Title: It’s a Dog’s Life
Author: Sweetdoggie (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Pairing: B/G
Rating: G
Summary: Buffy and Giles help Riley with an unusual problem.
Spoilers: Post season 7
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.

Sam Finn sighed and hung up the phone. She hadn’t wanted to contact Riley’s weird ex-girlfriend and her group of oddballs, but she had to admit, her husband’s problem was right up their alley. She looked down at the small brown and white dog panting anxiously up at her. “She’s coming, Ri, and she’s bringing some help.”

Buffy replaced the receiver and turned to Giles. “We have a problem. Ethan got loose and turned Riley into a dog. Apparently, he’s been held by the military for all this time and he’s not really happy about it.”

Giles snorted into his teacup. “What sort of dog?" he asked curiously.

Buffy gave him an odd look. “A Welsh Corgi?”

He grinned and Buffy raised her eyebrow in inquiry. “Is that bad?”

“Do you know what a Corgi looks like?”

“No, no idea.”

“Ah, picture a German shepherd with an enormous head, large pointed ears, and an elongated body. Then give it four-inch legs. Add enough surplus energy to herd cattle and a truly annoying bark. I’m not sure if it’s a characteristic of the breed or if I’ve been unlucky in my acquaintance, but every one I’ve encountered has been bad tempered as well.”

“Poor Riley.”

Giles looked suddenly insecure. “Do you miss him?”

“No. I just don’t like to think of him as a dog. He tries to do the right thing, most of the time. And besides, he’s Sam’s problem now.”

“Were you deeply upset to find he had married?”

“Yes and no, but probably not for the same reasons you’re thinking about. It wasn’t that I wanted him back or that I missed him as my boyfriend. He was way too high maintenance. What upset me was the fact that he moved on to somebody really nice and very well suited for him and I had Spike. Still, getting caught helped me break it off with Spike, so it wasn’t a total loss.”

“I see. It was more of the fact that he was having a nice life and you, well, weren’t.”

“Exactly!” she said, pleased at his perception. “It just didn’t seem fair that Riley got to settle down and be happy and I got yanked from heaven and plunged into a very sordid affair with a vampire.”

“I can see where that would rather grate on you. Um, are you feeling better about it now?”

She slipped her arm around him. “I’m so very happy now, Rupert. I have you, I have a real life, I’m not the only Slayer any longer and I know my place in the world. It’s all I ever wanted.”

He tightened his arm around her. “Then, I too, am content.”

They made arrangements for a flight out of England the next day and arrived in Iowa at three in the afternoon. Riley’s brother, Patrick, met them at the airport.

“Hi!” He greeted them, giving Buffy more than a close look. He knew of her association with his brother and he wasn’t entirely sure he approved. The relationship had been decimating for Riley. Still, it was plain she was a hottie. She stepped forward and extended her hand.

“Hello. I’m Buffy and this is my partner, Rupert Giles. You must be one of Riley’s brothers. The resemblance is unmistakable.”

“Yeah, I mean. Yes, I’m Patrick.” He looked at them curiously. “So, you guys actually have experience with this sort of thing?”

Buffy grinned. “Yeah. The same person that did Riley got Giles once when his guard was down. Turned him into a Fyarl demon.” She shook her head. “Very bad, involves mucus. You don’t want to know.”

Patrick was pretty sure she was right. Sam, his brother’s wife, was right on when she mentioned that these people were very different than anyone he had ever known before.

“Have you, um, ever cured this kind of, um, problem before?”

“We got Giles back into man-shape that night,” Buffy explained. “Do you know where Ethan is?”

“No.” He led them to his car, a battered Jeep Cherokee. It brought back memories of Joyce’s old car for Buffy, though she said nothing.

He drove them to Riley and Sam’s house, a modest little home built in the 30’s. It was well-maintained and had a white picket fence. Buffy tried not to roll her eyes at the obvious cliché.

Patrick led them inside and they greeted Sam. She shook Giles’ hand and offered Buffy a nod and a cool smile.

“Where’s Riley?” Buffy asked, looking around.

“I had to lock him in the bedroom. The neighbor’s cat just drives him nuts,” Sam explained. She walked to a door off the hallway and let her husband escape into the living room.

Riley ran up to Buffy and stuck his nose in her crotch, tail wagging. She pushed him down, embarrassed. He raced over to Giles and sniffed at his pant leg before trying to lift his leg and pee on him. Giles jumped back in the nick of time. “Bad dog!”

Sam grabbed Riley by the collar and dragged him back to the bedroom. “Sorry, he gets a little excited.”

Giles and Buffy exchanged glances. “I suppose the sooner we get started, the better,” Giles told her. “If you have a pencil and paper, I will make a list of the supplies I’m going to need to trace Ethan.”

