Dawn stood in the kitchen before the microwave with a large plastic bowl in her hands, watching as her packet of popcorn slowly rotated on the glass plate and expanded. Along with the humming of the machine there was the muffled pop and crack of cooking kernels. She could hear the others setting up a game of poker around the coffee table in the living room, and getting snacks ready. The TV was on in the background, playing some Saturday night comedy show.
The microwave pinged as the timer reached zero and stopped blitzing the food. Dawn put her bowl on the counter beside it and opened the door. She reached inside and gripped one corner of the steaming packet between forefinger and thumb nails, trying to touch as little as possible to save burning herself. She pulled it out and grabbed another corner, pulling the packet completely open and hissing as the resultant puff of steam burned her fingers. She quickly upended the popcorn in her bowl and chucked the now empty packet into the kitchen bin, inspecting her burned fingertips on the way back to shut the microwave door and pick up her bowl. She left the kitchen and made her way into the living room where Giles was dealing out playing cards at the coffee table while Xander finished off the remainder of the pizza they had ordered for dinner. Buffy and Cat were watching the TV, waiting for the card game to start, and Willow was quickly reminding Tara of the rules.
"Popcorn's ready." Dawn announced needlessly, and sat herself cross legged on the sofa with the bowl resting in her lap. She tossed a handful into her mouth and crunched on it while watching Giles finish his deal. Cat leaned back from her position on the floor and grabbed some.
"Maybe we should bet with popcorn…" The reaper said thoughtfully, holding up one husk to inspect it.
"Money is better." Xander replied. Cat grinned at him and ate her snack instead.
"Careful, Xander," Buffy said playfully, "Sounds like you're channelling Anya." Xander smiled and shrugged at that, liking the idea. Her death still hurt, and caused him grief, and there would always be that hole inside him left by her passing that would never be filled, but the pain had lessened over the time since. Enough that he was attempting to get back into the dating game, so to speak.
Giles left the remaining stack of cards in the middle of the table and perched next to Dawn on the sofa.
"Right, everyone, ready?" He asked, fishing a handful of loose change from his trouser pocket and picking out some pennies. "We'll start with low bets, and increase the stakes later…" He pointedly eyed up Buffy and Xander, who had made a spectacle of themselves the previous week with a play fight after Xander had won twenty bucks from Buffy after the others stopped playing. The fight ended when Xander almost fell through the TV.
Buffy and Xander gave Giles identical angelic smiles that fooled no one.
Cat was carefully arranging her coins into neat little piles in front of her cards while she waited for the group to settle down and take their places.
"Okay, everyone got drinks and snacks?" Buffy checked, and received answers in the affirmative. "Game on!" She said, and everyone reached for their cards.
"Wait!" Dawn cried suddenly, halting the movement of her friends instantly. "I need to pee." She told them apologetically.
"Dawn!" Buffy said irritably.
"Go pee." Cat deadpanned, not looking up as she made sure her coin piles were all in line and dead straight.
Dawn relinquished ownership of the popcorn bowl to Giles and dashed off to do so. A few seconds later she could be heard thundering up the stairs to the bathroom.
Tara pressed one hand over Willow's cards as she noticed the redhead trying to sneak a look at the hand she had been dealt. Willow looked up at her innocently and Tara couldn't help a crooked grin.
"No peeking." She warned. "Play fair."
"But, Tara…" Willow whined, even pouting a little. Tara simply arched one eyebrow.
"I'm immune to the pout." She said.
"That's your secret power." Xander grinned across the table at her.
"I don't know why people eat this rubbish." Giles said, pulling a face while eating popcorn. "It's like salted polystyrene."
"You know what salted polystyrene tastes like?" Buffy asked him. Giles shot her a mock dark look.
"I took an educated guess."
Upstairs the toilet flushed and Dawn bounded noisily back down to the living room, cheerfully crying, "I'm back!" as she entered the room.
"Yeah, we heard." Buffy told her. Dawn rolled her eyes at her sister's comment as she sat back on the sofa beside Giles. He eagerly handed the popcorn back over.
"Now are we ready?" Cat asked almost impatiently. "I wanna win some dollars. The next issue of Hellboy is out next week." Xander snorted at her.
"Nerd." He muttered.
"Tch, hypocrite." She retorted, picking up her cards. The others followed suit.
"Place ya bets!" Dawn cried excitedly, throwing her coins into the middle of the table.
"Woah, easy!" Xander laughed at her eagerness.
"See, this is why you and Willow are so easy to read." Buffy told her sister. Willow looked up sharply from her own cards.
"I am not!" She insisted, as Dawn scowled at Buffy.
"You kinda are." Xander agreed with Buffy, as he matched the bets placed so far. "You bounce when you've got a good hand. Dawn just looks smug."
Willow opted to sit still as a statue then in an effort to throw everyone off her game. Dawn stared stony faced at her cards, instead feeling inwardly satisfied, sure she would be able to make a good hand.
As the game went on, Buffy and Giles eventually folded and Tara seemed to be feeling suspiciously confident with the amount of money she was putting down, while looking perfectly innocent.
When those remaining in the game finally revealed their cards, Willow grabbed at Tara's forearm excitedly.
"You won!" She cried.
"I did…?" Tara asked uncertainly. The others looked over at her cards as Tara spread them out to make them easier to see.
"You did." Giles told her.
"See, you got a straight flush." Willow said, and gestured to the others. "They all got rubbish hands."
