Chapter Text
Halloween Through the Ages
2000
Life hadn't been very kind to Buffy lately.
Last week she found out her sister wasn't actually her sister but, in fact, a mystical ball of energy.
Her mother was ill. Severely ill.
Her steady boyfriend had been less than steady lately and things felt tense and stilted between them.
Halloween was approaching and she had received a playful reminder from Xander that they had a standing bet.
It was nearly tradition at this point for her to trick Giles into somehow taking part in some sort of a couple's costume.
Between the newly opened Magic Box, her classes, protecting Dawn, placating Riley, and caring for her mom, she and Giles weren't getting to do much together. She decided against scheduling in some Watcher/Slayer bonding time with him. He might recognize the date and become paranoid, leaving her unable to trick or coax him into taking part.
Instead, she made her plan simple: ambush him in a normal setting and use his "regular" attire in her favor.
She knew Xander might cry "cheater" again, but she had no energy left in her to put in any more effort in. Not this time.
With her costume in her gym bag, she arrived at The Magic Box for the one training session this week that they hadn't had to cancel.
The bell 'dinged' when she walked through the door and both Giles and Anya's heads popped up to see who was coming into the store five minutes after close. Anya's face dropped in disappointment at seeing Buffy, a nonpaying customer. Giles' face picked up in a relieved smile, though.
"You want me to lock this?" Buffy asked uncertainly, gesturing to the door.
"Please!" Giles begged.
She flipped the sign to "Closed! But come again soon…" and locked the deadbolt.
At the counter, Giles was doing some sort of inventory while Anya counted the cash in the register.
"Are we still on for training today?" Buffy asked, hopping up onto the counter next to where Giles was leaning as he checked off columns and then cross checked another column.
"Yes, I just need to finish this and then I'll be able to join you. Two minutes," he mumbled around the earpiece of his glasses.
Buffy swung her legs as she looked around the store, pride filling her at seeing the successful business her Watcher had started.
When Giles finished and filed away his clipboard, Buffy felt it was safe to converse with him.
"So, I was thinking today about how I don't have a chance at beating that woman with strength alone. I want to work on hand to hand, defensive maneuvers."
Giles studied her before he nodded his head. "That's…well, that's a good idea, Buffy."
She pouted and crossed her arms. "Gee, don't sound so surprised. I have good ideas sometimes."
Helpless against her hurt expression, he immediately started backpedaling .
"I didn't mean to imply, that is- what I meant to say-"
"Chill, Watcher Mine. I'm teasing. Please tell me you have the right clothing here for hand to hand…"
Pleased to be let off the hook from having insulted her, he smiled. "I always keep a set of training clothing under the counter. Just in case."
"Preparation. Preparation. Preparation?"
Giles smiled in fondness. A distracted Anya piped up from behind a fan of money, "That's one word three times."
Buffy and Giles laughed at their joke at Wesley's expense.
"Go ahead and change in the training room," Buffy offered. "I need to speak to Anya before she leaves. I'll change in the bathroom and join you."
Sheepishly, Giles thanked her. "I appreciate it. I might need the extra time to warm up. I'm not as young as I used to be."
She didn't reply but she waved her hand in an 'eh, who cares?' gesture.
Once Giles had disappeared behind the heavy door that led into their training room, Buffy pulled the Polaroid camera out of her gym bag and set it on the counter near Anya.
"I need your help," Buffy whispered.
Anya glanced away from the lock bag she was securing the day's intake into.
"Will it take long? I have to take this to the night deposit at the bank and I don't want to do that after dark."
With an eye on the training room door, Buffy explained to Anya that she wanted her to follow Buffy into the training room to take a picture of her and Giles.
"Oh! I know what you're doing!" Anya screeched.
Eyes wide at the climbed Anya was using, Buffy hushed her.
Dropping her voice into an appalled whisper, Anya hissed, "You want me to help you win the bet against Xander!"
Ignoring the accusation, Buffy looked Anya dead in the eye and said, "Yes. We haven't set the terms of the bet and I have an idea that you'll benefit from."
