Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Buffyverse, no infringement is intended.
Foreword: For the purposes of this story I have changed Dawns age so that she is only 2-3 years younger than the Scoobies.
Icha Icha Sunnydale - Chapter 1
Xander Harris sat staring intently at the paperwork spread across the table. This had rather unexpectedly turned from a bit of fun into a very serious situation, if he couldn't get this just right then it was all over. After one final calculation he sighed and sat back, pushing away from the table.
"I'm out! How do you win every time we play Monopoly?"
Dawn giggled as she began putting her money and cards away in the box, this was a weekly ritual since she was 12 and old enough to actually understand the mechanics of the game. The fact that in four years Xander had never beaten her was one of her deepest darkest pleasures. Especially since she'd had a crush on him since coming to Sunnydale and the two of them drove the rest of the Scoobies away from the game within an hour meant she had him all to herself.
"It's not my fault you suck." She stuck her tongue out maturely as she wiggled in her seat with glee. Greatly enjoying his feigned heart attack at her words.
It had been a month since the High School had been destroyed taking down the Mayor and it had been relatively quiet, as all summers seemed to be in Sunnydale. Dawn wasn't exactly sure where she was supposed to start school in just two short months, but for the moment she really didn't care. Her 'family' was safe and Xander was alone with her. Life was good...well as good as it could get when your crush is three years older than you are and only recently of a relationship with a kinky ex-demon lover.
"Is there any pizza left?" Xander asked as he stood up and went into the kitchen where Buffy and Willow were apparently 'girl talking'.
"...and I don't know, don't get me wrong the sex is good...at least I think its good, but there seems like its just missing something..." Willow trailed off as she realized a wide-eyed Xander had his ears plugged and was chanting to himself to prevent hearing about her sex life.
He opened one eye and stopped his chant, "All clear now?"
Buffy rolled her eyes and motioned for him to remove his hands, "All clear, there's still a few pieces in that box over there."
"Yoink!" Dawn grinned as she snagged the last pepperoni leaving Xander with the plain cheese pizza.
"HEY! No fair! You know I love that greasy gooey pepperoni-yee goodness!"
"What'll you do for me if I let you have it?" Dawn asked innocently, but with a flirty smirk on her face.
Xander gulped, having noticed that she had been gifted by the puberty fairy in the last year or so, "Uh...ummina...mmm my my, my pizza!" He dove for it.
Meanwhile Buffy looked sick and was holding her ears and shaking her head, "Dawn is NOT flirting with Xander!"
Willow smiled, "Dawn always flirts with Xander, what else is new?"
Dawn danced away from Xander's half-hearted attempts to grab said pizza slice without tackling her or otherwise grabbing her somewhere inappropriate. She made it to the other side of the island and slowly swayed back and forth, tipping her head back and extending her tongue as the pizza slowly lowered toward her mouth. Meanwhile Xander whined pitifully and swayed back and forth in time with her movements, looking like a snake caught in the charmer's spell.
Buffy shook her head, "But she's never flirted successfully with Xander! This is just WRONG! She's only 16!"
"Says the girl who's first was over a century old..."
"Hey!" Buffy said looking wounded, "Since when are you all miss meany?"
Willow looked like she might cry as she tried to apologize, "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry..its just this whole thing with Oz has me messed up, and honestly I think they're cute together..."
"Cute. Operative word. It was cute when my baby sister tried to flirt with my Xander-shaped friend, it is NOT cute when my suddenly and unfortunately sexy little sister successfully makes him stutter without trying!"
"To be fair, most females can make Xander stutter, Dawn just finally has the body to cash the checks her mouth has been writing for years..."
Buffy's jaw dropped, then she smacked her friends shoulder, "Um...Willow, you did not just check out my sister!"
Willow's eyes went wide, "O-of course I didn't! I mean I just..its hard not to realize she's just about through puberty which is only natural and she's beautiful which you don't have to be gay to realize, I mean she's your sister so how could she not be beautiful..."
Meanwhile Xander had successfully driven Dawn into a corner with a feint and the two of them were wrestling on the floor for the piece of pepperoni which Dawn kept up high off the floor no matter what position they ended up in. Xander finally got her pinned beneath him and was looking into her eyes when she pouted at him cutely. "I guess you win."
Xander scrambled away from her quickly and stood up, "Uh...never mind, you can keep it..." he turned and ran smack into Willow rather than heading out the kitchen door to the living room.
"Xander?" She asked.
He looked slightly panicked as he backed away, "Um..um...I need to uh...use the bathroom. Be right back!" With that he darted from the room.
Meanwhile Dawn lay on her back still panting and thinking of the way Xander had felt pressed against her like that. Her thoughts were interrupted by slayer-strength yanking her to her feet. "Just what the hell was that?" Buffy shouted quietly.
"Ow! I'm telling Mom!"
"Tell her whatever you want, and I'll tell her you were flirting with Xander!"
