Title: Devil's Food

Author: Jeanny

Feedback: Please. jeannygrrl@hotmail.com

Distribution: I don't mind, just credit me and let me know where it's going.

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Gen Season 5 Through The Replacement

Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing, especially the characters in this story. I'm merely borrowing them for the pure pleasure of messing with their lives.

Summary: Why the Scoobies never meet at Xander's apartment.

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"Xander, please ask Anya to turn off the television. It's distracting." Xander made a face at Giles, then looked at his girlfriend. The first, and in all likelihood last, Scooby meeting to be held at Xander's apartment was not going well.

"She's totally caught up in the election coverage, Giles. There's no power on this earth that can pull her away from it. Trust me, I've tried everything I can think of. Even that toy-"

"Please stop," Giles, Buffy and Willow said in unison. Tara merely flushed in embarrassment as Dawn sat up eagerly.

"Toy?" Xander blanched under the collective glare, then mustered up some dignity.

"Tickle-Me Elmo. She likes when he laughs. Geez, it's always about sex with you people." Xander clapped his hands together nervously at Dawn's intrigued expression. "Dawn, could you help me out? Anya, honey, you did make the snacks, right?" Anya waved absently towards the refrigerator.

"Hush, Xander. They're talking about Florida again." Willow watched over her shoulder curiously for a moment as Anya squealed at the television. "Stupid disenfranchised voters. Go back to France!"

"That's not what that...never mind..." Willow trailed off when she saw the maniacal look in the ex-demon's eyes. Screams from the kitchen brought everyone to their feet, and Xander and Dawn came running out fast.

"What the hell just happened?" Buffy demanded as she put her arm around a trembling Dawn. Xander strode angrily over and turned off the television. Anya looked up in astonishment.

"Xander! I was-"

"Honey," Xander began in a calm tone that was clearly masking burgeoning hysteria, "the walls of the refrigerator are bleeding. And squeaking. Just exactly how did you make the deviled eggs?"

"There's something alive in there," Dawn added in a trembling voice, hugging herself. Buffy put a comforting arm around her sister's shoulder as they all turned to Anya for answers. The former demon seemed genuinely mystified.

"I don't see how the eggs could be the problem," Anya protested. "I cooked them myself, and I followed the recipe very precisely. I might have been a little distracted by the television...or because Xander said we'd have to watch Dawn tonight and that meant we couldn't-"

"Okay, so, demonic activity in the kitchen," Willow interrupted loudly, rubbing her hands together. "We've faced worse. We can handle this," she finished with false bravado. Everyone nodded, then looked at Giles.

"Giles, how do we handle this?" Buffy asked. Giles was frantically rifling through texts.

"Tell me, the blood, was it dripping or splotchy?" he asked.

"Splotchy. It looked like a Kandinsky painting," Dawn replied with a shiver. At her sister's raised eyebrow, she snapped, "Some people go to museums to actually look at art, you know, not just to kill freaky evil mummy people."

"It wasn't people, it was just one girl," Buffy muttered. Realizing she was allowing herself to be drawn off point, she turned to Giles. "Splotchy means what, exactly?"

"It wouldn't hurt one of you to help," Giles complained snippily, still thumbing through pages. Willow and Xander each picked up a book guiltily, shrugging at each other as they started to skim the pages.

"The blood didn't get on my cheese molds, did it?" Anya asked, suddenly concerned. Xander rolled his eyes. Tara giggled, stopping when she found everyone in the room but Giles staring at her.

"Sorry. Just...deviled eggs," she said, saved further explanation by Giles' crow of triumph.

"Found it! Refrigerator possession...yes, yes, this is what we need. I have an exorcism rite, and it's laid out in easy to follow steps. In pictures, very nice. Thank heavens for Martha Stewart!"

Some time later, exhausted and covered with kosher salt and flour, as well as the some strange splotches they all thought it best just not to identify, the Scoobies reassembled around Xander's dining room table.

"Damnable woman. Sure, she makes it look easy with her full color illustrations...I'll bet every housewife in America think she could expel Satan from her appliances...well, it's bloody well harder than it looks!" Giles griped.

"What do we do now?" Buffy asked wearily.

"Perhaps Xander should move," Anya offered weakly, wilting under her boyfriend's glare. Unexpectedly she clapped her hands. "Oh, I know. I know a guy who can handle this. Totally professional. Works for...oh."

"Does that 'oh' come with a matching 'uh'?" Xander asked sarcastically

"Well, I don't suppose we'd be willing to sacrifice Dawn..." Anya responded. Dawn instinctively moved closer to Buffy, who gave Anya full Slayer glare.

