(no subject)
Childish Things, Part Twelve
“You so stayed away on purpose,” Buffy hissed at Giles accusingly as he got out of his car. Giles and the others had arrived back at Buffy’s house at the same time, both staggering up to the door weighted down by various goods.
He raised an eyebrow at her boxes of purchases. “While you presumably had some urgent important reason for being at Chocoholics Anonymous?”
Willow said quickly, “We bought you jelly donuts.”
“Do you know how much of a pain Anya has been all morning?” Buffy demanded.
“I can guess.”
“And yet you stayed away!”
Giles shook his head. “I'm astounded myself. What can I have been thinking? I was actually researching and for some reason always find that easier when not surrounded by utter chaos.”
“If there is bloodshed in there, I'm going to blame you.”
“On the grounds that because Anya works in The Magic Box I am therefore responsible for her every action?”
“No, because you’re a responsible grown up and should have been here to supervise.” Buffy inserted the key in the door and turned it smartly.
“Do I need to point out at this point that Angel is a good two hundred years older than I am? I think he can claim seniority.”
“Did I mention the donuts?” Willow said hopefully, holding up the bag.
“Jelly ones,” Tara added.
Buffy pulled open the door and they all listened carefully for sounds of mayhem.
“No one seems to be crying,” Willow offered. “That must be a good sign.”
“Dawn isn’t yelling.”
“No blood on the walls either,” Buffy conceded. “Wait! Is that dust?”
Tara stooped to examine it. “Yes, but there are also cobwebs, Buffy.”
They examined the dust in silence. “It doesn’t look like a pile,” Willow said. “More a...gathering.”
“I always assumed Angel would leave more dust than that,” Giles added comfortingly.
Buffy looked at him askance. “You think about how much dust Angel would leave?”
“Well, only when particularly bored. Anyway, that isn’t the point. The point is…”
“Why are you all whispering in the hallway like a bunch of retards?”
They turned to find Cordelia looking up at them in disbelief.
“No reason,” Giles said hastily. “And I'm thrilled to see that being reduced in size has in no way made you a slave to political correctness, Cordelia. Or indeed to basic politeness.”
“Is everything okay?” Buffy asked.
Cordelia put her hands on her hips. “You went away and left us when you thought everything might not be okay?”
“We needed chocolate.” Willow grimaced an apology.
“Oh good, because Gunn has hardly been sick enough today.”
“Gunn’s sick?” Giles frowned in anxiety. “As a side effect of the age reduction or...?”
“As a side effect of eating his own weight in chocolates,” Cordelia retorted.
“He ate all the Godivas...?” Buffy said faintly.
“No, he only ate half of them, the rest he brought up again, on your couch cushions. And I have to tell you - little kid vomit - not a pleasant odour in a closed room.”
“Thank you, Cordelia, we get the picture.” Giles held up his hands. “I would like to be able to hang onto my appetite if at all possible.”
She stood on tiptoe to look at their purchases. “You brought donuts?”
Putting his finger and thumb to his already throbbing temples, Giles murmured, “And yet I stayed away from this all morning. The mystery deepens.”
“Can you reverse the spell or can’t you?” Cordelia demanded. “Because if Wesley was life size and had access to all his usual reference books he would have worked it out by now.”
“Actually, I do believe I have come up with a spell of reversal.” Giles looked at her frostily. “And it can be implemented as soon as…”
“Not yet.” Dawn appeared in the hallway with Gunn clasped in her arms. They were both looking woebegone and in his case somewhat smeared with chocolate. “You can’t reverse the spell yet.”
Giles looked at her sympathetically. “I fear that I can, Dawn, and in fairness to the adults these children really are, I think that I should do so.”
“I won’t be able to keep him safe,” she said pitifully.
Buffy went forward and touched her hand gently. “Dawnie, you know what the situation is with Glory right now. We’re not sure that we can keep ourselves safe, never mind anyone else. She’s left us alone for a few days but there’s no guarantee it will last. We have to let them go. We have to let them be who they really are.”
“I want to be big again,” Gunn sniffed unhappily. “I never felt this sick when I was big.”
Giles lifted the little boy from Dawn’s arms, holding him somewhat awkwardly. “I doubt that you stuffed yourself with chocolate when you were big either, young man.”
“Don’t count on it,” Cordelia observed. “When he and Wes have been demon slaying they’d eat the couch cushions if you put some mayonnaise on them first. Oh, and Giles, we get a ten percent discount on all our online purchases from The Magic Box by the way.”
“On what grounds?” the man demanded as he carried Gunn into the sitting room.
“On the sound financial footing grounds that they will be promoting our store to potential customers,” Anya told him cheerfully.
“Will they indeed?” Giles looked at Cordelia again.
“And apparently they know many people who dabble in the black arts on a regular basis and who will always be in need of supplies.”
Giles looked over Gunn’s head at Angel who had followed them into the sitting room somewhat sheepishly. “Do they? Well, isn’t that reassuring.”
“The little girl has a surprisingly good grasp of profit margins,” Anya added approvingly.
Sighing, Giles said, “Angel, would you like to take your somewhat sticky young charge?”
Angel plucked Gunn from Giles’ arms. “How do you want to do this?”
“It seems to be fairly straightforward. We form a circle, place the children, the amulet and the focusing orb within it. Mix a potion. Say an incantation, and Bob’s your uncle, hey presto, abracadabra etcetera. Do you have some suitable clothing for them to wear?”
“Bathrobes.” Wesley appeared in the doorway with Xander, both of them carrying clothing of various hues.
Xander nodded. “Angel brought some day clothes for the adult them - which wasn’t bad for a vampire in total shock - but didn’t think to bring night attire. So, Cordy gets Buffy’s bathrobe, Gunn gets mine, and Wesley gets Angel’s duster because we kind of ran out of suitable bathrobes at that point. Of course, getting that coat away from Angel was no picnic either. Talk about clingy.”
“Well, last time Wesley borrowed Angel’s coat, he got laid,” Cordelia shrugged. “None of us are looking for a repeat performance of that.”
“Did something bad happen?” Buffy darted an anxious look at Wesley, thinking of the disastrous consequences of her own first night of passion.
“No,” Cordelia conceded. “Actually we got quite a lot of clients out it, but as the rest of us aren’t getting any we don’t see why Wes should either.”
“Is talking about sex now acceptable in front of small children?” Anya enquired with a frown. “Because Xander expressly told me that...”
“No,” Tara said forcefully. She took Cordelia’s hand. “Cordy, come with me and I’ll get you into your bathrobe.”
Buffy nodded. “Angel, you and Xander get Wesley and Gunn changed - you might want to wash some of the Godivas off Gunn first. We’ll start setting up the hocus pocus part of the proceedings.” Seeing how pale Wesley looked, she said quickly, “Giles knows what he’s doing and Willow is the best witch ever.”
“I know.” He looked surprised at her reassurance.
Realizing her mistake, she grimaced. “You’re always that pale, aren’t you?”
He conceded the point with a shrug. “It’s a British thing.”
“Let’s get you changed into Angel’s incredibly pretentious coat, Wes.”
Xander’s cheerful voice didn’t entirely offset the anxiety in his brown eyes, and Buffy felt just the same way. What if something went wrong? At present Wesley, Cordy and Gunn were all sound and well; mentally in good shape and for the most part able to remember their pasts. Gunn seemed to have forgotten rather more than the other two and no doubt the others were not quite the people they had been either; what Giles called the ‘biological imperative’ of being children gradually overwhelming their previous selves. But they were happy and healthy and it was scary to put them through a procedure that might do them harm.
