Title: Summers' Cooking Adventures (Holiday Edition)
Authors:
angearia and
penny_lane_42 Summary: Buffy, Dawn and Spike prepare for a Christmas feast.
Word Count: 800
Rating: G
Authors' Note: This was
comment!fic that Lirazel and I wrote on Christmas day a few months ago. I thought I'd put it all together and re-post it. I thought about color-coding to show who wrote what, but honestly I think that's kinda distracting. You can follow the above link to see how the story shaped up if you're interested.
"Step away from the pie. That's an order!" Buffy snapped, waving a spatula in the air.
"Come on, Buffy, just one little piece? I am the one who made it after all," Dawn pointed out, her hand darting out to swipe up a bit of crust that had crumbled onto the counter.
"No and no and no," Buffy shot her down. "Dessert after dinner. That's a rule of... of... of the holidays. So there!"
"No, it's not," Dawn countered. "You just made that up."
"Whatever. It's the rule now 'cause I say so."
"Aw, come on, Slayer. Let her have her piece of pie. 'S not like anyone's gonna be wanting for desserts," Spike said, coming into the kitchen.
"Yeah!" Dawn said, energized by the support. "Six pies, four different kinds of cake, about seven million cookies....Nobody's going to miss one piece of pie."
"But - but it's all backwards and wrong and nobody will eat all the other food I cooked if they eat all the dessert first and..." Buffy pouted.
"Nobody's gonna eat all the other food anyways," Spike retorted, eyeing the black crusty mass of what he suspected was a turkey.
Buffy made an offended face and opened her mouth to protest, but both Dawn and Spike arched an eyebrow at her, their skeptical expressions identical.
"Fine, fine," she huffed. "You're both right."
"So," Dawn said with a bright smile. "Desserts for Christmas dinner? New tradition?"
"Maybe next year, we should order take-out from Boston Market. They have holiday-ish food," Buffy mused.
"Pie?" Dawn asked, waving a slice of lemon chess in front of Buffy to distract her from her holiday neurosis.
"You ladies enjoy the sweets. I'm gonna dispose of the animal carcass," Spike said, carrying the charred mess out the back door. "Hell, Buffy, did you take a blowtorch to this thing?"
Buffy shot him a nasty look even as she accepted the slice of pie. "Do you think we should get something from somewhere? Won't everyone be expecting real food?"
Dawn rolled her eyes. "Buffy, I had at least three different people tell me that they were planning on eating before they come," she said around a mouthful of French coconut. "They knew you were cooking; trust me when I say they really, really weren't expecting much."
Buffy sputtered, then pouted, then huffed.
"Aw, there, there, Slayer. Wanna heat me up a pint of O-neg?" Spike offered. "Nobody hits the buttons on the microwave like you do, love."
"Are you laughing at me?" Buffy asked, raising up a piece of pecan pie and winding her arm back. The implicit threat of pie-in-the-face was made clear by her 'how dare you mock me?' tone.
"Who? Me? Never."
"Sure about that, Mister?" she asked threateningly.
"I take you much too seriously to ever laugh at you, Slayer of the Vam-pyres," Spike assured her in a scarily-perfect Andrew-voice.
Thirty seconds later, clutching her ribs, Dawn still wasn't sure whether she was laughing at Spike's Andrew imitation or the way he looked with pie filling smeared across his face and a pecan stuck to his nose like a bumpy brown wart. But did it really matter?
Dawn had cleared out when Spike had grabbed Buffy and given her a sloppy, pie-filling covered kiss. Buffy had licked her lips, then started cleaning the pie of Spike's face. With her tongue.
Gross.
Were they trying to traumatize her for life? Clearly they didn't know the meaning of wholesome holiday fun.
But by that time, all of the pies and cakes had ended up smeared over cabinets and counter tops and clothes, so what was the use in sticking around?
With a sigh, Dawn tugged her hair, still damp from her shower--who knew caramel icing was impervious to shampoo?--over her shoulder and grabbed her phone. Surely some takeout place was mercenary enough to be open today.
An hour later, the doorbell rang, bringing a flustered and frosting covered Buffy to answer it.
"Hey, hey! I come bearing holiday goodness," Xander announced triumphantly, holding up bags of Boston Market take-out.
"My hero," Buffy grinned. Turning towards the stairs, she yelled, "Dawn! Dinner's ready!"
Family, friends and food. Yum! And the best part? She'd promised to cook, Dawn had promised to clean up. And just 'cause Buffy-cooking turned into food-charring totally didn't nullify the deal. She could just picture it now: cozying up on the couch with Spike while her baby sister got elbow-deep in soap suds, scrubbing away at greasy pans, her skin pruning from the hot water, sweat dripping from her brow...
Okay, maybe they'd all help with the cleaning up part. The holidays were about doing stuff together, right?
Right. And the togetherness was the best part.
Togetherness and pie.
***