She handed him the writing tools. He thought for a few minutes and began scribbling a list. When he was done, he handed it back to her.

Glancing over the paper, she frowned. “Some of this stuff is a little esoteric, Mr. Giles. I can’t just run down to the local store and pick this up.”

Giles shrugged. “It’s what I need. We have contacts in this country should you be unable to find some of the ingredients.” He gestured and she handed him back the list. After scribbling down a name and address he gave it back. “Contact these people. They’ll have everything I need in stock.”

She nodded and left the room. Patrick stood awkwardly, hands in his pockets. “So, um, you can do magic, huh?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. Civilians could be so dumb, it was a wonder to her that more of them weren’t eaten by something evil. Giles shot her a stern glance before answering.

“Yes. I can. Hopefully, we can track Ethan down and apply enough pressure to make him change your brother back.”

“What if we can’t find him?”

Giles was kind enough not to tell him to buy a leash for his brother, but the temptation was there. He finally shrugged. “Let’s not make that an option, shall we?”

Buffy plopped onto the couch and pulled Giles down next to her to wait. She leaned against him and sighed. “Feels like old times, doesn’t it, Giles?”

He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled he closer to him. “Except for the part where this is the end of the world and I’m just your old Watcher once again.”

She snuggled into him happily. “Never just a Watcher again, sweetie.”

Patrick looked somewhat startled by this exchange. “Uh, are you two, um, together?”

Buffy glanced at him. “Yes, we are.”

“I thought Riley said you were with some guy named Spike.”

Buffy shuddered. “Times change.”

“Oh.” He looked around, desperate to make conversation. “So, how do you guys know each other?”

“I was assigned to be Buffy’s Watcher eight years ago after her first Watcher was killed in battle.”

“You must have known my brother when he was stationed in Sunnydale then?”

“Yes. I worked with Riley on several projects,” Giles admitted.

“Were you guys, like, together then?”

“Buffy and I are always together.”

“No, I mean like involved with each other.” He ran his hand over his face. “I guess what I’m asking is, were you guys together when Buffy was dating my brother? Riley said you couldn’t love him because there was somebody else in your life. Is that why you dumped him?”

Buffy frowned at him. “I think you have a little misinformation, Patrick. Riley and I broke up because he was letting vampire women suck his blood. He tried to justify his behavior by saying at least they needed him, implying that I didn’t. I needed him to be strong—my mom was dying, I was facing a battle with a God and he was getting suck jobs from vamps.”

“That isn’t how my brother tells it. He said you were in love with somebody else and just cut him out of your life completely. He said you were keeping secrets. He said you cheated on him with, um, Count Dracula?” Patrick sounded embarrassed to say it.

“Well, Riley sure had a lot to say, didn’t he?” Buffy looked grim. “Just to set the record straight, I never cheated on Riley. If I kept secrets, they weren’t mine to tell, and he pretty much cut himself out of my life.” She waved her hand. “It’s all water under the bridge now. Today, we concentrate on restoring him to normal. After that, his insecurities are Sam’s problem.”

Giles nodded approvingly. Buffy didn’t have to justify herself to this idiot.

Patrick looked sullen but let the subject drop. Buffy gazed out into space thinking about things, or maybe, Giles reflected, simply zoning. She had a wonderful gift of being able to totally shut down her thoughts. It was very restful, she had informed him.

“If I don’t want to think, I just go away for a while. I found out about it after I came back the second time. It helped.”

Sam returned after about an hour with a grocery bag full of “weird shit” as she described it. Giles took the bag from her, cleared off the dining room table and set the map of town on it. He lit a candle, said a few words that only he understood and waved his hand over the map. A tiny black dot glowed on its surface. They noted the location.

“It’s a crummy motel downtown,” Patrick whispered, awed at his first brush with the supernatural.

“Figures. Ethan doesn’t change much for somebody so in love with Chaos,” Buffy told Giles.

“Yes,” he paused. “I’m frankly rather suspicious of this. Ethan is many things, but not a fool. It could be that he knew Riley would lead him back to me, to us. He has less reason to be fond of us than Riley, after all.”

“You think it’s a trap?”

“Of course.” He sat back in the chair and rubbed his chin while he thought.

Sam and Patrick wanted to race off and beat Ethan until he restored Riley, but Giles held them back. “Do you happen to have anything of Ethan’s in your possession?”

Sam looked sheepish and went into the bedroom she shared with her husband, returning seconds later with a scrap of cloth obviously ripped from a garment. It had spots of what Giles was sure was blood speckling it. He took it from her.

“Riley, um, kind of bit Ethan when he changed him,” she explained.

Giles grinned. “Ah! We have him now, my friends.”

