CONTENT WARNING: This story is rated a NC-17 for sexual content and language. If you are under 18, or are uncomfortable with this type of material, please return to my Fanfiction Index.
-- "'B' is for 'Buffy', in ribbons and lace..."
Buffy sat by herself at a back table of the Bronze, kicking her white high-heeled feet back and forth as she sucked down acid blue punch through a glittery straw. The New Year had rung in with nothing more momentous than a lot of confetti thrown, an annoying bubble machine working overtime on the stage, and a really loud round of rocked-up 'Auld Lang Syne's. She'd been kissed by a bunch of people she didn't know and a couple of people that she did, but Riley still hadn't shown up, and what was she supposed to do anyway? Play the wallflower until he arrived, that is if he decided that maybe for this night it might be more fun to celebrate the New Year by wearing a party hat and dancing with her than it would be by hunting down yet a few more hapless demons?
She watched Xander and Anya dancing, so close that you couldn't get a razor blade in between them. Willow, having tried and failed to get her into a party spirit, had wandered off to sit with Spike, who was looking pretty sour himself but who at least wasn't kicking his heels while sitting on a chair all night waiting for somebody to show.
Spike saw her watching him, and he got a smirk on his face. "Uh oh," Buffy thought, as he rose and sauntered over.
"All alone for the night, Slayer?" he pulled a chair up and straddled it. "And you looking so edible in your pretty white party dress too. Crying shame that."
"This from a guy who was thrown over for a fungus demon," Buffy said irritably. She squashed a stray bubble that had been sitting shimmering brightly on the table between them. "Besides, this is the Twentieth Century, in case you've lost track. I can dress up, go out, and have fun without having to be with anyone."
"Right," Spike said. "That's why you're sitting here with the delightful look of someone whose only puppy just got run over." He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. "Be nice to me, and I'll stick with you for a while, keep you from looking like a total loser."
"Like hanging out with you is going to improve my reputation?"
"Oh I could keep you interested, unlike that American gothic you've been with lately. If I wanted to take on a charity case." He flicked ash towards her lap. Buffy swept it off the white frills of her skirt and glared murderously at him. "But I don't fancy climbing down into your rut, ducks. You're going to die young, and you still don't know how seize the moment."
"You don't know anything. In fact, I've made my New Year's Resolution: 2000 is going to be the Millennium of Impulsive Buffy. The first alone guy who comes through that door, he's my date for the rest of the night." Buffy pulled her chair around and stared determinedly at the door. Her breath caught as the door opened on a obese, greasy biker dude. She let it out shakily when a tiny biker chick slipped in at his heels and grabbed his arm.
Spike grinned at her. "I love it when they take me up on a dare," he remarked and took another drag on his cigarette as he settled back to watch the door with her.
Giles hadn't intended to enter the Bronze. He'd been passing by on his way back from a pub, where he'd spent the early New Year's Eve hours drinking enough whiskey to dull the edges of loneliness, had caught sight of a figure lurking near the entrance of the club and had gone to investigate. Of course the figure had been Angel; nobody else had the same lurking finesse as the vampire. They'd shared some angry words, and other things as well.
He still couldn't fathom what had happened there. He'd never been aware of any sexual tension between them before this. That part of him that was Ripper however had apparently been very aware, had been flushed to the surface by the encounter. He refused to continue on home, and there was no other place to go except where Buffy was at.
She was sitting at one of the tables at the back of the club. He halted in the doorway and stared at her. She wore a breath-takingly feminine, calf-length dress of white satin trimmed with white lace. A blue ribbon tied her golden hair high up at the back of her head. She was staring at him with the expression of one who'd been poleaxed. Spike was sitting at the same table, looking at Giles with great amusement.
The worried Watcher came to the fore, although Ripper was downright intrigued. What on earth was going on there? He walked towards them purposefully. If Spike was giving Buffy a hard time --
"Buffy." He nodded at her, trying not to stare. Glaring at Spike served as a convenient alternative.
