Title: Protective Coloration 1/11
Author: Sweetdoggie (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Pairing: B/G
Rating: R
Summary: Buffy and Giles resolve some of their problems and Buffy gets a new chance at life.
Spoilers: None. Willow didn’t bring Buffy back, the Powers did.
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.
Giles nursed the glass of soda he had picked up at the table and tried to slink quietly away into a corner. He heard the shrill voice of the Dean’s wife, Mrs. Jenks, call his name and closed his eyes momentarily in the hope that if he couldn’t see her, she wouldn’t see him. It was a forlorn hope. She tracked him to his corner like a big game hunter on the trail of a kill. “Oh, Professor Giles! I’m so glad you could come this evening. There’s somebody I’d like you to meet.” The harpy had his arm and it took all his tact not to yank it back out of her grasping claw.
“Ah, yes. As you wish.” He said distantly as he allowed her to drag him off to meet some other member of the harpy sisterhood as he had taken to thinking of her associates.
He was introduced and immediately forgot the woman’s name. He stared down into his Coke as she droned on endlessly about something. He realized that she had finally shut up and was waiting for some remark from him. He looked up. “Well, nice to meet you. I must be off now.” He set his drink down on the nearest table and turned his back on her deeply affronted face. He made his way to the door without heeding the shrill whinny of the Dean’s wife as she tried to head him off. He cleared the building and managed to make it to his car in a very few moments. Thank God, he breathed, another faculty party over with.
He drove back to Buffy’s house and parked his car. Checking carefully for signs of unlife, he got out and made it safely to the house. Buffy was seated on the couch watching an old movie. She looked up as he entered the room.
“You look tired. How bad was it?”
“The harpy introduced me to another female. I have no idea what her name was. I wish the old bat would simply leave me alone. She can’t bear to see any man single. It must offend her sense of balance or something.” He sank down onto the couch next to her.
“What you need is some protective coloration.” Buffy told him cheerfully. “She’d leave you alone if she thought you were involved with somebody.”
He looked and sounded morose as he told her that there was no one in his life in that capacity. “I’m alone.” He sounded depressed and full of self-pity.
“You may not have a girlfriend currently,” Buffy said, “but you aren’t alone. You have all of us. You have me.” She patted his hand.
“You all have lives of your own.” Giles told her. “Xander has Anya, Willow has Tara, you and Dawn have each other, and someday soon you will find another young man and then you won’t have any time for me again.” He sighed. “That’s as it should be, of course, but it does rather leave me out in the cold.”
Buffy suddenly leaned forward and put her arms around him in a tight hug. “You will never be alone as long as I live, Rupert Giles.”
He put his arms around her and stroked her hair. He loved these moments when she actually touched him. He lived for them if the truth were known. He had tried losing himself with other women, but his heart belonged to Buffy and that was all there was to it. She rested her head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat. He knew what she was doing and it never failed to make his own heart flutter a little. It was such a little thing, but she found such comfort listening to his heartbeat that it made him proud to be alive for her.
Buffy listened to his heart and then sat up with a giggle. “You know, if she could see us tonight, she wouldn’t have any doubts about you having a girlfriend.” A funny look crossed her face. “That’s it! Why didn’t we think of this sooner?” She turned to him in excitement. “I can pretend to be your girlfriend. You can take me out and be seen with me in places where the harpy will be sure to get word. It’s perfect.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea. We’d have to pretend to be in love. We would have to be demonstratively affectionate towards each other. It could be awkward,” he told her, his heart racing at the idea.
She pooh-poohed his apprehensions. “We wouldn’t have to be all over each other. Nobody would expect that sort of behavior from you. You’re too conservative to go around having PDA’s where everybody could see. Besides, I don’t have a problem with some affection from my Watcher.”
He was tempted. Maybe if they were actually dating, she would see him as a man and not just a Watcher. It was deeply appealing. “We would have to actually go out on dates,” he warned her. “You couldn’t take up with another man while we are supposedly together.”
“Not interested in another man,” she asserted. “Can’t handle all the men in my life now. Besides, you already live here. It makes darned good camouflage. And we already have plenty of back-story if people get curious. We can even use some of the truth. We met when I was sixteen and became friends. Let’s leave that open to interpretation. Nobody is going to ask if we were lovers when I was a minor, but it adds piquancy.” She savored the word. “If we can hesitate before we say friends, that wouldn’t leave any doubts. Nobody needs to know anything else. It’s a matter of public record that you moved in here when mom passed away. They don’t need to know you have your own room.”
