Title: Office of Horrors
Author: Gileswench
Contact: gileswench@yahoo.com
Date: 2/28/07
Spoilers: None, really, but set in S1 post The Pack
Summary: Beaurocracy is more difficult to manage than the Scoobies thought.
Rating: FRC
Pairing: genfic, hints of possible, eventual B/G
Category: Humor/Challenge response
Distribution: If you've had my permission in the past, you have it now. All others, ask and ye shall receive.V Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome. Praise abjectly sought.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Joss, Mutant Enemy, etc., etc., etc. I just let them have all the fun Joss won't. I own nothing except my twisted mind which you really don't want. Please don't sue.
Notes: This one comes to you courtesy of Pythia who needed silliness. She requested: The Scoobies rescue Giles, who is beset by demon paperwork.' Should include Buffy weilding a paperknife, Willow tying something up in red tape, and Xander throwing jelly doughnuts.
Dedication: To Pythia, and to everyone who wishes they could unload all the paperwork on someone else once in a while.

Giles sat in his office, his head bent over his desk in despair. He’d been at these figures for hours, yet nothing seemed to be getting accomplished. He could have sworn he had already filled out the form in front of him six times, yet there it sat as pristinely virginal as it had been when he sat down.

“I don’t understand,” he sighed. “It shouldn’t be taking this much trouble.”

He scratched his head and began again.

“Gi-illllles,” Buffy called from the library. “Are we training or not?”

“Just one more minute, please,” he said. “As soon as I finish this form, I’ll be right there.”

“That’s what you said twenty minutes ago, and half an hour ago, and an hour ago,” Buffy said. “Am I the only one sensing a pattern?”

“I sense that Giles has no eyes if he doesn’t want to come out here and watch you dance in spandex, which qualifies him to be committed to the mental institution of your choice.” Xander said. “Ow! Willow? The hell?”

He rubbed his shoulder.

“Will!” Buffy exclaimed. “You hit Xander. Go you with the defending little me.”

“The Slayer’s Best Bud Assertiveness lessons have been paying off,” Willow said with a smug smile. “So don’t say rude things about Buffy, Xand, or you will feel the wrath of Willow. It’s like the Wrath of Khan, only with less Captain Kirk.”

Buffy grinned at her friends, then frowned toward the office. Xander reached for another donut from the Krispy Kreme box on the table.

“Giles if you don’t come out right now, I’m going to your place and replacing all your tea with Taster’s Choice,” Buffy said. “I mean it.”

“Just one more minute, Buffy, please!” Giles called from his retreat. “If I don’t get this done tonight, Herr Snyder will draw and quarter me.”

“He’d never get past the Scoobies, you know that,” Buffy scoffed.

“What’s the form, anyway?” Willow asked. “Why is it so important?”

Giles looked up from his desk and blinked. For the life of him he couldn’t think what was so vital about the paperwork. He shook his head. It didn’t matter if this was busy work; it was required busy work and that meant he had no choice.

“Perhaps you should all just go home,” he said irritably. “I don’t know how long this is going to take at this point, and you lot nattering at me is only slowing me down.”

Buffy, Willow, and Xander all shared wide-eyed looks of surprise, shrugged, and gathered up their belongings. If Giles suddenly decided to give them the night off, who were they to complain?

“Y’know, Giles,” Buffy called over her shoulder as they approached the door, “you could have told me this an hour ago and saved us both a lot of frustration.”

After all, she was the Slayer. When a Slayer’s time is wasted, it is her sacred right to complain.

*****

Buffy was annoyed but not especially concerned when she dropped by Giles’ place later that night to check in after patrol and found he wasn’t there. On a whim, she decided to see if he was still at school and berate him for it if he hadn’t left yet. After all, if the Slayer is going to get the right clues and training, the Watcher needs at least one good, solid night of sleep each and every month.

The school was dark when she arrived. The only light burning glowed in the library. Buffy shook her head in disgust.

“Some Watchers never learn,” she said to herself indulgently. “Time to send Giles home to bed. I swear, if he doesn’t shape up soon, I’m going to start going over there and tucking him in.”

She half laughed to herself over a mental image of Giles in tweed pajamas glowering at her as she pulled the blankets right up to his chin. Her musings were disturbed by a slight noise behind her. Buffy whirled to face her opponent. She dropped her fists when she saw that it was Willow and Xander.

“Hey, guys,” she said. “What brings you here?”

“Giles worry,” Willow said. “We tried to call his place, but he wasn’t there.”

