The bell sounded above the Magic Box entrance signaling the arrival of a bickering pair of Summers girls.

"What do you mean 'no'?" Dawn whined, following Buffy to the table where Xander sat.

"You need me to dignify that question with an explanation of one of the shortest words in the English language?"

"Buffy, all my friends are taking it. I'll be the only one who isn't!"

"C'mon Buff, if all the kids are doing it, it has to be okay," Xander joked.

Buffy shot him a look that killed his jovial smile. "Not when 'all the kids' have an opportunity to kill little old ladies trying to cross the street."

Xander furrowed his brow. "Dawn's trying to get your permission to murder pedestrians?"

"More or less," answered Buffy.

"Referred to by normal people as driving," said Dawn. "And it's not like I'll even have a chance to screw up if you don't let me try."

"Oh so should I let you try to screw up?" asked Buffy.

"No you should let me try to drive. It's not fair. You got so mad at Mom when she wouldn't let you and now you're being all hypocritical." Dawn crossed her arms, mirroring her sister's stance.

Buffy paused. "But Mom was right. We just aren't made for driving Dawn."

"*You* aren't made for driving Buffy. Newsflash, I'm not your carbon copy."

"Yes you are! We have the same blood and you were made from me! And I wouldn't be surprised if the bad driving thing is genetic."

"Funny, I didn't get the grotesquely short gene," Dawn countered flippantly.

"Look, it's not that I'll never let you drive," said Buffy, her tone softening. "I mean, maybe in a few years..."

"In a few years I'll be eighteen and I'll be able to drive to Hawaii if I want!"

"Actually," Xander interrupted, somewhat hesitantly. "Turns out that's not connected."

"Not that it matters, because I won't know what to do after turning the key," retorted Dawn, not taking her angry glare off the Slayer.

"It's not that hard," Anya offered while sweeping the feather duster over some shelves. "After turning the key all you have to do is move the stick and push the little pedals. Sometimes you forget which is stop and which one makes you go fast, but trial and error works well. It's pretty much touch and go. Literally." She smiled at them, ignorant to their varying expressions of bemusement, before turning back to her cleaning. "I honestly don't know why they put children through all the trouble of classes and testing. I learned it rather quickly."

"An, I think the reasoning behind that is kinda the same with those annoying stop signs and silly laws," Xander humored her.

"I agree." Anya nodded resolutely.

Xander smiled apologetically to Buffy and Dawn. "This is why she doesn't drive my car by herself. Or at all."

"But sometimes he lets me sit on his lap and steer while he works the pedals. It takes a lot of coordination. Mostly because he's also working his--"

"Anya!" yelped Xander.

"Dear God we're finishing this argument later," said Buffy firmly, eyeing Anya with a horrified expression. "I have to go train."

"Sure just run away from me," Dawn rolled her eyes. "You always do that when we're fighting and I'm right."

"No, I do that when we're fighting and I feel the intense urge to punch things," she said dryly. "Xander?" .

"Yeah?" he winced.

"I broke the dummy again, wanna be my punching bag?"

"Sure," he replied nervously. "But only because I get to be punched while wearing the puffy suit if I say yes."

Buffy nodded and headed into the back room, Xander followed reluctantly.

"Don't bruise him above the chest!" Anya called to them as they shut the door. "The wedding is in less than a week!"

Dawn gave an exasperated sigh while slouching into a chair. She stared at the backdoor, muttering under her breath. Anya looked at her and then glanced around the empty shop before resettling her gaze on Dawn.

"Would you like me to console you?"

"Huh?" Dawn's baffled expression slowly melted away. "Oh. No, I'm okay."

Anya took a seat beside her. "I'm on your side if it helps."

"Thanks," said Dawn, smiling slightly. "It's just that she's so...wrong. But she thinks *I'm* wrong and even though she's not right, she gets to win. You know?"

Anya nodded. "Me and Xander have those fights. He thinks he's right a lot too."

"But it isn't just the fights," Dawn sighed. "It's everything. She acts like I'm always wrong. Like nothing I say matters."

"Yes," Anya agreed, nodding again. "Like even when you choose your words extremely carefully, they still aren't correct."

"...and apologizing for everything I do!" Dawn added.

"...censoring me in public," continued Anya, growing agitated.

"...never takes my side on anything," said Dawn bitterly.

"...won't agree with me."

"...not once!"

"Especially not on the kissing."

"Yeah espe--" Dawn paused. "Wait, what kissing?"

Anya sighed. "During a mortal wedding the holy man asks the bride and groom to kiss each other in front of him," she explained.

"What can't you guys agree on?" asked Dawn.

"Well, Xander thinks that we should just kiss quickly. A small, barely open mouthed kiss."

"So?"

Anya frowned. "But that's just so short and cold! I mean, this is supposed to be the first kiss of our married lives. It's a symbolic act representing what our marriage stands for. And I don't want it to be a short and cold marriage. I want it to be long and warm and wet."

Dawn quirked a brow. "You want a wet marriage?" Her eyes widened. "Please don't answer that."

"I want to kiss Xander like he's never been kissed before," she stated. "I want to make that celibate priest reconsider his vow to God. I want to crush my husband's mouth to mine, and taste his lips and his tongue and there could be nibbling. Yes, I want to nibble on his bottom lip and then suck it into my mouth. Drawing his mouth onto mine again fully. And we'll keep on tasting and sucking and nibbling until both of us are in desperate need of oxygen. But the kiss will be so good that we won't want the oxygen. We won't want to break away from each other. Ever."

Dawn's jaw was hanging open and a dreamy expression rested on her face, absorbing every word that was said. Anya continued, both of them lost in her description.

"Then he'll pull me closer to him and lean forward into me, dipping me back. And his lips will be hot against mine, like a branding iron, and the length of his tongue will massage with inner regions of my mouth. And--"

Anya gasped as she was interrupted by Dawn face on hers. The teen pushed the pink flesh of her lips onto those of the ex-demon. Sucking Anya's tongue into her mouth and pushing past it with her own. Anya made a sound, possibly a yelp, but it was muffled by Dawn's persistent smacking of a kiss. Finally, Anya pushed at the girl's shoulders, somehow breaking the hold.

Dawn stumbled back, landing in her chair. They were silent for a moment. "I-I'm sorry. It was just that-that way you were describing a-and I got so wrapped up in the mental image and-and-," she rambled.

"No...," said Anya slowly. Rising up out of her seat. The large, fake smile plastered to her face barely hid the disturbed shock which she felt. "You are...an impressionable young girl and I clearly overstepped my verbal boundaries."

The door to the training room reopened and Buffy came strolling out, re-taping one of her hands. "Anya do you have any bottled water? Puffy Xander's thirsty..." She stopped and glanced suspiciously from one wide-eyed, guilty face to the other. "What's wrong?"

Anya forced her smile bigger, practically defying the laws of human facial muscles. "Nothing Buffy, Dawn's older and stronger sister. Dawnie was just teaching me the importance of human denial and repression, something I never understood nor appreciated fully until this very moment."

* * *

END

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