Chapter Text
Halloween Through the Ages
1998
Yesterday had been a crazy day and it hadn't even been Halloween! All the band candy had mostly worked its way through the adults in town and most were either embarrassed and sulking, or pretending that nothing weird had happened.
Take Snyder, for example. Buffy had expected him to be a teeny bit humiliated over his behavior in front of his current students. At the least, she thought he might cut her some slack while he licked his wounds. But, no. He was at school, bright and early, administering the SAT on a Saturday. His sunny disposition was at all time high, to boot.
Her mother had taken the repressful, sulky route. She was deep into repressing and pretending that she hadn't been making out with Giles and causing mayhem.
As for Giles, he was hiding. Buffy had tried to get him to agree to passing out candy at his place since today was the actual day of Halloween and there would be cute kids in costumes going door to door.
She begged and pleaded over the phone but he cited a headache and the need to stay in, away from the exuberance and noise.
Not one to allow her Watcher to beat himself up (especially over behavior he wasn't in control of), she knew she needed to do something.
That was partly why she was now dressed up and about to knock on his door.
It had cost her about $30 to get the costume which would have been a deal if she hadn't needed to make substitutions for it from her own wardrobe. For some reason, her chosen costume was hard to find in a non-slutty version.
Despite the fact that she wasn't wearing the hot pants the kit had come with, she could feel appreciative stares from the male persuasion that saw her walking to Giles'. Who knew this particular vocation had been sexualized so much by men?
Taking a deep breath, she knocked a few times.
There was no sound inside the apartment, which meant there was no answer telling her to go away.
He must be attempting to pretend he wasn't home.
Silly librarian. Where else would he be? He wasn't at the library as she had walked with him to his car earlier in the day as she left the school from taking her SATs.
"Open up, Giles. It's me!"
Silence still. It went on long enough that she knew he was still hoping she would go away.
She pounded on the door hard enough that a neighbor a few doors down stuck their head out to see what the noise was.
Buffy gave a stiff, slightly embarrassed, smile. The neighbor stared at her and then checked which door she was knocking on. Buffy gave an awkward two-finger wave as the neighbor shook their head and went back inside.
Pound, pound, pound.
"Giles, I really don't want to bust your door down but if you don't answer when I know you're inside, then I'll have to assume you've fallen and hit your head and need me to call-"
The door whipped open revealing a rumpled looking Giles.
He stared at her.
"Hi," she said meekly.
His gaze traveled down her body, taking in her costume.
Buffy was wearing a tight, cheap, polyester imitation of a police officer's uniform. It had a plunging neckline (there weren't even buttons from her breast up to the collar!) but she had safety pinned it mostly closed to avoid too much cleavage. There was a plastic fake badge pinned to her chest and she wore the typical police hat with a matching plastic badge on it. On her face were a pair of classic aviators that she were hers. Around her waist was a plastic belt with a plastic night stick and a plastic holster for the plastic gun. To complete the look, she wore a pair of navy blue dress slacks and black boots. She refused to wear the hot pants and give the wrong impression.
She felt a little uncomfortable as she stood there in broad daylight, outside her Watcher's door dressed as a police officer but she gathered her nerve.
"You're under arrest," she informed him, pulling out a pair of flimsy plastic handcuffs from her back pocket.
Giles said nothing. His cheeks were pink and his mouth was still open from surprise. He stepped back and ushered her in quickly, though. His eyes scanned the area to see who might be watching before snapping the door behind her.
"What is the meaning of this?" he asked, still observing her outfit.
Shrugging, Buffy leaned against his desk in the entry way. "You shut yourself in all day and I didn't think it was healthy."
He removed his glasses and began cleaning them as he looked anywhere but at her.
"Well, perhaps that explains your presence, but not, uh…Buffy, why are you dressed up as a, um, police officer…here?"
She laughed. "Remember that time last week when Xander and Willow were discussing dressing up with Cordelia and Oz for the party at the Bronze today?"
He perched his glasses back on his nose and blinked at her. "Vaguely."
With a grin Buffy shifted the Polaroid camera in her hand so that Giles could see it.
"I need you to take a picture," she said, watching his face carefully.
"Okay," he said slowly, confusion obvious in his tone. His hand lifted automatically to receive the camera but she ignored it.
Pushing off the desk, Buffy strode over to the kitchen pass through and positioned the camera to aim at Giles' front door. She set the timer on the 30 second setting and then used Giles' confusion against him.
She pushed him to stand directly in front of his closed front door.
"Buffy, what-"
He cut off what he was saying when she slapped the plastic cuffs around his wrists and held them up in front of his chest.
"Say cheese!" she instructed.
She grinned as she held his handcuffed wrists up for the camera.
The flash went off and Buffy immediately dropped his wrists to retrieve the picture.
She shook the picture as she waited for Giles to catch on to what she had just done.
"Was that really necessary?" he grumbled, struggling to free himself from the plastic handcuffs.
"Yes," Buffy laughed. "I can't win the bet otherwise."
"Bet? What bet?" Giles demanded, giving up on his wrists.
Buffy tucked the photo into the breast pocket of her uniform/costume for safe keeping and motioned for Giles to come to her for help.
She pushed the plastic release button.
"You could have busted out of these," she reminded him.