"Thanks, Willow." Dawn replied, though was grinning at the redhead's enthusiasm. Willow grinned back at her as she leaned over to the middle of the table and scraped the pile of coins over to Tara.
"I think someone lied about finding the game confusing…" Buffy teased her friend.
"You little gambler!" Xander grinned, reaching over to playfully nudge Tara's shoulder with his knuckles.
"Okay, well, you can buy my comic, then." Cat said.
"Sure, Cat." Tara laughed. "Or, you know, you could try and win it back." She gave the reaper a mischievous grin.
"Maybe I will." Cat replied, handing over her cards for Xander to shuffle and deal. He gathered the deck together and began to shuffle them.
"Hey, look." Buffy said. She had turned towards the TV, a broadcast catching her eye. The news had come on while they were playing and was running a story about the body of a man being found. What had caught her attention though was the name, Ethan Miller.
"Wasn't that the guy that went missing last week?" Dawn asked. Buffy leaned forwards and wound up the volume on the TV.
"…Latest in a spate of recent disappearances within the city. Police claim to be investigating but have found no links. Ethan Miller was found in the early hours of this morning and is believed to have been attacked by a wild animal that has yet to be identified. His family has been informed."
"Ugh, grisly." Xander shuddered. As the reporter moved on to the next topic, Buffy wound the volume back down and switched channels to something more interesting.
"You know…" She said slowly. "I keep seeing stuff about people going missing." She looked meaningfully over at Giles who understood the look immediately.
"Well, it may be worth looking into," he started slowly, "but to my knowledge this Ethan is the first animal attack-"
"Sunnydale explanation." Buffy interrupted.
"It's probably nothing." Cat said. "People go missing. Stuff happens. Sometimes they just need to get away and sometimes it's just bad people doing bad things."
"I know." Buffy said in agreement. "I just…Have a bad feeling."
"Could've been the pizza." Dawn said.
"Anyway." Giles continued. "If you're worried, look into it. No hacking." He warned Willow, who swiftly pouted in response. "It's best to rule out all possibilities, though I've seen nothing to suggest supernatural goings on. I have been wrong in the past."
"Yup." Buffy grinned smugly up at him and Giles heaved a sigh, hating to admit she had the right to feel arrogant about that. Like the time she had insisted her roommate in college was a demon and no one listened to her.
"Is everyone still in the game?" Xander interrupted them both, looking down at the cards in his hands as he carefully shuffled them once more.
"Yessir." Cat said around a mouthful of chips and dips. She rubbed salt from the chips off her hands and onto her jeans and motioned for him to begin dealing as the others settled back into position.
"I think I can afford to win another round." Tara said confidently with a sloped smirk.
"You got the bug!" Xander teased her, and almost flicked the deck of cards into the air when his mobile phone gave a loud beep in his trouser pocket. He passed the deck along to Buffy to deal out and took his phone from his pocket to check the message that had come through.
"Who is it?" Buffy asked, a joking tone in her voice. "All your friends are here…"
"Shots fired!" Cat sniggered into her cup of coke.
"Ha. Ha." Xander replied drily, tipping his head to one side as he scowled at his blonde haired friend. "I do have more friends than you guys, you know? Anyway, it's just someone I met at that party last week."
"A girl someone…?" Willow asked casually. One leg jittered excitedly at the potential news. Buffy's eyebrows were raised expectantly as Willow asked the question she had been about to voice.
"Maybe." Xander said vaguely, texting a reply to the message. He glanced up at the eager silence that followed his ambiguous remark, and finally flashed an arrogant grin. "Okay, yes, a girl someone."
"And you said nothing?" Buffy slapped his arm. "Sly dog!"
"Xander's got a girlfriend!" Dawn sang, and giggled excitedly.
"So, come on, details!" Willow insisted.
"It's like being back in high school." Giles muttered.
Cat reached across the table and took the deck of cards from Buffy as she seemed to have forgotten she was meant to be dealing.
"Okay, well," Xander said, hitting 'send' on his message and leaning back to put his phone back in his pocket. "Last week I went out to my work buddy's party and I met this lady, Mona."
Cat began to hand out the cards for the second game.
"We got talking and decided to meet up again at some point, so…" Xander picked up his cards, not looking at anyone as he gave a little smirk. "I have a date next Friday."
"Yay, go you!" Dawn said enthusiastically.
"A date, huh?" Buffy asked, clearly amused. Xander looked at her suspiciously.
"Yes…Why…?" He asked slowly.
"Oh, nothing." Buffy said, picking up her cards and eyeing them. "Just…You know. Maybe one of us should come along to make sure nothing happens."
"Like what?" He asked with a frown.
"Oh, you know." Willow said, catching on. "Like, are you sure she's not a giant bug in disguise?" She grinned at Xander.
"Or going to use you as a ritual sacrifice?" Buffy added.
"You guys suck." Xander grumbled.
"Well. They're valid points." Giles spoke up from where he had been quietly viewing his cards. He looked up at Xander innocently.
"Sorry, Giles, your horns are getting in the way of your halo." Xander told him.
"Much as I love this discussion of Xander's dating life, I do so want to win at least once tonight." Cat told them.
"Cat's right." Xander said, nodding vigorously.
"You just want to borrow her comic." Buffy told him.
"Nerds unite!" Cat called, and she and Xander fist bumped. Buffy rolled her eyes and started off the first round of bets in the second game of what would be a series of many that night.