Title: Masquerade 1/7
Author: Elle
Feedback: Please! elle562000@yahoo.com
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Buffy and the gang belong to Joss, Mutant
Enemy, and other important people.
Distribution: Just let me know.
Setting: Sometime before Giles left and Xander and Anya were still
engaged.
Summary: Giles desperately needs some…uh, adult time…and the gang
conspires to give it to him.
There is nothing so pathetic in life as having Xander Harris give you directions to an adult shop because you so obviously need to be shagged. Except, perhaps, going to that shop anyway because he was right.
Giles knew he was lonely, he just didn't realize everyone else knew it too. His last lover had been Olivia—two years ago—and that had been a brief tryst stemming from mutual need; hardly a romantic interlude. "Solo flights" were of no real interest to him, so complete celibacy was slowly making itself a way of life for him.
He wasn't sure exactly what gave it away—general irritability? But Xander had discreetly approached him in the Magic Box one day and handed him a small white card.
"It's for this, uh, adult shop a little way out of town," Xander explained. "I used to go there, but since Anya and I… I don't need it anymore. I thought you might. It's not a seedy place, well-lit, you don't have to be afraid to touch stuff."
Giles felt a warm rush of embarrassment, then anger flood through his veins. "You presumed I needed…" He couldn't find the words.
Xander had turned equally red. "I just though, guy to guy, maybe you wanted it if I wasn't going to use it. I wasn't going to give it to Buffy or anything." Indignant, and maybe hurt, he turned on his heal and left.
Giles looked at the card. Apparently you got one punch for each `item' you bought and after twelve, they took five dollars off your purchase. The card was filled up to eleven.
He felt humiliated. Both that he was so pathetic as to obviously need the card, and that he didn't throw it out.
"I think I pissed Giles off," Xander said later as he, Buffy, and Anya closed the Magic Box.
"Why's that?" Buffy asked.
Xander blushed a little. "I sort of suggested he relieve some tension. Sexually."
Buffy glared at him. "I'd be pissed at you too."
Anya counted her money, never looking up. "That's because you're tense too. You aren't getting laid, either."
Buffy's jaw dropped.
Xander directed the subject away from Buffy's sex life. "I just think he needs a girl. He's been alone to long."
"Maybe he isn't over Jenny," Buffy suggested.
"Buff, that was a long time ago," Xander said quietly.
"We should set him up with someone," Anya suggested. "Like one of those women you see on a Taster's Choice commercial—appealing, yet bland."