"What's your last name?"
Spike glanced over his shoulder at Dawn, his eyes narrowing.
"Why?"
"No reason." She didn't look at him when she replied, just concentrated on rummaging in her pencil case for another pink glitter pen, because the one she was using had almost run out of ink. From the corner of her eye she could see him studying her suspiciously for a few more seconds before returning to his tv show.
Unable to find a pink pen, Dawn settled for a blue one and put the pencil case back down on the sarcophagus. "Is it like a secret identity thing, or do you just not wanna tell 'cause your real name is, like, really really stupid?"
This time he put the tv on mute before turning to look at her.
"Why in the bleeding hell are you here again?"
"Homework," she said cheerily, and then gave him the prettiest smile she had. After a few seconds of trying to stare her down, Spike gave up and let out a frustrated sigh. "If I tell you, will you go away and stop bugging me?"
"If you tell me, I won't tell Buffy that you stole her favourite blue sweater."
Spike said nothing, just glared at her again before turning the volume back on.
Dawn picked up her pen and started drawing blue hearts and flowers in her notebook.
"She's been missing one of her favourite perfume bottles too."
Even over the sound of Joey and Dawson talking about the SATs, Dawn could hear him swear under his breath.
Choosing another pen from her pencil case, Dawn started drawing fangs on the smiley-faces she had doodled on the margins of her math homework.
"It's Pratt, okay?" Spike said finally with a defeated groan. "But if you ever tell anyone about it, I'll-"
"You'll tie me to a tree and let some slime demon eat me 'cause you're all bad and evil and blah-di-blah-di-blah. Got it."
Dawn upended her pencil case and began organising her glitter pens in a row on the sarcophagus. She didn't need to see Spike to know that he was giving her the evil eye. The barely audible growly sound he was making was kinda cute, though.
She waited until she was sure he wasn't looking at her anymore before daring to look up herself. Spike was glued to the tv screen again, tapping the remote against the arm of his chair. In the flickering light of the television he looked way cuter than Pacey, and Dawn watched him for a while before returning to her homework.
She didn't have another pink pen, but she thought the dark red was better anyway.
When she was finished, she looked at her notebook and frowned.
Mrs. Dawn Pratt.
Tearing the page off and scrunching it into a ball, she decided that the whole taking the guy's last name thing was totally lame anyway.