InsaneJournal

"The Withdrawal", Buffy/Giles, FRAO
Written for antennapedia's Every Slayer Needs a Watcher ficathon, to a prompt from missparker (found after the story). Slight warning for, er, nonconsensual sex in a good cause. And for length; it, um, kinda got out of hand. I suck at summaries, but if this were an Original Star Trek episode, it would be "Amok Time". It is set during "The Freshman" at the start of season four and could be considered an AU. Thanks to missparker for a prompt that enabled me to use a classic fanfic trope, to antennapedia and kivrin for beta, and to antennapedia for running the ficathon and getting B/G fans more of what they want.



The first sign of the withdrawal was that Rupert Giles caught a cold. Ordinarily, he would not have found catching a cold in early October unusual; it was the inevitable result of being exposed to new students with new viruses. Old Mrs. French, the substitute who had been running the library when he was hired, had called it "teachers' plague". If he taught long enough, he would eventually work his way through all the local germs and become immune.

Now, however, Mrs. French was dead, and the high school which had formerly employed him was a bombed-out ruin over a Hellmouth. Giles had not been exposed to any new faces with coughs, sniffles, rashes, or the like because he was no longer working amongst young people. He was not working at all, in fact, and if he was not feeling terribly sanguine about that, well, he felt better physically than he had in quite some time, what with getting out and jogging every day, having more time to cook wholesome meals, and otherwise keeping himself busy so that he would forget where he'd hidden the key to the liquor cabinet.

Yes, he felt splendid, really, despite having neither job nor vocation at present. Until he began to get a headache and feel rather feverish, and then the ache spread through his body, a little more every day, and when he began to feel nauseated, he thought it must be some variety of flu, even though he could think of no one, friend or stranger, from whom he might have caught it.

By the time Xander stopped by to drink his coffee and eat his doughnuts on a warm Saturday morning, Giles was lying on the couch in nothing but his boxer shorts, red-faced and sweating despite open windows and a chilled bottle of water at hand. The younger man ignored his embarrassment, hauled him upstairs to bed, and ran out to the nearest grocery with a fistful of cash to buy juices, instant soups, aspirin, cough drops, and a plethora of other things he thought Giles might require, along with a large coffee and a box of doughnuts for himself. Giles fell asleep while Xander was gloating over the ones with sprinkles; he was not aware that Xander came upstairs and watched him for a little while before leaving.

Xander ran into Buffy at the Bronze that night. It had become their routine, unspoken and unacknowledged, to pretend to meet at the Bronze on Tuesdays and Saturdays, when Willow was meeting with the Wiccan group she had discovered on campus. Xander didn't object when Buffy bought him a ginger ale.

"I'm kinda worried about Giles," he said, watching Buffy watch the dark-haired, broody-looking bass player in this week's band.

She looked surprised. "How come?"

Xander shuffled his feet. "I stopped by this morning to see if he had any doughnuts," he neglected to mention he'd been doing that every weekend since the Fourth of July, "and he was camped out on the couch with a really bad fever." He slurped at the ginger ale; the glass was nearly empty already. "I mean, I guess it was a fever--I don't think *anybody* coulda been sweating that much just because it was hot."

"You don't sweat when you have a fever," Buffy said. The broody bassist slung down his bass and left the stage.

"Yeah, well, he was definitely not Mr. Fit as a Fiddle and Ready to Diddle this morning." Buffy turned to look at him and Xander blinked. "Did I just *say* that? Anyway, I got him into bed and went out and bought him a buncha meds and stuff and then hung around until I heard him snoring."

"It's good you were there for him, Xan." Buffy smiled brightly and went off to chat up the bass player.

Giles woke to a moment of extreme disorientation. Where was he? He felt ready to vomit in sheer fright. Then he remembered that he was ill, and had a reason to be sick at his stomach. He lay still until the queasiness passed.

It took him longer to remember that Xander had come by, and practically carried him up to bed, and then gone out shopping for him. Good boy, Xander. He'd make a lovely father someday... if the Hellmouth didn't kill them all first.

He had to pick up the bedside clock and smudge the display with the tip of his nose in order to make out that it was 3:38. That must make it--Saturday night? Sunday morning? He got out of bed and staggered downstairs to the bathroom, clinging to the railing for dear life. His head was spinning. But he hadn't opened the liquor cabinet in days, surely. He was ill, that was it. But Xander had bought him some sort of medicines.

Despite his having slept (for how long, exactly?) for quite a while without waking, he seemed not to need to urinate. He felt hot, and his mouth was dry; he needed liquids. He crept to the kitchen and found orange juice in the refrigerator, courtesy of Xander, no doubt. Giles poured himself a small glass and put a cup of water in the microwave so he could make some instant soup. His hands were rather shaky, and he twice dropped the packet of soup and the second time nearly lost his balance and toppled over when he bent to pick it up. He drank the juice standing at the counter, mixed up his cup of soup with the slow and careful movements of a man blending volatile elements to make an explosive, and carried soup and bottled water to the couch.

The soup was salty, but its chickeny flavor seemed to be something he craved. He spooned it all up and held the mug in both hands so he could drain the last of the broth. He'd never felt so weak before, not even when he'd had the flu badly as a teenager. He'd felt so wretched then that he'd been unable to read for nearly two weeks; all he remembered of that time were the endless reruns of Are You Being Served? and Last of the Summer Wine. He still couldn't watch either of those programmes.

He drank most of the water before weariness overcame him. He stopped in the loo again, but again, his body produced no excess. Too tired to think about it, Giles climbed the stairs back to bed.

Sunlight woke him a few hours later--too few. He was lying in a tangle of hot, sticky blankets, his t-shirt soaked with sweat. Groaning, he thrashed his way to his feet, his head pounding like an Iron Butterfly drum solo, and headed for the steps. A tepid bath, with some Epsom salts if he had any, and some aspirin washed down with cold water.

