Chapter 1
2005
Dawn hated that she was brought up by two insane parents. Buffy, her mom, was working at the Doublemeat Palace, the same job she’s had since high school. William, her father, was a drunk who worked odd jobs from time to time. It was no surprise to her that they divorced 8 years ago.
Instead she looked to a scientist as a father figure, Doc Rupert Giles. He was so passionate in his work that one could call it looney.
Conner, her boyfriend, dropped her off at her house after band practice. Conner played bass while Dawn played lead guitar, the only skill her father taught her that was useful. She was disappointed in how it went, most because most of the problems were with her.
Conner rubbed her shoulders as he always did when she pouted, “Hey, we can work on it.” he comforted. The other band mates were complaining to him that the only reason she plays with them was that Dawn was his girlfriend. He talked them into giving her another shot and then reluctantly told them they’d look for a new guitarist if she doesn’t improve. “Maybe you can stay over the weekend and we can work on it?”
Dawn wanted to think that he had an ulterior motive, but that wasn’t Conner, straightforward, down to business. She mostly liked him because he never sugarcoated the truth like her mom always did. She smiled back at him and kissed his cheek, “I’ll see what I can do. I know the guys will kick me out if I keep screwing up. I’ll see ya.” Then she got out of the car and waved him good-bye as he drove off.
Her house wasn’t much of a place, but the rent was affordable and there was running water, what more could you want?
She stepped into the house and immediately got a disapproving look from her mother. “Who was that?” Buffy ask with her arms crossed over her uniformed covered top.
“Conner. You know, my boyfriend.”
“How long have you been going out?” Buffy rained her specious glower.
“6 months.” Dawn didn’t see why it was such a problem, Buffy never really paid attention to what was happening in her personal life anyway.
“6 months and you never introduced him to me?” she said a bit shocked and slightly angered by Dawn’s disrespect.
“It never really crossed my mind really, and you’re usually at work when he drops me off anyway.” They were true and good reasons, but the main one was Dawn was ashamed of her mother.
Buffy gave a heavy sigh and let the subject pass, besides she was late for work already. Then she remembered, “Oh, your father’s picking you up this weekend. So you better start packing.”
“What!” Dawn started to whine. “But I was going to spend the weekend with Conner.” The second she said it, she wished she could take it back. Her mother didn’t know Conner so she didn’t know that Conner wasn’t completely controlled by his hormones.
“That is completely out of the question, even if your father wasn’t picking you up, I wouldn’t let you go.” Buffy sternly stated.
“Why would you care?!” Dawn had enough of her mom jumping in unexpectedly into her life when she was barely ever part of it. “Since when did you give a damn of what I did or didn’t do!?”
“Language lady! And I’ve always cared. I’m sorry I’ve been busy at work, you know how much we need the overtime. You’re lucky we don’t have to sell you guitar.”
“Dad gave that to me, and I won’t let you sell it unless it was over my dead body!”
“Dawn, your father thought he was going to be somebody when it came to his guitar, now look at him! I don’t want you to be a drunk like he is!”
“What? You rather I was in a dead-end job in fast-food and have a stick up my ass for the rest of my life like you?!”
With that Buffy slapped Dawn. Once she realized what she did, she tried to apologize, but Dawn gave her a death glare and stomped to her room. “You’re going to be late for work!” Dawn yelled down.
Finally Buffy left the house ashamed she wasn’t able to control her temper.
Dawn looked out her window and saw that her mom had walked out of sight. She crawled out her window and made a dash for Doc Giles’ house.
She walked down five blocks, up three until she could see his almost mansion-like house. Giles was once from the richest family in Sunnydale, but his wacky experiments ate up most of the fortune. He figured that one of his inventions would more than make up for it.
She knocked on the heavy wooded door and waited for his answer. Like most crazy scientists, he was also a bit paranoid. He opened the door a cracked and once he saw Dawn, he closed the door to release the dead bolt. “Dawn, come in. I really have it this time Dawn, I really do!” he said enthusiastically as he ushered her in.
Dawn just nodded as she entered. She heard this rant before. Half the time the experiment exploded in their face, literally. “Which one you talking about? The mind-reading machine? The voice-activated coffeemaker?”
For dramatic effect, Giles quickly turned to face her, giving her his crazy eyes and smile, “The Time Machine!”
“Giles, you’ve been reading too much H.G. Wells.”
“Actually I’ve been reading a lot of Jules Verne, but that’s besides the point.” He ushered her into the garage. There was a car with a drape over it. Giles grabbed a corner of it and looked back at Dawn. “Take a look at this!” He pulled the cloth back a reveled an old but in good condition DeSoto that looked like Giles glued every single wire from the lab onto it. “Isn’t she a thing of beauty?”