As if reading her mind, Giles said quietly, “There’s always an element of risk, Buffy. But I have been over this spell with great care and I see no reason why it shouldn’t work with no side effects of any kind.”
“My palms are sweating,” Buffy admitted faintly. “It’s not that I don’t have complete faith in you and Willow - I do. It’s just that…if anything was to happen to them.”
“I know.” Giles took off his glasses and cleaned them. “They’re so vulnerable right now.”
“I don’t mean just for their sakes.” She took his arm gently. “I mean you and Willow. You’ve never had to perform a spell on children before. It ups the ante. I don’t want either of you having to carry the burden of something that isn’t your fault.”
Buffy felt a hand slip into hers and turned to see Dawn looking pale enough to pass out. “Where’s Gunn?” she asked faintly.
“Just changing into clothes he can grow big in,” Buffy told her gently. “It’s going to be okay, Dawn. He’s going to be fine.”
“He’s going to be stop being the Gunn I know and become someone else.” She sighed. “And I know it’s the right thing to do. But I'm going to miss him so much.”
“We’re all going to miss them, Dawn,” Giles told her. “But Angel will get his friends back and they, more importantly, will get their real lives back.”
Everyone looked sombre as they took their places for the ritual. Tara had carried Cordelia in first, dressed in a bathrobe that entirely swamped her, hands invisible inside hanging sleeves. Tara placed her in the centre of the circle, the bathrobe arranged carefully so that it covered her modesty but wasn’t belted tight enough to cut into an adult, a yard of material completely hiding her bare feet. Gunn looked ludicrous in the huge folds of Xander’s bathrobe. As Xander carried him in, Dawn rushed forward, pulled him into a last hug and kiss and said, “It’ll be fine, Gunn. You’ll be all big again in a minute.” The tears in her eyes and the quaver in her voice unfortunately offsetting some of the reassurance she had evidently been aiming for. Sat down in the circle next to Cordelia, Gunn put his thumb in his mouth and looked mournful. Draped in Angel’s duster, which the vampire had carefully buttoned up at the front for him, Wesley looked like a pale stick of big-eyed humanity. He gently unprised his hand from Angel’s grip. “Angel...?”
The vampire looked rigid with tension. “It’ll be fine, Wes,” he said automatically.
“Yes, it will,” he said gently. “But you have to let go of my hand.”
Angel did so, stepping back, then stepped forward to remove his glasses gently from his face and say, “Wes...”
“Angel, it will be fine,” Wesley told him soothingly. He hitched up the duster, having to haul up several feet of material before he could walk without tripping, and sat himself down cross-legged in the circle. Gunn and Cordelia immediately scrambled to be each side of him. He held out his hands and they held on tightly.
“We’ll soon be big again now,” he told them. “Giles and Willow know what they’re doing.” He looked up at Giles with complete confidence and then smiled at Willow.
Willow snatched a deep breath and looked at Giles. “He’s actually right, you know. We do.”
Giles nodded. “Good point. Would everyone like to take their place outside the circle and hold hands…?”
They positioned themselves around the circle while Willow handed the amulet to Angel. “You have to take back your wish.”
Nodding, he cut his hand on the edge of the amulet, grasped it, and wished that Wesley, Gunn and Cordelia would be adults again, then she handed him the focusing orb and he tentatively put his bloodied palm over the top of it. At once it began to glow. She took them from him and placed both amulet and orb in the circle in front of the children, then pulled Angel out of the circle. “The energy of the orb has to stay within the circle,” she explained. “If we did it right.”
“That twice blessed sage,” Xander murmured tautly. “Always a boy’s best friend.”
“What happens if they all end up getting turned into kids too?” Cordelia enquired.
“Try not to think of things like that, Cordelia, dear,” Tara said tautly.
“Especially not while in close proximity to a vampire-blood-activated wish amulet,” Xander muttered. “Are you two going to get with the Latin any time soon?”
“As soon as you shut up, yes,” Giles returned, before beginning to say the incantation that he had tracked down that morning.
As always Buffy thought that Latin was not a pretty language especially when it was intoned and made the air go all crackly. She could feel how tense Dawn was beside her; terrified that some harm was going to come to Gunn. Giles and Willow were both intoning sombrely, and the orb was glowing brighter and brighter, the children gripping each other’s hands so tightly that they were white. She tried to concentrate on them, wondering if she had any Slayer strength she could lend them to help them through the trauma of their bodies being ripped out of one shape and forced into another, trying to send them positive energy, knowing she should be keeping her mind pure and clear and properly spell-sensitive but finding she just wanted to murmur keep them safe, keep them safe, keep them safe over and over again.
There was a blinding flash of light. Dawn yelped next to her and jumped, and Buffy found she couldn’t see the children, they were enveloped by the light and nothing more than dim shapes.
“Is it working?” Dawn breathed in her ear. “Are they okay?”
“I don’t know…” Buffy whispered back.
And then the light flashed again and where there had been three children in oversized clothes, there were three shocked-looking adults with flash photography eyes, still holding onto each other’s hands and looking at one another in confusion.
Xander was the first to speak. “Well, what do you know - Wesley really is just as skinny as an adult, after all.”
Dawn’s jaw dropped in shock as she gazed at the young man now sitting in the place of the child she had bathed, cuddled, and taken to bed with her. Then she blushed a bright scarlet, got to her feet, and ran out of the room.
Wesley snatched a shocked breath, still having to get his bearings back. He looked first at Cordelia and then at Gunn. “Are you okay?”
“What does my hair look like?” Cordelia pressed.
“Blurry,” Wesley admitted. “Gunn...?”
“I’d say Cordy is definitely back to her old self.”
“And you?”
Gunn nodded dazedly. “I...seem to be me.”
Wesley looked in the direction where Giles had been. “Thank you. All of you.”
The relief on Giles and Willow’s faces might have been comical if it hadn’t revealed just how much pressure they had really been feeling. “Oh...” Willow waved a hand breathlessly. “It was nothing.”
“Just terrifying from start to finish,” Giles conceded.
Angel tentatively handed Wesley the adult-sized version of his glasses. “Are you okay?”
“Well, I'm still mad at you,” Cordy told him. “So I reckon I must be cured.”
Wesley looked at her anxiously. “I thought we were going to...”
Cordelia rose majestically to her feet, clasping the bathrobe around her as if it was a fur coat and she was a nineteen forties movie star. “Be all magnanimous and forgivey? You never learn, do you? If you’d played your cards right last time Angel screwed us over you could have got that DVD player you wanted a month ago.”
Xander got to his feet. “I’d say we have full restoration, folks. Personality defects and all.” But he was beaming at her all the same.
Cordelia tossed back her hair and grinned back at him. “Hey, Prom Dress Guy. Who are you calling defective?”
Xander looked her up and down. “From where I'm standing, Cord, you appear to be in perfect working order.”
“Is this flirtation?” Anya demanded.
“No, no,” Wesley hastily got to his feet and offered a hand to Gunn. “Simple friendship, I assure you.”
As Gunn stood up, Buffy’s eyes widened. “He really is the tallest.”
Willow also looked up at him. “He’s very tall. And very...not a little boy at all.”
Gunn belted Xander’s bathrobe hastily. “Some of recent events are a little fuzzy, but would I be right in thinking I was...?”
“An utter bratty pest and a nuisance to everyone in this house?” Cordelia supplied. “Yeah. Pretty much. And you know how we’ve sometimes said it was a pity we didn’t meet up earlier - well, it so wasn’t.”