“And when Giles isn’t home, he’s usually here,” Xander added. “Willow thought we should try to talk him into leaving ye olde alma mater and getting some shut-eye.”

“Wow. Great minds,” Buffy said. “Or at least Scooby ones.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking only one mind in this conversation qualifies as great,” Xander said.

“You guys!” Willow said nervously. “Enough, already. Let’s make sure Giles is okay.”

Buffy deftly flicked a stake out of her right sleeve. Willow pulled out a small cross. They both looked expectantly at Xander. He shrugged.

“I really wasn’t planning on evil fighting tonight,” he admitted. “I was going to The Bronze, get a root beer, get humiliated by some pretty girl, and go home. You know, the usual. It was Will’s idea to come here.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and pulled a small vial of holy water out of her pocket. She tossed it to Xander.

“Stay close, don’t take any chances,” she said. “If Giles is in bad trouble, get ready to run for backup. Got it?”

“Got it,” Willow said.

“By ‘backup’, you wouldn’t mean a tall, brooding guy with Cro-Magnon brow ridges, would you?” Xander said. “’Cause if that’s your backup, I’m against it.”

“Shut up, Xander,” Willow said. “Angel’s good in a fight.”

“Look, we’ll see whether we need his help or not,” Buffy said. “Maybe Giles just fell asleep at his desk. Or maybe he’s on his way home and he forgot to turn out the lights when he left. He’s probably fine. So let’s go make sure and take him home, if he hasn’t gone there already.”

With a determined stride, Buffy headed for the library. Her face was confident, but her heart was pounding fast. As much as she teased Giles and poked fun at his clothes, his stuffiness, his studious habits and his quiet tastes, the fact was she’d grown very fond of him over the months they’d worked together. She respected his wit and tactical mind. She enjoyed their verbal tussles in a way she couldn’t explain even to herself.

If anything had gotten Giles, she would do anything and everything to save him, or to avenge him if she was too late.

The three paused a few yards from their destination. Buffy could hear muffled cries of horror coming from the recesses of the library.

“That’s Giles,” she said. “He’s in trouble. I’ll take point. You guys back me up. It doesn’t sound like vampaction, so be prepared to grab anything you can to use as a weapon. Xand, I’m counting on you to get Giles out of there safely as soon as we get him away from whatever’s got him. Got it? Good. We’re going in.”

The brave little band raced in, then halted in their tracks. They’d never seen anything like this before, and in Sunnydale, that was saying a lot.

Giles pounded on the window of his office, calling desperately for help. His clothes were torn, his face was bleeding from several cuts, and he seemed to be under attack from huge stacks of paper.

Buffy hurried to the office and began pulling on the door. It was stuck fast.

“Xand! Axe!” she yelled.

Xander and Willow tried desperately to get into the book cage.

“It’s locked!” Willow called. “We can’t get in.”

Buffy gathered her strength and kicked viciously at the door. Nothing happened. Again. Still nothing. On the third try, though, the door crashed and splintered. Heaps of paper flowed out and seemed to try to drown her. With every ounce of strength she possessed, Buffy threw the papers off herself. Eventually, she managed to get one hand free only to find another hand grabbing hers. A moment’s struggle later, Buffy was on her feet with a little help from Willow.

The papers, however, didn’t disappear. They didn’t even lie in stacks on the floor the way paper is supposed to. In fact, now that she got a good look at them, they were precariously stacked into a semi-humanoid structure, and they were coming at her.

“Okay, this is way beyond wrong,” she said.

As she kicked out at the creature, a thin, red ribbon streamed from its wrist. It hit Buffy’s ankle and wrapped itself around her. It was sticky. Buffy yanked at it, but the ribbon held her hand to her ankle.

“The hell?” she exclaimed. “What is this stuff?”

“Red tape,” Giles called from his office. “Be careful or you’ll drown in it!”

Xander picked up a paperknife from the counter and threw it.

“Buffy! Catch!”

The Slayer managed to follow instructions. She began using the knife to slice through her bonds, but more and more red tape spewed from the beast.

“Little help,” Buffy called to her friends.

Xander decided a distraction was in order. He ran to the library table and opened the box of donuts.

“Hey, whitey!” he yelled as he lobbed the first jelly-filled, doughy grenade.

The donut splattered over the paper creature. It gave a howl of fury and turned on Xander. Luckily, this meant it wasn’t paying attention to Buffy anymore and she was able to cut her way out of the red tape, though long strands remained attached to her. She ran into the office and began digging Giles out.