Spike was swigging some vile-looking concoction out of an old plastic 'Babe: Pig in the City' cup. He smirked at Giles over the rim. "Don't you look like something the rat dragged in."
"I was headed home," Giles told Buffy "and I thought I'd stop by to see how your evening is going."
"Fine!" Buffy said in a strangled voice. "Never better!" She crushed her cup in one hand. Acid blue punch spilled across the tabletop, making a line for her lap.
Giles grabbed a couple of napkins to catch the spill. Buffy jumped back from him, as if stung. He looked at her, puzzled and not a little hurt.
"The Slayer was trying something new." Spike stood up. "Forget it," he told Buffy. "You're stuck in your proper little rut." He glanced at Giles and smirked again. "Though not the same rut your Watcher's been rolling around in tonight."
Giles stared at Spike as the vampire walked off, trying to decide whether to take active offense at that or not. "What is he talking about?"
"I don't know," Buffy said, a trifle too shrilly to sound sincere. She looked at him. "What have you been doing tonight?"
He restrained himself from pulling the collar of his black leather jacket up over the shallow bite mark at his throat, which surely would draw her attention to it. "Since when have you ever wanted to know?" Giles said, praying that she'd stay true to her usual form and at the least pretend not to notice it.
Buffy obliged him by scowling down at the table.
"In any case, I'm leaving now," he declared.
Buffy said something in a low voice, impossible to hear over the band. She didn't make eye contact, and Giles was tempted to pretend that he hadn't heard it. But she looked so miserable sitting there...
"What is it?" he pressured her, somewhat more impatiently than he would have done if he'd been wholly sober.
"You might as well stay," she said, "since I'm not having any fun tonight anyway."
"How can I resist such a gracious invitation?" He pulled up Spike's vacated chair and sat.
Buffy stared at him. "You're awfully snarky tonight. You've never been this snarky to me before."
"Well, the year is new," he said.
She twitched. "If you don't want to stay, then go. I don't need your help."
"My help with --?" he prompted, not daring to hope that she actually needed him for anything tonight.
"All I want is a dance and a walk home. If you're too busy bar-hopping to help me out on either of those..."
"A dance?" He looked at her incredulously.
"Do you want me to be a total wallflower?" Buffy pleaded. "I've been waiting for Riley, but he hadn't shown. If I dance with any of these other guys, they'll expect me to spend the rest of the night with them."
"So I'm to be your chaperone," Giles said. "Your safe harbor, as it were, until Mr. Finn comes home. Is that all?"
Buffy nodded.
"No thank you." Giles got up. "Are they serving that horrible blue punch at the bar?"
Buffy sprang up and grabbed his sleeve. "I don't know what bug you've got up your butt, but you're my Watcher and it's part of your Watcherly duties to dance with me when I need you to -- and did you just blush?"
"That's a flush," Giles denied vehemently. "And I'm not your Watcher any more."
"It's because I said 'butt', isn't it? And you are so, until I say you're not." She seized his other arm. "Dance with me. People are staring at us."
Giles gritted his teeth and moved out onto the dance floor with her.
"This is a dance, Giles," Buffy told him a minute later. "Not an Indian wrestling match. Or didn't they ever let you go to dances in Watcher's School?"
"I can dance," Giles told her between gritted teeth, "But this is nothing more than molestation."
She blinked. "What?!"
"I meant to say 'extortion'." He stared resolutely over her shoulder, at Spike, who was grinning at the show, and then at Willow, who was watching them with a small frown on her face.
"I ask you, as a friend, for once dance tonight, and I'm molesting you?" Buffy was saying. "You're acting like it's some horrible ordeal."
"Buffy --"
"The least you could do is relax and enjoy it." She began to sniffle.
For some reason the tears in her voice annoyed him tremendously. "As always, as you command," he said. He slipped his hands down her sides to her ass and pulled her hard against him. Buffy's eyes grew immense, her hands fluttered around for purchase, then came to rest at the small of his back.
The froze together for an endless moment of panicked heat, until dancers started steering around them, staring as they waltzed past.
"Giles, lead," Buffy hissed at him.