The phone rang just as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Swaying, Giles turned toward it, and swayed right into a faint.

He came to in a few minutes. The phone was silent, and he had landed on his bum on the steps, slumping against the wall. At least it wasn't a head injury. Getting up took far longer than he expected, however, and settling into the bathtub proved to be a very long way down.

He realized he'd fallen asleep in the cooling water when he wakened by pounding on the bathroom door. "Giles! Giles, are you in there?"

It was Xander, thank goodness. Giles licked dry lips and tried to answer. "Xander--not locked--swollen--push--"

Something pushed, but it wasn't Xander. The young man came through the swinging door right behind Buffy.

"Oh my god--"

Xander shouldered in front of the Slayer, blocking her view. "Uh, Giles, could you use a hand, there?"

Once again it was Xander who manhandled Giles to bed. It would, no doubt, have been far easier for Buffy to have done, but it was easier on Giles to think that only Xander, who despite being occasionally annoying was also endlessly dependable, had seen him sick, vulnerable, and stark naked.

Buffy was sitting on the couch looking sick to her stomach when Xander came downstairs.

"He's really sick," she said, as much to herself as to Xander.

"Yeah, he is. And has been for a coupla days. Like I told you." Xander didn't say "I told you so" with his lips, but he tried to say it with his eyes.

"I was hoping he could help me with these disappearances at school, but...."

Xander stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep from grabbing Buffy and shaking her like a rag doll. She was his friend, after all, not to mention she could throw him halfway to Giles's bed. "I don't think he can help anybody right now, Buff. I think he might *need* some help, actually."

"Has he seen a doctor?" Xander didn't bother to speak. "Oh, right, dumb question." She took a deep breath and got to her feet. "I guess I'll have to handle this on my own."

Xander's hand clenched into fists in his pockets as Buffy breezed out the front door. He heard something like a moan from upstairs and forced himself to relax. "I think maybe I better talk to Will."

He caught up with Willow by the simple and reliable method of showing up at her house unannounced. She was studying and not eating the leftover frozen lasagna she'd heated up. Xander couldn't let lasagna go to waste, so he explained Giles's condition between cheesy gooey mouthfuls.

Willow pushed aside the chart of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. "He keeps passing out?"

"Yeah, I think he does." Xander pushed aside more of her stuff to find a napkin and wipe his mouth. "I went over Saturday morning, found him looking like he was gonna pass out, and got him up to bed. Then when I checked on him Sunday, he was in the bathtub. We went in and couldn't find him, and the bathroom door was locked or stuck or something, and Buffy busted in there but then I got him outta the tub and back to bed again. He musta passed out in there 'cause the water was just, like, room temperature."

Willow wrinkled her nose. "Buffy saw Giles *naked*??"

"Well, not really. I mean, I tried not to--. It's a guy thing," he concluded.

Willow spent a moment pondering the idea of Giles naked and decided that Sick!Giles was probably not very nice to look at, but Healthy!Giles might be worth a peek. Then she pulled her attention back to the problem. "So you think there might be something magical about this Giles sickness?"

"Yeah. Because I don't think he's been eating, 'cause there isn't anything in the sink, hardly. But there are a couple things, a mug and a glass and a spoon, and you know how he is about doing dishes. I mean, they were in the sink and not in the drainer."

"Right. And we know Giles is Mr. Clean."

Xander held up his hands and ticked off two fingers, although he hadn't ticked off one finger. "And another thing, he's really hot, like he has a fever, but he's also sweaty. Buffy said you don't sweat when you have a fever."

"She's right." Willow started shuffling her textbooks into a pile for easy packing. "You sweat when the fever breaks and your body starts to cool down."

"If there were some really bad bug going around, I would think Giles had it. But, there isn't it, and--" Xander shrugged, his lips twisting up. "You don't think that Ethan guy is back making trouble?"

"I dunno. But I think we should try to find out." Willow grabbed her knapsack and started loading. "I'm done with classes for today--let's go over to Giles's."

It was weird to go into Giles's and not find him there. It was even weirder to hear snoring and something that sounded like *moaning* coming from upstairs. "I guess we should have a look at him," Willow said. "Why don't you go first, in case, um--"

"Oh, yeah."

She followed Xander up the steps, hanging back while he moved around the bed. "He's still out of it," Xan said, which she took as the signal it was okay to come in. Most of the bedcovers were piled on a chair in the corner, but the topsheet was neatly spread out over Giles. His chest and shoulders showed, and his arms (he had pretty muscular arms); he was definitely naked under there, and his face was shiny with sweat and his hair had the twisted, spikey look of hair that hasn't been washed or combed in days. Her nose wrinkled. Plus, the room smelled a little bit like the football team had been there after a game.

"He looks pretty bad." Giles mumbled something and tossed an arm, suddenly. Xander dove for the sheet and sat on it. Willow sat down on the other side of the bed and, with a resolve face, took hold of Giles's arm. She let go almost at once. "Yeow. He feels hot and sticky--like somebody having heatstroke, maybe."

"Maybe we should get him in the bathtub?"

"Let's try."

It wasn't easy. Giles wouldn't wake up, and he was too heavy for Xander to move all by himself, and Willow tried to help but she had to try to Not Peek at the same time. In the end she saw a lot more of Giles than she had wanted to, even though she skedaddled out of the bathroom as soon as they got Giles settled and left Xander to run the water. "See if he has any Epsom salts," she called through the door.

"Gotcha."

The books were all where they belonged--well, where they'd belonged since they'd moved them out of the high school library in time for the big Ascension Day battle. It kind of worried her that maybe something important, some clue that would help Giles could be buried in the books that had gone into the climate-controlled storage unit. She couldn't help giggling at the memory of Giles using new and wonderful British swear words as he'd written the check for three months' storage. But hey, there were plenty of books here and she had helped shelve them, she knew how Giles organized things, so get to work, nerd girl!