Dawn walked around the car trying to hide her skeptical face away from Giles’ eyes. “It’s…sure something.”
“I was hoping for you to bring my video camera to the mall parking lot tonight at midnight to recorded history in the making!”
“I can do that.”
Then they heard a loud car coming up to the driveway. Giles quickly covered the DeSoto up and opened the garage door to reveal Dawn’s father, William.
He had wavy brown hair that would be curly if it wasn’t greasy from the lack of showering. His black t-shirt and jean were worn-out and torn-up. He was very slim, almost like an anorexic, which made his strong cheekbones stick out on his face like razors. But Dawn knew he ate, just not much. Though what he lacked in hygiene, he made up for in wit. Dawn heard hundreds of times the story of how her parents got together when she was a little kid. Buffy was dating this bulky guy who wailed on William. Buffy broke up with him and went to William’s aid and they went to the senior prom together and fell in love…so to speak. Dawn always thought that if they loved each other so much, then why didn’t they stick together.
William then got out of the car and greeted them. “Hey Bit. Noticed you weren’t at home so I figured you were here.” He gazed at Giles, never really liked him. But since he was like family to Dawn, he never forbade her from visiting him, unlike her mother. “Your mom did tell you that you’d be spending the weekend with me, right?”
Dawn tried to hide her disappointment at the arrangement, “Yeah, she told me.”
“Shall we get going then? Do you need to go back to the house and pick up your stuff?”
“Yeah, I left my stuff there.” She turned back to Giles and waved as she walked out of the garage toward her dad’s car. “Bye, Giles. See you later.” She then got into the car with her father and they drove off in silence. They didn’t even talk when she got her stuff from the house or on the drive to his apartment.
William unlocked the door to reveal his trash consumed living room. He embarrassingly kicked things out of the way for Dawn to walk through. Dawn was used to it, the floor littered with beer cans, beer bottles, liquor bottles, paper plates, and dirty glasses.
William scratched the back of his neck, he was never ready to be a father and even though he’s been one for 18 years, he still wasn’t ready. He tried his best to do what he could for her, but it never seemed to be enough. Dawn never complained though, but he wished he could do more. “Want to order a pizza, Bit? Pepperoni with one half in anchovies?”
“Sounds good.” There were a lot of things she liked about her dad, he taught her guitar, he gave her freedom, he listened to her when she talked, and he remembered her favorite pizza toppings. Buffy didn’t do any of those things. But there were things she didn’t like. He was a slob, a drunk, lazy, hopeless, insecure, and a fan of cheesy soap operas.
Once the pizza was ordered, William cleared off the couch for them both to sit. Once they did, the awkward silence fell upon them. William hated the silence and decided to break it. “So how’s school? Senior year right? Sound like fun.”
“Yeah it is. Schools alright. There’s a battle of the bands coming up in a week.”
“Really?” His interest was certainly peaked as Dawn thought it would. William was also in a band in high school. She never knew what happened from it except from one of her parents’ heated arguments were he screamed that if she didn’t get pregnant, he wouldn’t have had to give up his dream. But Dawn wasn’t born until they were in their late twenties, so she didn’t quite know if that was the truth, he was drunk after all.
“Yeah, but I think the band is going to kick me out before then.”
“Why the bloody hell would they do that?”
“I’m not really all that good dad. You’ve been a great teacher, without you I wouldn’t even know what a fret is. But…I just don’t think that I can be good.”
“Rot!” William exclaimed. “I’ve heard you play, you are good.”
“Ok, but not good enough for the band. They’ve only put up with me because my boyfriend is the bassist.”
William lifted his brow. Dawn caught it and went to reassuring him.
“Don’t worry dad. I’m still a virgin and Conner isn’t like that. He’s got more brains than balls if you can believe that.” She laughed and William had a laugh with her.
The knock on the door announced the arrival of their pizza. William opened the door, paid, and held it out. “Why don’t we practice on that guitar while we scarf this down?” Dawn smiled, nodded, and went to get her guitar.
They spent hours playing different songs from the Ramones’ “Sedated” to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”. Dawn did get a little better, but she didn’t think she’d be good enough for the band before the contest. She starting to hope that Giles’ time machine would work so she’d have more time to practice.
They took a break and watched one of William’s favorite DVDs, “The Filth and the Fury: a Sex Pistols Film”.
When she noticed it was near midnight, William was fast asleep sitting up in the couch. Dawn quietly grabbed the last anchovy slice and walked out of the apartment to see Giles at the mall parking lot.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Yes, Dawn's the main character, but the point of the story IS Spuffy. This basically goes like the movie with some modifications due to gender, character, and trying to keep it as original as I can.