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“SURPRISE!” Buffy, Spike, and Will marveled at the collection of people in their apartment.

“We thought you guys deserved a house cooling party, B!” Faith announced with a grin, raising her beer in salute.

“How do you know I liked it?” Buffy asked with mock-suspicion, suppressing a grin.

“Oh, please,” Dawn said with an eye roll, “there’s no way you hated that apartment! So when can we move in?”

“One week,” Spike said smugly, wrapping his arms around his fiancée.

“Who’s up for a packing party?” Will asked, smiling down at Buffy.

“Why do you think we’re here?” Robin asked sardonically. He deftly avoided Faith’s sharp elbows as he made his was to the trio, enveloping them in a hug.

“It’s good to have minions!” Buffy declared as Lorne delivered a drink into her waiting hand, shouldering Robin aside so he could get his piece of the Spillfy action.

“Indeed, Cherie, and—Oh. My. Gawd. Dahlin’, WHAT is that on your finger?!” Buffy felt herself blushing. Lorne grabbed her hand and examined the ring on it. “Will. This is definitely Will’s work. And what about Spikey-poo?” Buffy mutely raised her other hand, showing off the sparkling diamond and sapphire ring that glittered next to the other one.

“Buffy? What’s going on?” Dawn asked. The three of them exchanged a significant look, smiling bashfully at each other; they’d all expected at least the night to get used to their engaged status before telling the world.

“Well…I don’t suppose we could make this a house cooling AND an engagement party?” Buffy asked. Silence met her words, which stretched into awkward territory. “Is that…no?” The silence was broken by an excited shriek from Dawn.

“YOU’RE ENGAGED!!!!” She launched herself at her adopted family, enveloping them in a huge group hug.

“Destiny has been fulfilled!” Andrew said with a smile, joining his family in their impromptu hug fest. Dawn pulled away to thump Will and Spike soundly.

“You didn’t tell me you were planning this!” Dawn accused them.

“Didn’t tell anyone, Nibblet,” Spike said, rolling his eyes.

“Yes, that much is apparent.” Buffy grinned and launched herself at Giles, who was trying not to grin. He welcomed his future daughter-in-law with open arms.

“Congratulations on securing orgasms for the rest of your life, or at least five to eight years,” Anya added from behind her lover. Buffy just shook her head and gave Anya a hug.

“You’re a brave man, Da,” Spike whispered as his father gave him a hug. Giles suppressed a smile.

“I believe you and your brother are no less brave,” Giles returned good naturedly. Will shrugged in acceptance; they wouldn’t trade her stubbornness for the world.

“Damn, B. Those are some pretty rocks you got there,” Faith said, elbowing between the others gathered around to stare at Buffy’s rings.

“They really are!” Buffy said, admiring her new sparkles. She was going to have to think about rings for her two boys, but for now, she was going to enjoy her free diamonds. Her view was enthusiastically interrupted as Willow tackled her, talking a mile a minute and forgetting to breath.

“This is fabulous! Oh, you’re engaged! To two men! Wow! I never would have thought it, could you imagine someone telling us this back in high school, we would have thought they were crazy, but look at our lives, they’re great, and when are you getting married? Have you set a date? Talked about the—oh! I get to be a bride’s maid, right? And you’re not going to make us wear ugly dresses because that would just be mean, and we’re your friends!” Willow stopped abruptly when she realized everyone was staring at her, and turned the same color as her hair. “Was I babbling?”

“No,” Dawn answered, “that was word vomit. But HAVE you set a date?” Buffy got that deer-in-the-headlights look that meant no one would get a sensible word out of her for some time, so she turned her attention to the men in question.

“Ah…we’ve been engaged for an hour?” Will ventured, seeing Dawn start slipping into her hither-to hidden Wedding Planner Mode.

“Never too late to start planning, Dubs,” Faith drawled. Her smugness seemed to snap Buffy out of her stupor.

“Yeah? Well at this rate, I’ll be beating you down the isle!” Buffy challenged. Faith choked on her beer, coughing and spluttering. Robin was watching the scene unfold wide-eyed. Buffy narrowed her eyes as her spidey senses started registering that something was…off.

“Ah…well. I’m-I’m sure a wedding shouldn’t be about who gets there first!” Faith tried to save. Buffy turned her attention to Robin, who held his hands up and backed away, keeping his mouth firmly shut.

“You didn’t!” Buffy exclaimed, turning an accusatory look on her best friend. Buffy tried to decipher the strange look on Faith’s face, and realized this was the first time she’d ever looked guilty. “You did!” Faith looked helplessly at Robin, who simply shook his head, refusing to get involved in anything.

“Um…what?” Willow asked, at once grateful that no one was looking at her, but completely confused at the same time. Buffy fixed Faith with her best “Fess up!” look, reveling in the fact that her former roommate was actually in the hot seat.

“Oh, Faithy-kins! You are in SO much trouble!” Lorne announced gleefully. This party was about to get much more interesting.

“Again with the what!” Willow exclaimed.