Dawn smiled, "Mom likes Xander and you know it."
"For Me! She wants ME to date Xander and she knows I don't see him like that!"
"I like Xander too, he's very...Xander..." Willow trailed off trying to remember where she was going with her comment.
"Don't you start," Buffy said pointing a finger at the rehead, "We haven't finished our discussion. What is it with my friends and my little sister?"
Dawn looked entirely confused at that question and Willow's blush. "Xander is a great guy, and he's only a couple years older than I am." She crossed her arms under her breasts, subtly proving that, indeed, puberty was being very nice to her.
"Xander is 19 and off limits! Hell I think the law says you can't have sex until you're 18 anyway!"
Willow tried to close the door that Buffy just left wide open but Dawn beat her to it. "Says the girl who slept with Angel when she was 16?"
"I was 17 thank you!" Buffy said now mildly chastised, "That was different...I'm the slayer..."
"And he's a vampire, a two hundred year old vampire at that. Who the hell are you to lecture me about age difference?"
Buffy quickly changed the subject, "Doesn't matter anyway, Xander has never seen you that way anyway."
Willow cocked her head to one side, "Then why are you so upset about it? I know a thing or two about pining away for our Xander-shaped friend."
Buffy threw her hands up and huffed as she turned to leave the room, "Fine, you two can just have your pity party without me. I'm not going to join the 'I love Xander but he doesn't see me as a girl' fan club." With that she stormed from the room.
Willow turned a crestfallen face to meet Dawns equally sad puppy look. "Are we really that bad?"
Dawn hugged the redhead but her face was still sad, "Nah, you already got him to notice you. I'm the only pathetic one here."
"Hey, if I could do it you can too...but uh, Buffy was right, its against the law right now you know?"
Dawn rolled her eyes as she sat on a bar stool and picked up the discarded pepperoni slice. "Teenagers have sex, no law can change that...just because I haven't yet doesn't mean I wouldn't. Besides, hugging and cuddling and kissing aren't against the law no matter what the age."
Willow's thoughts returned to Oz and she immediately felt guilty for thinking of Xander like THAT again. It wasn't all that long ago that the "fluke" had happened between the two of them, and he'd lost his relationship with Cordelia while she was able to patch things up with Oz. She tried not to think about how awful she was for abandoning him after cheating on their significant others together, but at times like this she knew she had been absolutely horrid to both men. Xander was her best friend since forever and he really deserved better. Dawn hadn't spoken to her for months after that but at the time Willow had been too involved with paying attention to Oz to really notice.
"So how are you and Oz? I interrupted you and 'The Bitchy One'." Dawn asked, breaking her out of her thoughts.
She put a false smile on her face for Dawns benefit, "Oh no, we're fine, better than fine! I mean we're both busy with school and witchcraft and band stuff but when we are together its great!"
Dawn grinned, "So how's the sex? I mean if I can't have it I can live vicariously through you right?"
Willow blushed the color of her hair, "I..I..its fine..."
"Fine doesn't sound good." Dawn said before taking another bite of pizza.
"No! I mean its great! I just uh...I feel strange talking about it with you...because you know...you're..."
She rolled her eyes, "Yeah Yeah, I'm little Dawnie...fine I get it." Before Willow could sputter a response Dawn got up and headed for the door. "I think I'll go to bed and make use of my new fantasy fuel since Xander isn't likely to come back after that."
Willow couldn't say anything as she blushed at the thought of little Dawnie's "fantasies" and what she would probably be doing with them. She had been 16 and in love with Xander herself after all. She watched as Dawn left the room before smacking her head on the counter as she sat down on the vacated bar stool.
It was at this unfortunate moment, while her old fantasies were running through her mind, that the object of her thoughts popped his head cautiously into the kitchen. "All clear?"
Willow shot to her feet with wide eyes, "Uh..er..what?"
Xander narrowed his eyes for a moment before shrugging it off, babbling Willow was something he was used to. "Making sure Dawnie wasn't here...that was, uncomfortable..."
"Uncomfortable?"
"Well I mean...we were just wrestling and I think she got the wrong idea."
Willow was the one to look confused, "What idea is that?"
"Uh...that there might have been something else going on besides fighting over the last slice of pepperoni. I mean I know she's got this thing in her head about me, its kinda hard to miss."
Willow frowned at that, how could he notice in three years that Dawn was infatuated with him, but it took him a decade to see her as anything but a Willow-shaped friend?
He continued without noticing her reaction, "I mean, she's a sweet girl really, she's...I mean she's the Dawnster! She's awesome, but I just don't see her that way."
Willow stood up and made to say something in Dawns defense, but ended up huffing at him and leaving the room instead. She decided it was probably a good idea to go find Oz. Xander found himself alone in the kitchen with his own, decidedly jumbled thoughts and suspected he'd missed something. Then he looked down at the counter.
"Ooh! Half eaten pepperoni pizza slice, I call dibs!"