He disengaged from her as best he could without being obvious about it. He was blushing again, damnit. He hadn't blushed since Jenny. And unless Buffy's denial mode was in full force, she'd just discovered another physiological reaction that was going to make a hash of their precariously balanced 'father-daughter' facade.
He pushed her out to a full arms length and led, at the same time forcing himself to focus on how bad the band was. As a acoustical cold shower, it was only half-effective. He considered whether fleeing at this point would be less disastrous than staying with her.
Spike sauntered up to them. "Are you not having fun pet?" he asked. "Should I cut in?"
"No. Go drink some Koolaid," Buffy said.
"Spoiled brat thinks I was talking to her" Spike told Giles. He leaned in towards Buffy. "Just because we had a bet, doesn't mean you have to go through with it at all costs."
"Bet?" Giles said.
"Go join the mosh pit, Spike" Buffy said. "I've seen you eyeing it. And I've been wondering about the limits of that implant."
"Nah," Spike said. "Got to wait for a good song. Besides the entertainment is much better here."
"I'm going to get some fresh air," Giles decided and struggled to break loose from Buffy's Slayer-hold.
"Okay, Spike and I had a bet," Buffy insisted as he dragged her -- her leather shoes didn't have much of grip -- partway across the dance floor. "But it didn't have anything to do with you! I didn't know you were going to walk in the door when I told Spike that I'd grab the next guy who came through it. Or I'd never have --"
"You can be such a clueless bint sometimes," Ripper told her.
Buffy's jaw dropped. He pushed it up with one finger, pulled her up and her tiptoes and kissed her hard.
It wasn't a fatherly kiss, or even a let's-be-friends kiss. It wasn't even much of a teach-Buffy-a-lesson kiss, although it started out as such. He hadn't counted on Buffy's moaning and throwing her arms around his shoulders, then hiking her legs up around his thighs to pursue it further. Ripper took over the wheel at that point, and slipped her a bit of tongue. She whimpered and wound her fingers through his hair, dueling him for dominance of the kiss.
The band had stopped playing the slow dance, but hadn't yet segued to the next. Giles suddenly became aware that the other dancers had nothing better to distract them than -- well, himself and Buffy.
Shaken out of temporary insanity by his drop in enthusiasm, Buffy pushed back from him, looking astonished. "Oh god," she wheezed.
He realized that he was supporting her by her bum and hastily let her drop to the floor. Buffy staggered, grabbed onto him for balance, then jumped back as if she'd touched a live wire. She wheeled on Spike. "This is all your fault!" she yelled.
"Me?" Spike looked unsettled as well. "How was I supposed to know that those hormones would knock loose all of a sudden?"
Giles took the opportunity to flee, only peripherally aware that they were providing entertainment for the entire Bronze.
"Giles!" Buffy yelled. She started to go after him, turned back to smack Spike a good one, then moved to intercept her fleeing Watcher. The dancers on the floor of the Bronze parted like the Red Sea for her, including an astonished Xander and a smirking Anya.
He had taken refuge in the Men's restroom, the coward. Buffy stood in front of No Woman's Land and glared at the blue Smurf that had been fixed to the door. That pissed her off. Why were there all those boy Smurfs and just one grown- up girl Smurf? Was Smurfette supposed to shoulder all the burdens of Smurf womandom? Couldn't she be a regular Smurf without being expected to do it all?
And if Papa Smurf thought that he was safe in there he had another think coming. Buffy shoved the door open and stormed in. "Smurfette in the boy's room!" she yelled.
"Christ," Giles said, as several young men fled past them, zippering as they went. "Can't I keep one aspect of my life private?"
"No!" she shouted (and anyway he was simply cowering here which didn't qualify for any kind of privacy). "You can't just waltz away and... and... then pretend that didn't happen. Explain yourself!"