“I already…made it. Down the aisle,” Faith grudgingly admitted. She was immediately assaulted with questions, hugs, and congratulations, all of which she’d been trying to avoid—hence the secret marriage deal. “Look! Buffy got engaged! This is her night, go bother her.”

“Oh, no, Missy!” Buffy said resolutely. “You are going to spill, and spill NOW!” Faith sighed and resigned herself to telling the story of her completely unexciting and secret wedding.

“We got engaged, one day decided we were very much over being engaged, and that Robin’s raise made getting married a pretty good financial decision, got the license, Robin’s sister stood witness, and we’ve been married for like…a few months?”

“How many?” Dawn asked ‘innocently.’ She wasn’t fooling anyone, though unsuspecting victims might be taken in by her wiles.

“Um, a few,” Faith tried to hedge. Robin snorted, earning a sinister glare from his wife. “Maybe, like…eight?”

“You’ve been married EIGHT MONTHS…and you didn’t tell anyone?”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Faith protested.

“Hello, what about the gifts that save you copious amounts of money?” Anya asked incredulously.

“That’s what I said!” Robin exclaimed, angling it so he could only feel Faith’s eyes boring holes into him.

“So has this become a house cooling-engagement-congratulations party?” a dry voice asked. “We’ll need a LOT more alcohol.”

“Alex! Where were you hiding?”

“Oh, baby girl, this friend of yours is just incapable of hiding! Wallflower she is not!” Alex saluted Buffy with her glass of some Lorne concoction. “You were just too busy being sparkely to notice.”

“Well, congratulations,” Alex said magnanimously. “Now. Where’s your stash?”

***

“YOU! You little miz thang, are dane-ger-ous!” Lorne announced, weaving slightly as he sat. Was the couch always this uneven?

He and Alex had been putting on quite the show, bantering about everything from movies to the state of the world. Their wit had the rest of the group in stitches, rolling on the floor. It was even funnier when Alex’s Southern accent started getting thicker the later it got, and the more drinks they put in her.

“I’ll drink to that!” Faith agreed, raising her glass in toast, her newly revealed wedding ring glistening on her finger. She and Robin had, after much prodding and suspicious accusation, admitted that they’d done the traditional thing and bought each other rings, which they wore around their necks. Faith’s ring was a beautiful ruby, with two small diamonds on the side; just non-traditional enough to adhere to her ‘fuck the man’ sentiments.

“Drinky!” Buffy agreed. She’s been reduced to one-word, fairly nonsensical sentences quite a while ago. Even Spike and Will were feeling their liquor. Spike personally thought Buffy needed to drink more, so he tipped the end of her glass up, causing her to choke down more alcohol than she intended, some of it dribbling down her cheek.

“Spi-ike!” Buffy whined. She tried to lick the spilt drink off of her chin.

“Sorry. Make it better.” Spike leaned over and ran his tongue over Buffy’s chin.

“Whoa,” someone breathed.

“Yeah. It’s intense when you see it for the first time,” Lorne whispered to Alex.

“Uh huh. Damn.”

“We’re pretty much all envious,” Faith drunk-whispered to Alex. Which pretty much meant she said it normally.

“I love my wife,” Robin mumbled sarcastically, helping him to a big swig of Spike’s Jack Daniels.

“Baby you know I—what are you doing?” Faith asked Alex. The other woman shook her head, ignoring Faith and concentrating on the couple making out. Will arched an eyebrow, perfectly content to watch what was happening since Spike and Buffy had rudely left him out. Alex switched their drinks with a huge grin, keeping a careful drunk eye on her targets.

Tara stifled a giggle, burying her head in Willow’s shoulder. Giles sighed at the antics of youth, though secretly he couldn’t wait to see how this played out. Spike was currently stretching the limits of his fine British reserve, and he needed a distraction. And not the kind Anya was trying to offer. THAT just wasn’t proper in mixed company, no matter how blatantly his children were ignoring their fine upbringing.

Spike and Buffy finally pulled away, catching their breath, and turning to their audience with slightly goofy grins on their faces.

“Welcome back,” Alex smirked, taking a sip of her drink. Spike smirked and grabbed ‘his’ drink, tilting it in salute, while Buffy blushed a delicious shade of red and took a huge gulp of ‘her’ drink to cool down. Everyone held their breath as the two bottle blondes down the drinks…and promptly spit them back out. Buffy started choking as she took a deep swallow of a rum and coke, without the coke, and it burned her throat. Spike was appalled as the burning sensation he’d been expecting was replaced with something disgustingly sweet.

“What the bloody hell—“

“That’s DISGUSTING! How do you drink that?!” Everyone started cracking up, Will smirking smugly at his counterparts.

“You wanker,” Spike growled.

“I had nothing to do with this,” Will denied, serenely and deliberately sipping his drink and making a show of savoring it with due diligence.

“Alex!” Buffy yelled, fixing her friend with an accusatory glare. The brunette simply laughed at her, not showing a hint of guilt or remorse. “What do you have to say for yourself??”

“It sucks to be you!”





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