“Giles! Giles! Are you okay?” she cried across the drifts of paper. “Can you move some of this, too?”

“I’m trying,” he said desperately, “but there’s so much. I’m literally drowning in paperwork.”

“Don’t worry. Help is on the way. Keep digging toward the sound of my voice!”

It seemed to take forever, and both suffered dozens of paper cuts along the way, but eventually a masculine hand emerged from the sea of paper. Buffy grabbed and pulled with all her might.

Seconds later, she found herself lying on the library floor underneath Giles. Both were breathless. In her relief, Buffy wrapped her arms around her Watcher and hugged him close.

“Are you okay, Giles?” she asked. “God, I was so afraid I’d lost you.”

“It’s okay, Buffy,” he said. “I’m going to be fine, thanks to you.”

Both jumped a mile high when they heard Xander clearing his throat.

“Okay!” Xander said. “That’s about enough of that disturbing image.”

As Giles rolled off her, Buffy stood and then reached down a hand to help him up.

“Does your brain ever come up out of the gutter, Xander?” she asked. “Hey, what happened to our paper tiger?”

“He’s a little tied up,” Willow said proudly. “When he started throwing the red tape at Xand, I sort of went…a little Rambo on his butt.”

Xander wrapped an arm around his friend and beamed proudly.

“She managed to get it all tied up in its own red tape. Now that’s what I call justice of a particularly poetic kind.”

“And the…um…splotches?” Giles asked.

“Jelly donut blood.”

Giles looked impressed, but a bit disappointed, too.

“Well done, Xander…but I was rather looking forward to having them as a midnight snack.”

“It’s nearly midnight,” Buffy said. “And Donny’s Donut Shack stays open until the drunks let out at two. Let’s go see if he’s got any jellies.”

“Yes, well, perhaps another time,” Giles said. “One when I’m a bit less…tattered.” He flapped his shredded sleeves and pulled his torn shirt closed over his chest.”

“Or we could just stop by your place along the way and you could change,” Buffy said. “I’d even clean and bind your battle wounds.”

“Or better yet,” Willow said, “Buffy can pick out something for you to wear while I clean and bind and Xander gets donuts. You can make tea when you’re all bound and changed. That way we all do something we’re especially good at. It’s the Scooby way.”

Giles chuckled affectionately at his friends.

“You know, Willow, I do believe that’s an excellent plan.” He waved at the doors. “Shall we?”

“Um, not to be a party pooper,” Xander said, “but what are we going to do with the beaurocracy demon here?”

“We can’t just leave it here,” Willow agreed. “it might break out of the red tape and attack one of us, and we made it really, really mad. Can Buffy slay it?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” Giles said. “One can only contain beaurocracy; never kill it.”

The four stood mulling the situation until Buffy suddenly got a wicked grin on her face. She didn’t say a word, but when Giles saw her expression he, too, began to grin uncontrollably.

“I do believe that would work,” he said.

*****

Principal Snyder came into his office humming an old tune. He felt good. He had a long day ahead of him filled to the overflow with tales to tattle, bubbles to burst, and pointless torture in store for his least favorite people. He hadn’t decided how much would be directed at teachers and how much at students. In the longrun, it didn’t matter; there was plenty of petty annoyance to spread around to everyone.

He sat down at his desk and glanced at the papers sitting there. As he took up his pen to fill in the first form, an ominous sound arose from the paper itself. He blinked in confusion, then frowned. Maybe he hadn’t had enough breakfast. He’d make his secretary get him a snack. The sound came again. He was more confused. That wasn’t from inside him.

Out in the hall, Buffy, Willow and Xander escorted Giles to the library. When Snyder screamed, they all stopped and looked toward his door.

“Oh dear,” Giles said blandly. “I do hope he doesn’t mind babysitting that thing until we find a way to banish it.”

“Nah,” Buffy assured her Watcher. “He’s not having a fit; he’s just singing it a lullaby. How long is he going to have to look after Junior, anyway?”

“Well, after last night’s exertions, I find I’m rather more tired than usual,” Giles said as they began walking again. “And with the library inventory coming up, I really haven’t a moment to spend on personal projects. Pity about that.”

“Darn, that’s too bad,” Xander agreed.

“But at least Principal Snyder won’t be lonely,” Willow pointed out.

The four continued on their way, unruffled by the shrieks coming from the principal’s office.

THE END