She was deep in a pile of books on the history of Watchers and Slayers when Xander came downstairs. "I just hope he doesn't slide under." He rubbed his hands together. "I'm thinking maybe I should put some ice cubes in the water."

"That's a good idea."

She didn't think about Xander again until he plunked a glass of cranberry juice with ice in front of her. "Enjoy it--ain't gonna be no more ice for a while." He gulped at a Coke.

"Hey! that's Buffy's!" Giles kept soda in the house at his Slayer's request.

"Well, she's not here right now, is she?" He went from gulping to chug-a-lugging. "Where is the Buffster, anyway? She knows he's sick."

Willow shrugged, uncomfortably. "Last time I talked to her...." When *was* the last time she'd talked to Buffy? Buffy'd missed Professor Walsh's last class. And that cute TA, Riley, had asked about her, and Willow hadn't had a chance to tell her. "We've both been really busy."

Xander didn't say anything to that. He got up from the table and started wandering around the room. Willow figured he would turn on the television, but instead, she was distracted by the squeal of the answering machine.

"Hey, that's private!"

"--going to be in town this weekend," said a woman's voice with a crisp British accent, different from Giles's, "and I'd love to see you again. Do give me a call, Rip. Ta."

They goggled at each other. Xander shrugged. "There might be a clue somewhere. Like, a phone call from that Ethan guy, or, or something from the Watchers' Council, or something." He pressed the button, and this time they heard the whole message.

"Hallo, Ripper, it's Liv. Have you lost my number? I shan't be in town that long, and I don't want to miss you. I haven't forgotten London, and I'm sure you haven't either." The woman gave a throaty chuckle that made Willow squirm in her seat and reeled off a string of numbers. "Ta for now."

Xander stuck one hand in his pocket and looked like maybe he was holding out the front of his pants so she wouldn't notice anything *else* holding out the front of his pants. Sweet Xander. "Um...."

Willow got up and pushed the button for the next message. It was Liv again, Olivia, this time sounding like she was trying not to sound angry, and failing. After that, there were two telemarketer messages, automated voices that started in mid-sentence. Nothing else.

Willow and Xander looked at each other. Willow had no idea what to say, so she grabbed for the nearest book. Xander sat down again and chugged his Coke. The door opened and Buffy came in.

"Hey, that's my Coke!"

Giles dreamt, if you could call it dreaming. Perhaps he was not asleep, but sometimes unconscious, sometimes sleeping, and sometimes even awake, but too weak to open his eyes. He felt weak and confused; he was cold and hot at the same time. It seemed easier to sleep, yet his dreams were becoming disturbing. In his dreams, if dreams they were, he heard the voices of his young people, Buffy, his Slayer, her friends Willow and Xander. They seemed to come from very far away.

Closer to, there was another voice, unmistakable if incomprehensible: the voice of Ethan Rayne. Ethan seemed to be talking right into his ear, yet Giles couldn't understand what he was saying. The voices of the young people swam in and out of his hearing, rising and falling, and sometimes he caught his name. Then Ethan was sitting on his bed, laughing at him, but not Ethan as he was now, with his narrow face, its cynical lines, the grooves of dark magic and debauchery; no, Ethan at eighteen? at twenty? lithe and pale, his black hair soft over his brow, his eyes startlingly clear, a beautiful young man (he still was beautiful), reading aloud from some musty old Watcher book, as he called it, in a precise and devastating parody of Quentin Travers.

Giles couldn't catch the words, only the tone of voice, the old-fashioned periods of the book, Ethan's face like the moon. He turned over in bed and seemed to see himself at that age, with the raw young features that long hair had done nothing to soften, sprawled against the headboard while Ethan curled up neatly as a yogi at the bed's foot. He was better-looking now, hah, not that anyone looked at him. Fuddy-duddy Watcher. Ex-Watcher. Had Liv called? She'd promised to call him if she got to LA.

Ethan finished reading and was laughing, his eyes bright with mockery. "What a nasty corner to be in, eh, Ripper? You're not supposed to swive the girl, but if you get too far away from her, you'll get the shakes, and no methadone for Slayer withdrawal!"

Giles turned over again, and his moan was smothered in the pillow.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," Buffy swas saying She ran her finger up and down the spine of one of the books Willow had unearthed but didn't open it up. Willow was deep in research mode, following references from one table of contents to another. Xander was nodding over a fresh two-liter of Coca-Cola. "I know I haven't been doing so great with the freshman thing, and I need those notes from Walsh's class, Wil, don't let me forget, but I don't think some Cyndi-Lauper-wanna-be vamp should be able to have fun kicking my butt. I mean, there's nothing special about her; she's just another vamp, you know? With really vintage tastes in personal style."

Willow looked up from a musty old tome with no cute woodcuts, her cheek propped on her fist. "Have you been feeling okay?"

Buffy blinked. "Um. I guess. Yeah."

"You don't feel weak, or dizzy, or anything?"

"No. Er. No."

Xander leaned forward. "But you say this she-bop is bopping all over you. Buff, you took on Spike, Angel, the Master--we blew up a snake demon! And the entire high school along with it." He made a power fist. "If this Sunday is just another vamp, how come she broke your arm?"

"She broke your arm? You didn't tell me that!" Willow started flipping pages wildly.

Buffy felt a pout coming on. "I was kinda embarrassed." And it reminded her all too much of the Cruciamentum, when she'd been weak and helpless and hadn't been able to read Giles, couldn't trust him, what was in his face, his eyes....

Giles moaned loudly. Buffy, Willow, and Xander all looked up toward the bedroom loft.

Xander got up and went to the foot of the steps, stopped, turned around, hovering. Buffy wound her legs around the stool's legs, twisted her hands together to keep from doing the same and more.

Xander took an uncertain step. "You think maybe Giles's problem and Buffy's, um, not really a problem, could they have some connection?"