"Buffy --"
"I don't want to hear it!" She whirled to leave, then thought better of it, kicked off a shoe and used it to wedge the door shut. She turned on Giles, who was backed up against the sinks like a frightened -- well, rabbit didn't quite cover it 'cause he looked wilder and more dangerous than any rabbit had a right to. Buffy wondered suddenly who he'd been with tonight. He'd been with someone; she was absolutely sure of it. The idea, which would have euwwed her out the day before, infuriated her now that her hormones had been knocked loose. Whoever that earlier whore was, she couldn't have him.
"What's wrong with you?" Buffy yelled, waving her arms about. "Whatever it is, stop it! You're wigging me out!"
He gave her a look of exasperation. "That's a precise formula for change. What aspect of my personality do you want me to alter for you? Or should I take the simple route and arrange for a full lobotomy?"
She glared at him. "There you go again. You never used to talk to me like that. Ever since the Watcher's fired you, you've been --" Buffy stumbled, looking for a suitable insult. "You've been not you. And you've been getting even more not you all year."
"Not me?" Giles said. "And who, pray tell, am I, if I'm not myself any more?"
"I don't know!" Buffy cried. "First it's Hugh Hefner, then it's that American Bandstand guy, then it's Mr. Couch Potato Head. And tonight you've got this -- this James Dean leather thing going on. And what was so wrong with tweed anyway?"
"You always made fun of the tweed," he reminded her.
"But tweed was you," she insisted. "It was reliable, it was comforting. It was Giles." She dropped her hands and looked at him sadly. "You're changing."
"People change, Buffy," he said, more gently this time. "And the tweed was ridiculously hot for California. Besides, I never really liked wearing it."
She studied him tearfully, then wiped her runny nose on the back of her hand. Giles pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his jacket, looked at it, then stuffed it hastily into the waste bin. He ducked into one of the stalls and returned with a wad of tissue.
Buffy took the tissue and rubbed at her nose. Giles was watching her anxiously, hands tucked into the pockets of his leather jacket as if to keep them out of trouble. He was flushed and nervous -- and there was a bite mark at the base of his neck. She stared at it, and then felt a queasy rush of heat, starting in her stomach, then rushing to her head to cloud her vision, then tumbling down through her body, setting something primordial into motion.
Buffy didn't resist, didn't even try to question it. She balled the tissue up, dropped it on the floor, and reached for him. Giles said nothing this time, let her grab him by the back of the neck and pull him down to meet her in a brief, bruising kiss.
She backed off, her eyes wide.
"I --" he began.
"Shhh," she said. "My paradigms are shifting." Buffy frowned. "I don't know what that means, but it's wiggy." She stepped towards him again and grabbed his jacket collar.
Giles eased his arms around her and gave her a tentative kiss. It deepened into an ode of a kiss; not the Grecian urn kind of ode, but the good kind of ode to a bright lady who'd been worshiped forever from afar. Buffy responded with an astonished tenderness, and the ode became a rhapsody. She rocked back on her heels, and his hands moved to her waist, supporting her as he leaned into the kiss, deepening it. Their tongues touched and she trembled. He started to disengage, but she wrapped her arms inescapably around him, stepping back and pulling him with her to the sinks. He surrendered to her gracefully, as he always did.
She thought about his willingness to let her lead, astonished that she had never thought about it before this. Had accepted his presence in her life like a superstition. Giles would always be with her, but only if she didn't question that law of nature, didn't look at it, or at him, too closely.
Buffy began to tremble at the recklessness of it all.
"We'll go back," Giles suggested, his arms wrapped protectively around her. He was trembling too. Trembling, and hard against her. Impossible to ignore that anymore.
"Yes," Buffy started to agree, but then stopped herself and looked at him. Things were changing -- no things had changed. Too late to go back. She felt delirious with the dangers and possibilities. Her harbor had come unmoored, safety was no longer a possibility. The world was coming to an end. What did she want? Her impulse, as always, was to charge straight ahead and leave the consequences to sort themselves out later.
She slipped a hand into his back jeans pocket, rested her palm on the warm firmness of his flesh there, and fished out a handful of change. A condom machine was fixed to the wall to her right; she didn't even have to move Giles over to reach it.
His breathing deepened as she fed four quarters to the machine and got a foil wrapped packet in return. Buffy turned and kissed him with a fearless resolve now. He was really a good kisser once she set aside all the other issues, she decided.
