FIC: Ally (Giles/Buffy, FRAO)

[antennapedia]

Title: Ally
Prompt: 17. Supple
Pairing: Giles/Buffy
Rating: FRAO
Word count: 4100
Table: Complete smut_69 prompt table, along with full headers & warnings.
Notes: A Blackmail!verse story. This one contains no kink. Unless sensual talk counts :)


Stretches. Just stretches, Giles had said. Buffy had thought it would be a piece of cake, and it had started out that way. He'd taken her through conventional stretches for ten minutes, then muttered something grumpy under his breath. She needed to challenge her body, he said, give the muscles something to do besides burst and punch and kick. She was showing dangerous signs of losing flexibility.

It had been two hours of what he called "remedial yoga" since that grumpy fit.

For the first hour he'd been on the floor with her, demonstrating, holding positions, moving slowly into postures he called cow and dog and tree, making her giggle. Until she'd found how much they kicked her ass. She'd stopped giggling and started concentrating. Then he'd been next to her, hands on her body, guiding. He smelled like clean sweat, like the massage oil she'd used on him last night, like the strong tea that had been all the breakfast he'd allowed either of them. She'd been hyper-aware of his hands until the demands of the poses distracted her. Now she was aware only of her breathing, of the muscles contracting and stretching in ways she'd never asked them to do before. Of the ways she was flexible, and the ways she was not.

She'd always thought of yoga as a hippie-dippie thing, a suburban housewives thing, that went with crystals in the windows and unicorn stickers on the SUV. But obviously she'd been wrong. Giles wasn't into things that didn't work. He had some kind of black belt in some martial art she'd forgotten the name of. If he chose to teach her to stand like a tree instead of punch like a horse, he must have a reason.

He was pushing her harder than he'd ever pushed her in training. Before, back in high school, he'd always seemed half-intimidated by her, befuddled by her willfulness and her flareups of rebellion. There was no caution in his manner now, no doubt. He paced around her casually, confidently, and commanded her to hold the pose for five breaths longer than she wanted to, longer than she thought she could. She obeyed him without thinking to question.

They had a bargain. More than a bargain: they'd linked hands and sworn to each other. He'd abided by his half of the oath. Now it was up to Buffy to hold to her half. To trust him, to throw herself on his strength and let him have control.

She was in something he called the Bridge pose. Giles lounged against the wall, a fresh cup of tea in hand, while she sweated on the floor at his bare feet. He counted, then she relaxed. Then he made her do it all over again.

"This is killing me. I am so flabby."

"I'm out of shape as well," he said. "Too much whisky, not enough jogging."

"Going to come running with me?"

He finished his tea and set the cup on the mantel. "If you like. But I want you doing serious distance. None of this sprinting for fifteen minutes then stopping. You're granted the explosive strength, but endurance you have to build the way the rest of us do."

"Painfully."

"Exactly. Now. Come down slowly. Slowly. Good. That's it. We'll finish with the corpse pose. Like this."

He knelt at her side and eased her limbs into the right positions. Then he lay next to her and crooned to her. That was the only word for it. His voice was soft and breathy and gentle, like his hands in her hair. She was the center, he told her, and there was a place inside her that was perfect peace. His voice soothed her and settled her and relaxed her muscle by muscle, until the carpet was a soft bed of fronds at the bottom of the ocean, until she was rocking gently with the waves and might never move a muscle again, caressed by that voice. Then it shifted and he rose with her, ascending through green water and shifting light and flickering silver fish to breech the surface with a sigh and a deep breath.

Buffy sat up slowly. She was tired and sore, but she felt amazing. And that last experience had been like nothing they'd done before. "What was that you did at the end?"

"Ah. That was hypnosis."

"Wow. I feel good."

"I suggested that you would feel good after this. You chose to accept my suggestion."

"'Cause it was sensible. Mm. They teach you weird stuff at those Watcher schools."

Buffy redid her pony tail. Giles drank some water, then lifted the edge of his t-shirt to scrub his face. Buffy got a good look at his stomach while he did it. Not that there were any mysteries left about his body; she just liked looking at it. He didn't have the washboard abs thing that Riley and his squadmates all had, from hours of crunches and pushups and hoo-hah-ing. He had a real body, and it had lived and gone places and fought demons and picked up a few scars.

