Alyana was annoying.
Really annoying.
Really, really annoying.
She was also Dawn's best friend, making the girls inseparable.
Which was even more annoying.
WHY Spike never noticed the talkative little girl's distinct scent on Dawn before, he had no idea, but the 13 year old sitting next to his "little sister" in a Dayglo lime green boy band t-shirt and a mouthful of braces across the lunch table in the dining hall gave off whiffs of demon, some sort of animal and… human?
Worse, she was menstruating.
As were more than half of the other girls at the event.
Including Dawn.
Spike's stomach gurgled.
Loudly.
Ayawamat glowered at him while shoving a third tuna sandwich into his pie hole, "Don't even think of it, blood rat." He reached for a fourth from the platter between them.
"What'd you say, daddy?"
"Nothin' baby, just letting your friend's "big brother" know I'm going to finish off the last of the sandwiches."
"Oh." Alyana went back to chattering with the Niblet, something about one boy band or another and which one they would each marry first, and who got dibs on Justin.
Bloody waste of time, marriage, when you could just invite the entire lot of 'em into the nearest dark alley for potluck, Spike observed sourly as he took another long drink from the closed Big Gulp in front of him. Earlier, while chewing a handful of dry aspirin, he thought he'd managed to tip a thawing blood bag followed by a generous splash of Bourbon into the near bucket-sized cup unobserved from the cooler in the DeSoto's back seat only to notice that a glowering Ayawamat was looming five feet away, arms folded and back hair rippling in the thin high altitude desert wind from the armhole and collar of his Marine Corps singlet.
"Sod. Off."
The hulking demon made a huffing noise before moving with surprising speed back towards the main public area of the camp, leaving Spike to breakfast of a sort, which mercifully was indoors so he could put down the soddin' hood, causing a sudden lull in the chattering roar of a room full of girls. Being stared at was bad enough, but the blushes, stares, and giggles along with the flat, hard expressions of over a dozen fathers of teenaged daughters made Spike waver between wanting to take his chances out in the brush with a freshly lit fag or grinning back red of tooth while giving a two-handed double fingered British working-class salute.
Head pounding and not exactly in the mood for a direct confrontation, Spike compromised by pointedly ignoring everyone and taking a long, hard pull at the slushy cocktail of O+ and Bourbon, only to get in trouble for putting his elbows along with a pack of menthols and his Zippo on the table followed by a badly-needed light-up, followed by him violently pantomiming ripping the head and wings off of the invisible "Table Manners Fairy" (Fairies, bah! nasty little blighters, worse than hornets!) Dawnie handed him as passed to her by the Assistant Director – so much for apologizing to an invisible fairy when something far, far worse lurked somewhere among the rubbish bins outside the kitchen back door, judging by the smell, which intensified before fading away.
Then there'd been that soddin' dead beaver game after the tables had been cleared, followed by arts and crafts: some sort of stupid bracelet made of plastic cord project – where a thoroughly bored Spike scandalized the craft leader and fascinated the girls sitting nearby by showing Dawn how to make a working hangman's noose – the whole time with Alyana chattering nonstop with Dawnie and her father giving Spike the stinkeye while turning out one perfectly knotted bracelet after another with his clumsy looking, paw-like hands before the pie-faced Director yanked him aside as the rest of the group thundered out into the big open space outside for outdoor games before lunch when he'd snuck out back to cop a much-needed smoke in the shade among the bins.