Still holding onto the kiss, she hiked her white satin skirts up around her hips, slid her panties down her legs and kicked them to one side, and gave a hop to perch herself on the rim of the sink. She locked her legs around him before letting go of the kiss.
Giles looked at the condom in her hand. "Buffy, are you sure --"
She slipped the packet between his lips. "No talking until I say so," she commanded, and was intrigued to see a flare of rebellion in his eyes. But he kept his mouth shut watching intently as she slipped her hand to his belt, unbuckled it, unzipped his trousers and reached in to help his penis free itself. She caressed it gingerly, gazed at it in fascination as it swelled under her touch.
Giles moaned and reached for her shoulders, rested his chin on her head.
Buffy tightened her grip on him and began to run her hand up and down his length, taking his measure. Her left hand moved up under his jacket to rest on his back. She traced the taunt muscles there, then bore down, working at his tension. He moaned and leaned further into her, giving himself fully to her, Buffy thought in awe, as he'd always given her of himself. The idea flashed through her mind that maybe this wasn't something he could even help. Maybe it was some Watcher/Slayer thing that the Watcher had no power to refuse, if the Slayer knew enough to demand. The thought intrigued and frightened her. She wound her fingers through his hair and took the condom packet from his mouth, slipped the rubber from the cellophane and rolled it onto him with shaking fingers. "Bite me," she told him sternly when she was done. "Here, on the shoulder. Hard as you can."
There was a flare in his eyes that Buffy couldn't decipher -- rebellion, lust, something darker or more primal? -- and then his teeth were in her shoulder, a hard, brilliant pain. She cried out in surprise, arching back, her thighs tightening on his, pulling him to her. He entered her in that movement, falling with her across the sinks. Buffy's breath caught harshly in her throat, and she fought to bring him further inside her even as he filled her with a painful entirety.
Giles let go of her shoulder, licking tenderly at the wound there. Buffy threw her arms hard across his back, urging him into a rhythm to match the frantic need in her own body. He stepped back from the sinks, carrying her with him, pulled her hard against his body, the white lace of her skirt cascading about their thighs. Buffy slipped her hand up under his shirt and coat to claw at the flesh there, marking him, claiming and possessing him to the blood and flesh. His hands shifted to her hips, and her head fell back and she yelled as she began to shudder with the force of her coming.
He cried out into her neck, caught between an oath and a strangled sob, and then she felt the heat of his coming too.
After a suspended eternity of white hot tension, they came down, melting together. Buffy reached back with one hand to catch at the sink as Giles staggered. She dropped her legs down to steady them, but at the first touch of her weight, her knees buckled. She went down, pulling him with her. Still intertwined and joined together, they leaned heavily on one another, gasping for some equilibrium.
She clutched at his shoulders and buried her face into the crook of his neck, not knowing whether to shove him away and flee, cry, or never let go.
"Buffy..." Giles whispered. He shifted his embrace, pulling back, faltering, confused. Finally, he eased himself from her.
Buffy drew a shaky breath at the sudden emptiness, then slipped her hands out from under his shirt, lingering fingertips tracing lines down the hot sweaty flesh along his mid-spine. Tried to meet his eyes, but had to glance away. "Score one for the old guy," she joked, then realized how horrible that sounded. Score one for the Buffster rather; and hadn't he tried to get away from her?
Giles pulled her skirt gently down over her lap. He started to say something, hesitated, then stood and stepped away to dispose of the condom. He returned, clothing put back to rights, and sat back down on the floor in front of her to regard her; his hands rested palms up on his knees, almost but not quite touching her own.
She gathered up the shreds of courage to meet his eyes, and was shaken by the raw surfaced emotion she saw there. She studied his face fearfully. What had she just done? "Giles," she said softly. "If I asked you to do something -- would you ever refuse?"
He looked at her as if the question made no sense to him. "I would do -- anything you ask of me."
Buffy caught herself on the edge of a sob. She pushed herself to her feet and fled.