Title: Buffy, Giles and the Manchild Boys
Author: Sweetdoggie (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Disclaimer: No permission has been granted to use the characters. They are owned by their creator, Joss Whedon, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB, and Mutant Enemy. This story is non-profit and is intended solely as entertainment. No copyright infringement is intended.

She worked with him all day. It was a good summer job for her and it actually gave her some financial independence. Not that her mother was stingy with her allowance, but Buffy hated being dependent on somebody else’s largess. She felt liberated in a way that she hadn’t since the previous summer when she had run away from home and proved she could support herself. As miserable as she had been at the time, it had given her a strange thrill to know that if she never returned to Sunnydale and her mother’s house, she would be all right.

They didn’t kiss again all day, but the looks they exchanged could have singed the paint on the walls. The Scoobies had come in just before the store closed, Xander with Anya and Willow with Oz. They all wondered if something was up because Buffy had called them to come over for a meeting.

“What’s the what, Buffster?” Xander quipped.

“Yeah, I was wondering too,” Willow said with a smile.

Buffy sat down at the table and Giles came and stood behind her, hands on her shoulders. The others looked slightly surprised. It wasn’t like the Watcher to show such open affection and he almost never touched any of them.

“Giles’ cousin James is coming to town with three of his buds. The long and short of it is, they’re pigs. Even though they are years older than Giles, they like to date women our age. They pick on Giles because he’s not a total hound like them. I’m going to be dating Giles while they’re here. It will make them quit teasing him and it will protect me from predatory old guys. We wanted you to know and help us out. The cover story is going to be that we’ve been together since I was sixteen. It’s kinda skanky, but these type of guys would think that was macho.”

“So, like you’re going to be doing PDA’s and everything?” Xander wanted to know.

“Yep. So, just to get you guys used to that, Giles and I will be practicing before they get here. I want all the eeeuws out of the way before they come.”

Xander got up and lightly punched Giles in the shoulder. “Way to go, Giles.”

Oz gave him a nod and a slight smile. He had seen how attracted Giles was to Buffy. Maybe this incident would wake her up. He certainly hoped so anyway.

Buffy, Willow and Anya exchanged exasperated glances at the men’s behavior. “Are all guys hounds-in-training or are we just blessed that way?” Buffy grumbled.

“They all are.” Anya said firmly. “These English guys sound like prime vengeance material.”

Xander looked alarmed. “Uh, honey, maybe we don’t need to go into that sort of thing right now?”

She sighed with impatience. Really, he was so immature sometimes that she wanted to slap him. He was never going to accept the fact that she once had been a powerful demon and had enjoyed it immensely. She would have simply up and cut her losses, but he was so cute, not to mention fairly gifted sexually.

Luckily for Xander, Giles began speaking again. “The important thing to remember is that they don’t know about Watchers, Slayers, vampires or demons. To them, this is a perfectly normal small town. We need to work out some plans to keep them off the street at night. My cousin and his friends may be hounds around women, but they are fairly decent chaps aside from their focus on sex. I should hate to see them fall victim to a creature of darkness.”

The others agreed and began discussing plans to never leave the four men totally alone. “We can tell them we have a vicious street gang that makes it very unsafe to hang around once the sun has gone down,” Willow suggested.

“Yes, but we must consider that they will want to go out and meet young women to seduce. That means the Bronze,” Giles said glumly. “Prime vampire hunting ground.”

Everyone nodded and thought some more.

“Hey!” Anya said suddenly. “How about a spell that encourages them to stay in after dark? If they didn’t feel like going out, they’d be a lot safer. Willow could probably do it, or even Giles.” She smiled happily. “I could probably do it and I haven’t done any witchcraft for more than eleven hundred years.”

Giles looked excited and pulled out several books of spells. He pulled Buffy out of her chair and sat down in it before bringing her back to his lap. Together they perused one of the musty old tomes gaining only a few raised eyebrows from their friends. It was Willow who spotted the spell. It was a simple aversion chant, only two lines long. Burn a few herbs, anoint the doorways of the dwelling and none of the inhabitants would want to venture out after sundown. It was perfect. Rupert doubted that the men would even realize that they were being coerced.

They closed the shop up tightly and left for the evening. Rupert drove Buffy home so that they could confront her mother with their plan within a plan. Joyce smiled to see them together and didn’t believe for a minute that anyone could belittle Giles’ ability to attract any woman he desired. “So, let me get this straight. You want to date my daughter to protect her from your cousin and his buddies who prey on young women?”

“Er, I wouldn’t exactly say they prey on them. There is no coercion involved, I assure you. They simply seduce them and then move on to the next available girl, having once more reaffirmed their masculinity by sleeping with a woman young enough to be their daughter.”

Joyce shuddered. “Well, that’s not a great character reference, but there are plenty of men on this side of the Atlantic that do the same thing. Buffy’s own father…” she paused and glancing at Buffy’s face changed the topic. “Uh, that is, of course Buffy can date you while your friends are visiting. You’re practically family and we stick up for our own here.”

Buffy was surprised at her mother’s acquiescence, but wasn’t willing to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Thanks, mom. Nobody is going to make my Watcher feel bad, not even his dorky relative.”

Joyce smiled, relieved that Buffy had not apparently picked up on the reference to her father. She did her best not to berate the man in front of his child, but it was difficult. Hank Summers had divorced her to fool around with girls fifteen to twenty years her junior and by helping Rupert out, she felt like she was striking a blow for discarded wives everywhere. She already didn’t like these men. It was going to be very enjoyable to watch them come on to the girls and be rebuffed. She smiled happily again.

“Um, mom? I’m going to move in with Gi-Rupert till they leave. It won’t help if they think we aren’t sleeping together,” Buffy told her tentatively.