That got Anya's attention. "I'm listening…"
Buffy explained her plan. She was going to put her costume on. Anya was going to follow her into the training room. Buffy was going to quickly grab Giles and pose. Anya would snap the photo. Then, when Anya supported Buffy in saying she'd won fair and square, Buffy would make Xander build a new bookshelf for her training room to house all of Giles' books that dealt with training, Jujitsu, muscle conditioning et cetera. He had been complaining lately about not having thought far enough ahead to have Xander build one when they worked on the room initially.
"But what do I get out of that?" Anya asked, shrewdly.
Grinning, Buffy informed her, "I'm make it part of the bet that he can only work after hours and that he has to build it while wearing his tool belt. And no shirt."
"I'm in!" Anya announced, loudly, without a wasting a second considering.
She was sure telling Xander about the whole 'no shirt, toolbelt on' part would clue him in to Anya's culpability. After he realized what he would be getting from Anya from going along with it, Buffy doubted he'd complain about her skirting around the edge of the rules.
Nodding, Buffy told Anya that she had to agree to sanitize anything and everything they touched in her training room and that she would make sure Giles was busy in the evenings when Xander was working on the bookshelf.
*************************
Giles had just begun to wonder what was taking Buffy so long to change and join him when he heard the store's loud speaker system blare to life.
It was music. He cocked his head mid-stretch, as he listened to the distinct opening notes to "Eye of the Tiger".
The training room door flew open and the lights dimmed leaving mostly natural light from the high windows on the western wall.
His brain caught up to what was happening as Buffy pranced into the room, bouncing on the balls of her feet and throwing punches into the air.
He'd been tricked again.
His Slayer was dressed in a boxing costume of hot pink and brilliant white silk.
Her hair had been French braided when she arrived earlier and he'd assumed she meant business about hand to hand drills. The last time they had done any hand to hand, he'd accidentally pulled her hair when it got trapped between his shoulder and the mat. Now, the French braids seemed more a preemptive choice for her costume. Female boxers and wrestlers didn't leave their hair loose for an opponent to grab and use against them.
Her costume consisted of a thigh length pink silk robe trimmed with a wide white edging. The hood of it was oversized and artfully draped over Buffy's blonde head. She'd left it untied, revealing the pink silk boxing shorts with a four inch wide waist band in white. In the center of the high-waisted shorts was the word "KNOCK OUT".
The rest of her costume consisted of a matching pink sports bra, a pink mouth piece, and pink and white boxing gloves that looked overly large on her tiny frame.
He gawked at the sight of her shadow boxing in front of him, all pink satin boxing gloves and silky robe flowing around her body with her movements. Her navel was barely exposed above the four inch wide waistband on what would never pass as real boxing shorts. Silk fabric had absolutely no give to them.
And they were shorter than boxing shorts had any business being.
He stood there, dumb struck, as she bounced over to him and grinned around her mouth piece.
She grabbed his hand and placed it on her shoulder.
"Now wait just a minute here," he began, already knowing that his fate was inevitable.
Buffy ignored him, as he expected, and turned around underneath his hand.
As he looked up, he saw Anya standing there with Buffy's Polaroid camera.
"Absolutely NOT!" he demanded, just as the flash went off.
Buffy spun back around and grinned ridiculously. The pink molded mouthpiece stretched her lips tight around it, her smile so big and nearly ridiculous looking with the mouth piece in.
She tried to speak but was unable to.
Rolling his eyes, he reached over and slid his finger under the inside of her top lip, along her gum line. Buffy's eyes went wide at his invasion of her personal space but Giles ignored it. Their physical boundaries were constantly being redefined when it came to training. If Buffy wanted to pretend he was her trainer, then she shouldn't be surprised when he did what trainers do.
He broke the suction on her mouth guard pinched the edge of it and removed it from her mouth.
"Gross!" Buffy exclaimed, looking at her mouth piece in his palm.
