DISCLAIMER: Joss owns.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't really have one, except to tell you all to let me know which fic you'd like me to start as soon as I finish Throwback. The options are in my profile, and to thank the people at the Barefoot Awards for their awards.
Also, fair warning, though I am feeling kinda Spuffy on this fic, there will be elements of both Spuffy and B/A here for a while. I figure that if you throw them all into a room, this is close to what might happen.
CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN: Chapter Eight
By the time the game was wrapping up, Darla's face was a lovely, furious shade of bright pink. Granted, that probably had a little bit to do with the fact that she'd run into a goal post in the exact moment that I beamed her in the side of the head with the ball.
"That. Is. It." Darla growled. "You, girl," she said to me. "You're going to be sorry. You just wait. You can't just do something like this to me. Nobody does this to me."
I shrugged. "Geez, Darla," I said loudly, trying to sound like the good little girl everyone wished I was. "I'm really sorry. You just sort of got in the way of the goal." I smirked. "Or maybe the goal got in your way," I amended. She glared at me. "Bitch," I added cheerfully.
"Faith!" Buffy and Spike both yelled my name at the exact same time.
I smiled at them both. "I'm done," I called over to them. The two of them glanced at each other and then quickly away.
"Grandmummy is not happy," Dru said wisely.
Darla glowered at her. "Stop calling me that!" she said, her blonde ponytail wagging back and forth as she turned her fury on Dru. "Can't you be normal? I'm not your grandmother, Dru. I'm Darla, and all of you had better realize that pretty soon."
Dru looked at me, wide eyed.
"That's one angry grandmother," I said, even though I had no idea what Dru was talking about.
Darla seethed. I grinned. This day was finally getting better.
A few minutes and one goal later, we beat the other team six to two.
"We won, we won, we won, we won!" Dawn sang, jumping up and down happily.
Darla scowled at her.
"Taste of victory too much for you?" I asked her, "Or are you constipated?"
"Tastes like moonlight," Dru said. She licked her lips and rubbed her stomach, her dark pigtails dancing. "It tastes of moonlight and sparkly flowers." As soon as the words left her mouth, Dru took a flower out of her hair and ceremoniously handed it to Spike. "You can be the prince," she told him.
Spike looked at her for a moment, but said nothing. Dru skipped happily around him, singing under her breath.
"Okay, niblets," Spike said, clearing his throat.
"Don't call us that, boy," Darla said immediately, still in a huff.
"Why don't you take a lap to cool down?" Spike suggested.
Darla clenched her fists, totally ready to argue with him, but a second later, she relaxed, looking very sweet and innocent. Gag me.
"Angel!" Darla called out.
Spike rolled his eyes and turned around as Darla's older brother, who wasn't nearly as bitchy as she was, walked up, a brooding expression on his face and a tiny, blonde haired girl riding on his shoulders. Spike met Angel's eyes and then turned back to us, kneeling down to our height and ceremoniously ignoring Darla's older brother.
"It was a good game," he told us. "You played rough, but you played well." He looked at us seriously. "You played with fire." He paused. He glanced at Dawn and Dru. "You played with heart." That was the nice Spike way of telling them that, even though neither of them could play soccer, he was glad they were on the team anyway. "So, Bits," he said, "what say we go for pizza?"
"I'm not going," Darla announced, her arms crossed over her chest. She stalked up to her brother.
"Darling boy," she said, and I practically gagged at the nickname. "That girl was mean to me." She pointed her finger directly at me.
"It's rude to point." Dawnie said, her eyes wide. I bit back a smirk, and my twin slung her arm around my shoulders.
Angel narrowed his eyes at me and then looked back at Darla suspiciously.
"I'm so sorry," Buffy said, walking right into the middle of things. I glowered at her. I wasn't sorry. I sure as hell didn't need her to be sorry on my behalf.
Angel turned his head to stare at her. For a moment, they just looked at each other. "It's all right," Angel said.
"Hey!" Darla said, outraged. "It is not all right."
Angel ignored her, still staring at Buffy, the serious expression never leaving his face.
"I'm Buffy Giles," Buffy told him brightly. My stomach flip flopped as my Buffy radar turned on. What was she up to?
