I GET MST-Y
by perletwo
Dawn and Spike were sprawled across each other's laps on the sofa, squabbling over a bowl of popcorn, when the door to the crypt slammed open with a metallic crash.
"HEY GUYS! I'm done with patrol, Dawnie get your things - oo, Manos!" Buffy's eyes got big when she saw the silhouettes at the bottom right corner of the screen.
"The Hands of Fate," Dawn chimed in helpfully, in a dead-on Crow T. Robot impression. She passed her sister the popcorn bowl and scrunched herself into a corner of the sofa to make more room.
Buffy nudged Spike aside and squeezed in between them. "Is the first ten minutes of driving-by-fields footage or the last ten?"
"First," Spike answered, snitching a handful of popcorn. "We just cued up the DVD."
"Can we go back to the opening skit? Y'know, I've been thinking about asking Willow if we can install that thinks-everything-I-say-is-wonderful protocol in *your* chip..."
"Shush shh shh!" Dawn waved them down. "It's the kissing couple in the roadster!" The teen giggled. "How does she get her hair to stay like that?"
"Epoxy resin. Sales of it were big in the Sixties, Bit," the vampire explained. "Then, like all good things, your government's Food and Drug Administration stepped in and spoiled all the fun. Somethin' about chromosomal damage that led women to produce future members of boy bands..." he sighed, and Buffy giggled.
"TORGO!!!" All three cheered at once.
"Charlie Sheen in ten years," Dawn cracked.
"Erik Estrada in five years?" Buffy suggested, and Dawn mouthed 'who?' over her head to Spike. "You know. The guy in the teeth-whitening infomercials," Buffy explained.
"Xander Harris, right now," Spike declared firmly, and both girls pitched popcorn at him until he relented.
"That is the strangest male-pattern weight gain I have EVER seen," Buffy said, squinting through one half-opened eye at Torgo's overstuffed thigh/knee region.
"Y'know, I'm in actual physical pain just *looking* at this guy," Dawn observed.
"What is UP with this woman's disappearing and reappearing white kerchief?" Buffy asked of no one in particular. "And is there a reason she's made up to look like Priscilla Presley?" Dawn mouthed 'who?' again, and leaning behind Buffy to whisper in the teen's ear, explained, "Leslie Nielsen's girlfriend in the Naked Gun movies." She nodded in understanding.
"OK, the Night Gallery crack I get, I've seen the Sci-Fi Channel. But who the heck is Frank Frazetta and who the heck is Frank Zappa?"
"Remember that kid Eddie we lived next door to in L.A.? Frank Frazetta painted all those sword-and-sorcery covers with the half-naked chicks on his Dungeons & Dragons magazines," Buffy explained.
"And Frank Zappa," Spike added, "is God."
"Don't be silly. Alanis Morrissette is God," Dawn shot back.
"You oughta know," he replied, and Buffy mimed marking up a scorecard.
"I think Anya sells a paint-by-numbers kit of this painting," Dawn muttered. "On black velvet."
"Ooh! Poodle - The Other White Meat!" Spike chirped when the dog made mercifully quick exit from the movie. Buffy thumped his shoulder. "You've been getting into that fanfiction on the Net again, haven't you?" He grinned evilly, but the Slayer only laughed.
"Now THAT is what I call a REAL dog." Spike applauded the first onscreen appearance of the Hellhound.
"No really, he's sweet and cuddly - he only attacks if he thinks you're threatening me," Dawn warbled in a falsetto. Buffy groaned and explained, "Eddie's mom used to say that all the time about their pit bull. That went on right up until the time the dog thought the UPS guy was delivering the Big Parcel O'Doom to their house and chewed his leg off." Dawn nodded.
"Now, is Torgo really the guy you want taking your bags back and forth to the car, Mike? Can't you lug 'em yourself just this once, ya big galoot?"
"Torgo has guaranteed screen time. It's in his contract," Buffy replied. "Ooh look - Maggie's taking off her slipcover!"
