TITLE: Caller Number Thirteen
AUTHOR: Ragna (writinggoddess@aol.com)
RATING: FRC
CLASSIFICATION: Xander/Dawn friendship.
SUMMARY: Dawn desperately wants to win some concert tickets, but she's too young. So she enlists Xander's help.
SPOILERS: Takes place around the beginning of season 5, before Glory becomes a huge nuisance and Buffy finds out about The Key.
DISTRIBUTION: Any sites with my fic up; you all have unspoken permission. I write it, you can post it. Everyone else just keep my name on it and let me know.
DISCLAIMER: If you don't recognize it, chances are it's my own creation. If you do, I don't own it. Joss Whedon, Kazui Sandollar, The WB, UPN, et. al. most likely do.
FEEDBACK: Please send it offlist and let me know it's feedback; I do rapid delete on my account due to a lot of spam.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Went to Challenge In A Can and ended up with "Dawn," "giddy" and "stereo." For Xander Appreciation Day, May 1st 2004.

***

For the most part, Xander preferred the television to the stereo. Music was nice and all, but you got so much more from television.

Of course, he was not Dawn Summers, one of the biggest fans of Linkin Park in all of Sunnydale. And she knew everything there was to know about the group. That knowledge, she realized, might help her win tickets to see them in San Francisco.

However, she was 15. You had to be 18 to win.

Buffy was simply too busy to sit around with her and wait for the signal to call. Anya wouldn't be a good help, since she blurted things out without think, and Willow would most likely hang up the phone out of sheer panic. What she needed was someone cool, calm, collected and most importantly, over the age of 18 with proof of identity. The last part was key, or else she'd have just asked Spike.

So now here she was, blocking Xander's view of "Yu Gi Oh" while she was begging on her hands and knees.

"Please? Xander you don't even have to go, you just have to win me the tickets because they come with backstage passes and I will die if I don't get to meet Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington and Mr. Hahn because they are so awesome. Please?"

Xander looked around her. "I take it you're over you N*Sync obsession?"

"Oh god, when Justin Timberlake went solo it was all over because I was a JC girl." Dawn stood in front of the TV, blocking it out completely. "It's on in about five minutes, I mean the radio program is, the one for us to call in so will you please help me? Please?"

Xander sighed. "Fine. But you owe me."

"Okay. I'll do...almost anything."

"We can work out an agreement later. For now, let's get into your room."

***

Dawn had said the first person to tie up the phone line while she was waiting would get killed in a horrible, messy way. No one really believed her, of course, but they each remembered the stage they went through similar to hers so everyone stayed off the phone.

It wasn't a long wait for the signal, and Xander started dialing. He misdialed the number, though, and had to start over. Dawn groaned; there was no way she'd win now.

"It's ringing," Xander said, and Dawn's eyes bugged out. Finally someone picked up.

"You're lucky caller number 13! What's your name?"

"Xander Harris."

"And you're a Linkin Park fan?"

"Not really. Doing this for my girlfriend."

"Well, I hope she's talked your ear off about the band because you have 30 seconds to answer each question, and there's five, and they may even be Linkin Park related."

Xander nodded. "Okay."

"Question one. What movie project is Chester Bennington working on?"

Xander looked at Dawn, who was holding up a copy of Anne Rice's "Queen of the Damned." "Um, Queen of the Damned?"

"Correct! Next question: name a video Mr. Hahn directed."

"In the End!" Dawn hissed.

"In The End," Xander said.

"Good. Two for five, next question: what's rumored to be their next release?"

"Remixes!"

"Remixes?"

"You have to be more specific."

"Hybrid Theory!"

"Hybrid Theory."

"Correct. Here's a tough one: who sings and who raps?"

"Chester sings, Mike raps!"

"Chester's the singer and Mike's the rapper."

"Very good! Your girlfriend must not stop talking about them."

"No, she doesn't," Xander said, watching Dawn do a victory dance.

"Last question: what song did The Smashing Pumpkins perform during the 1996 MTV Music Awards?"

Dawn froze and spread her hands, and then she began to look defeated.

"'Tonight, Tonight.'"

"You've done it, Xander! You're probably going to have a very happy girlfriend when you give her four front row seat tickets and four backstage passes, plus some swag."

Dawn began jumping up and down, silently celebrating.

***

"You know, I have to admit, it wasn't that bad," Xander said, driving Dawn, Buffy and Anya back from the concert three weeks later.

"I thought it was horrible," Anya said. "The blond one wouldn't stop screaming."

Buffy shrugged. "I have to say the pictures are cool. Who knew they'd have a Polaroid back there? Dawn's going to have fun showing off the autographed pictures."

Xander looked behind him at the sleeping girl. "Yeah, I think she had a great time, too," he said.

"I heard the last question," Buffy said. "Never knew she liked The Smashing Pumpkins."

"She doesn't. I got that one all on my own." Xander shrugged. "It pays to watch TV sometimes."