Title: A Sense of Freedom
Author: Appomattoxco
Rating: PG for more innuendoes than any three pages should have.
Summary: AU season 6 post Gone the world without
bunnies or maybe poor Xander. Giles unwittingly
fulfils a long held fantasy of Anya's.
Pairing: Giles/ Anya ficathon story for Doyle. I hope you like.
Thanks: to agilebrit for the beta any mistakes are
because I fiddled with it after she was done.
"He really expected you to believe he was doing pushups?" Anya laughed. She was in one of her favorite places of
all--enjoying a post-sex cuddle with her fiancée in their big new bed.
"I think he was counting on polite intentional blindness on my part. I was
grateful for, and stunned by his tact. I simply told him that the invisibility
spell was dangerously unstable and if he should come upon Buffy he should get
her to the Magic Box immediately."
"Rupert! You actually used the words 'if you should come upon Buffy'? How
did you keep from laughing?"
"I didn't mean it that way. At the time, I was concerned that Buffy was
turning into goo." Anya
gave him one of her incredulous looks as if to say, sure, Ripper, I believe
you, so he added truthfully, "Spike did resort to a rather loud coughing
fit to cover Buffy's giggles. I think being invisible gave her a sense of
freedom."
"Dear, do you think it might be fun for us to do invisible pushups if you
could find a way to do them without me going all mushy and rice-pudding-like? A
sense of freedom would be very nice, not from you, just the rest of it." Anya asked. The day had been stressful, filled with wedding
plans and pointless demon research. Giles had even used the term
"harrowing" at one point to describe the seating plan for the
reception, and not the invisible Buffy stuff that had just been mildly
upsetting on the Hellmouth scale. It had been simple
enough to find invisible Buffy--look for Spike, and most of the time, that was
where Buffy was.
"It won't be long before we're on our honeymoon we will both feel better then.
As for making you disappear, NEVER, you are most beautiful wife in the world
and no matter how you may look I still crave the sight of you." Sighing he
thought, I'm not making any sense at all, but it's been a horrid day. Trying to
arrange the seating so that the guest weren't mistaking each other for the main
course and trying to provide food they could eat. Where was a good apocalypse
when you needed one? Vegas and an Elvis impersonator were beginning to look
very attractive.
Anya was quiet long enough that Giles thought she'd
fallen asleep, until she said, "But we're not married yet. Rupert, you've been
so nice lately. Helping with the seating arrangements, and dealing with that
awful caterer. Before the out-of-town guests start to arrive, let's spend the
day together and pretend that it's all done and we're on our honeymoon
already."
"And will this honeymoon include you in one of those scraps of lace you've
already packed away?" Giles asked with a sly smile that came very close to
a smirk.
"I thought we could spend the day doing one of those outdoorsy things you
like so much, and then I get to pick the indoor fun. If you like the idea of
staying in all day, I won't argue," she said with a wink.
"There is one thing I've wanted us to do together. If the day is entirely
up to me, you can't object, and you have to at least give it a fair
chance."
"Oh, honey, you should know by now I trust you completely, and I'll try
almost anything once. What is it?"
Giles laughed, "I'm not telling! It's a surprise. I will tell you that
it's 'outdoorsy' fun."
Anya looked a little disappointed at that. "It's
not sex, then. No way are we doing that outside again. Even though we had lots
of orgasms, it took forever to get the sand out last time."
"You'll see. It may even give you a sense of freedom. Let's get some sleep
'Mrs. Giles' we've both had a long day." Not surprisingly they found themselves
otherwise occupied for a while.
888
The next morning the couple
woke and dressed earlier than normal for a weekend. Giles packed a picnic
brunch while Anya dressed. "Is this all right
for where we're going, Rupert?" Anya turned
around to show off her jeans. All through breakfast she had tried to get Giles
to tell her where they were going.
"Very, um, nice. A little tight though. You
couldn't fit anything into those back pockets if you needed to."
"It's not as if you have room to talk, mister." Anya
was defensive for a moment, and then she saw the look in his eyes. "Will I
need to put something in my back pocket?"
"Actually I have something for you in my back pocket."