Willow thumped one book closed and tugged at another. "That's what I'm thinking." She opened the book with no woodcuts and paged through it slowly, mouth open and brow wrinkled in total concentration. "I saw something.... Here it is!"

Xander jumped. Buffy uncoiled from her seat.

Giles fought his way clear of the pillow, hearing Willow's voice, and tried to speak. Nothing came out. He tasted the salt of his own sweat and saw the room wavering around him like a heat mirage in the desert. Trying to move, he felt something enclosing him, not the sheet, but a kind of cocoon... thin dry threads and heat, dust and ashes....

He'd looked at the book later, after Ethan went out. He could see the letters on the page, the close eighteenth-century printing with the long S that looked like an F, could smell the age of the book, which Gran had given him; it was the only thing to do with the Watchers that he kept about him, while he was living with Ethan. He could see the letters now, but he couldn't understand them. He knew he had a very high fever and a fever could damage the brain....

Buffy and Xander read over Willow's shoulders. She ran her finger down the yellowing page, and Buffy inhaled the smell of old bookshop, of buckram and paper that was definitely not acid-free. It was the smell of Giles, in a way; a little bit of that smell always clung to him, even away from the library, from his own books. Suddenly she was aware of the sour, sweaty odor that permeated the apartment--*not* the normal smell of Giles and his space, but the smell of a man who was very, very sick.

Willow's finger stopped, and she read aloud. "Carnal conjunction between Watcher and Slayer is always best avoided, for it makes the bond between the two nigh indisseverable, and the Watcher must always be ready to release his Slayer and accept another." She didn't stumble over "indisseverable", but she stopped at the end of that sentence, knowing as well as Buffy did (and Xander, too, of course) that "ready to release his Slayer" meant "ready to let a Slayer die".

"Howsoever," Willow went on, after a moment, "even without the impetus of carnality, it is possible for the bond to be such that in the absence of one, the other must weaken and sicken. For it is not the mere union of the flesh which bonds a Slayer and her Watcher, but the union of heart and mind."

She paused again, and the clock ticked loudly while the three of them tried to translate that into twentieth-century Californian. Willow, of course, got the answer first. "I think what that means is that some kind of, of *connection* can form between a Watcher and a Slayer that will make one or maybe both of them sick if they get, I dunno, separated somehow."

Buffy backed away, one hand spread out. "Okay, but there has been no, repeat, *no* 'carnal conjunction' between me and Giles, believe me!" And why not? said part of her brain. He certainly won prizes in the Handsome Older Men category. "And we haven't been separated, either! It's not like I've gone to U. Penn."

"We believe you, Buff," Xander put in, "but it does say that it's not just the fleshliness that counts, it's heart and mind." He held up two fingers, straight up and touching. "You and Giles used to be like this." He thrust his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "Now... not so much."

The rotten thing was that Xander was right. She had a memory of a time when she and Giles were like hand in glove, like two horses pulling in the same direction. They'd had one purpose: Prevent the Mayor's Ascension, or else blow him up. But was that memory accurate? Had she ever been as completely on Giles's side as he was on hers? He had taken her side over Ms. Calendar's... even after Jenny Calendar was killed. By Buffy's so-called boyfriend. He had taken the Council's side, and drugged her, for the Cruciamentum... but afterward, he had refused to leave her, in spite of Wesley's interfering, in spite of Faith, in spite of everything. He could have gone home to England to live the life of a country gentleman, or something. But here he was.

And there she was, on campus, alone, scared, and getting her butt kicked by demon trash with blonde hair out of a bottle. What *was* it with vamps and their hair?

Willow was reading again. "If such a bond hath been formed, and then asundered, such that one or the other, Watcher or Slayer, must perish, then but one cure may be applied: that the union of the flesh shall re-establish the union of the spirit." She looked up at Buffy. "Um, Buffy, I think that means sex."

"Yeah," Xander said.

"I mean, you having sex with Giles. Or else he dies."

"Whoa!" said Xander.

He instinctively backed away, and Buffy did, too. She would have kept backing away, but her heels had hit the bottom step. The first step leading up to the bedroom. Where there was a naked Giles who wanted, no, needed to have sex with her. She sat down with a bump.

"Have sex. With Giles. Or else, he dies."

Willow looked stricken, but she bent over the book again, her lips moving as she scanned. Pretty soon she looked even more stricken. "Not only that, but it kinda implies that it should be a, a regular thing. That the Slayer and the Watcher work better together if they're... lovers." She bit her lip and nodded firmly.

Lovers. Her. Giles. Lovers. Not just sex, this one time, this little exception that nobody had to know about (except her two very best friends, and their boyfriend, and girlfriend, and--), but all the time. Well, several times. How often did people Giles's age want sex? Once a week? Once a month? Three or four times a year?

"And, um, Buffy?" said Willow, "I don't want to push you, 'cos, yeah, I think I know how you feel and it's Giles and all but--but I think it has to be soon. Real soon. 'Cos he's been sick since at least Saturday, and I don't think he can go much longer...."

Buffy got up. Her legs moved before her mind had quite processed the decision. Have sex with Giles or he dies. Simple, right? Sex. Giles. Not two words that had ever been in the same sentence before in Buffy's mind. But how bad could it be? Have sex with her Watcher, or lose him. A simple choice. No problem. She took another step. She'd lost her virginity to a vampire who'd then lost his soul and gone on a psycho boyfriend rampage. Another step. She'd sent repentant boyfriend to Hell in order to save the world. Another step. She'd given her blood and almost her life to keep undead boyfriend alive when fate landed him back in her life, because she still loved the stupid bastard. Then that one time with Faith--

She took another step. And another. And another. She barely registered the sound of the door closing, Xander and Willow leaving her alone with Giles. Her nostrils flared. The smell of sickness, and underneath it, faint but tantalizing, the smell of him. Of her Watcher.

