Chapter 7: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Warning: I don't know; maybe language and innuendo somewhere along the way.
Challenge: #2789: '"I'm looking over a four leaf clover" Challenge' by halfbloodpuffskin and #2886: 'Handcuffs of love...' by Methos. This is for the 'Hug a Donor' challenge. Thought I'd mix two together.
A/N: I swore I would never do it, but Musie disagreed with me on a possible pairing mentioned in this chapter.
Thanks to my betas: zigpal, AerynSpeedleCaine and AshDawnSoulmates.
Disclaimer: BtVS characters belong to Joss Whedon / Mutant Enemy. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.
Summers home
Dinnertime, Thanksgiving Day…
Buffy didn't see her mom when they came in, but she smelled something delicious in the air so she called out, "Hey, Mom! Sorry I'm so late; we've been working on that problem and lost track of time."
From the kitchen, Joyce answered, sounding somewhat distracted, "Did you figure it out?"
"Nope. Which brings me to the next thing: Oz is here to join us for dinner. Hope you don't mind," Buffy said, wincing as she prepared to walk into the kitchen. Oz shrugged when she looked at him, not sure how to help her.
When they finally made it to the kitchen, Joyce had her back to them, busy with last minute dinner preparations. "It's fine with me, but what about his folks? Oh, before I forget, Willow called here looking for you last night. Didn't she know about this?"
Giving Oz a sympathetic smile, Buffy said, "Well, she probably does now. She and Oz broke up a couple days ago, so it's just me, Giles and Oz for this one."
"I'm sorry to hear that. So what--" Joyce pulled the rolls out of the oven and set them on the counter, then looked up at her daughter. "Why are you two handcuffed together?!" she shouted.
Oz simply waved with his free hand. "Hello, Mrs. Summers."
"This is the problem. Somebody brainwashed Xander into cuffing us with magical cuffs. I can't break them and we can't pick them. Giles talked to a guy who looked at them; there's a spell that Oz and I have to break," Buffy explained.
Her daughter's life was so strange. Joyce ran a hand over her face, rubbing her eyes for some reason. "Well, how do you break it?"
Buffy's expression looked chagrinned. "By telling each other how we feel… Except when we tried, it didn't work. Giles' guy said something about us 'discovering' our feelings first."
"So you're supposed to be in love?" Joyce guessed in disbelief.
"Not necessarily," Oz answered before Buffy could.
"Oz thinks that it's possible that we don't know each other well enough to really have feelings. So we spent several hours last night and today talking…about frivolous things, our childhoods, our dreams. That kind of stuff." Buffy realized that other than the whole handcuff thing, the last 18 hours with Oz had been the best since she came to Sunnydale – certainly since she came home after last summer.
"So if you're stuck together, how have you managed to eat, dress, sleep…shower?" Joyce stressed pointedly.
Oz spoke up first again, "My mom made us some shirts that we don't need to get our left arm in."
Deciding to avoid the subject her mom was asking about, Buffy handled the easy stuff first. "Eating really isn't that bad so far. We've managed to coordinate our efforts for stuff like that and walking. The bathroom stuff…well, the first few times we wore blindfolds and earplugs, but our hearing is so good that we had to switch to headphones turned up loud." That was a particularly brilliant move on Oz's part.
Joyce wasn't about to be deterred though. "And the showers?" she pressed.
Seeing that Buffy didn't want to reply, Oz did, "We took turns. I stayed outside the curtain while she showered, and then we reversed."
One problem done; one to go. "What about sleeping?"
"I slept behind him." Buffy knew the best way for them to sleep from the crap those guys yapped on about the previous summer. She also knew that waking up with Oz behind her would make their awkward situation even worse. That's why she suggested the set up.
But apparently that wasn't good enough for her mother. "On the same bed?"
Both Buffy and Oz's faces wrinkled in confusion. How else would they have slept? "Uh, yeah."
Joyce took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. "I want you to stay here tonight," she ordered.
Nodding slowly, Buffy asked, "Okay, why?"
"I just want to make sure that nothing happens. Parents of boys aren't usually as strict as parents of girls," Joyce explained before they could ask what she meant.
"That's probably true in most cases," Oz agreed. "They'll want us to come over for dessert later, though."
