Title: How to Catch a Commando
Author: KallieRose
Characters: Buffy, Dawn, Spike, Xander and Riley
Rating: R, I suppose, for character death
Summary: Set during early S5.  Riley learns his lesson.  The hard way.
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters and claim no responsibility for anything other than this story, from which no profit is made.
Author's Notes: This was written for the Death By ficathon.  My assignment?  Kill Riley.  With Crazy Glue.  And no grieving Scoobies.  Well, I think I got ‘em all.  I hope everyone enjoys it.  Also, a big thanks to Elisabeth, who caught several problems with this.  I’d have looked pretty silly if you hadn’t pointed them out! 

How to Catch a Commando

Buffy eyed the object before her doubtfully.  "Okay, I get that the Sunnydale School District is big with the lameness.  But...why is your science project a donut?  It's a bright happy golden-brown donut with chocolate icing, but it's still a donut.  Isn't that a little lame, even for them?"

Dawn rolled her eyes at her sister's comment.  "It's a better mousetrap.  Or, in my case, a better ant-trap.  That was our assignment.  And this wasn't easy to make, either!"

"It looks like a donut."  Buffy tilted her head, hoping for some sort of inspiration.  She sniffed at it.  "Smells like a donut, too."

"It *is* a donut," Dawn agreed happily.  "See," she pulled out a little cardboard cut-out of an ant, waving it enthusiastically in the air.  Setting the paper ant on the countertop, she began to inch it slowly towards the donut.

"Yummy, yummy donut.  Want donut.  Need donut."  The tone of Dawn's voice as she spoke the 'ant' words reminded Buffy of that creepy creature from Lord of the Rings.  She cringed.  Yeah, she was a bad-ass vampire slayer, but that Gollum really gave her the wiggins.  And Dawn, as she'd discovered--to her horror--gave good Gollum.

Dawn continued to walk the paper ant up to the donut until it reached the edge.  "Then, the ant tries to touch the donut, and gets caught in the crazy glue coating, unable to return to tell all his little ant-friends about the yummy treats at chez Summers.”  As she held her paper ant next to the donut, it accidentally stuck, and Dawn had to work carefully to get the paper extricated from the donut without doing serious harm to either object.

"So, you bought a donut and iced it with crazy glue, and that's your science project?" Buffy asked, a trifle disbelievingly. 

"Yep!  Well, and there's crazy glue inside it, too.  Just in case the ant gets past the outer super-gluey coating.  A++ here I come," Dawn cried excitedly.  "John Thompson with his Antkiller Lasertron 8000 can eat his heart out.  I'm gonna win this thing, hands-down."

Buffy raised her eyebrows at Dawn's enthusiasm--after all, it was pretty rare to see Dawn so excited about anything school-related.  She just hoped her sister's dreams weren't dashed when it came time for the judging.  "Well, put a note on it so that someone doesn't accidentally eat it.  Who knows what something like that would do to a human being."

Dawn rolled her eyes, but did as her sister requested, grabbing a piece of paper and writing the words, ‘Dawn’s donut.  Don’t touch’ and placing the paper on the countertop in front of the donut.  Considering how often Buffy's lame friends came around, she wondered if some of them didn't think they lived here.  Except Spike, of course.  He was cool.  But that Riley was really starting to annoy her.  The way he patted her on the head and called her 'squirt' made her want to kick him. 

Hard.

"Was not!" Xander exclaimed hotly, amazed that the vampire could ever make such a statement.  He barreled through Buffy's front door and into the hallway, heading directly for the kitchen.  Buffy’s mom always had something sugary set aside just for him.

"Was too!" Spike replied, looking equally passionate about the subject.  He followed behind the boy, unwilling to give up.  Besides, he really had nothing better to do.

"Not!"

"Too!"

"No way."

"Uh huh."

Xander stopped suddenly.  "Wait...What were we arguing about again?"

Spike was a bit taken aback by the question, as he didn't really remember the subject of their debate either.  He had just been doing his best to annoy Xander, which in his book was always a worthy endeavor in and of itself.

Thinking quickly, Spike answered, "About whether you should come out of the closet and admit to your friends that you're a bloomin' nancy-boy."  A smirk quirked his lips as he said the words, watching with satisfaction as Xander's face turned a spectacular shade of red-purple.

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

And they were off again.  For a moment Spike couldn't help but lament that this was what he did for entertainment now, but he had to admit that when he was needling Xander, it left him with less time to contemplate the pathetic turn his life had taken.

Xander’s eyes focused on the donut in the middle of the kitchen, drawn to it like a moth to a flame.  He saw the note in front of it, and in his best Homer Simpson voice, he said, “Mmmmm, forbidden donut.”

