Mr. Gordo's Wish

SUMMARY: Written for tobywolf13 and the Mr. Gordo Ficathon. The Mr. Gordo Ficathon was hosted by the lovely bookishwench. Request - Mr. Gordo, Spike and Dawn in the summer after The Gift. No Piggy smut.

A/N: Beta'd by the ever patient and understanding keswindhover.
Rating: No Sex or Bad Language of any kind, and no acutal violence, although one of the characters frequently expresses a desire for this to occur.
Author's note: Okay, so remember all those episodes of BtVS where creatures from other dimensions were brought through to kill Buffy? So, what if Mr. Gordo was supposed to be something like that, but somehow it all went terribly wrong, and, well...cute...

It was down to Bad Planning, Unspeakably Bad Planning. Very Important Things, whatever they were, must have been done in a rush, and Crucial Spells must have been botched. Whatever had happened, the unfortunate end result was that the Fearsome Being now known as Mr. Gordo had never fully made the shift from his own dimension to this one. He felt helpless, and in this place this was not a new feeling for him.

All he could do was sit on the chair and watch them. Destroyers.

"Look, maybe you should get Willow or Tara to help you with this," said the taller of the two. "Might be more fitting."

It was a bit late for such consideration, Mr. Gordo thought, since the creature had already committed so many offenses. And the Sister/Key was still shameless about the resulting desecration.

"No," she said. "They won't even come in here and touch stuff. It's like... like tomorrow morning they expect her to walk through the front door or something."

"Yes!" Mr. Gordo shouted. "She will be back! They have Plans for Her." He knew a little bit about Plans. A very little bit. Once, long ago, he had been involved in a Great Plan of some sort. It had involved himself and The Slayer, though he couldn't seem to remember the finer details. He knew he was supposed to find the Future Slayer while she was a very young child, and at least he'd managed that much. She had squealed with delight when he'd magically appeared at Her feet, but the rest of his Purpose was a Mystery to him.

If he tried very hard, he could pull up vague recollections about battles, and the timely and gruesome death of enemies, but he couldn't recall just who the enemies were. Not yet, anyway.

Until his memory returned Full Potential was never ever going to be realized, so instead he fought the battles that were presented to him.

"It's my room too," he shouted to them for the hundredth time. "Go away."

He was feeling worse than ill-tempered. More like murderous. In fact at the moment he wanted to rip and tear living and/or dead things to pieces and spit them into the Flames of Eternal Hellfire. Mr. Gordo was quite certain that these violent thoughts were contrary to his true nature, but after twenty years of being trapped in a helpless bundle of fuzzy pink fabric his patience had been tested to the limits.

But, however intolerable the past two decades had been, the last two hours had been excruciatingly horrific. The Second Vampire and the Alternate Reality Inter-dimensional Sister/Key Being had been in here for hours, picking up Her Things and putting them in boxes, taking them out of the boxes while crying and/or discretely sniffling when they were sure the other one wasn't watching, then putting Her Things back in yet other boxes and bags and generally wrecking havoc.

Havoc. He was having a hard time keeping track of it all. What was that? The Second Vampire was speaking again.

"Up here?" the creature was asking. "I'm putting it here. Here? Okay?" Then it just stood there, motionless, frozen in that Act of Crime with one hand on the top shelf of Her Closet.

"Whatever," the Sister/Key mumbled.

She didn't seem to have the enthusiasm she'd had earlier in the evening, and for a fleeting moment Mr. Gordo hoped that she'd finally come to her senses. But no…

"Sure…it can go there. Under the sweaters…no…yeah, there...under the blue one…Yes."

"No," Mr. Gordo roared. He wished that the Fury that ran through his veins would make his eyes flash with fire, and that vile sulfur and brimstone would bellow from his nostrils. "It should never go all the way up there, that's very wrong. She's much too short to reach up there."

There was blessed inaction for a moment, since there seemed to be some sort of disagreement, and he held his breath in anticipation. The Second Vampire was showing signs of weakening.

"Bit? You sure you want this put away? You could keep her stuff in your room where you could look at it when you want, or we could just put it all back again where she had it."

"Yes," Mr. Gordo insisted. "Put it all back. All of it. Including the things you hid in your pockets, Vile Creature."

"No." said the Sister/Key firmly. "Put it away. For now, anyway." The Second Vampire, who almost always submitted to the Will of the Sister/Key, did as he was told. It was clearly not a True Warrior, since it could be so easily manipulated by a mere Sister/Key, and Mr. Gordo watched scornfully as it placed the box on the top shelf, far far out of reach of the Slayer's arms.

When She returned, She would have to stand on The Chair to get it down.

"You'll regret it," said Mr. Gordo to both of them. "You'll regret it, when She gets back and can't find Her Things. There will be Vengeance and Retributions. There will be Kicking, and Sister/Key hair pulling, and the Second Vampire will be a Billow of Dust on the carpet."