"To reveal her slip," Spike said. "And her extremely constricting foundation garments. Be glad you don't have to wear all that, Niblet." Dawn nodded. "Aaaand - yes, it's Peeping Torgo, ladies!"
"Your technique is much subtler, I must say," Buffy said, craning her neck around to grin over her shoulder at Spike.
"Have you noticed everyone in this movie says everything twice, broken up with another thought? It's weirding me out. All the saying everything twice, broken up with another thought." Buffy popped Dawn affectionately on the back of her head, while Spike mimicked Torgo's spastic hair-caress with Buffy's long locks.
"TO-ga! TO-ga! TO-ga!" Spike yelled at the first appearance of the Wives of Manos. Dawn looked confused, and he whispered, "Next time, Animal House, Niblet. You gotta see some of the classics."
"Speaking of foundation garments..." Buffy mused dryly.
"Eeewww. I can't imagine being devoted enough to ANY religion that I'd let Torgo take care of my unconscious body for who knows how many years," Dawn scrinched up her nose. "He needs a drool cup!"
"OK, now what is the point of this?" Buffy asked when Torgo knocked Mike out and tied him to a post outside.
"Kinky fun?" Spike suggested, and Buffy's elbow landed hard in his midsection.
"Now, I've met the Master. I KILLED the Master," Buffy intoned when the High Priest of Black and Red Caftans arose. "And you, sir, are NO Master!" Dawn and Spike both snickered.
"CAT FIGHT!!!" All three yelled in unison when the Wives started brawling in the sand. Buffy covered Dawn's eyes, and Dawn tried to squirm out from under her sister's hand. "Shouldn't you be out slaying something right about now?" she carped. Buffy stuck out her tongue.
"...ladies, ladies..." Spike murmured soothingly, enthralled by the wrestling onscreen.The Summers sisters looked at each other, then launched a simultaneous popcorn attack on the vampire. " 'EY!"
"Good Lord, hasn't that couple come up for air yet?"
"Only for another nip of Burma-Shave," Spike quipped, and Buffy tittered, while Dawn looked confused again.
"Oookay, we get it, fellah, you worship The Evil Manos...don't mind us, take your time...." Dawn pantomimed checking her watch as the priest's litany went on and on.
"It's the Dental Hygienists of Death!" Buffy cracked at the Torgo's-eye view shot of the Wives clawing at his face. Spike high-fived her proudly for that one.
All three laughed too hard to comment during Tom Servo's faux-monologue in character as one of the two women driving up to the House of Manos at the end.
"Wow, apparently the job comes with a bad case of the DT's," Buffy observed at Mike's Torgo-like delivery of his last line.
"Y'know, the sad thing is, demons really *do* put the women and children they kidnap in tacky ballgowns like that?" Dawn noted.
"I miss Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank," Buffy sighed as the watched the closing skit, featuring future MST3K host Mike Nelson as Torgo the Pizza Delivery Guy.
"WAITAMINNIT!" Spike yelled as Buffy nudged Dawn up to gather her things. "Torgo's Theme over the end credits instead'a the MST3K Love Theme?! I want my money back!"
Spike walked the two giggling Summers women to the door of the crypt. Buffy sent Dawn outside ahead of her, and stayed behind, a hand on the vampire's bicep.
"Thank you for tonight, Spike. Really. I haven't had this much fun in a long time."
"It was my pleasure, Slayer," he said, hypnotized by her glowing smile. "I can't remember the last time I 'eard you laugh this much."
"I can't remember the last time I did," she murmured, and stretched up to kiss him, slow and sweet. Then she stepped back, running her hand back down his arm and caressing his hand before letting go, and made her way out the door calling to Dawn.
Spike stood there at the door for a long moment, listening to their retreating footsteps, a hand at his tingling lips. When their footfalls died away even to his vampire ears, he rooted through a stack of magazines for a pen and some scratch paper, and scribbled something down.
He examined his writing with satisfaction: "Note to self - buy DVD of MST3K-Wild Wild World of Batwoman." Then he shoved the note in his duster pocket to find later, and flopped happily back down on the sofa, beaming a huge, silly grin at the blank DVD default screen.