He set out some more supplies on the table and began drawing a large circle on the floor. Leaving just a tiny fraction of the circle open, he drew strange symbols around its edge. After cutting a tiny piece of bloodstained cloth from the large piece, he sat down at the outer edge of the mystical summons and began chanting. Everybody felt the temperature in the room drop as his words took on a strange echoing quality. Suddenly, there was a pop and Ethan was sitting flat on his butt in the center of the circle. Moving quickly, Giles closed the tiny gap he had left and trapped the sorcerer inside.

Ethan tried to run but the magical barrier was stronger than steel bars and he was effectively their prisoner once again.

He looked up, narrow face shining palely in the darkened room. “Well, well. My old friend Ripper,” he looked around. “I see you still have the dim blonde hanging around your neck. Don’t know these other two losers.”

Buffy didn’t even blink at being called dumb. After what she had lived through, his petty insults bothered her no more than whispers on the wind.

“Must we go through all this tiresome posturing, Ethan? Lift the spell on the boy.” Giles waved his hand at the softly growling Corgi that Patrick had retrieved from the bedroom.

“Or what? You’ll beat me up? You’ll send me back to the Initiative and I’ll tell you now, I’d rather be dead.”

“OK, we’ll kill you,” Buffy told him indifferently. “You’re starting to get on my nerves anyhow.”

“You’re the Slayer, you can’t kill me.”

“Yeah, I can. I kinda got over that whole dignity of human life thing,” she lied casually. “You won’t be my first human kill, but I bet I enjoy it more.”

Ethan looked panicked. “Ripper, you won’t let her kill me. We have too much history together.”

Giles smiled. “You won’t be my first human kill either, Ethan.”

The sorcerer’s eyes shifted from one to the other. Apparently what he saw was not comforting. He closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped. “All right. I’ll change him back. Just don’t kill me.”

They said nothing, just stood looking at him with their arms folded across their chests. He gathered his will and whispered a few words of power. A moment later, Riley was sitting on the floor at his brother’s feet, fully restored to his humanity and totally naked.

Sam tossed him the afghan off the back of the couch and he wrapped himself in it. He stood up and glared at the sorcerer. “You are in so much trouble!”

Giles held up his hand to stop him. “Hold on just a moment, Riley. I have a plan to deal with Ethan once and for all.”

Ethan opened his eyes and looked at his former friend. “Please, don’t send me back there, Rupert. They tortured me for months. I can’t go back there. I can’t.”

Giles looked at him sadly. “You had the potential to be a great help to mankind, Ethan, and you’ve wasted it on these stupid, mean-spirited pranks. Now, you’ve used up the last of your chances.” Before the other man could speak, Rupert took the bit of bloodstained cloth from his pocket. He gathered his magic and poured it into the blood. There was a pop and where Ethan Rayne had once sat, now sat a rather bedraggled-looking dog of mixed heritage.

Turning to Riley, Giles waved his hand at the dog. “He’s sneaky, probably unhousebroken, and, no doubt, steals trash, but you now have yourselves a new pet. Take good care of him.”

Sam eyed the dog with distrust. “How come we get stuck with him? He’s your friend.”

“I didn’t let him escape from the Initiative. Besides, we live in another country. It’s much too difficult to transport animals across international borders. Ethan is very old for a dog. I don’t imagine you’ll have to watch him for more than a year or two.” He pulled out his cell phone and called a taxi. “We’ll be on our way as soon as our ride is here.”

Riley disappeared into the bedroom and returned a few minutes later wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He looked very manly and stalwart. It made Buffy tired.

“Buffy,” he nodded at her. “How’s Spike?”

It pissed her off. Spike wasn’t anybody’s prize, but it wasn’t Riley’s place to judge him.

“He’s dead. He incinerated himself to save the world and defeat a hoard of ubervamps. I understand that preventing apocalypse buys you a few points in heaven.”

“Oh. Well, he wasn’t good enough for you. Someday you’ll meet the right guy and he’ll be human.”

Buffy smiled and linked her arm with Giles. “I’ve already done that, Ri.”

He didn’t get it.

Giles put his hand over the arm that linked with his. “Are you ready to leave, dearest?”

“More than.” She looked down at the dog panting at their feet. “Bye, Ethan. Don’t chase too many cats, OK?”

They turned away and walked down the sidewalk while the others watched. Just as they reached the waiting taxi, Giles bent down and kissed Buffy. Riley could see that she enjoyed every minute of the embrace. He looked on, horrified as Buffy clearly whispered something tempting in her Watcher’s ear. The older man raised her hand to his mouth and nipped at her fingers. They got into the car and drove away without looking back.

Riley, finally getting it, turned to his wife and brother. “Oh, eeeeuw!”

END