“That’s a rhetorical question right. Do I need to start listing all the times that you did sneak out. And maybe you didn’t mean to do bad things, but bad things kinda just happen around you Dawn. I want you inside where you’re safe. It’s not like I have fun when I’m out after dark.” she said. “I’m doing my job.”
“Well, maybe I always sneak out because no one ever lets me do anything around here! With you guys, it’s always ‘Oh, Dawnie, don’t do this!’ or ‘Don’t worry about that, Dawn, you wouldn’t understand.’ Why can’t you ever take me seriously?”
“I think a lot of that would depend on how hungry we are and how little we want to move afterwards. My limit would be…two…probably.”
There was no stopping the soft laughter that came from Willow when she noticed Dawn’s shudder. Mostly because she had been thinking that herself. She fell into comfortable silence as she watched the younger girl consider the movies.
“Really? I don’t think I could do more than one. I bet Xander could eat a whole bunch, though; he always sucks everything up, like a vacuum cleaner!”
It takes her a minute or two, but Dawn’s quick to find their movie of choice. Popping up with Princess Bride in hand, she carefully inserts it nto the DVD player before scram- bling back over to her spot on the couch and pressing play.
“Who made up that rule, I don’t agree with it. No way —- he loves me. I’m his girlfriend! Tell me Dawn —- why do you hate the BEST game ever created?”
“I don’t know, but I KNOW it’s a rule! Well, I’m like his sister– - so there. I don’t hate Monopoly, Anya; I hate playing it with someone who takes it way too seriously!”
“Complete with too sugary drinks and pretzels the size of our heads.”
Not quite that large but they were still a good size. She made a mental note to put aside a day just for this outing. Willow fiddled with the remote for a moment before handing it over to Dawn to let her do the honors.
“Pretzels the size of our heads, huh? How many of those do you think you could eat before getting stuffed? …Or throwing up, I guess.”
She shuddered, putting aside the mental image of eating that many giant pretzels for the moment being. Taking the remote from Willow, she didn’t even look at the TV as she turned it on, instead opting to rifle through the movies Willow had put aside for their choice instead.
“No, I had a curfew I just ignored it.” She paused realizing, that probably wasn’t the best thing to say. “You can stay up, but you can’t go out. And no answering the door.”
Dawn couldn’t help but smirk at Buffy’s slip- up; she wouldn’t say anything about it now, but she definitely was storing that information away for later.
“Anytime pumpkinbelly.” She smiled softly. She was just happy that something like this project could mean so much to both of them. “So… time to turn the tables. What do you want for Christmas? Or are you going to start telling me that I need to help you pick out yarn right now so you don’t forget? You won’t get away from me so easily. I’ll figure out what to get you.”
“I don’t know what I want. Why don’t we go get the yarn and I’ll think about it?”
It wasn’t that she didn’t want a present, of course she did. Just that she wanted this moment to be about her mom, since there weren’t many times like that in their house.