“Cordelia...” Wesley reproached quietly. “I really don’t think that Gunn can be held accountable for the actions of his four year old self.”
Gunn looked around the room in incipient horror. “Where’s Dawn?”
Cordelia was ruthless. “Oh, you mean the fourteen year old girl whose bed you’ve been sleeping in for the best part of a week? That Dawn?”
“Oh God...” Gunn staggered backwards. “I let her give me a bath. Lots of baths.”
“I did try to warn you,” Wesley said, not unsympathetically.
“He’s really tall.” Buffy was still gazing up at him.
“And really handsome.” Willow looked quickly at Tara. “I'm just saying.”
“Very handsome,” Tara admitted.
“Did we cover tall yet?” Buffy asked a little breathlessly. “And handsome...?”
“I need to apologise to her. I need to...lock myself up as a total pervert!” Gunn put his hands to his face in horror.
“You were a little boy,” Giles told him. “It’s really as if you and Dawn are meeting for the first time in this...incarnation.”
“Yeah, try telling that to the judge,” Cordelia snorted.
“Cordy, really not helping with your friend’s trauma here,” Xander pointed out.
“He got chocolate on my new dress on purpose. I figure he has it coming.”
Giles turned to Buffy, Willow and Tara in exasperation. “Would you three stop salivating for a moment and say something helpful? Willow, I expect Buffy to turn into a puddle of hormones every time a passably good looking man crosses her path but I don’t really see any excuse for you and Tara.”
“He’s just so tall,” Willow said helplessly. “And Gunn was so little. Other Gunn, I mean. And he was such a little kid. All cute in his jammies and sucking his thumb and... He’s just so tall.”
“And handsome,” Tara supplied helpfully.
Giles turned to Angel. “Would you like to chime in with something helpful?”
“Please don’t stake me, I'm sorry?” Angel offered.
“No one is staking anyone.” Wesley stepped awkwardly out of the circle. “Angel, it was an honest mistake and no one blames you, and anyone saying that they do is just trying to emotionally blackmail consumer goods out of you so I suggest that you ignore her.” He looked pointedly at Cordelia. “I think the important thing here is to - get Gunn into therapy - and then thank Buffy and her friends properly for their unbelievable tolerance and patience over the past few days.”
“Even as a human male of ordinary age and dimensions he shows excellent manners,” Anya observed. She turned to Xander. “I hope that you would behave equally well if the circumstances were reversed.”
Wesley said with feeling, “No one could have behaved better than Xander has. Given that the last time I was here I wasn’t exactly… Well, given that he and I didn’t really hit it off and I was…”
“Doing your best to steal my girl with your suave sophistication and unfairly clear diction.” Xander nodded. “What can I say? I'm a prince.”
“You really are,” Wesley told him warmly.
“I let her give me a bath....” Gunn was still standing in the circle gazing into space.
Wesley reached out and took his hand again, coaxing him gently out of the circle. “Really, Gunn, there were extenuating circumstances.”
Gunn looked at him in horror. “She’s fourteen!”
“You know if you want to feel bad about something it should really be about getting chocolate on my dress,” Cordelia told him.
Giles nudged Buffy. “Dawn’s your sister, say something reassuring.”
Buffy said faintly. “He’s so tall. And handsome.”
“Oh for goodness sake.” Giles rolled his eyes. “Gunn - you were four years old. Snap out of it. Angel, say something useful. Wesley, you’re entirely welcome and I'm glad I could be of service. Cordelia, fetching as you look in that bathrobe, I don’t think it’s escaped anyone’s attention that you and Buffy are rather different shapes. Perhaps some clothing might be in order?”
Cordelia looked down at her escaping décolletage and looked horrified. “Powder blue? I'm wearing a powder blue bathrobe that seems to have come from the bargain bin at Walmart? Angel, where are my clothes?”
He pointed to a bag on the floor. She snatched it up and disappeared at speed in the direction of the bathroom.
“I see that whole being a conduit for the visions thing has really changed Cordy’s priorities,” Xander observed.
Wesley winced. “She really is a much less shallow person these days, you know.”
“I need a hairbrush. Now!” Cordelia shouted from the bathroom.
Wesley grimaced. “Of course, in times of stress, some reversion is probably inevitable....”
“I let her give me a bath....”
“Angel…” Wesley hissed at him. “Say something to Gunn.”
Angel shrugged helplessly. “You looked really cute in your Winnie the Pooh pyjamas.”
“Oh god.” Gunn sank down onto the couch.
Anya looked at him curiously. “In some cultures, fourteen would be considered a marriageable age.”
“In the Everglades it probably still is,” Xander said brightly.
“Oh for goodness sake, he could barely tie his own shoelaces without adult supervision. I don’t think we need to be comparing him with Jerry Lee Lewis just yet.” Giles hit Angel on the arm. “Say something useful.”
“Giles is right, Gunn.” Angel patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “You were just a little kid. You didn’t do anything wrong. Well, except for kicking me on purpose and trying to get chocolate on Cordy’s new dress, and maybe being sick on the couch but…”
“Thank you, Angel.” Wesley looked at him hard. “Not helpful.”
“I was making a point,” Angel retorted. “Gunn, think about it. You acted like a kid. A four year old kid. Which is what you were. Four year olds get bathed by people older than them. It’s entirely innocent. Right, Buffy?” As they all glanced at Buffy, she giggled awkwardly and twisted her finger in her hair before self-consciously straightening her dress and then glancing at Gunn again.
Giles took her by the arm and led her firmly away from the couch. “Go and find Dawn,” he suggested. “Tell her she didn’t do anything wrong and that she doesn’t need to worry about it. And don’t come back until you can be in the same room as Gunn without simpering like an adolescent schoolgirl.” As she opened her mouth he held up a warning finger, “And if anyone happens to mention Gunn’s height or looks to me again, I swear I will snap like a rotten twig....”
***
“How are they doing?” Gunn whispered.
Wesley edged back to the door and opened it a crack, peering through into the kitchen. He grimaced. “Willow and Tara are gazing mournfully at Small Cordelia’s shoes. Buffy is holding Small Gunn’s Winnie the Pooh pyjama jacket while eating chocolate. Giles is…oh…” Wesley raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Giles is examining my junior-sized glasses. Angel appears to be brooding. No sign of Dawn, Xander or Anya.” They had all changed into their adult clothes, hoping the time that had taken would give everyone else a chance to deal but so far there still seemed to be a general air of mourning pervading the house.
“It’s hit them hard.” Cordelia sat down on the couch next to Gunn. “I feel badly now. We should have been less lovable.”
“I certainly gave it the good old college try.” Gunn ran a hand over his newly shaven head. “I was the brat from hell.”
“You were cute, Charles.” Wesley glanced over his shoulder. “You were cute enough to stop a stampeding elephant in its tracks.”
Cordelia shrugged. “I didn’t think he was that cute.”
“Try telling that to the women in there mourning never getting to see him wear his Tigger jammies again.”
Cordelia sniffed. “I think Willow and Tara are much more upset about losing me. Little girl me, I mean. There’s no fun buying boys’ clothes. They only fall over and get them dirty and rip them. Look at you and Gunn. Even if I met some billionaire tomorrow, married him in a whirlwind weekend romance, had access to his bank account by the next working day and bought you designer clothes, would you keep them nice?”
“Probably not while battling sewer demons.” Wesley closed the door and backed away carefully.