She thought, for a horrible moment, that he was dead. It was the way he was lying--flat on his back with arms and legs spread out, like that yoga posture that was called the corpse. But his chest was rising and falling, and a sudden jerk of his legs tossed away the sheet. Buffy moved to the foot of the bed and watched her Watcher, naked.

Giles was a big guy. She'd never really noticed that before. He had broader shoulders than she had thought, longer legs. His calves were tapered in that way you only got from regular running, and he had nice straight toes. And to be perfectly blunt, he had a big penis, which seemed to be getting bigger. His face didn't look like he was having sexy thoughts in his sleep, but lower down he looked like he was well on the way to an erection.

Buffy leaned over the bed and gently touched Giles's forehead, his chest. He was really hot, definitely a high fever, but sticky-sweaty at the same time. She wiped her hand on her skirt and decided there was no way she was getting closer to Giles without giving him a bath. A basin, a clean wash cloth, cool water and a little rubbing alcohol. She had Slayer strength to move a sleeping man, bottled water and some aspirin to offer in case he got conscious. Buffy put the basin down on the night stand, dipped the wash cloth, wrung it out, and started with Giles's face. Over his forehead, over the horizontal wrinkles and that mysterious diagonal line. Down his nose, and over his cheekbones, distinctive angles. Dip and wring, and wipe his mouth, his jaw, bristling with stubble. It was a harsh face, angular, not open to her even in pain.

The skin of his neck was soft below the bristle line, and his shoulders were loose in her hands. He held his shoulders too close most of the time, that was it; that was why she'd never noticed their size. Except maybe when he thought he was teenage Ripper, in a white shirt and jeans. His whole body had been loose, and he'd run after her like a kid and then puffed and panted with this disbelieving look on his face, like he couldn't figure out why he was so winded already. But he'd moved pretty well then. Yeah, it wasn't like she hadn't ever looked at Giles. She'd just always made herself look away, till now.

Now she swiped the cool damp cloth in broad strokes across his chest, wetting the dark hairs, spiking up the brownish nipples. Down over his belly, a little soft, but not chubby, his hips were narrower than his chest, and the water pooled in his navel and glittered. Buffy blushed and chickened out a little bit and started over at his hands, trying not to notice the crooked fingers that had never been set right, drawing the cloth up muscular arms and into the fuzzy swamp of his armpits.

Now over his feet, which twitched under her hands, and up his legs, pretty feet and legs, if you could say that about somebody so big and rugged. Yeah, rugged. Giles was rugged, masculine, the most guy-ish guy she knew, and she was only seeing that now, when all his defenses were down. The Watcher tweed wasn't just a uniform, after all; it was armor, and the Slayer was the sword in his hand. But the person inside that armor was all man, and a Slayer was a girl, and there was no avoiding those facts right now. Buffy dipped and wrung and wiped the insides of his thighs, easing his legs apart, and over the heavy furry sac, dip and wring, and up and down the length of his definitely erect and interested penis.

Dropping the cloth into the basin, she knelt on the bed and looked down into his face. Sweat was springing out again on his forehead, and he was still flushed. "Giles. Giles? Giles, it's Buffy. Can you hear me? Come on, Giles, wake up, say something sarcastic."

Nothing. Well, his lips moved, but she didn't hear any sounds.

Lips. Maybe a Sleeping Beauty kind of thing? Buffy bent forward and touched her lips to his. The beard stubble was a new and strange experience. His breath wasn't too bad, so after checking his face for a reaction--none--she kissed him again, a little more tongue. His mouth moved in response, she thought, maybe, but her gut said there was no time to waste on maybes.

She stripped down to her underwear and swung her leg across Giles' thighs, settling to her knees. His erection wasn't going anywhere, she was sure, but she had to get going a little bit herself for this to work. She ditched her bra as well and bent forward, laid herself across bare chest and belly to kiss Giles again.

Her hands found his shoulders and glided down his arms to his hands. Her nipples perked up against his chest, and she sat up, cupped her breasts and palmed them for a moment, then stopped, embarrassed. It was stupid to be shy about touching herself in front of an unconscious guy, but still--this was *Giles*. She shook her head. No more "Giles", she thought. No more tweedy book guy and ditsy California girl. Me Slayer, you Watcher. Now wake up and fuck me.

She slipped her fingers under her panties and down. Oh no--her body hadn't been immune to seeing this man naked, touching him, smelling his scent. Wasn't immune to his predicament or unaware of the distance that had come between them. She felt it in the pit of her stomach, in the rhythm of her fights with Sunday, every moment just an instant too slow. But don't think of Sunday now, or about what had gone wrong between her and Giles. Think of good things about Giles, sexy things about Giles. Open up that secret file in the brain that contained Giles, smooth as James Bond in his tux at the prom, just about to ask her to dance so that she wouldn't waste the whole night waiting for Angel (and then Angel showed up, the doof). Giles, caught snogging Miss Calendar, and they hadn't caught her catching them, and for all his stammering, Giles looked like he knew exactly what to do with a kiss. Giles, green eyes glinting behind his glasses as she sat on a table and swung her long bare legs in front of him. Oh yes, the secret Giles file had a lot of pictures in it, and they helped things along considerably. She rubbed the good spot, encouragingly, until it got good enough that she started to think about what came next.

Nightstands on either side of the bed. Buffy guessed that all the important things would be on the left if you were lying down, Giles being a lefty. She leaned over and rifled through the drawer to her right. Bingo! Three condoms, two green, one red. She bit her lip and then giggled out loud--why not? Colored condoms! Who would have guessed Giles had red and green condoms? She snagged the red one.

She opened up the little packet and shifted backward, brushing over his erection. She hadn't really touched him there, except to wash him; he hadn't looked like he needed any help. His flesh was thick in her hand and frighteningly hot, and she fumbled the condom on with sudden speed. No time to get more used to the idea, no time to get more worked up--time to save Giles. She ditched her panties with a fluid twist a contortionist would be proud of and began to ease their bodies together.