He dropped the t-shirt back into place and drank more water. Buffy hopped over and took the bottle from him, stuck it on the floor. She leapt up into his arms, locked her legs around his waist, and grinned. "You're sweaty," she said.

"So are you."

"No. I'm glowing. You're sweaty. Your chest is all damp." And the edges of his hair, and his neck, and all down the back of his t-shirt. Rumpled, disordered, not a single hair in place.

He turned around and pushed her back against the wall.

"What's this about?"

"Leverage," he said.

Then he was kissing her, and she had to shut up. His lips were damp against hers, his tongue cold from the water. His eyes were open, and he seemed almost curious. Slow kisses, intense, demanding but not hard or fierce. Buffy had no choice but to focus on them, on him, on his mouth on hers, her hands locked around the back of his neck, his sweaty hair. It was comforting, being wedged between Giles and the wall. Warm male body against her, hips pushing up against hers. He was slowly hardening as he rocked against her. Felt nice to have somebody between her and the world, to have a few minutes of feeling protected. If real danger appeared, she'd step up and protect the both of them without hesitation, but sheltering in his arms for a while was a relief. He had the control.

His mouth was on her neck now. He was nibbling. It almost tickled. Buffy giggled, and tilted her head. He switched to licking, and that did tickle.

"Taste good?"

"Mmm. Like sweaty Slayer. Salty. Too salty. You need water." He backed away from the wall and carried her over to the sofa, where he unceremoniously dropped her. Buffy let herself sprawl over the couch. He tossed his water bottle at her. "Drink that."

Buffy didn't, but sat holding it and spacing out a bit, getting used to her body again. She felt muscles in places she normally never felt muscles. Her back, her stomach, her triceps.

From the kitchen came sounds of Giles rummaging in the refrigerator. He came back in with a bottle of mixed fruit juice, the sort with protein added that you found in health food stores, and places that catered to body builders. He handed it to Buffy.

"This has a zillion calories in it."

Giles glared at her. "Drink it. You need the protein. I suspect your nutrition has been just as dreadful as your exercise habits have been. You've ignored everything I've ever told you, haven't you."

Buffy shrugged, which was tantamount to admitting that Giles was completely right. She'd been a slacking Slayer. She ripped the cap off and tasted it. It was weird, but good. Then she drank about half in three swallows. Thirstier than she'd thought, not to mention completely sans breakfast. "What's in this?"

He took the bottle from her and had a gulp. "I'd say banana."

"No, I mean-- Never mind." He handed it back. Buffy upended it and finished it off. "What's with you? You never used to be so casual."

"Wasn't sleeping with you before."

He quirked a little smile at her and exchanged the empty container for his half-empty bottle of water. He took the empty back to the kitchen. Buffy perched on a stool and sipped water. Giles rinsed out the empty bottle and set it on his dishrack. Neatnik, even about the recycling. A neatnik with his hair standing on end and a big damp triangle down the front of his t-shirt and an erection like a heat-seeking missile launching from his sweatpants. He seemed to be ignoring it, which was in direct contravention of every Law of Malekind that Riley had ever told her. A hard-on was DefCon 5, all troops mobilized to deal with the emergency.

It was absurd and sexy at once, to see him moving around his kitchen with that preceding him. She liked knowing she affected her Watcher this way. She'd been affecting him this way for a long time, it seemed, longer than he was comfortable admitting. And he'd hidden it away, given her no clue, no reason to fear or distrust him. He might never have given her a clue, but for that little blackmail problem. Noble dork, her Watcher.

He came around to her side of the pass-through and sat on the other stool.

"Don't you need to do something about that?"

"Want? Yes. Need? No."

"Doesn't it drive you nuts?"

Giles smiled, in an odd way. "Quite the reverse."

Buffy stared. Sometimes she didn't understand how sex worked for him.

"There are more important things to do right now," he said, and shrugged.