Anya’s voice wafted in from the garden: “…but what likelihood would there be that any small children we produced would resemble Wesley? It seems to me that only by breeding with the adult version could there be any guarantee of success… No, Xander, I'm not suggesting that I leave you for Wesley, I'm merely pointing out the flaw in your plan and the very real possibility that I might, in fact, be left to bring up the kind of small children that are annoying and sticky-fingered and have unpleasant emissions from their noses instead of the polite quiet ones…”
“Anya, I kind of think you’re missing the point here. They would be our children, that’s the point. And most children aren’t like Wesley was when he was a kid because most children don’t get locked in dark cupboards just because they happened to step on a squeaky floorboard when there’s an ‘R’ in the month… Most children are like Gunn, only not quite so cute…”
“Have you considered the very real economic benefits of the vasectomy…?”
Cordelia hastily closed the window and pulled the drapes across. “Okay. Just as a matter of interest. I was never that tactless, right?”
“No.” Wesley shook his head. “Never.”
“Because you know that when I say things to you that might sound completely insensitive and even cruel, it’s only because I'm doing it for your own good, or maybe working some subtle reverse psychology, or possibly thinking about something else at the time, right? And I don’t even need to go near time of the month now, do I?”
Wesley nodded. “Oh, absolutely not, and please don’t.”
Cordelia looked at Gunn. “You can come in with the rousing agreement any time now.”
“What? Oh, right. Sure. We know that when you say things that would make anyone else cut out their own tongue in shame that it’s just part of your unique charm.”
“Good.” She nodded. “So, I know you’re going to take this the right way then when I tell you that you need to stop sitting there wallowing in self-pity and go and fix things with Dawn.”
“What?” Gunn looked up at her in shock.
“Last time I checked you were twenty-three again and had at least some world experience. She’s fourteen and doesn’t. If you’re a little wigged by recent events how do you think she’s feeling?”
“But…” Gunn looked towards the yard. “I… I was thinking maybe someone else… Or maybe....”
“Or maybe nothing, you big wuss. You need to make sure that she doesn’t think she did anything for which she needs to wake up in a cold sweat in the wee small hours thinking ‘kill me, kill me now’.”
Wesley grimaced. “Cordelia has a point, Gunn. Not that I have any experience of them - at all really - but I understand that things matter a great deal to girls of that age and they can sometimes get things blown up out of proportion. She did seem pretty upset and it’s possible she thinks she did something wrong. I don’t think anyone except you can tell her that she didn’t.”
Gunn sighed. “You’re saying I have to act like I don’t feel weird about how totally weird this situation is so she won’t think it’s weird?”
Cordelia nodded emphatically. “Exactly. Because if ever a situation needed de-weirding - this would be it.”
Wesley glanced back into the kitchen. “They all look so miserable. Do you think it’s really because we were likeable children or just because we’re really unlikeable adults?”
Cordelia gave him one of her ‘looks’. “Good to see you left that insecurity about being unlovable way back there in your childhood, Wes. Can you try not being such a walking therapy case?”
“I'm a ‘walking therapy’ case? Which one of us has a hair fetish that makes it impossible for her to walk past a mirror without checking her coiffure?”
“Well, someone in the firm has to care about their appearance, because let’s face it - you and Gunn - not going to be winning any Best Dressed Demon Killer awards any time soon.”
“High fashion being such an important part of dismembering slime monsters, of course.”
“Angel manages to do battle with the undead in a way that’s stylish. As do I. It’s only you and Gunn letting the side down.”
“Because that’s what’s really important when a six-clawed slargal beast is trying to rip out one’s intestines. Just remind me, exactly how many times have lives been saved by a monster deciding against trying to devour someone because of his or her Gucci labels?”
“Children…”
They both turned around to find the kitchen door open and Angel standing there with his arms folded, grinning at them.
“That’s so strange,” Buffy said in awe. “They really did wait until they were adults again to start squabbling like eight year olds.”
“We do not squabble like…” Wesley began with dignity and then shrugged. “Well, anyway, Cordelia started it.”
“And I would have finished it too, buster, if we hadn’t been interrupted, because the day you win an argument with me - let’s just say there will be demons lacing on their ice skates in hell before that happens.”
Angel’s grin got wider and he turned to Buffy and Giles with every sign of pride. “God, I missed this. They’re so cute when they fight.”
“You hate it when we fight,” Cordelia pointed out.
“I know. But I'm nostalgic for it now. It’s been too long.”
Wesley and Cordelia exchanged a glance. “It’s no fun if he likes it.” Cordelia shook back her hair. “Truce?”
“Truce.” He leant across and kissed her on the cheek.
She touched his bruised cheekbone gently. “You’re all still beaten up looking, even though you’re big again.”
“But no one will call social services and get us taken into care because of it,” he pointed out cheerfully.
“True. They’ll just think you’re a victim of domestic violence.”
“I don’t think you look the abusive type.”
She smacked him on the arm. “Not me, dumbass! Angel would be the obvious suspect. You look the battered boyfriend type. Hey! People will think we’re here as an intervention.”
Wesley rubbed his arm. “I was obviously wrong about you not being the abusive type.”
“Hey, if I was abusing you, sunshine, I’d do it in places that didn’t show and do it so well you’d be too scared to tell anyone.”
“I believe you. Bondage Cordelia, Marchioness de Sade, now lives in my imagination.”
“If in another dimension there’s an evil vamp Willow who’s into that stuff you can bet your skinny British ass there’s an evil me out there somewhere too.”
Wesley frowned. “You mean you’re not the Evil Cordy of the universe...?”
“Okay, now there will be pain.” Cordelia gave his ear a sharp twist.
“Ow! Ow! Cordelia!”
Angel sighed happily. “This is where I came in. Wesley was sniping. Cordelia was bullying him. Gunn was complaining about the sniping and bullying. Happy days.”
Buffy looked at him sideways. “You’re a really disturbed dysfunctional unit up there in LA, aren’t you?”
“You haven’t even met the Host yet.” Angel was still smiling fondly. “Our emotional well being and spiritual guidance rests in the hands of a green-skinned red-eyed anagogic demon with a taste for Sea Breezes and the courage to wear sky blue and tangerine in close conjunction. We’d be lost without him.”
Willow gasped in shock at the sight of Cordelia twisting Wesley’s ear. “Didn’t Cordelia become adult properly? Did a part of her stay regressed?”
“Only the part that already was,” Wesley managed. “Ow!”
“Cordy!” Tara said in shock. “What are you doing to Wesley?”
At once Cordelia let him go and stepped back. “Nothing. And he asked for it. And anyway - it was his fault.”
Wesley rubbed his earlobe sulkily. “If I wasn’t a gentleman I’d…” As Cordelia loomed at him threateningly he said hastily: “Have to kiss you for looking so lovely in that fetching new outfit.”
“Hah! You don’t soft soap your way out of this one, buddy.” Cordelia caught a glimpse of her reflection. “What do you mean ‘new outfit’? I’ve had this for years.”
“But on you it looks brand new,” he assured her. “It’s the way you wear them.”
“You’re really scared of me, aren’t you?”
Wesley cradled his ear protectively. “Well, you have very long fingernails.”
“I rule.” She preened.
“It’s all right for Gunn,” Wesley muttered. “You can’t reach his ears unless you’re wearing heels. Where is he anyway?”
As they all looked around for the missing man, Buffy gave a little gasp. “Oh, there he is.”
They followed her gaze out into the yard where he was cautiously approaching a despondent looking Dawn.
“It looks like Gunn is taking your advice, Cordelia,” Wesley observed.
Cordelia shrugged. “Of course. As I said, I rule.”
Wesley fingered his sore ear again. “With an iron fist.”