"That line was old the day after they invented pockets." Anya
said, reaching around him and into his pockets. She pulled out a red silk scarf
and reached in again.
Giles enjoyed her attentions for a few seconds before saying, "Not that
I'm complaining in any way, darling, but there isn't anything else."
"Oh...I thought it was a magic trick. You know—the not real kind."
"The scarf is for your eyes so that where we're going remains a surprise.
Is that all right?" She nodded, he folded the
scarf to make it opaque, turned Anya around and tied
it over her eyes. Kissing his fiancée lightly on the back of the neck when he
was done and delighting in her shiver.
"This scarf is very nice. Maybe I should revise my plans for us
later." Her tone turned contemplative. "It's too bad there's only
one. There's something that might be fun …"
"Well, um, yes, I, uh, wasn't sure what color would be best, so we have a
few, um, more."
It was cute to her that he could still get all stammer-y now and then. "Oh good! Where'd you put them, honey?"
"Bedside table, your side." So much for
stammer-y, he didn't even sound as if he wished his glasses needed cleaning.
888
When they reach their destination the sun shone and a light breeze blew. It
could have been a perfect day, but he made the foolish mistake of telling the
owner of the stable outside Sunnydale he was an
experienced rider. He should have lied though his
teeth. Most of the time the horses at such places were so tame it was difficult
to tell if they were awake or just sleepwalking over the trail. Anya's mare, Blaze, had to be named for the mark on her
forehead, because her personality was more on the line of a dying ember. His
horse, on the other hand, an Appaloosa deceptively named Rosie, was a
bad-tempered, evil thing with a mouth made of iron and a mind of her own. She
tried rub him off on the trunks of trees and wanted to lower her head to eat
every yard or two. She also had her own ideas about where she was going, and
wherever that was, the marked trail wasn't on the
agenda.
The end result was that Anya placidly rode along with
the pleased grin of a five-year-old on a pony ride, while Giles' relaxing ride
was more like a training session with Buffy when she was mad at Spike. The
spotted terror managed to unseat him ten minutes before the hour was up. That
hadn't happened to him since he was twelve. He didn't remember it hurting so
badly back then. Anya was alarmed, but good old Blaze
was unflappable. Fortunately, the bruises were in a place that wouldn't show in
the wedding pictures.
Anya once again did the thing Giles least expected.
As he slid his sore body behind the wheel of the car; she turned to her
glowering fiancée with unshed tears in her eyes and a huge smile on her face.
"Rupert Giles, you are the sweetest, most thoughtful man on earth. Here I
offered to do anything you want to do and you take me riding. It's obvious that
it's not something you're good at and enjoy. How did you know that I always
wanted to ride horseback?" He blushed while she
elaborated, "When I was a little girl, ordinary people didn't own horses,
and once I became a demon I just teleported. I know it's silly, archaic and undemocratic
but today you made me feel just like royalty."
"Darling…" Giles tried to explain; he didn't want to mislead Anya, but he was touched and very happy that something had
gone right today.
"No, I understand," Anya interrupted him.
"I don't expect you'll ever want to do this again, but if you do, there
will be no more stretching the truth to impress me, mister. You'll admit to the
horse renter guy you can't ride very well. You could have been hurt
today." She sounded very royal indeed. "We
are going home to have a warm bath together, and then we are going to eat that
picnic in bed so you can regain your strength and I can thank you properly. With orgasms."
Giles couldn't have stopped it to save his life. It seemed to start deep in his
belly, bubbling up to fill his chest, then bursting out of his mouth. All the
stress of recent weeks poured out. He giggled so hard that breathing became an
issue, and tears were streaming down his face. Finally, when he regained his
breath and most of his composure, he said, "By all means! I wouldn't dream
of arguing with royalty."
"Rupert...you didn't hit your head again when you fell, did you?" But
Anya was smiling and laughing too. She was a lot less
literal than most people gave her credit for.
Finis
A/N: This story has been strange aside from the plot itself, G/A keep wanting
to jump each other. I've had to keep them apart, as even agilebrit's
skilled beta couldn't keep a love scene by me from becoming bad fic sorry.