"That would be a humungous no," Buffy intoned, then sighed in frustration. "This is ridiculous. After averting apocalypses I refuse to be beaten by a little kitchen sprite. It's insulting."

"It's not a sprite, Buffy. It's a possession...for some reason a demonic spirit has taken up residence inside Xander's refrigerator."

"It's after my cheese!" Anya worried, and Xander shuddered.

"I don't think even a helldemon would want that cheese," he muttered under his breath. Anya glared at him as the others looked away in discomfiture, except for Dawn who watched eagerly.

"I don't understand how you can be so against something you've never even tried-"

"They're freaky cheeses, An. They give me the willies, you know that."

"What sort of cheeses, exactly?" Giles asked, his suspicious tone telling them all he thought he already knew the answer to that question. That and the look of mortification on Anya's face.

"Well..." she began softly under the collective glare.

Armed with the new information, Giles was able to form a new plan; with Willow and Tara's help, a translocation spell and Buffy managing to distract the spirits, they were able to make quick if messy work of the problem. Dawn watched on in wide-eyed wonder, as Xander cringed and Anya sulked.

"Demonic cheese. I never knew there was such a thing as demonic cheese..." Dawn said for the fifth time as Willow's incantation caused the last of the cheese to wink out of this dimension.

"They weren't demonic cheeses. They were cheeses from a demon dimension...and they were really expensive! And hard to get!" Anya sniffed.

"Raise your hand if you're not fully grasping the distinction," Buffy said softly. Every hand but Anya's went up.

"I was living with that cheese, I could have told you it was demonic. No trouble with the believing there. Hordes of ghost rats from a hell dimension infesting my kitchen, on the other hand..." Xander commented, clearly still freaked by this new turn of events. The ectoplasmic pests in the refrigerator gave one final unearthly squeak, then faded away. It was almost as if they'd never been there, except that they unfortunately left that splotchy residue behind.

"I think we're finished," Giles said quietly. Xander sagged in relief.

"I can't thank you guys enough. I'm thinking this was not a job for an exterminator."

"Is anyone else hungry?" Dawn asked suddenly. At their looks, she blushed. "Just me, I guess."

"Oh, I have more snacks-" Anya volunteered.

"No!" Everyone said in unison.

"Who wants pizza?" Willow asked. "I could order some pizza...err, without any sauce, maybe...and we could eat it at Giles' house."

"Whilst we do the research about Glory that we haven't managed to do," Giles said, pointedly gathering up the texts with Dawn, Tara and Willow's help.

"I think we all need to get away from the land of ghost mice. No offense, Xander," Buffy threw in hastily. Her friend held up his hands in surrender.

"None taken...I'm just as skeeved by this place right now as you are, trust me. I'd put down traps, if they made traps for phantom hell-rats." Shuddering, he added with a glare at Anya, "And I know a certain former demon that's going to be scrubbing the kitchen clean."

"You know a demon that does housecleaning? And you didn't tell me?" Anya asked innocently. The others filed out shaking their heads.

"I can't tell if she's serious or kidding," Tara confessed to Willow, who looked at Xander with a thoughtful half-smile.

"It’s okay, Tara. I’m thinking Xander can’t either, most of the time," she whispered back. Xander looked back at Anya, who was standing with her hands on hips, her lips pursed in annoyance. Xander moved in closer to her so that the others wouldn’t hear him try to mollify her.

"It's okay, honey. I know you didn't mean it...we'll clean it up together, later, okay?" Xander said in a placating tone. Anya crossed her arms across her chest, still not budging, and her boyfriend sighed as he took her arm. "Tell you what. When we come home, we’ll watch CNN all night, okay?" For a moment her expression softened, then Anya shook her head, glowering at him.

"I think you owe me an apology," she said primly.

"I'm sorry...what?" Xander said, his own voice tinged with more than a little irritation. "You want me to apologize?" Anya kissed him on the lips so deeply that Xander momentarily considered staying in the apartment...until he remembered the hell-rat droppings. He blinked as Anya smiled brilliantly up at him.

"And you just did! You said I'm sorry. Let's go." With that Anya happily flounced out of the apartment, pausing only briefly in the doorway to beckon him on. Xander shook his head in confusion that was by now second nature.

"Wait...no...I think I'm going to regret asking this, but what did I just apologize for?"

"There was nothing wrong with my eggs," Anya called back to him triumphantly. "I told you I followed the recipe very precisely." From the doorway he watched her practically skip down the hall. Xander took a quick look around the wreck that was his apartment and sighed. He knew this was the last time the Scoobies would be meeting at his place, which wasn’t necessarily of the bad. He also knew this wasn’t the last time that he would have this thought.

"It's a good thing I really love that girl," he breathed as he turned out the lights.

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