Part Thirteen
***
“You so stayed away on purpose,” Buffy hissed at Giles accusingly as he got out of his car. Giles and the others had arrived back at Buffy’s house at the same time, both staggering up to the door weighted down by various goods.
He raised an eyebrow at her boxes of purchases. “While you presumably had some urgent important reason for being at Chocoholics Anonymous?”
Willow said quickly, “We bought you jelly donuts.”
“Do you know how much of a pain Anya has been all morning?” Buffy demanded.
“I can guess.”
“And yet you stayed away!”
Giles shook his head. “I'm astounded myself. What can I have been thinking? I was actually researching and for some reason always find that easier when not surrounded by utter chaos.”
“If there is bloodshed in there, I'm going to blame you.”
“On the grounds that because Anya works in The Magic Box I am therefore responsible for her every action?”
“No, because you’re a responsible grown up and should have been here to supervise.” Buffy inserted the key in the door and turned it smartly.
“Do I need to point out at this point that Angel is a good two hundred years older than I am? I think he can claim seniority.”
“Did I mention the donuts?” Willow said hopefully, holding up the bag.
“Jelly ones,” Tara added.
Buffy pulled open the door and they all listened carefully for sounds of mayhem.
“No one seems to be crying,” Willow offered. “That must be a good sign.”
“Dawn isn’t yelling.”
“No blood on the walls either,” Buffy conceded. “Wait! Is that dust?”
Tara stooped to examine it. “Yes, but there are also cobwebs, Buffy.”
They examined the dust in silence. “It doesn’t look like a pile,” Willow said. “More a...gathering.”
“I always assumed Angel would leave more dust than that,” Giles added comfortingly.
Buffy looked at him askance. “You think about how much dust Angel would leave?”
“Well, only when particularly bored. Anyway, that isn’t the point. The point is…”
“Why are you all whispering in the hallway like a bunch of retards?”
They turned to find Cordelia looking up at them in disbelief.
“No reason,” Giles said hastily. “And I'm thrilled to see that being reduced in size has in no way made you a slave to political correctness, Cordelia. Or indeed to basic politeness.”
“Is everything okay?” Buffy asked.
Cordelia put her hands on her hips. “You went away and left us when you thought everything might not be okay?”
“We needed chocolate.” Willow grimaced an apology.
“Oh good, because Gunn has hardly been sick enough today.”
“Gunn’s sick?” Giles frowned in anxiety. “As a side effect of the age reduction or...?”
“As a side effect of eating his own weight in chocolates,” Cordelia retorted.
“He ate all the Godivas...?” Buffy said faintly.
“No, he only ate half of them, the rest he brought up again, on your couch cushions. And I have to tell you - little kid vomit - not a pleasant odour in a closed room.”
“Thank you, Cordelia, we get the picture.” Giles held up his hands. “I would like to be able to hang onto my appetite if at all possible.”
She stood on tiptoe to look at their purchases. “You brought donuts?”
Putting his finger and thumb to his already throbbing temples, Giles murmured, “And yet I stayed away from this all morning. The mystery deepens.”
“Can you reverse the spell or can’t you?” Cordelia demanded. “Because if Wesley was life size and had access to all his usual reference books he would have worked it out by now.”
“Actually, I do believe I have come up with a spell of reversal.” Giles looked at her frostily. “And it can be implemented as soon as…”
“Not yet.” Dawn appeared in the hallway with Gunn clasped in her arms. They were both looking woebegone and in his case somewhat smeared with chocolate. “You can’t reverse the spell yet.”
Giles looked at her sympathetically. “I fear that I can, Dawn, and in fairness to the adults these children really are, I think that I should do so.”
“I won’t be able to keep him safe,” she said pitifully.
Buffy went forward and touched her hand gently. “Dawnie, you know what the situation is with Glory right now. We’re not sure that we can keep ourselves safe, never mind anyone else. She’s left us alone for a few days but there’s no guarantee it will last. We have to let them go. We have to let them be who they really are.”
“I want to be big again,” Gunn sniffed unhappily. “I never felt this sick when I was big.”
Giles lifted the little boy from Dawn’s arms, holding him somewhat awkwardly. “I doubt that you stuffed yourself with chocolate when you were big either, young man.”
“Don’t count on it,” Cordelia observed. “When he and Wes have been demon slaying they’d eat the couch cushions if you put some mayonnaise on them first. Oh, and Giles, we get a ten percent discount on all our online purchases from The Magic Box by the way.”
“On what grounds?” the man demanded as he carried Gunn into the sitting room.
“On the sound financial footing grounds that they will be promoting our store to potential customers,” Anya told him cheerfully.
“Will they indeed?” Giles looked at Cordelia again.
“And apparently they know many people who dabble in the black arts on a regular basis and who will always be in need of supplies.”
Giles looked over Gunn’s head at Angel who had followed them into the sitting room somewhat sheepishly. “Do they? Well, isn’t that reassuring.”
“The little girl has a surprisingly good grasp of profit margins,” Anya added approvingly.
Sighing, Giles said, “Angel, would you like to take your somewhat sticky young charge?”
Angel plucked Gunn from Giles’ arms. “How do you want to do this?”
“It seems to be fairly straightforward. We form a circle, place the children, the amulet and the focusing orb within it. Mix a potion. Say an incantation, and Bob’s your uncle, hey presto, abracadabra etcetera. Do you have some suitable clothing for them to wear?”
“Bathrobes.” Wesley appeared in the doorway with Xander, both of them carrying clothing of various hues.
Xander nodded. “Angel brought some day clothes for the adult them - which wasn’t bad for a vampire in total shock - but didn’t think to bring night attire. So, Cordy gets Buffy’s bathrobe, Gunn gets mine, and Wesley gets Angel’s duster because we kind of ran out of suitable bathrobes at that point. Of course, getting that coat away from Angel was no picnic either. Talk about clingy.”
“Well, last time Wesley borrowed Angel’s coat, he got laid,” Cordelia shrugged. “None of us are looking for a repeat performance of that.”
“Did something bad happen?” Buffy darted an anxious look at Wesley, thinking of the disastrous consequences of her own first night of passion.
“No,” Cordelia conceded. “Actually we got quite a lot of clients out it, but as the rest of us aren’t getting any we don’t see why Wes should either.”
“Is talking about sex now acceptable in front of small children?” Anya enquired with a frown. “Because Xander expressly told me that...”
“No,” Tara said forcefully. She took Cordelia’s hand. “Cordy, come with me and I’ll get you into your bathrobe.”
Buffy nodded. “Angel, you and Xander get Wesley and Gunn changed - you might want to wash some of the Godivas off Gunn first. We’ll start setting up the hocus pocus part of the proceedings.” Seeing how pale Wesley looked, she said quickly, “Giles knows what he’s doing and Willow is the best witch ever.”
“I know.” He looked surprised at her reassurance.
Realizing her mistake, she grimaced. “You’re always that pale, aren’t you?”
He conceded the point with a shrug. “It’s a British thing.”
“Let’s get you changed into Angel’s incredibly pretentious coat, Wes.”
Xander’s cheerful voice didn’t entirely offset the anxiety in his brown eyes, and Buffy felt just the same way. What if something went wrong? At present Wesley, Cordy and Gunn were all sound and well; mentally in good shape and for the most part able to remember their pasts. Gunn seemed to have forgotten rather more than the other two and no doubt the others were not quite the people they had been either; what Giles called the ‘biological imperative’ of being children gradually overwhelming their previous selves. But they were happy and healthy and it was scary to put them through a procedure that might do them harm.