He couldn't help casting an exasperated look at her. "My hands are clean and you wouldn't be able to speak with it in and you obviously cannot remove it yourself with your hands encased in those, those… monstrosities."
She rolled her eyes at him. "I meant for you. You're covered in Buffy drool now."
Anya choked behind the camera she was still aiming at them.
Ignoring her presence for now, Giles raised an eyebrow at his Slayer.
"And being covered in your drool is somehow more gross than being covered in your sweat? Your blood?"
Buffy blushed and shrugged.
Flash.
Anya had taken a picture of them as they stood there: Giles with one hand on Buffy's shoulder and the other holding her mouth guard. Buffy was likely captured in that photograph as standing there looking up at him as he spoke.
He imagined it might develop into a photo that truly looked like a trainer giving his boxer a pep talk.
"Could you not have just asked me to participate this time?"
He wasn't wearing anything embarrassing, after all. Just sweats, a t-shirt, a zip up hoodie and his trainers.
Buffy had actually been rather tasteful thus far with the Halloween costumes she'd forced on him. For him anyway.
He repressed the memory of a seventeen year old Buffy beating down his door dressed as a sexy cop. He could tell she hadn't intended for the outfit to exude sex appeal, but dressing up as a police officer on Halloween had connotations that a young Buffy must not have known. What made it worse was she had shown up at his door wearing it.
He, a middle aged bachelor.
His neighbor Mrs. Pilkington had glared at him for months after that. She'd asked that he refrain from ordering strippers to his home when he's lonely.
Any time Mrs. Pilkington saw Buffy coming or going from his apartment, Giles was sure to get a dirty, judgemental look from his elderly, widowed neighbor.
He had told Buffy to hide the photo once she won the bet and he was content to allow her to labor under the misconception that it was due to his own appearance and not because he didn't want Buffy's mother to see it and jump to conclusions.
The pilgrim costume she had worn next to him in his Union Jack t-shirt was creative, he had to admit. She'd known how to play on his manners. She manipulated the situation so skillfully that refusal to wear it would hurt her feelings. But as far as humiliating costumes go, he'd take wearing the Union Jack over practically any of the other thousands of embarrassing ideas she could have come up with.
Buffy grinned up at him. "What's it gonna take to get you to put a towel around your neck and hold a water bottle in a picture?"
He looked down his nose at her. "That depends. What's in it for me?"
Buffy strode over to a corner in the back of the room. He had a cardboard box in it that housed a jumble of jump ropes, tension bands, and some of his books about muscles and warm up stretches.
She waved her arms to gesture a space on the wall. It was slightly comical since her hands were still encased in pink boxing gloves.
"Winning the bet means that Xander will be using some of the leftover spare wood to build us a bookcase for all our books and gear," she said.
"Yes, and I am going to watch him build it!" Anya piped up from behind them.
Something in Anya's tone- the excitement, perhaps- told him that he should not look too closely at why she might be so keen.
We sighed with more bodily animation than he felt (he knew how much Buffy got a kick out of tricking him into this ridiculous set ups. She truly needed this pick-me-up right now). He waved her back over to him.
Buffy jumped and clapped her hands, or tried to. The padded boxing gloves made a thumping sound when she pounded them together in leiu of clapping.
Careful not to cut her gums, Giles slipped the mouth guard back into her mouth. He found it odd the way she hadn't batted an eye about her mouth guard touching his palm and fingers and then her mouth. He would have thought she'd wrinkle her nose about his germs on something that goes in her mouth. Weirdly, her concern was her drool touching him.
He allowed Buffy to grab a white sweat towel and drape it around his neck. She handed him a sports water bottle (the kind that you could squirt water into your mouth with) and posed him. Anya told Buffy to turn this way and that and took about half a dozen photos before she handed over the camera and the still developing photos.
Once Anya left, he and Buffy took a seat on the couch.
"Perhaps next year we can avoid all the deception and just plan something together?" he hedged, trying to still look grumpy.
Beside him, Buffy grinned and laughed.
"But doing it this way is becoming our thing!"