"Angel," Darla's brother replied, his eyes still locked onto hers.
"Spike!" A second after the cry left her mouth, Anya launched herself at Spike. Spike caught her easily in his arms.
"Did you know that doggies have orgasms?" Anya asked, perfectly content to be in Spike's arms. "And Riley has condoms, and Buffy isn't getting the sex from her boyfriend anymore, and…"
"AND CONDOM MAN WILL NOT BE DEFEATED!" Andrew added, yelling at the top of his lungs. He put his hands on his hips and thrust his little chest out, a proud look on his face. "The condom way of life will be preserved. We here on Condonomia will prevail." He took a deep breath. "Whip cream lasers and vagina monologues have no effect on Condom Man!"
"Vagina monologues?" Angel repeated, his tone of voice not changing at all.
"Is that a flavor of ice cream?" the little blonde girl on his shoulders asked. "Or, oooooohhhhhh, is it a pretty dress? I want a pretty vagina dress, Angel!"
"It's not a dress," Andrew told the little girl shyly. "I heard Riley's girlfriend talking about them. I think they might be like light sabers." Immediately, Andrew started making light saber noises. Why Mom and Dad ever let a four year old watch Star Wars, I wasn't really sure.
"Vsssshhhhhhhoooooom," Andrew said. "Vshooooom Vagiiiiiiinnnnnnaaaaa Vshooooooom."
"Andrew!" Buffy said.
Andrew looked at her solemnly. He dug into his pocket with his grubby little boy hands and pulled out a condom and held it out to Buffy. "May the force be with you," he said.
Buffy immediately glanced at Spike, and he raised one eyebrow. She blushed furiously and deliberately turned away from him. A grin spread slowly over Spike's face. I watched them carefully, thinking.
"I don't want a say-thing," the girl on Angel's shoulders said.
"Saber," Andrew corrected her seriously.
"I want a pretty vagina dress," the girl insisted, her little face serious.
Angel cringed without really changing his facial expression that much at all. "Harmony," he said, his voice low, "you don't need another dress."
Little Harmony stuck her lower lip out, pouting.
"You don't have to be so snippy about it," she said.
"That's an awful prodigious sentence for a kid so small," Willow said, coming up behind us, Tara a single step behind her. Shyly, Tara waved at Spike.
Harmony grinned a big, toothy grin. "Mommy says Angel is always snippy. Daddy calls it brooding."
"Maybe he has too much sperm," Anya suggested.
Harmony nodded thoughtfully.
"This sounds like a problem for Condom Man," Andrew boomed.
I cleared my throat. This had all gone on long enough. "Buffy," I said, forcing her to pay attention to me instead of pretending like she wasn't pointedly ignoring Spike. "Are we going to pizza or not?"
It would be just like her to say no. I could practically see her saying no.
Tara offered Buffy a small smile. "Please?" she whispered.
"Please?" Anya, Andrew, and Willow echoed.
"I told you," Lindsey said to Xander as the two of them walked up to us. "This is level nine information you now have access to. Project X is not an endeavor to be taken on lightly."
"I signed the confidentiality forms, didn't I?" Xander asked.
"Project X?" Buffy asked.
Lindsey turned his poker face on her. "I'm afraid that information is classified."
Lindsey winked at me, and I got the distinct feeling that, whatever Project X was, I was going to like it.
"Eat the pizza or the pizza will eat you," Dru announced solemnly. Andrew's eyes widened at her words, and he inched closer to Spike.
"B," I said sharply, snapping her back down to earth. "Do you want pizza or not?"
"We're going," Angel said. Darla glared at him, and I had the sudden urge to chuck something at her. Maybe a brick. Or a cinder block.
"Totally awesome," Harmony chirped from Angel's shoulder. I grinned. Darla's little sister was three going on thirteen. How deliciously ironic.
"Come on, luv," Spike whispered into the back of Buffy's hair so softly that no one but me heard him.
Buffy opened her mouth and then closed it again, and a few minutes later, we were all on our way to pizza.
TBC… up next, Dru plays with Spike's hair, Spike and Angel vie for Buffy, the other kids get in on Project X, Anya, Andrew, and Harmony start a brand new game, Cordy and Riley show up, and Darla makes Tara cry.
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