As if reading her mind, Giles said quietly, “There’s always an element of risk, Buffy. But I have been over this spell with great care and I see no reason why it shouldn’t work with no side effects of any kind.”
“My palms are sweating,” Buffy admitted faintly. “It’s not that I don’t have complete faith in you and Willow - I do. It’s just that…if anything was to happen to them.”
“I know.” Giles took off his glasses and cleaned them. “They’re so vulnerable right now.”
“I don’t mean just for their sakes.” She took his arm gently. “I mean you and Willow. You’ve never had to perform a spell on children before. It ups the ante. I don’t want either of you having to carry the burden of something that isn’t your fault.”
Buffy felt a hand slip into hers and turned to see Dawn looking pale enough to pass out. “Where’s Gunn?” she asked faintly.
“Just changing into clothes he can grow big in,” Buffy told her gently. “It’s going to be okay, Dawn. He’s going to be fine.”
“He’s going to be stop being the Gunn I know and become someone else.” She sighed. “And I know it’s the right thing to do. But I'm going to miss him so much.”
“We’re all going to miss them, Dawn,” Giles told her. “But Angel will get his friends back and they, more importantly, will get their real lives back.”
Everyone looked sombre as they took their places for the ritual. Tara had carried Cordelia in first, dressed in a bathrobe that entirely swamped her, hands invisible inside hanging sleeves. Tara placed her in the centre of the circle, the bathrobe arranged carefully so that it covered her modesty but wasn’t belted tight enough to cut into an adult, a yard of material completely hiding her bare feet. Gunn looked ludicrous in the huge folds of Xander’s bathrobe. As Xander carried him in, Dawn rushed forward, pulled him into a last hug and kiss and said, “It’ll be fine, Gunn. You’ll be all big again in a minute.” The tears in her eyes and the quaver in her voice unfortunately offsetting some of the reassurance she had evidently been aiming for. Sat down in the circle next to Cordelia, Gunn put his thumb in his mouth and looked mournful. Draped in Angel’s duster, which the vampire had carefully buttoned up at the front for him, Wesley looked like a pale stick of big-eyed humanity. He gently unprised his hand from Angel’s grip. “Angel...?”
The vampire looked rigid with tension. “It’ll be fine, Wes,” he said automatically.
“Yes, it will,” he said gently. “But you have to let go of my hand.”
Angel did so, stepping back, then stepped forward to remove his glasses gently from his face and say, “Wes...”
“Angel, it will be fine,” Wesley told him soothingly. He hitched up the duster, having to haul up several feet of material before he could walk without tripping, and sat himself down cross-legged in the circle. Gunn and Cordelia immediately scrambled to be each side of him. He held out his hands and they held on tightly.
“We’ll soon be big again now,” he told them. “Giles and Willow know what they’re doing.” He looked up at Giles with complete confidence and then smiled at Willow.
Willow snatched a deep breath and looked at Giles. “He’s actually right, you know. We do.”
Giles nodded. “Good point. Would everyone like to take their place outside the circle and hold hands…?”
They positioned themselves around the circle while Willow handed the amulet to Angel. “You have to take back your wish.”
Nodding, he cut his hand on the edge of the amulet, grasped it, and wished that Wesley, Gunn and Cordelia would be adults again, then she handed him the focusing orb and he tentatively put his bloodied palm over the top of it. At once it began to glow. She took them from him and placed both amulet and orb in the circle in front of the children, then pulled Angel out of the circle. “The energy of the orb has to stay within the circle,” she explained. “If we did it right.”
“That twice blessed sage,” Xander murmured tautly. “Always a boy’s best friend.”
“What happens if they all end up getting turned into kids too?” Cordelia enquired.
“Try not to think of things like that, Cordelia, dear,” Tara said tautly.
“Especially not while in close proximity to a vampire-blood-activated wish amulet,” Xander muttered. “Are you two going to get with the Latin any time soon?”
“As soon as you shut up, yes,” Giles returned, before beginning to say the incantation that he had tracked down that morning.
As always Buffy thought that Latin was not a pretty language especially when it was intoned and made the air go all crackly. She could feel how tense Dawn was beside her; terrified that some harm was going to come to Gunn. Giles and Willow were both intoning sombrely, and the orb was glowing brighter and brighter, the children gripping each other’s hands so tightly that they were white. She tried to concentrate on them, wondering if she had any Slayer strength she could lend them to help them through the trauma of their bodies being ripped out of one shape and forced into another, trying to send them positive energy, knowing she should be keeping her mind pure and clear and properly spell-sensitive but finding she just wanted to murmur keep them safe, keep them safe, keep them safe over and over again.
There was a blinding flash of light. Dawn yelped next to her and jumped, and Buffy found she couldn’t see the children, they were enveloped by the light and nothing more than dim shapes.
“Is it working?” Dawn breathed in her ear. “Are they okay?”
“I don’t know…” Buffy whispered back.
And then the light flashed again and where there had been three children in oversized clothes, there were three shocked-looking adults with flash photography eyes, still holding onto each other’s hands and looking at one another in confusion.
Xander was the first to speak. “Well, what do you know - Wesley really is just as skinny as an adult, after all.”
Dawn’s jaw dropped in shock as she gazed at the young man now sitting in the place of the child she had bathed, cuddled, and taken to bed with her. Then she blushed a bright scarlet, got to her feet, and ran out of the room.
Wesley snatched a shocked breath, still having to get his bearings back. He looked first at Cordelia and then at Gunn. “Are you okay?”
“What does my hair look like?” Cordelia pressed.
“Blurry,” Wesley admitted. “Gunn...?”
“I’d say Cordy is definitely back to her old self.”
“And you?”
Gunn nodded dazedly. “I...seem to be me.”
Wesley looked in the direction where Giles had been. “Thank you. All of you.”
The relief on Giles and Willow’s faces might have been comical if it hadn’t revealed just how much pressure they had really been feeling. “Oh...” Willow waved a hand breathlessly. “It was nothing.”
“Just terrifying from start to finish,” Giles conceded.
Angel tentatively handed Wesley the adult-sized version of his glasses. “Are you okay?”
“Well, I'm still mad at you,” Cordy told him. “So I reckon I must be cured.”
Wesley looked at her anxiously. “I thought we were going to...”
Cordelia rose majestically to her feet, clasping the bathrobe around her as if it was a fur coat and she was a nineteen forties movie star. “Be all magnanimous and forgivey? You never learn, do you? If you’d played your cards right last time Angel screwed us over you could have got that DVD player you wanted a month ago.”
Xander got to his feet. “I’d say we have full restoration, folks. Personality defects and all.” But he was beaming at her all the same.
Cordelia tossed back her hair and grinned back at him. “Hey, Prom Dress Guy. Who are you calling defective?”
Xander looked her up and down. “From where I'm standing, Cord, you appear to be in perfect working order.”
“Is this flirtation?” Anya demanded.
“No, no,” Wesley hastily got to his feet and offered a hand to Gunn. “Simple friendship, I assure you.”
As Gunn stood up, Buffy’s eyes widened. “He really is the tallest.”
Willow also looked up at him. “He’s very tall. And very...not a little boy at all.”
Gunn belted Xander’s bathrobe hastily. “Some of recent events are a little fuzzy, but would I be right in thinking I was...?”
“An utter bratty pest and a nuisance to everyone in this house?” Cordelia supplied. “Yeah. Pretty much. And you know how we’ve sometimes said it was a pity we didn’t meet up earlier - well, it so wasn’t.”
