed Spike, who, as they found out, did not liked to be tripped. After his sixth 'up and personal' inspection of the magic box's carpet, he threatened to chop the tail off, and ended up getting tripped again in the middle of his rant.

"Okay. That bloody does it."

Willow winced as she stared at his livid face. "Spike, uh, I'll have the spell to fix this up soon..." She tried to reason.

Spike was taking deep meditating breaths, even though he didn't need to breath, for effects sake, he pointed out to himself, no reason red gets to make all the distressing noises.

"I am going to chop that tail off. Then you won't have to worry 'bout a counter-spell. I have been tripped..." His voice momentarily got softer as he stopped to consider, "five....SIX times in fifteen minutes! I have killed various demons in my extremely long lifetime of living and I will not be pushed around by a stupid, blue and white, soddin'- argh!"

His jaw met the floor again and he groaned.

"I think I'll just stay down here to save that bloody tail the trouble."

After that got settled, well as settled as it was going to get, at least, with Spike and Xander refusing to go near Willow. Anya thought the tail was adorable and Buffy had spotted her talking to it in a cooing voice.

When it got dark and they were all preparing to go out to patrol, except for Anya who flatly stated that she had another bonquet to go through, Xander and Spike started an argument which resulted in scattered stakes, the need for Xander to buy new pants, and Spike, who now had two security blankets.

"So, do we want to split up or stay in one big happy family?" Spike asked, as he was busy collecting his blanket and a few stakes.

"I'm not on Willow's team!" Xander called out, from somewhere within the weapons closet, "No offence Will, but that tail of yours will probably kill me before I get myself killed. No need for an early death."

Willow stared at the ground. Her tail, which now seemed to have doubled in size, making it about eight feet in length, was swishing eagerly behind her.

Buffy stared sympathetically at her friend. "Hey Will, maybe you should just stay in tonight. I mean, the tail will be gone by tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah," Willow said, "I mean no, well, I mean yeah to 'the tail will be gone by tomorrow,' but I still want to patrol!"

"I am not getting tripped by that thing again, red." Spike exclaimed.

"Well, you're going to have to be, Spike. Willow can't patrol alone." Xander stated.

Spike turned to face him. "Who said you can't be on Willow's team?"

Xander waved his hand around and made a gesture, "What part of 'I'm not on willow's team,' don't you understand?" He gave Willow an apologetic look, who shrugged, then turned back to Spike, who was laughing.

"You don't seem very scary with orange juice down your front. Sorry." Spike said.

"Excuuuse me, but I've had a few demons terrified of me from one time or another, thank you very much." Xander said indignantly

Spike started laughing. "Oh, that's because you were with the slayer," He told him, shaking a finger at Buffy, who was rubbing her temples, "God, I am terrified. Somebody bloody save me. I'm being terrorised by a hu-human. One named Xander, at that." He stuttered mockingly.

Xander nodded, and before Spike could protest, he had grabbed Spike's blanket, which was hanging loosely from his arms, and started to tear.

"Hey, now let's not get - give me that whelp!"

They started a tug of war, with Xander making triumphant noises, and Spike growling. With a loud, 'riiiip', the fabric tore in two. Spike stared at the two pieces he held in his hands and lunged at Xander, who had stopped laughing and was now struggling with Spike who had a grip on his jeans and was ripping them from the bottom up. Suddenly, Willow's tail grabbed Spike by his duster and pulled him away from Xander, who was now panting. Xander was now looking a bit worse for the wear, with the orange juice and now, a huge slit in his pants, from the ankle to his knee.

Buffy who had tried to stay out of the whole ridiculous thing, spoke up. "We can just stay in one big group. Still up for it, Willow?" She asked, looking at her friend.

Willow smiled, pleased. "Hey, my tail is good for something!"

"Yeah, wreaking havoc and such, oh great," He muttered, staring at his sleeve, "My duste- Ergh!"

He yelled as the tail had somehow managed to wrap itself around his ankle and yanked away happily.

So they had left, none of them in good spirits except for Willow, who now seemed perfectly content with her tail. Once they reached the cemetery, they encountered a large green demon, with Buffy trying desperately trying to hurt it, only to be distracted by Xander, who nearly decapitated her with a tree branch. In the end, Spike, stuck a sword in the demons stomach, which successfully killed it, but on the down side, made it explode, therefore, bathing them all in green slime.

"Great work idiot," Xander told Spike, who was busy wiping slime off his face in disgust, ".I have been bathed many a time today.and yet, if my eyes do not deceive me, I am never clean." He said in a mocking poetic voice.

Buffy turned to Willow, trying to ignore the boys who were busy snapping at each other, and said in a pleading tone, "Please, please, tell me there are camera's. There are camera's aren't there? A day cannot possibly be this bad. Ever."
----( Should I continue? I was thinking of letting this just be a stand- alone...(btw, if I DID continue, it would be B/S.anything else would be morally wrong )