__Another Position__
By Escargoat



With a shake of his head, Rupert Giles forced himself to look away. He didn’t know why it was so hard. He had successfully ignored his desires for Buffy for years. That they had suddenly become stronger, well that was just plain perplexing. Or it would have been had he not been distracted by her hips, butt, breasts, lips, eyes, smile, legs, or other various parts of her anatomy.

Unable to resist, he took another peek and instantly regretted it. A certain portion of his own anatomy was starting to beg to be noticed. He made a disgruntled noise at himself and forced his nose back into the book in his hands.

The noise made Buffy glance over at him. That was her first mistake. She had been really good at avoiding Giles ever since she had decided that he was one of the sexiest men on the planet. Then, two days ago things had gotten worse.

It was bad enough that she had gotten a thing for him when he “saved the day” when Willow went bad, but this was just plain ridiculous. All she could think about was his manly man-ness, and she knew that dying of embarrassment was the least of her worries. Giles would never want her affections after her affair with Spike. She had at one time held out hope that if she worked hard enough, he could move past it, but that final year in Sunnydale had proven that her relationship with Spike was the one thing Giles wasn’t going to get over.

To have him find out about her feelings… Buffy pushed the thought away with a shudder. Giles was so not going to find out. She couldn’t bear to have him cut her off completely.

* * * * *

Anya watched pensively as Giles and Buffy shot each other sly looks. So far so good. Nothing had happened. Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe Cupid needed to shoot the arrows for them to have any real power. Maybe it was just a matter of time before their stubborn natures rejected the possibility of a romantic relationship.

Giles bent over to pick a pencil up off of the floor. Buffy’s eyes fastened on his rear and her tongue darted out to moisten her lips.

Anya groaned. This was not good.

“Well, well, what is my favorite subject doing today?” Cupid’s annoyingly cheerful voice buzzed in Anya’s ear. “Oh, tut, she’s with her boring, old Watcher again. How am I supposed to hook her up with someone delicious when she’s always hanging around Mr. Fusty? And how am I supposed to put him in another entirely sex based relationship when he doesn’t go anywhere?”

“Maybe you should try putting them into good relationships,” Anya commented.

“But those are soooo boring,” Cupid complained as he adjusted his fluffy diaper.

Anya sighed and looked at him. “If it weren’t for you, I’d have had a lighter sentence. There wouldn’t have been nearly as many scorned women.”

Cupid beamed. “Thank you!”

“So, what happens if you shoot someone who has already been shot once in the last two years,” Anya decided to ask while he was in an apparently good mood.

“Oh, you know, bad things. They won’t fall in love with the second person, or they’ll have frigidity problems…”

“Like having an arranged marriage when you’re in love with someone else?” Anya asked.

“Yes, but really, you make that sound like a bad thing.”

After a bit, Cupid spoke again, “Say, don’t you think that that Dawn girl and Andrew would make a perfect couple?”

“Isn’t Andrew gay?”

“Yes, but that would be so romantic, him hiding his nature to be with her,” Cupid sighed.

“Actually, I think that’s called being in denial,” Anya said.

“What do you know about love? You’re here to learn from me, aren’t you?” Cupid said, clearly affronted by her comment.

Anya shrugged and ignored him. “Giles was a much better boss than you are. He let me handle money, and he wasn’t stupid.”

“I’m not stupid!” Cupid wheezed as he became overly irate at her comment.

“Yes, you are. And you’re overweight and need Rogain,” Anya replied.

Cupid glared at her. “Just for that, I’m making you stay here and not come with me to make that nice Faith girl fall into unrequited love with Lorne.”

As Cupid disappeared in a puff of twinkly dust, Anya rolled her eyes. Not only was he stupid, he was obviously behind in the latest romance news if he did not know about Faith and Wood.

Bored, she looked back down at Buffy and Giles who were trying vainly not to look at each other’s chests as they demonstrated some fighting techniques. This was getting pathetic. Why didn’t they just have sex already? And why did she care? Sure, she liked Giles, a lot, and Buffy was nice in a save the world kind of way.

Anya fiddled with her hair. This was confusing. She didn’t like not being able to be apathetic about love choices. And she really hated the fact that she was rooting for Giles and Buffy to make happy orgasms together.

“Oh, just screw already,” she whined at them.

Giles and Buffy froze and then looked upwards making it appear like they were looking straight at Anya through her little portal

Anya backed quickly away. Apparently, Cupid’s portal transmitted sound when one talked directly to the people in it.

“Well, this is just great,” she mused. Then she shrugged. It wasn’t like they weren’t thinking about it anyway, and maybe they’d just chalk up hearing her voice to the fact that they were thinking about sex because she used to talk about it so much. And if she was really fortunate, they would both deny hearing anything because they were too stubborn.

She sneaked another quick peek down at them. They were staring heatedly into each other’s eyes. Maybe she should see if there was another position opening up with Angel.

* * *