"Yeah? Like what?" Buffy leaned over and licked his neck over where she'd given him the hickey.

"I, ah, mmm. Seem to have forgotten. Ah. Shower. Breakfast."

She let go of him and climbed onto his lap for more of those slow intense kisses. He slipped a cool hand inside her racerback and braced it flat against her back, fingers spread. It felt good. Buffy let herself enjoy the taste of her Watcher again, tea and now banana.

"Sure you don't need something?"

Buffy sucked at his earlobe. Giles shivered.

"You're persuasive."

"It could be the next phase of Slayer training."

"You don't need much. Seem to know exactly what you're doing."

"Don't be so sure," she said, mumbling into his neck.

"Oh?"

"I'm not all that experienced."

"You're quite good at what you've done with me."

"That's just paying attention. And being brave and trying things I've read about."

Giles shook his head. "Paying attention is the essence of making love. All this talk about technique is rot. S'all about doing what your partner likes. Try things. If they feel good, do them some more."

"That's just it. I haven't tried all that much."

Giles was silent for a while. Buffy kept herself busy kissing him. She had done a lot of that in her life, and felt confident about it. Giles kissed her back hungrily. Then he pulled back and rubbed his nose against hers.

"Is there something you've always wanted to try? Tell me, and we'll do it."

"Anything? What if--"

"You know my limits. Tell me." He nuzzled her again.

"No, I mean, what if it's boring?"

Giles answered with the gentlest of voices. "Nothing's boring when it's you, my Slayer. Tell me."

"Just... new positions. Like you behind me. Basic stuff like that."

He didn't laugh, but nodded solemnly. "Of course."

"And talk to me," she blurted, before she could stop herself. Riley had ignored her when she'd tried to coax him into talking to her while they were in bed. When she'd asked him a second time he'd said it was distracting.

Giles considered her for a moment, then nodded. "It'll be my pleasure. Dirty or sensual?"

"Oh, I, um, hadn't thought about that."

He nodded again, exactly as if she'd given him a real answer. "Hold tight."

Giles put his hands under her butt and stood. Buffy locked her arms and legs around him. He carried her over to the center of his living room, to the space he'd cleared for their workout, and gently set her down on the mats. He stripped himself and tossed his clothing at the hallway. Buffy made as if to pull off her top, but he raised a hand to stop her.

"Allow me."

He knelt behind her and moved close. Warm arms around her, warm hands sliding up and lifting away her top, warm skin against her bared back. Her shorts were next, slid down by hands gliding down her thighs. He eased her down onto the mat. He snugged himself close behind her and wound his arm around her waist.

"No more athletics this morning," he said, in her ear. "This is more relaxing. Now. If you'll allow me, I'll show you another use for hypnosis."

Buffy shivered and let herself settle into his arms.

Giles talked. His voice was the same it had been when they'd done that last yoga pose together, all low and breathy and soothing, leading her step by step toward something. Something good. Hypnosis again. She filed the thought away and let that voice carry her where he wanted.

Where he wanted to go was a sweet place.

He told her how lovely she was to him, how her strength excited him, how her grace moved him. How wonderful she'd made him feel over the last two days, how her bravery had awed him. He told her how good she would feel, when at last he touched her. He told her how good she tasted, how much he longed to taste her again, to worship her with his kisses again. To touch her in her most secret places. To hear her cry out in pleasure and joy.

His hands were warm on her shoulder and stomach. He hadn't caressed her at all, not really, just a moment or two of his hand on her breasts. But she was panting for him exactly as if he had.

"Please--" she said.

"Are you open? If I touched you, would I find you ready for me?"

"I am."

"Tell me."

"I'm so... Don't have words. I've never been so turned on. I can almost feel you. Imagining you. Please. Touch me."

"Do you want me inside?"

"Yes."

"Bend your knee, yes, just like that. Rest your foot there. Perfect. Mmm. So strong, so supple, so soft and hard and sexy."

On the last words he slipped his leg between hers and entered her. Buffy sighed in satisfaction. Having him inside felt good. Was nice to have him do all the work this time, too, to have him take over and say all those wonderful things her. He was rocking himself inside her, maddeningly deliberate and slow, and whispering again.