Oh. He *was* big, and she wasn't really completely ready. But the condom was lubed, and that helped. Buffy rubbed herself, gently, and pushed down. She didn't want to hurt Giles, either. Pull up a little, sink back down. Oh. Ooh. Something changed inside, and before she knew it, she was seated firmly on Giles's lap, and Giles was seated firmly in her belly, a warm hard presence curving against just the right places. Wanting to feel more, she pulled up, not quite letting him out, and dropped eagerly back down.

Something opened inside her. It wasn't just her muscles, her vagina, her body welcoming a man's. Something like a flower opened in her belly, in that empty spot where fear had crouched the last time she fought. A bird woke and stretched its wings, a snake uncoiled and glittered. It spread itself, moved upward and outward, sank deep into her bones and flowed from her core out to her skin. For a moment she felt hot all over--as hot as Giles; then a sweet wave of cool air seemed to come out of nowhere, smelling of fresh-cut grass and Rupert Giles.

Giles was no longer dreaming. His senses had faded away, one by one, not only the outer senses but the inner ones. But if sight and sound, taste and even smell were gone, he had one sense left: touch. He felt smothered, muffled, buried prematurely; if he'd been conscious, he might have thought of Frodo, paralysed and wound up in a sac by Shelob. The fragment of Giles that was still dimly self-aware was almost ready to give up, to yield to the slow suffocation. Until he felt something different, something new. A tugging. Something was drawing him forward.

He wasn't able to respond, yet neither was he able to resist, had he wanted to. He did not want to. He floated forward, drifted upward, drawn by something, and then another sense came back to him: smell. He smelt Buffy's shampoo, light, herbal, sweet, achingly familiar. He felt as if the scent itself were drawing him forward, as if smell had become touch. The dull cocoon around him was unwinding, and he was... was it possible he was waking up?

A feeling. A scent. Now, a weight, and then, a rhythm. And a sound. Sounds. Breathing. Noises. His name, his surname, repeated. "Giles. Giles. Oh, Giles."

Buffy was looking right at him when his eyes opened. She was looking right into his face, watching for signs of change, hoping for a flicker, a moan, when Giles's eyes suddenly opened, slowly but easily, as if he'd just drifted up from a pleasant dream in an afternoon nap. He met her gaze, and then his eyes opened wide, awake and very alert, and they were startlingly green.

He wet his lips. "Buffy...."

His hands, which had been lying slack on the bed, slid up her thighs, tentatively, and cupped her hips. Buffy had stilled, but now she moved again, and his grip tightened, strong, desperate. "Buffy--" he said, and she nodded, moving, riding him. "I'm here, Giles." She covered his hands with her own. "I'm here."

He was awake, touching her, and just the little movements of his hands where he held her made her heat up again. She leaned forward, closer, her hands on his chest, and looked into his eyes. He looked a little dazed, still, but the scary red flush seemed to be receding. She touched his face, and almost jerked her hand away when he turned and brushed her fingers with his lips. "Oh, Buffy," his voice was thin and weak, "need you, please...."

She straightened up and pushed down hard again, taking him deep. Giles moaned, this time a sexy kind of "do that again" moan, and his fingers clutched at her hips. She took his hands, threading their fingers together, and Giles responded, palm set to palm, and the thing that had opened inside her suddenly closed, locking around his physical presence and around something not-physical, too.

"Do you feel it?" she managed, moving faster.

"Yes--oh, yes--"

Giles arched beneath her, throat exposed, and she could feel him, in her belly, in her heart, in her mind, feel how they would always be linked from now on; some part of her would rest with him, safe, protected, while some part of him walked with her, guiding and advising. And they would come back, both of them, to this moment, where his cock rested inside her, and she moved without fear of hurting him, and he said her name through clenched teeth, and came.

He went so completely limp beneath her that for a second, Buffy panicked. Then a completely goofy smile cracked his face, and Buffy, grinning back, eased herself away from him and slithered off the bed, dropping a quick kiss on his forehead. "I'll be right back, promise--"

She went to the bathroom, emptied her bladder, and wiped the excess lube away. When she got back to the bedroom, Giles had managed to dispose of the condom and turn over onto his side, looking tired and weak but still a lot better.

"Buffy, I need to, to get to the bathroom. Could you, would you help me?"

"Sure. Just a sec."

He waited as she pulled on her panties and bra before offering him her hands. He let her pull him to his feet and didn't try not to lean on her as they inched down the steps. He closed the door and leaned on the commode with one hand as he urinated for the first time in... days? If he was remembering rightly. He knew now it had no ordinary ailment--banished by the intimacy with Buffy. He straightened up, washed his hands, and decided to ask Buffy for further help, for her sake as much as his. He knew she was waiting outside the closed door, arms folded over her stomach, leaning against the wall and frowning. He did not question how he knew this; he saw the image when he thought of her and knew that it was so.

He put down lid and seat and opened the door. "All right, then. Help me draw a bath?"

He sat on the lid of the commode and watched her fumble with the taps. He didn't bother to cover himself; there seemed to be no point. "Make it hot, please. Hot water."

"But your fever--"

"Need to feel clean."

She nodded, adjusted the taps. He closed his eyes. "Behind the curtains. Bath gel. On your right."

He opened his eyes to the grin he felt her get. "Bath gel. Mm, sandalwood. Another surprise from you."

He didn't inquire what else had surprised her. The condoms, likely. He held out a hand, and she helped up and then down again, into the bliss of the hot water.

Buffy shifted from foot to foot. "Is there anything else you need?"

Giles stretched out his arms and sighed. "No. I don't think so. On the mend, I can tell." He looked at her, thoughtful. "What about you?"