He suddenly felt freer than he had in several years. “All right. Let’s do it.” He said recklessly. “What are we going to tell the others?”
Buffy tilted her head sideways as she thought. “Let’s not tell them anything. None of them can keep a secret more than thirty seconds and we don’t want to take the chance of having somebody blurt out something in public. We’ll just let them know we decided to start dating each other and let them assume they know what’s going on.”
“Buffy they are our friends. Don’t you think they deserve to know the truth?” He chided slightly more as a matter of rote than having any real compunction about lying to the others.
“No, I don’t.” She told him succinctly. “If we tell them it’s for show they wouldn’t act right with us. If they think it’s a real romance, they’ll settle down faster.”
“I don’t know how this is going to work. We’ve never been demonstrative around each other.”
Leaning into him, she said, “I’ll get to satisfy my curiosity about something after all these years.”
“What would that be?”
“I’ve wondered since I was sixteen, just exactly how good a kisser you are. We saw you kissing Ms. Calender in the library once and it looked to me like you knew what you were doing.” She grinned up at him as she played with the buttons on his shirt.
“Oh, you’ve been curious about that, have you?” He chuckled and before she could move, pulled her onto his lap. “No time like the present to satisfy your curiosity. We need to be more comfortable with each other anyway. May I kiss you?”
“I’d be pretty disappointed if you didn’t after this build-up.”
He leaned down tentatively and ran his lips over her soft cheek. Slowly, giving her every chance to turn away, he settled his mouth over hers. Hesitantly, his tongue stroked her lips. He was surprised when she opened for him. He deepened the caress. By the time they pulled away from each other, they both wore stunned expressions.
“I think this idea just got a whole bunch easier.” Buffy told him.
“Yes, I do believe you may be correct,” he said, bending her down for another kiss.
Her hands had entwined in his hair and his arms had drawn her tiny body tight against him. Neither of them heard the footsteps on the stairs.
“Oh, My, God!” Dawn shrieked. “You’re kissing Giles! Giles was kissing you! You had your lips on each other! Eeeeuw!”
“Ah, it’s not what it looks like!” Giles quickly protested.
“You mean you and my sister weren’t playing tonsil hockey?” Dawn said skeptically.
“Well, ah, that is--” He looked helplessly at Buffy.
“Giles and I are going to be dating, Dawn. Kissing is allowed.” Buffy kept her cool even though her cheeks were red.
“Dating! Oh No! How can you be dating? I’m going to be the biggest freak in school again!” Dawn yipped.
“Why is that?” Giles asked her calmly.
“Because my stupid sister has another boyfriend and everybody is going to know you live here.” Dawn said. “They’re going to think you guys are doing it!”
“Dawn, Giles and I are entitled to have a life which, strange as it may seem to you, may include kissing and dating and doing it!”
Giles felt as if he had been electrocuted. Nothing else could account for the sensations whipping through his body at his darling girl’s words. “Ah, quite right, Buffy. Dawn, your sister and I are adults and we have an adult relationship between us. This isn’t going to change how things are around here, believe me.”
“You mean, you’ll still be Buffy’s Watcher and you’ll still take care of me?” She asked him with trepidation.
“Of course. Those things will never change,” he assured her.
“What happens if you guys break up?”
“Nothing will happen. We love each other, Dawn and whether or not that love takes a romantic form or a more platonic variant, does not change our deep feelings and affections, nor will it ever.”
Buffy nodded her agreement. “Whether or not Giles is my boyfriend, Dawn, first and foremost, he is my Watcher. That tie can never be broken.”
He nodded and hugged her. The younger girl looked at the pair of them. “OK, but I don’t want to have to see any gross tongue kisses or anything,” she warned them.
Giles lifted Buffy off his lap and patted her bottom. “Well, I had better get to bed as should you girls. Ah, Buffy? Would you care to have dinner with me tomorrow?”
She grinned. “I’d like that.”
He smiled down at her and it was every bit as intimate as the kisses they had shared. “Good night, then.”
He marched Dawn back to her room and tucked her in. “Say your prayers like a good girl.”
She rolled her eyes but obediently ran through her litany of thanks for her sister being back from the dead and for all the other good things that had happened in her life. She wished her mother a good night in heaven, promptly turned, and fell asleep.
Buffy made sure the house was locked up before carrying her soda can to the kitchen. She poured what was left down the drain and threw the can into the recycle bin. One way or another, today had been very significant.