By this time, Joyce was so caught up in the idea of payback, she would hardly have quibbled if Buffy had suggested she needed to parade through the former librarian’s house naked. She looked at the Watcher carefully. He was a good man and genuinely cared for Buffy and he was heaps better than the vampire Buffy had dated for two years. Maybe something would come of their togetherness, she speculated. Being with this man could only improve her daughter, she knew.

“OK. I guess that would be all right. Just, um, take care of yourself,” Joyce told her simply.

“Giles can help me pack. I need to take enough stuff over so that it looks like I live there.” Buffy shrugged and grinned. “I practically do anyhow.”

They all chuckled. Buffy and Giles went off to her room to sort through her clothes and things while Joyce went to her office to work on some invoices for the Gallery.

Giles carried four boxes stuffed with Buffy’s things to his car. “Do you really need all of this stuff, Buffy?”

“Yeah, I do. You want this to look authentic, don’t you?” She put her hands on her hips. “I need girl stuff and if these guys are such horny old goats, they’re going to be pretty familiar with what women need and keep around them.”

“But a stuffed pig? You really feel you need a stuffed pig?” He held up Mr. Gordo.

“Stage dressing, Rupert. Trust me, the Hounds will think it’s cute.”

He sighed and nodded tossing the pig back into the carton. Buffy’s jewelry box was on top of the pile. It made him think. “You know, you really should have some jewelry. Gifts from me, I mean. Would you like a pendant or maybe a brooch?”

“Nah. You don’t need to buy me stuff,” she said with a grin. “I don’t need gifts to like you, Giles. You’re my Watcher, the man who protects me, trains me, sacrifices pretty much everything for me. Gifts on top of all that would be sorta, I dunno, tawdry.”

He smiled at her phrasing. “I don’t mind, Buffy. In fact, I find that I should rather like to shower you with gifts and tokens of my esteem.”

“Well, surprise me then, but nothing too expensive, OK?”

“I can afford it, Buffy. You don’t need to worry about my pocket book,” he told her cheerfully, resolved to buy her a diamond.

“I figured you could, Giles. Not all that many guys can buy a business and a new car and tons of expensive rare books and not work for months. That isn’t the point. I guess what I’m saying is you don’t have to buy me stuff because that isn’t what we’re about. We have something deeper than stuff. I wouldn’t trade our feelings for each other for all the jewelry on the planet, not even if it were those crown jewels you British think so much of.”

He impulsively pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. “You’re a very special young woman, Buffy.”

“Just Buffy,” she told him. “Nothing all that special.”

“You’re wrong, love,” he said but let the conversation go.

Buffy found she liked it when he called her love. They did love each other quite a lot and she knew it. She had thought for years it was the love of a daughter for a father figure, but based on their shared kisses, she was rapidly revising that guess. There was nothing paternal about his affection for her, and nothing daughterly about her feelings for him. If somebody had asked her, she could have told them that she was seriously considering going to bed with him at the first available opportunity, in fact.

They got to his apartment and he cleared spots for her things. She spread her makeup out on his dresser and put her brushes next to his. In his bathroom she put feminine hygiene products, her soaps and lotions. He looked in and shook his head. “No wonder you always smell so good! It’s like a bloody chemist’s in here!”

She grinned. “We call them drug stores, British guy.”

He rolled his eyes and asked her where she wanted the pig. “Put him on our bed, Rupert.”

Giles gulped at her words. He knew realistically that they would be sharing his king-size bed, but to hear her put it into words was shocking and exciting at the same time. “Um, do you have a side preference?”

“No, you pick.”

He gave her the right side and took the left for himself. Suddenly he had a thought. He delved into his nightstand drawer and pulled out a box of condoms with only one left in it. “Damn,” he said, even though he told himself that realistically, it was much too soon for Buffy to want sex with him.

She stuck her head out of his bathroom. “Problem?”

He stuck the box behind his back hurriedly. “Er, no. That is, um, no.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Come on, Rupert, spill.”

Sheepishly, he showed her the nearly empty box of condoms. “I should buy some tomorrow—just as props you understand. I’m sure we don’t need such, um, things.”

She shrugged. “Nah, not really unless you want them. I have one of those implant things and it’s got at least two years to run before it expires. Mom insisted I get one the year we moved to Sunnydale, just in case I started running with another ‘bad crowd’ again.”

He looked very interested suddenly. “So, um, you’re protected?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” He looked around not making eye contact.

She walked up to him and gently tipped his head back. “If you want to do that, I’m not going to object.”

He suddenly started panting. “We, we aren’t ready for that yet.”

“When you are, I’ll be here,” she told him. “I don’t see much point in waiting though.”

“I want it to be special,” he gulped, face red.

“I think it will be. In fact, I’d be willing to bet it knocks our socks off. If we were wearing socks, I mean. Which, uh, I mean to say, why would we?”

He nodded, loving her babble. “Well, um, supper?”

She smiled. “I can scramble some eggs and make toast.”

“That sounds excellent,” he said, not in the mood for a heavy meal.

Buffy cooked and they ate. Giles insisted on doing the cleaning up and Buffy wasn’t about to argue with him. She stood and sighed. “I’d better do a patrol. Thought I might go over to the Bronze then the docks tonight.”

Giles nodded. “Be careful.”

She smiled at him. “Now that I have something to be careful for, you bet!”

Buffy patrolled vigorously and killed four vamps and some sort of slightly corrosive slime demon. After it was dead she noticed that her shoes were smoking. She kicked them off and watched them melt. “Damn it!” She had liked those shoes. Now she was a good five miles from Giles house, barefoot. Not a good thing, she thought. Oh, well, nothing for it. She set off toward his place at a jog.

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