"Oh. Um. There's this paper--"

"Go. You may call me later. I promise I'll answer. Go."

Luckily enough, when she returned to the dorm, Kathy was out, so she could take a shower without having to answer awkward questions or worry about conserving hot water. And the shower would give her a little time to think before she tackled that paper.

Sex. With Giles. Not exactly a big romantic thrill, but better than waking up to a crazed killer vampire who got his jollies stalking her. She felt a little sore inside, but it was nothing she couldn't handle. Aspirin always seemed to work best for her; she kept a bottle in the nightstand. Overall, she felt... good, she realized, as she shampooed her hair. She wasn't showering because she felt dirty; she was showering because she was relaxed, because it felt good to let the hot water run over her, because she needed a few minutes to herself. And because she knew was Giles was doing, and it seemed right to be doing the same thing.

She combed out her hair and gulped down a handful of aspirin. Giles was okay. So she could knock out that paper, right, and then get back to tracking down that skanky vampire chick and dusting her. Then maybe take a nap.

She had roughed out something like an outline and was heading for the library when Xander caught up with her. He was puffing with exertion. "Buff, great, there you are. Sunday--and her gang--" She put a hand on his arm.

"Slow down. Stand still. Deep breaths. Then you can tell me."

Xander obeyed. He stopped moving, took a couple of deep breaths, and then said, slowly and with careful enunciation, "I found out where Sunday and her gang must be hiding. I was going to go round up Willow and maybe Oz and see if we could retrieve your stuff."

Buffy's inner Slayer leapt to the fore. "Xander, you're brilliant. Let's go."

The four of them piled into Oz's van. "Where to?" he asked.

Xander started to reply, but Buffy thumped the seat. "She's got my chest of weapons, dammit--we'll have to go back to Giles's."

Xander and Willow exchanged A Look. Oz looked inscrutable, as ever, with just a shade of puzzlement on the side. Buffy rolled her eyes. "No, guys, it's cool. He's fine. We're fine. Go. Go, go, go!"

They went. Oz abandoned his usual absent-minded good driving and floored the accelerator. Given the age of the van, that meant they were going faster than Buffy could run at full stretch, but not much.

Giles opened the door before Buffy could knock. He had felt her coming. At times in the past he had thought that he could feel his Slayer near him, feel her approach, but this time, it was certain. As if a wind had wafted her scent toward him, herbal shampoo and vanilla body powder, and underneath the tang of her intimate places.

"We need weapons." Buffy sounded not at all surprised to see him holding open the door for her. Giles handed her a satchel that clanked in a satisfying way.

"And one for you, and one for you." He handed smaller, lighter satchels containing mostly stakes to Xander and Willow. "Oz should stay behind the wheel." As he had, in fact; Giles could see him beating a tattoo on the steering wheel.

He headed for the van and was stopped by his Slayer's hand on his arm. "Are you up for this?"

Giles nodded. "I think so. I don't think I'll need to do much fighting... I suspect you'll simply find it much easier to fight, having me there."

Xander had the directions to the abandoned frat house. Giles tutted under his breath at vampires who would occupy such prosaic surroundings. Oz nodded equably at Buffy's instruction to stay in the van, and Xander and Willow got stakes in hand and followed her into the frat house. Giles, all his senses buzzing, followed up at the rear, armed with crossbow and sword.

They were perhaps the most unprepossessing lot of demons Giles had yet seen in Sunnydale--a dull-witted stoner, a skinny boy who looked fresh from the dirt, a girl who might have ingested more ice cream than blood, and a dominant vampire whose fashion sense seemed to be mired in 1985. Willow staked the hapless stoner, and Xander the skinny one; Giles casually shot the chubby vamp as she tried to circle round his Slayer from behind.

Buffy focused on the dominant, the blonde woman she had called Sunday. Didn't vampires take threatening names any more? Or were the citizens of Sunnydale just too jaded by their lively Hellmouth to bestow names like Angelus and William the Bloody? In any case, Giles found himself circling the blonde demoness with his Slayer, always behind Buffy and feinting with her moves. Was he mimicking her speed and grace or directing it, triggering it? He felt her surge of triumph as she snatched her parasol from the vampire's hand, the glittering golden parasol which the senior class had awarded her, and drove a stake almost casually up into the undead creature's breast.

Buffy spun her stake around like a gunslinger and blew imaginary smoke off the tip. That had been absurdly easy--incredibly easy, after the trouble the vamp bitch had given her earlier. And she had felt Giles behind her the whole time, felt as if he were showing her where to go, just a tap here and a nudge there and she spun into moves that would have seemed impossible yesterday, even for her. It was easy. Being a Slayer was natural, was easy, and maybe college could be easier, too--as long as Giles was with her.

He helped Xander and Willow carry Buffy's recovered possessions from the frat house to the van and then from the van to her dorm room. Then Willow and Oz drifted out, hand in hand, and Xander pleaded having to go job-hunting in the morning. He clapped Giles's shoulder, squeezed Buffy's shoulder with a grin, and left.

Leaving them in the empty room, with Buffy sitting on her stripped mattress. Kathy was still out; her Celine Dion poster gazed down on them ecstatically.

Giles tucked his hands into his pockets and felt himself contract, out of habit. Buffy looked up at him with tilted head, and he relaxed, letting his shoulders loosen and his hands dangle free at his sides. He took a deep breath, meaning to say... something, and instead he got a deep draught of Buffy and could not speak.

Buffy got up and took him by the hand. "Come get a mocha with me?"

They sat in the crowded little coffee shop, against the wall, farthest from the makeshift stage where a girl no older than Buffy was declaiming angry poetry about the unfairness of life. Giles wondered if they had open microphone nights for music as well; his fingers suddenly itched for his guitar.

"I just want you to know I'm okay," Buffy said, licking foam off the rim of her drink. Giles refused to call anything so frou-frou a coffee.