That last though cheered him up for a moment, but then he could only watch again as the pair moved on to even more anarchy. The Sister/Key dragged some of the boxes out from under the bed while the other creature started rummaging around the night stand.

"The shoes fit only the Slayer's Feet," Mr. Gordo told the Sister/Key. "Your feet are too large and will stretch them, so put them back." The Sister/Key continued to touch them, but at least she didn't try them on.

"Bit? How about these?" The Second Vampire again invited the Sister/Key to control its actions. It was holding a small stack of books it had taken from the shelf on the nightstand. It must put the books back at once, thought Mr. Gordo, immedi….

…No. On second thought those books would not be missed.

Mr. Gordo watched in disdain as The Second Vampire picked up a leather-bound volume and opened it wide; the binding made a snapping noise as it bent back the covers.

"I didn't know she had poetry books." The Creature said quietly.

"Shows what little you know," Mr. Gordo scoffed. For a moment he reveled in smugness as it continued to look through the book, So far, occasional smugness was the only victory of the evening. "You won't like what you see there, Second Vampire. Second, not First Vampire."

"Did she read poetry? " it asked.

The Sister/Key didn't even bother look over her shoulder when she answered, she just continued to disarrange the box of shoes. "Poetry? No, I don't think she read them. I guess they must have been for school or something."

He watched gleefully as The Second Vampire, which had finally noticed the inscription on the inside cover, dropped the book back into the pile with the others.

"No," it said. "They weren't from school. Do you want to keep them up here?"

"Poetry books? I guess they could go in the basement," said the Sister/Key. "Somewhere dry."

"Right, then," said the Second Vampire. "I'll do that. The basement, way back in the corner behind the furnace, they'll keep nice and dry there."

"Sure," said the Sister/Key.

"You can burn those books in the furnace for all I care," Mr. Gordo snapped. "The First Vampire gave Her those, although I must admit I am astounded that Vampires are capable of comprehending a written language. I didn't like the First Vampire creature either. A very inappropriate choice for Her consort, weak and stupid, and her made her cry night after night.

The Second Vampire and the Sister/Key continued to pay no attention to him, which after years of being ignored was not a surprise of any kind. But, as Mr. Gordo was accustomed to not being noticed, he habitually took advantage of the situation to say exactly what was on his mind. Not that anything else in this dimension knew he had a mind, or that he freqeuntly shouted things at them in telepathic messages. Still, he persevered.

"I don't know why you two won't pay attention to The Portents," said Mr. Gordo. "Haven’t you noticed what the Witches are up to? She's going to come back, quite soon too, and She won't want to find all Her Things have been put away."

His little eyes were hard and plastic; otherwise they would now be wet with tears of joy and rage. She was coming back, very soon now, and he knew this certainty with every fiber in his body. "She has so many little things, it will be very inconvenient if She can't find them."

The Second Vampire, the box of First Vampire Poetry Books tucked under one arm, wandered away. Mr. Gordo hoped it might have gone for good, but he heard a crash as it dropped the box in the hallway and came back into the room.

It walked over to Her Closet and started fondling Her Clothes again.

Her Clothes!

"Don't let the Second Vampire touch Her Clothes!" Mr. Gordo shouted to the Dim-witted Sister/Key. "He has stolen too many of them already! He never returned her floral underwear or her three sweaters…or her white hairbrush that matches the dresser…or those leather boots that she only wore once and then blamed you for stealing and then pulled your hair. Don't let him steal any more! "

But the Sister/Key, quiet and moody, remained preoccupied with the shoes while the Second Vampire continued his shameful pillage unchallenged.

It was Intolerable. Something had to be done. And, even if his physical being had been ensnared in pink felt at least his telepathic abilities were still functioning. Once again, he tried to make contact with the elusive mind of the Sister/Key.

As usual, he found a big lot of nothing.

"I can understand about the Slayer not hearing me," said Mr. Gordo. "She is an Instrument of the Ancients designed primarily for Physical Superiority and not for Psychic Ability, but you would think an Alternate Reality Inter-dimensional Sister/Key Being would be more receptive to extrasensory messages. You must try harder."

He tried harder himself, and thought the message again, but the mind of Sister/Key remained impervious to outside stimulus. Well, at least she'd stopped disturbing the shoes and had pushed the boxes back under the bed.
Mr. Gordo watched as she got to her feet and went over to the Second Vampire. What would she make it do now?

"Do you want something of hers?" askedThe Sister/Key. "You know…to remember her by, or something."

The Second Vampire shook its head and looked away. "No, Bit," it said. "You keep everything, she'd have wanted that." At least it had the grace to look guilty.

"You don't know what She wanted," Mr. Gordo hissed at them. "Leave Her Things alone."

"What about her room, Bit, " the Second Vampire asked. "Are you going to have the Witches move in here or something? "

For a moment Mr. Gordo couldn't even believe he had heard that, the fabric ears could be so unreliable, and in his incredulity he missed whatever response the Sister/Key made.