He circled the donut, giving it his best come-hither look, and was disappointed when the donut remained firmly in place.  “This isn’t fair.  I mean, putting a donut in the middle of the kitchen with a big ‘do not touch’ sign on it.”  He was silent a moment, as if struck by a thought.  “Does anyone else think there’s something slightly biblical about this?”

Spike smirked as he eyed Xander appraisingly.  “I’m obviously Adam, but I think you’ll need a lot of work before you’re any kind of an Eve, you nancy-boy.”

Xander sputtered, his face turning red again, while Spike leaned back against the counter, arms folded, enjoying the show.  It was amazingly easy to bait the boy, and the results were always entertaining.

Reaching a hand out to grab the donut, Xander was surprised when Spike slapped his hand away.  “It’s Niblet’s donut.  Can’t you read, you idiot?”

He scowled at the vampire.  “Like she’d really notice.  Besides, I’m her favorite guy.  She’d forgive me.”  But instead of trying again, Xander backed off.

The front door opened and then slammed shut, and they both cringed when they heard Riley’s voice.  “Buffy?  You up there?  It’s me, Riley.”

Xander and Spike both began to roll their eyes, then noticed that the other one was doing it too, and stopped mid-roll.  “Bleedin’ soldier-boy,” Spike groused.

“She’s at the dry cleaners,” Xander yelled, hoping to send Riley out on a wild-goose chase.  He actually had no idea where Buffy was, but Riley didn’t have to know that.

Much to their dismay, Riley took that as an invitation to stay and wait for Buffy, deciding to join them in the kitchen.  Like the others before him, he eyed Dawn’s donut covetously, his eyes glowing with excitement at the thought of a sugary treat.

“That’s a fine-looking donut, there,” he declared, his eyes lingering on the chocolate coating.  “I’m sure Dawn would understand if I couldn’t resist it.”  His hand reached out for the donut, not even noticing that it stuck to his hand a bit more than it should.

Xander eyed Spike morosely and said, “Aren’t you going to give him the whole ‘it’s Niblet’s donut’ speech?”

Riley rolled his eyes.  “Like I’d pay attention to anything this guy said.  I could kick his British ass without breaking a sweat.  He knows who’s at the top of the food chain.”

Instead of answering with fists or words, Spike merely stood by with a small smile as he watched Riley take the first bite of the donut, not even bothering to chew it before swallowing it down whole.  And a second bite.  By the third bite, Spike was wondering if the idiot was going to eat the entire thing before realizing anything was wrong.

Suddenly a queasy look came over Riley’s face, and his skin began to turn a bit green.  “Ugh, uh, aaauuhh,” he muttered, unable to force the words out through lips that were suddenly glued shut.

Xander stood by uncertainly, but Spike took great joy in seeing his least favorite person incapacitated.  “What’s that, Lassie?  Timmy fell down a well?”  The vampire was cackling openly now, watching with glee as Riley began to clutch at his neck, his eyes wild and panicked.

“What’s going on with him?” Xander asked curiously, wondering if Dawn had asked Willow to put some sort of ‘do not eat’ hex on the donut.  It seemed unlikely, but with Willow you never knew these days.  She seemed to be using her magic for all kinds of things lately.

Spike’s smile faded to a smirk as he watched Riley fall to the floor, limbs flailing wildly as the crazy glue worked its way into his vital organs.  “I guess something he ate didn’t agree with him.” 

“Looks like he’s dying or something.  Shouldn’t we, uh, do something?”  Xander was torn; on the one hand, he really hated this guy.  But on the other, Buffy was going to be mighty angry if she came home and found her boyfriend dead on the kitchen floor.

“Nah, it’s too late now.  Crazy Glue acts bloody quick.  Even if we called an ambulance, he’d be dead by the time someone got here.  And then we’d have to answer all sorts of stupid questions.  Besides,” he added, giving Xander another smirk, “he *did* eat Niblet’s science project.  I’d say he got what he asked for.”

Xander’s expression turned queasy as he listened to Spike, suddenly very glad that he hadn’t tried to eat the donut.  “You mean…” he gulped twice, his eyes going big and round, “you knew?  That it was gonna kill him?  And you just let him eat it?” 

Spike just shrugged, pushing away from the counter and leaning over Riley’s body, watching the last of his death throes with clinical detachment.  “Evil, here.  Besides, it’s not my fault he ignored the note.”

They watched for a minute longer until Riley finally went still, and then Xander’s attention began to wander.  “Playstation?” he asked, issuing the challenge.

“I’ll whip your ass,” Spike growled.

“Talking about my ass?  Maybe you’re the one who’s the nancy-boy,” Xander accused.

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Uh-huh.”



The End

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