"Yes, I thought you handled that fight superbly." The would-be poetess was ranting about lying crumpled like a used kleenex.

"I don't mean the fight. Though that was great. Having you there really made a difference." She looked at him earnestly. "I mean I'm okay about the sex." She swallowed hard.

"Buffy...."

"I know you weren't at your best there, but I don't mind saving your life, you know, no matter what the method, and it's all good, I guess, if we have to, you know, do that once in a while, to make sure you don't--and I don't--"

She stopped only because he took her hand, squeezed it, and then brushed his lips across her knuckles. Her eyes widened when he turned her hand over--the small, smooth hand that had just fought and slain a demon--and pressed a kiss into the palm.

"No," he said, softly. "I wasn't at my best a while ago. But I can be now."

She didn't argue when he paid their bill and walked her to the door, as the girl at the microphone intoned an invocation to a number of mispronounced goddesses. They walked back to his apartment, her fingers curled around his arm, her hip bumping his. Giles wondered, briefly, what time it was; his inner Watcher answered, with certainty, "Long past time for this."

He opened the front door and let Buffy go in before him; her already-stimulated senses sweeped the room, pronouncing it safe. As he closed the door and locked it, she turned to him, confused and not entirely certain, and he let himself lean back against the door and gather her in.

She nestled close, head on his chest, her arms going round him. The scent of her was in his nostrils now. He hoped he smelled as good to her as she did to him. He had brushed his teeth and shaved after soaking, even put on aftershave--knowing she was coming to him. Knowing that she would need his weapons, and his back-up, and that afterward, they would need this.

When she raised her face to his, he kissed her. A shiver ran through her, and her lips parted under his. Had she kissed him, earlier, when she tried to wake him? She must have tried to wake him before joining their bodies; she must have kissed him and got no response. He would make that up to her now.

He let her break the kiss. She did not let him go, but pressed her face into his chest again. He felt as much as heard her inhale, deeply. Her exhale was a sigh. Then she did let him go, but only to take his hand and lead him toward the stairs.

Giles felt rather determined to get in the driver's seat this time and show Buffy that he knew how to handle the machine. She was a tightly wound up, finely tuned machine, indeed, and he started by undressing her, making each layer he removed a caress and a revelation. He left her clad only in her panties, sitting on his bed with her hair (at last) loose about her shoulders. He got to his feet and shed his own clothes in the space of two breaths; now he was naked and she was not. He stood, relaxed still, eyes lowered, letting his Slayer have a good look at him. He might not be agelessly perfect, frozen in an eternal youth, but he was a whole man now, not dead or dying. And he was hers.

He joined her on the bed and peeled off her absurdly minimal panties, teal silk against sleek skin. Naked, her arms and legs, her chest and shoulders were lightly golden, her breasts and belly creamy white. Only in California could someone so fair tan without burning, or a girl who hunted demons by night acquire a tan at all. He came closer and his heart raced with joy as her arms closed around him, her legs parted to cradle him. He found her lips again and felt her lithe smooth strength moving under him, her breath deepening, fire rising inside her.

He kissed his way down her throat, over the scar that was still faintly there, where Angel had drunk from her. She shivered and murmured something as his lips brushed it. He didn't linger there, but moved on to her breasts, and lingered there instead, hiding his face against her, exploring a long time with lips and then fingers before flicking one hard flushed nipple with his tongue. Her nipples were worth long lingering, too, and Giles gave them their due, despite gasps that turned into whimpers, and whimpering that turned into pleading, and pleading that turned into unabashed writhing.

He was feeling decidedly smug as he kissed his way further down her body, especially when she parted her thighs for him. He pressed his lips to her firm belly, just below her navel, and got a good whiff of that heady scent that had tantalized him from afar--the aroused female scent of his Slayer, waiting for him. He dragged his lips down into the thicket of tawny fur, finding heat and wetness and succulent flesh that quivered under his tongue. He heard himself growling softly in his throat as he licked and suckled, and felt as much as heard his Slayer growling back as she pushed into his caress.

He slipped one finger, then two, inside her. Dear lord, so tight, so slick, so greedy for that touch. He pressed in, drew back, pressed in again, thoughtful, exploring strokes that soon turned to hard fast thrusts of his fingers, the heel of his hand grinding against her. Buffy met his thrusts with a wild strength, twisting her hands in the sheets so fiercely he thought she must tear them. And then he pulled his hand away and fastened his mouth to her again, eating, drinking, giving and taking, almost ready to climax himself from the sheer pleasure of pleasing her.

She lay panting, eyes closed, when he finally drew away to search the bedside drawer. "I used one, before," she murmured. "It was red."

"Good." He looked carefully to make sure he had it right way round.

"You on top this time," Buffy said, as he settled between her thighs.

"This time," he agreed. Her deft hand guided him in.

Oh lord. If she had felt tight around his fingers, how much tighter did she feel to his cock? And how had she stood it, straddling his unconscious body, taking his blind erection into herself? Yes, he had much to make up to her.

He made it up to her slowly, thoughtfully, holding her just where he wanted her with hands on her hips, or wrists, or thighs. Knowing, of course, that she could easily throw him across the room, even if apparently pinned beneath him. It would only take a slight shift of her muscles for her to telegraph that she wasn't comfortable, didn't want his grip, needed to switch position. She was soft and pliable in his hands, right up until the moment when she hauled him close with arms and legs together and held him, held him inside and out, until they both had come.

He disentangled from her only reluctantly. "Don't go too far away," she said, as he sat up to remove the condom.

"Shan't," he said, and lay down again. Sighed as she draped herself over him. "Don't you go running off, either."

"Won't," she mumbled, and that was as good as an oath for him. Together, they slept.



The request: I like when Giles and Buffy are meant to be, like, mystically. They are tied together by something more than just friendship and experience.
Unwanted: Buffy calling Giles Rupert.
Highest rating preferred: the higher the better.