Buffy saw the glint in her mom's eyes. It looked remarkably similar to when she would get in trouble at school and her mom wanted to discuss it. "Oz, can you put the headphones on while I talk to my mom?" She waited until they heard the music playing before she asked, "What exactly do you think happened?"
Choosing her words carefully so it didn't sound judgmental, Joyce said, "It's not that anything necessarily happened last night. I just want to be sure it doesn't happen tonight – or any night until those cuffs come off."
"Sheesh, Mom. You act like we're using the cuffs as some kind of kinky sex prop! What kind of people do you think we are?" Buffy asked, rolling her eyes.
"Hey, normal people use them, too!" Joyce blurted without thinking.
"Eww, how do you know that?" Buffy's eyes grew wide in horror as she put 2 and 2 together. "Oh my god! That's why you had the cuffs when we found Ethan that night? You and Giles?! Ugh, I sooo need an industrial-sized vat of mental bleach!" she muttered, shuddering profusely.
Oz felt her movements and pulled the headphones off to ask, "Everything okay?"
"Not even! I learned way too much about my mom." After Oz put the headphones back on, Buffy demanded, "Are you two together?"
"No, it was just the candy," Joyce quickly attempted to reassure her daughter.
Except she was surprised by the angry look Buffy gave her. "Why? What's wrong with Giles? He's nice, smart, kinda handsome – in an older guy sorta way. You could do a lot worse than him."
Joyce was getting a headache from everything. She couldn't keep up with Buffy's moods. "I'm sorry, weren't you just 'Eww'-ing at the thought of us together?"
"Well, yeah! That's when we were talking about sex," Buffy clarified. "As long as I don't have to think about you two like that, I'm happy Cleopatra girl. Parents aren't supposed to have sex lives."
"You honestly would be okay with the two of us dating?" Wow, Joyce hadn't considered pursuing a relationship with him. "What about your father?" she asked, just to double-check.
Buffy smirked, then deadpanned, "I don't think he's Giles' type, but I could be wrong." They both giggled. "Giles has been more of a dad to me since we moved here than Dad. Don't all kids want their parents together?"
Shaking her head, Joyce asked, "How does Mr. Giles feel about this?" Then she felt like a high schooler herself, wanting to know what the cute boy in Trig said about her.
"I think after what you two did, you can call him Giles – or maybe Rupert," Buffy couldn't help but tease. "How should I know? I didn't even know you two got groiny. Talk to him. And if he feels uncomfortable because of me, just let him know I'm okay with it. Just remember that he won't let any relationship with you interfere with his duties as my Watcher. That means you can't manipulate him into letting me slack on my duties."
"Wow. I'm astonished that you would encourage this." Especially after that fiasco the previous year with Ted – although Buffy happened to be right about that psycho. How did he come back to life? Huh, something to ask Buffy about; maybe it was Slayer-related.
Buffy took her mom's hand so she could answer her seriously, "You both deserve to be happy."
"Well, thank you, sweetie." Joyce narrowed her eyes. "Don't think this means I'm okay with you sleeping with Willow's ex-boyfriend."
Scoffing, Buffy shot back, "It's not exactly our first choice either."
Joyce hoped her daughter would be as grown-up about what she said next as she was about Rupert. "I have some stipulations about it though."
Instantly wary, Buffy asked, "Like what?"
"You are fully clothed, and one of you will sleep above the covers while the other one is below them." And anything else she thought of between now and bedtime.
Buffy nodded. "Okay, sounds reasonable. I was worried you'd put me in a plastic bubble or something."
Her turn to tease, Joyce inquired, "Know where I can get one before bedtime?"
"Ha, ha. Very funny, Mom." Buffy nudged Oz to signal he could listen again.
After helping clear the table and load the dishwasher, Oz dried his hands. "Thanks for a delicious meal, Mrs. Summers."
Back in the entryway, Buffy grabbed the shawl she took from Oz's mom earlier. "Yeah. Very nummy. Faith is handling patrol until this is resolved – for obvious reasons. We'll have dessert with Oz's folks then come back before too late. We'll call if something comes up," she promised, kissing her mom on the cheek.
A/N: Next…Something comes up.