He huffed, "That would have broken them."
She shook her head. Even when he was frustrated with her, he was unwilling to destroy something belonging to her.
He rubbed his wrist where the cuffs had been, probably out of habit since they hadn't actually irritated his skin. "Now may I know what is happening?"
Buffy hopped up onto his pass through countertop next to her Polaroid camera. "Well, last week the others were talking about the Bronze's couple's costume contest. I complained about not having anyone to dress up with."
Giles nodded, his eyes looking a bit far away as he recalled the conversation.
"And then you jumped in saying that it would not matter as I was likely to be too busy training or patrolling to participate anyway because last Halloween had been chaos and yada yada yada."
She watched him swallow as part of the conversation came back to him.
Giles cleared his throat. "Then Willow suggested maybe I would go easier on you if I were included to which I said there was no way I would ever participate in a couple's costume, much less with you lot."
Grinning, Buffy nodded but didn't say anything, preferring to not to say much, letting Giles figure it out himself for her own amusement.
"So you sulked and whined your way through training that day and sent me home with a bruised rib," he told her, glaring over the top of his glasses.
"Yep! And the next day Xander made a joke that if there was an apocalypse happening that could be stopped by you wearing a couple's costume, the world would end because there was no way it was happening."
He nodded, remembering it now that Buffy mentioned it.
"And even later that day, Willow and I were having a laugh, talking about what costumes would work if I ever got you to participate. You know, just for fun. Xander stuck his nose in and told us it was a waste of time thinking about it and thus: a bet was born."
"A bet?"
"Yep."
"I'm not dressed up, though. And nor will I ever be," Giles informed her, crossing his arms over his chest in a bid to look imposing. It might have worked better if his hair didn't look like he'd been running his hands through it all day.
Buffy pulled the Polaroid from her pocket and looked at it now that it had developed.
She grinned so hard her cheeks hurt.
The Giles in the photograph, in his white undershirt, looked so annoyed at being handcuffed that he emulated his Ripper look from yesterday so well. His shirt was wrinkled; his hair was disheveled.
Next to him stood a cop who was beaming.
She waved the photo at Giles tauntingly. "I have here proof of you being in character so I win the bet."
He stuttered, "B-but I'm not in character!"
Shaking her head, Buffy turned the photo around so he could see it from where he stood. "Ripper and the cop!"
His face flushed and he lunged for the photo.
Thinking fast, Buffy stuffed it inside her shirt and tucked it into her bra.
Giles froze where he stood, comically overbalanced with his hand reaching out.
She knew there was no way Giles would reach into her shirt for the photo. His propriety would not let him. Now, if it were yesterday and he was Ripper… well, that guy might have. He was certainly freer with his touches when his inhibitions were lowered.
Not that he'd touched her inappropriately yesterday. He hadn't. Her mother, yes. She'd witnessed that with her own eyes. But Buffy? No. But the potential was there. She could see how girls might have fallen for him in his prime.
Giles backed away from her, hands in the air like she was a real cop and had a gun pointed at him. Buffy couldn't resist picking up her camera and snapping another quick picture.
He scowled at the flash.
"Is that really necessary?"
Taking mercy on him, she set that picture down on the counter to develop.
"Look, you can't sit here alone all weekend and sulk about what you did under the influence last night," she insisted.
He blanched at her phrasing.
"Can I hang out here with you?" she asked, tentatively.
He sighed. "If you promise to only use that photo to prove to Xander that you 'won' the bet, then you can stay."
She cheered and his face softened to a smile. "You must promise to hide that photograph somewhere no one else will see it once you win the bet."
She stuck out her hand to shake on it. She, Xander and Willow would get a laugh out if it but she wasn't actually trying to humiliate Giles but waving it around for Cordelia and others to see.
Later, they were sitting on his couch eating popcorn while Giles drilled her on demonology (which she thought was playing dirty but since she had tricked him already that night, she had no room to complain).
She had finally got an answer right. Giles closed his finger in the book.
"What will you win?"
"Huh?"
"The bet. What was the wager?"
"Oh," she giggled. "If I couldn't get you to dress up in a couple's costume with me, I was supposed to spend a week flirting with him in front of Cordelia."
Giles' face of confused revulsion made her laugh harder.
"He thinks it will make her jealous to the point of wanting him more."
"The mindset of teenaged boys," he muttered with a touch of disgust.
Buffy rolled her eyes. She knew Xander's aim was probably to get Cordelia to think that Buffy wanted him. In her desperation to keep Xander's attention, she'd allow him to go further that she had before.
If Buffy lost the bet and had to spend all week flirting with Xander, she wouldn't have felt bad, though. Despite how easy Cordelia sometimes came across, Buffy knew she wasn't. Flirting with Xander was not going to have Queen C making rushed decisions. The fact that Xander thought it would was funny to her.
Clearing his throat, Giles asked her, "And what do you get for winning the bet?"
She eyed him from across the couch, a slow smile taking over. "Well, since I need your cooperation to not tell Xander you got tricked into this, I made a wager that you would benefit from: he has to go a week without making dumbs jokes in either one of our presence."
Giles erupted into giggles and she joined him.
This Halloween spent on the couch with her Watcher was turning out to be more fun than she'd had in a while.