“Cordelia...” Wesley reproached quietly. “I really don’t think that Gunn can be held accountable for the actions of his four year old self.”
Gunn looked around the room in incipient horror. “Where’s Dawn?”
Cordelia was ruthless. “Oh, you mean the fourteen year old girl whose bed you’ve been sleeping in for the best part of a week? That Dawn?”
“Oh God...” Gunn staggered backwards. “I let her give me a bath. Lots of baths.”
“I did try to warn you,” Wesley said, not unsympathetically.
“He’s really tall.” Buffy was still gazing up at him.
“And really handsome.” Willow looked quickly at Tara. “I'm just saying.”
“Very handsome,” Tara admitted.
“Did we cover tall yet?” Buffy asked a little breathlessly. “And handsome...?”
“I need to apologise to her. I need to...lock myself up as a total pervert!” Gunn put his hands to his face in horror.
“You were a little boy,” Giles told him. “It’s really as if you and Dawn are meeting for the first time in this...incarnation.”
“Yeah, try telling that to the judge,” Cordelia snorted.
“Cordy, really not helping with your friend’s trauma here,” Xander pointed out.
“He got chocolate on my new dress on purpose. I figure he has it coming.”
Giles turned to Buffy, Willow and Tara in exasperation. “Would you three stop salivating for a moment and say something helpful? Willow, I expect Buffy to turn into a puddle of hormones every time a passably good looking man crosses her path but I don’t really see any excuse for you and Tara.”
“He’s just so tall,” Willow said helplessly. “And Gunn was so little. Other Gunn, I mean. And he was such a little kid. All cute in his jammies and sucking his thumb and... He’s just so tall.”
“And handsome,” Tara supplied helpfully.
Giles turned to Angel. “Would you like to chime in with something helpful?”
“Please don’t stake me, I'm sorry?” Angel offered.
“No one is staking anyone.” Wesley stepped awkwardly out of the circle. “Angel, it was an honest mistake and no one blames you, and anyone saying that they do is just trying to emotionally blackmail consumer goods out of you so I suggest that you ignore her.” He looked pointedly at Cordelia. “I think the important thing here is to - get Gunn into therapy - and then thank Buffy and her friends properly for their unbelievable tolerance and patience over the past few days.”
“Even as a human male of ordinary age and dimensions he shows excellent manners,” Anya observed. She turned to Xander. “I hope that you would behave equally well if the circumstances were reversed.”
Wesley said with feeling, “No one could have behaved better than Xander has. Given that the last time I was here I wasn’t exactly… Well, given that he and I didn’t really hit it off and I was…”
“Doing your best to steal my girl with your suave sophistication and unfairly clear diction.” Xander nodded. “What can I say? I'm a prince.”
“You really are,” Wesley told him warmly.
“I let her give me a bath....” Gunn was still standing in the circle gazing into space.
Wesley reached out and took his hand again, coaxing him gently out of the circle. “Really, Gunn, there were extenuating circumstances.”
Gunn looked at him in horror. “She’s fourteen!”
“You know if you want to feel bad about something it should really be about getting chocolate on my dress,” Cordelia told him.
Giles nudged Buffy. “Dawn’s your sister, say something reassuring.”
Buffy said faintly. “He’s so tall. And handsome.”
“Oh for goodness sake.” Giles rolled his eyes. “Gunn - you were four years old. Snap out of it. Angel, say something useful. Wesley, you’re entirely welcome and I'm glad I could be of service. Cordelia, fetching as you look in that bathrobe, I don’t think it’s escaped anyone’s attention that you and Buffy are rather different shapes. Perhaps some clothing might be in order?”
Cordelia looked down at her escaping décolletage and looked horrified. “Powder blue? I'm wearing a powder blue bathrobe that seems to have come from the bargain bin at Walmart? Angel, where are my clothes?”
He pointed to a bag on the floor. She snatched it up and disappeared at speed in the direction of the bathroom.
“I see that whole being a conduit for the visions thing has really changed Cordy’s priorities,” Xander observed.
Wesley winced. “She really is a much less shallow person these days, you know.”
“I need a hairbrush. Now!” Cordelia shouted from the bathroom.
Wesley grimaced. “Of course, in times of stress, some reversion is probably inevitable....”
“I let her give me a bath....”
“Angel…” Wesley hissed at him. “Say something to Gunn.”
Angel shrugged helplessly. “You looked really cute in your Winnie the Pooh pyjamas.”
“Oh god.” Gunn sank down onto the couch.
Anya looked at him curiously. “In some cultures, fourteen would be considered a marriageable age.”
“In the Everglades it probably still is,” Xander said brightly.
“Oh for goodness sake, he could barely tie his own shoelaces without adult supervision. I don’t think we need to be comparing him with Jerry Lee Lewis just yet.” Giles hit Angel on the arm. “Say something useful.”
“Giles is right, Gunn.” Angel patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “You were just a little kid. You didn’t do anything wrong. Well, except for kicking me on purpose and trying to get chocolate on Cordy’s new dress, and maybe being sick on the couch but…”
“Thank you, Angel.” Wesley looked at him hard. “Not helpful.”
“I was making a point,” Angel retorted. “Gunn, think about it. You acted like a kid. A four year old kid. Which is what you were. Four year olds get bathed by people older than them. It’s entirely innocent. Right, Buffy?” As they all glanced at Buffy, she giggled awkwardly and twisted her finger in her hair before self-consciously straightening her dress and then glancing at Gunn again.
Giles took her by the arm and led her firmly away from the couch. “Go and find Dawn,” he suggested. “Tell her she didn’t do anything wrong and that she doesn’t need to worry about it. And don’t come back until you can be in the same room as Gunn without simpering like an adolescent schoolgirl.” As she opened her mouth he held up a warning finger, “And if anyone happens to mention Gunn’s height or looks to me again, I swear I will snap like a rotten twig....”
***
“How are they doing?” Gunn whispered.
Wesley edged back to the door and opened it a crack, peering through into the kitchen. He grimaced. “Willow and Tara are gazing mournfully at Small Cordelia’s shoes. Buffy is holding Small Gunn’s Winnie the Pooh pyjama jacket while eating chocolate. Giles is…oh…” Wesley raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Giles is examining my junior-sized glasses. Angel appears to be brooding. No sign of Dawn, Xander or Anya.” They had all changed into their adult clothes, hoping the time that had taken would give everyone else a chance to deal but so far there still seemed to be a general air of mourning pervading the house.
“It’s hit them hard.” Cordelia sat down on the couch next to Gunn. “I feel badly now. We should have been less lovable.”
“I certainly gave it the good old college try.” Gunn ran a hand over his newly shaven head. “I was the brat from hell.”
“You were cute, Charles.” Wesley glanced over his shoulder. “You were cute enough to stop a stampeding elephant in its tracks.”
Cordelia shrugged. “I didn’t think he was that cute.”
“Try telling that to the women in there mourning never getting to see him wear his Tigger jammies again.”
Cordelia sniffed. “I think Willow and Tara are much more upset about losing me. Little girl me, I mean. There’s no fun buying boys’ clothes. They only fall over and get them dirty and rip them. Look at you and Gunn. Even if I met some billionaire tomorrow, married him in a whirlwind weekend romance, had access to his bank account by the next working day and bought you designer clothes, would you keep them nice?”
“Probably not while battling sewer demons.” Wesley closed the door and backed away carefully.
