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Giles found himself on the floor, having disregarded Dawn’s bed as an appropriate place to sit and warily eyed the questionably-stable wicker chair in the corner before deciding it wasn’t worth the risk. Music, if one could call it that, came from the stereo, at a slightly more reasonable volume than it had been when he arrived, but not without a huffy sigh and eyeroll from Dawn. He was still getting used to the fact that she wasn’t really simply a fourteen year old girl as they’d all been made to believe, and it was made all the more difficult when she kept acting like one.
“So this is Brian,” she said, pointing to yet another nondescript young man on the page of a magazine. “He’s Janice’s favorite. There’s a boy at school who looks just like him and I keep telling Janice she needs to ask him out but the one time she tried to talk to him the words came out all mushy and she ran off and the embarrassment of that is enough to make her terrified to try again.” Dawn took a deep breath, she’d spoken so many words so quickly without one, as if pausing even once would take away her ability to finish.
“Having once been one of them, teenage boys are idiots,” Giles said. “If he even remembers that happening it won’t be enough to dissuade him from an opportunity of female attention.”
“Female attention? This is junior high, not a nature documentary.”
He didn’t voice his thought that there probably wasn’t much difference.
Am I sexuaaaaalll…? the stereo asked. Giles grimaced but made an effort to engage. “Is that, erm, Brian?”
Dawn rolled her eyes. “That’s Nick. Honestly, how do you remember all the dorky Latin and Slayer stuff but not bands?”
“I know some bands,” he said, trying to remember Dawn didn’t deserve the hostility he felt rising. “The kind who play instruments.”
“Yeah, but they’re crusty old dudes with bad hair.”
Giles laughed despite himself. “We thought the hair was cool at the time. And women didn’t seem to think they were ‘crusty’, they’d throw themselves at them.”
“Ew!” Dawn squealed, scrunching her nose in disgust. “Thank goodness us modern women have better taste.” As if to prove it, she spooned a large helping of cookie dough out of the package next to her and shoved it into her mouth.
“I don’t think that’s actually meant to be eaten raw,” he ventured.
“Maybe for old people who aren’t allowed to do anything fun,” Dawn said with her mouth full, without regard for Giles’ pursed lips at all. “I eat it all the time and I’m fine.”
“Fine then.” He took the package and carved out a spoonful, less ambitious than Dawn’s but a respectable size, and slid it into his mouth. The soft, sweet dough, still slightly chilled from the refrigerator, rolled around the small hard chocolate chips he could feel melting on his tongue. He forsook the dignity of swallowing before murmuring “Oh, that is quite good.”
Dawn grinned triumphantly. “See!”
Giles smiled back. The track changed and the stereo began playing a nasally song that he supposed passed for romantic, judging by the dreamy look that came over Dawn’s face as she began to sway and use her cookie dough spoon as a microphone.
He’d complain to Buffy later, suggest that Dawn didn’t need this sort of babysitting round-the-clock, play the role of exasperated old man, since that’s how most of them saw him anyway. But part of him knew that the opportunity to do this sort of silly thing with kids of his own had long since passed, and even the everyday woes of Buffy, Willow, and Xander in their younger years that he pretended not to notice were so often wrapped up in whatever real horror they were facing that it rarely felt this inconsequential. He’d never admit it to anyone other than himself but really, he didn’t mind this at all.