It was too much to bear, to have heard that said about Her Room. How could anything else inhabit Her Room? It was a sacred place, and he knew he had to defend it for her.

Not satisfied with even that suggestion of despoliation, The Creature had moved closer to the Chair and reached out to run its fingers over a silky red scarf. Mr. Gordo knew then that this was His Moment, and if anything was to be done it had to be now.

He had only managed to move once or twice in this stunted form, and they had been very small gestures, slight tweaks of an arm or leg that even She hadn't noticed. But he knew that this might be the Important Thing he was meant to do, so he gathered together all the strengths and powers he could muster.

With a ferocious growl he managed to leap off the chair and sink his fangs into the vampire's leg.

Were they on his Home World of Anguish and Desolation there would have been Dripping Blood and Shrieking and Cries of Pain, but in This Terrible Place his fangs were only small bits of tattered felt and not Exceptionally Long Tusks of Gleaming Ivory.

His snout glanced harmlessly off the Vampire's knee and his stuffed pink body fell uselessly to the floor at the creature's ankles.

"Hey, what are you going to do with Mr. Goober?" asked the Detestable Thing. It prodded his small weak form with a metal-tipped boot.

"No! I am Mr. Gordo!" he shouted as he tried to struggle to his feet. But his last reserve of power had drained away and he could only lie motionless and helpless on the floor.

"Hey, be careful, Spike, that’s Mr. Gordo," said the Sister/Key as she came over and looked down at him.

"Hi, Mr. Gordo!" said the Sister/Key. They both looked down at him, the Sister/Key and the Second Vampire.

Everyone here in this world looked down at him, except The Slayer, who in Her earliest years had flown him wildly in the air high above Her head and tried to feed him cookies and chocolate milk. Later, she had made him Her most important Confidant and put him on The Chair to Watch Over Her.

He loved her completely.

The Sister/Key knelt down and picked him up, cradling him in her lap in a pale, cruel parody of the affections The Slayer had bestowed upon him. "Mr. Gordo was Buffy's favorite toy."

"I am not a Toy," Mr. Gordo protested weakly. "I am an Inter-dimensional being, with a Great Purpose that I have Momentarily Forgotten, but I was surely sent to protect and guide the Most Valuable and Divine of the Slayers. I was mighty and terrible in my True Form and I would have defended Her with my life. She would still be here in Her Room with me and Tell Me Everything that was Important. But I will wait for Her Return, and must not be put in a box on where She cannot find me.

The Sister/Key started to cry again; he felt her tears drop down onto his body. Thankfully, she made no move to put him in a box or in the back of the closet, but she spoke to the Second Vampire in a trembling voice

"I used to like him, when I was really really little, so I stole him once and hid him in my room under my pillow, and Buffy totally freaked and pulled some of my hair out and Mom didn't even get mad at her and said it was my entire fault for stealing him."

"Mom was a Great Protector that devoted its entire life to The Slayer," whispered Mr. Gordo. "At least, until you came upon us."

The Sister/Key traced the line of his face with a sharp, unyielding finger and poked at his hard button eyes. Evil Thing, she had always poked and prodded at him, and wanted to take him from the Slayer.

Then, incredibly, she rose to her feet and handed him to the Second Vampire.

The Second Vampire held him gingerly out at arms length. It held him upside down, by a leg. And dangled him.

"You want him packed away with the rest of the stuff?" It asked. "Or in your room?"

"No, Spike. He was like Buffy's favorite thing ever," said the Sister/Key. "Put him on her bed for now."

She picked up a box and walked to the door, her face pinched and tight as she looked back over her shoulder. "Can you carry that box for me; I want to put it in my room." She disappeared into the hallway, but Mr. Gordo could hear her sniffling again. At least she had finally realized his Importance, and would leave him here on guard.

The Second Vampire was not as perceptive. "Favorite thing ever, huh? Bugger off, then," it said. "Dream your little piggy dreams."

It let him drop towards the floor, and with a firm kick punted Mr. Gordo towards the bed. The small stuffed pig sailed through the air and bounced across the coverlet, coming to rest upside-down on the pillows. The creature walked over to the bed and regarded him cautiously.

It's like you're looking at me," said The Second Vampire. "Stupid little toy, you were never worth stealing." It turned its back on him, picked up the box of Her Things, and left the room.

"Thief," Mr. Gordo called after it. "She has always loved me. She will always love me, and She will never love you. I am sure of it, no matter what the Portents have to say about the matter."

There was no reply to his challenge, which was wrong, but so many things here were wrong. He tried one last time, but he didn't bother yelling, since he knew he wouldn't be heard anyway. "You are not a Hero as I am, and She can only love a Hero."

One day, things would change, and he would remember why everything was wrong and put it all to rights.

Until then, and forever after, he would be Her Champion.

Left small and helpless, there was nothing else he could do for Her at that moment. So he lay there on the pillows, silent and determined as he guarded what was left of Her Possessions and waited for Her Return.

fin