Anya’s voice wafted in from the garden: “…but what likelihood would there be that any small children we produced would resemble Wesley? It seems to me that only by breeding with the adult version could there be any guarantee of success… No, Xander, I'm not suggesting that I leave you for Wesley, I'm merely pointing out the flaw in your plan and the very real possibility that I might, in fact, be left to bring up the kind of small children that are annoying and sticky-fingered and have unpleasant emissions from their noses instead of the polite quiet ones…”
“Anya, I kind of think you’re missing the point here. They would be our children, that’s the point. And most children aren’t like Wesley was when he was a kid because most children don’t get locked in dark cupboards just because they happened to step on a squeaky floorboard when there’s an ‘R’ in the month… Most children are like Gunn, only not quite so cute…”
“Have you considered the very real economic benefits of the vasectomy…?”
Cordelia hastily closed the window and pulled the drapes across. “Okay. Just as a matter of interest. I was never that tactless, right?”
“No.” Wesley shook his head. “Never.”
“Because you know that when I say things to you that might sound completely insensitive and even cruel, it’s only because I'm doing it for your own good, or maybe working some subtle reverse psychology, or possibly thinking about something else at the time, right? And I don’t even need to go near time of the month now, do I?”
Wesley nodded. “Oh, absolutely not, and please don’t.”
Cordelia looked at Gunn. “You can come in with the rousing agreement any time now.”
“What? Oh, right. Sure. We know that when you say things that would make anyone else cut out their own tongue in shame that it’s just part of your unique charm.”
“Good.” She nodded. “So, I know you’re going to take this the right way then when I tell you that you need to stop sitting there wallowing in self-pity and go and fix things with Dawn.”
“What?” Gunn looked up at her in shock.
“Last time I checked you were twenty-three again and had at least some world experience. She’s fourteen and doesn’t. If you’re a little wigged by recent events how do you think she’s feeling?”
“But…” Gunn looked towards the yard. “I… I was thinking maybe someone else… Or maybe....”
“Or maybe nothing, you big wuss. You need to make sure that she doesn’t think she did anything for which she needs to wake up in a cold sweat in the wee small hours thinking ‘kill me, kill me now’.”
Wesley grimaced. “Cordelia has a point, Gunn. Not that I have any experience of them - at all really - but I understand that things matter a great deal to girls of that age and they can sometimes get things blown up out of proportion. She did seem pretty upset and it’s possible she thinks she did something wrong. I don’t think anyone except you can tell her that she didn’t.”
Gunn sighed. “You’re saying I have to act like I don’t feel weird about how totally weird this situation is so she won’t think it’s weird?”
Cordelia nodded emphatically. “Exactly. Because if ever a situation needed de-weirding - this would be it.”
Wesley glanced back into the kitchen. “They all look so miserable. Do you think it’s really because we were likeable children or just because we’re really unlikeable adults?”
Cordelia gave him one of her ‘looks’. “Good to see you left that insecurity about being unlovable way back there in your childhood, Wes. Can you try not being such a walking therapy case?”
“I'm a ‘walking therapy’ case? Which one of us has a hair fetish that makes it impossible for her to walk past a mirror without checking her coiffure?”
“Well, someone in the firm has to care about their appearance, because let’s face it - you and Gunn - not going to be winning any Best Dressed Demon Killer awards any time soon.”
“High fashion being such an important part of dismembering slime monsters, of course.”
“Angel manages to do battle with the undead in a way that’s stylish. As do I. It’s only you and Gunn letting the side down.”
“Because that’s what’s really important when a six-clawed slargal beast is trying to rip out one’s intestines. Just remind me, exactly how many times have lives been saved by a monster deciding against trying to devour someone because of his or her Gucci labels?”
“Children…”
They both turned around to find the kitchen door open and Angel standing there with his arms folded, grinning at them.
“That’s so strange,” Buffy said in awe. “They really did wait until they were adults again to start squabbling like eight year olds.”
“We do not squabble like…” Wesley began with dignity and then shrugged. “Well, anyway, Cordelia started it.”
“And I would have finished it too, buster, if we hadn’t been interrupted, because the day you win an argument with me - let’s just say there will be demons lacing on their ice skates in hell before that happens.”
Angel’s grin got wider and he turned to Buffy and Giles with every sign of pride. “God, I missed this. They’re so cute when they fight.”
“You hate it when we fight,” Cordelia pointed out.
“I know. But I'm nostalgic for it now. It’s been too long.”
Wesley and Cordelia exchanged a glance. “It’s no fun if he likes it.” Cordelia shook back her hair. “Truce?”
“Truce.” He leant across and kissed her on the cheek.
She touched his bruised cheekbone gently. “You’re all still beaten up looking, even though you’re big again.”
“But no one will call social services and get us taken into care because of it,” he pointed out cheerfully.
“True. They’ll just think you’re a victim of domestic violence.”
“I don’t think you look the abusive type.”
She smacked him on the arm. “Not me, dumbass! Angel would be the obvious suspect. You look the battered boyfriend type. Hey! People will think we’re here as an intervention.”
Wesley rubbed his arm. “I was obviously wrong about you not being the abusive type.”
“Hey, if I was abusing you, sunshine, I’d do it in places that didn’t show and do it so well you’d be too scared to tell anyone.”
“I believe you. Bondage Cordelia, Marchioness de Sade, now lives in my imagination.”
“If in another dimension there’s an evil vamp Willow who’s into that stuff you can bet your skinny British ass there’s an evil me out there somewhere too.”
Wesley frowned. “You mean you’re not the Evil Cordy of the universe...?”
“Okay, now there will be pain.” Cordelia gave his ear a sharp twist.
“Ow! Ow! Cordelia!”
Angel sighed happily. “This is where I came in. Wesley was sniping. Cordelia was bullying him. Gunn was complaining about the sniping and bullying. Happy days.”
Buffy looked at him sideways. “You’re a really disturbed dysfunctional unit up there in LA, aren’t you?”
“You haven’t even met the Host yet.” Angel was still smiling fondly. “Our emotional well being and spiritual guidance rests in the hands of a green-skinned red-eyed anagogic demon with a taste for Sea Breezes and the courage to wear sky blue and tangerine in close conjunction. We’d be lost without him.”
Willow gasped in shock at the sight of Cordelia twisting Wesley’s ear. “Didn’t Cordelia become adult properly? Did a part of her stay regressed?”
“Only the part that already was,” Wesley managed. “Ow!”
“Cordy!” Tara said in shock. “What are you doing to Wesley?”
At once Cordelia let him go and stepped back. “Nothing. And he asked for it. And anyway - it was his fault.”
Wesley rubbed his earlobe sulkily. “If I wasn’t a gentleman I’d…” As Cordelia loomed at him threateningly he said hastily: “Have to kiss you for looking so lovely in that fetching new outfit.”
“Hah! You don’t soft soap your way out of this one, buddy.” Cordelia caught a glimpse of her reflection. “What do you mean ‘new outfit’? I’ve had this for years.”
“But on you it looks brand new,” he assured her. “It’s the way you wear them.”
“You’re really scared of me, aren’t you?”
Wesley cradled his ear protectively. “Well, you have very long fingernails.”
“I rule.” She preened.
“It’s all right for Gunn,” Wesley muttered. “You can’t reach his ears unless you’re wearing heels. Where is he anyway?”
As they all looked around for the missing man, Buffy gave a little gasp. “Oh, there he is.”
They followed her gaze out into the yard where he was cautiously approaching a despondent looking Dawn.
“It looks like Gunn is taking your advice, Cordelia,” Wesley observed.
Cordelia shrugged. “Of course. As I said, I rule.”
Wesley fingered his sore ear again. “With an iron fist.”
Part Thirteen
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