"You feel so good. So good. Hot and wet and so slick. Squeeze me. When I push in, tighten around me. Oh Lord, yes, just like that. Again. Perfect. I adore making love like this. S'easy to reach around and touch you."

His hand slid down her leg and came to rest on her mons, fingers almost but not quite touching her sex. Buffy shivered.

"Patience. My Slayer has shown me patience, kept me on the edge and trembling for her. Now I'll be patient for her. Tease her. Tease you, my sweet Buffy."

The lightest of strokes, around and over, just brushing against her. A tease, as he said. Buffy gasped anyway. Gasped again as he touched her again, each time closer than the last, until his fingers rested over her. He held himself perfectly still.

"Yes?" he whispered.

"Yes."

Fingers moving against her, his body hard inside hers, his lips against the back of her neck. Buffy moved with him. It was so easy with Giles, so easy to find the path to release. Everything unified, everything pointing in the same direction, needle pointing north. Giles, pointing the way...

Buffy's breath came faster. She tipped her head back against him.

Voices, loud outside Giles' front door. Xander and Willow and somebody else. Buffy froze. The doorknob rattled, and she had a moment of panic. Had she remembered to-- The door didn't open, and the next sound was knocking.

"Man, that's two mornings in a row," said Xander.

"Four. No, five. There are five here." Willow's voice. "Ooh! They're so cute."

Giles was still moving inside her, still caressing her. Buffy put her hand down over his.

"Hush. Stay with me. They can't see you," Giles said.

"Six. You missed the large one sleeping over there." Anya.

"What are they doing here?" Buffy said. She knew she was whining, but she'd been so close.

He did not cease moving his fingers against her. His voice stayed soft. "They come by often. At least Xander does." He shifted his hand.

"Oh, that feels--"

He laughed softly into her ear. "I'm sure it does. Would you like to come? Right now, while they're just outside? While you have to be quiet so they can't hear?"

The voices outside the door continued.

"Knock louder, Xander. His car is here, so he must be."

Buffy shook her head. "No, please. Not near them."

"We'll scare them off, then."

"How--"

Giles slowly, slowly withdrew until he was almost all the way out, then just as slowly slid himself back inside. Buffy stifled a moan. He pulled out again and thrust himself in and bit her neck. Buffy cried out in shock and pleasure. That had nearly sent her over. The voices outside stopped. Giles thrust and bit again, not hard, but in exactly the spot that drove her mad. This time Buffy was braced for it, but he wrested a gasp from her anyway. Then he made noise himself, a sort of strangled yeah sound, much louder than any sound she'd heard him make normally.

Xander spoke outside the door. "Right. Um."

Willow's voice. "Let's go. We'll call later."

"Much later."

"They'll finish soon--"

"Don't say it, Ahn." Xander's voice dwindled as they walked away.

Buffy felt him shaking against her back. He was laughing, and a moment later she was too, giggling helplessly.

"Feels wonderful around me when you laugh. Lord." He pulled back and held still. He blew out an unsteady breath against her neck. "Did you like that?"

"Yeah. Do it again."

Giles nipped at her neck again, sucking and licking at the place where he'd bitten, and Buffy felt it rising in her again, hard and fast and inescapable. She reached back to him, seeking an anchor.

"Oh, Buffy. You're ready. It's starting. You can feel it. That's right. It's going to be big. It's going to be wonderful. It's happening. Now."

Despite what she'd feared, Buffy made no noise. It was too big. It surrounded her and closed in on her and consumed her. She shuddered and shattered and went somewhere else for a few seconds. Giles' voice brought her back down, his lips against her ear, telling her how marvelous she was, soothing her.

"Now is when I envy women. Because you're going to come again when I touch you. You're ready, right on the edge. Now. Come."

His fingers on her again, almost more than she could bear, triggering another explosion and shudder, then easing away just when the touch would have become painful. A few moments to let her recover, then again. And again, his body hard and moving inside hers, his voice soft in her ear, urging her on, telling her she deserved every moment of pleasure he could give her, and more.

Then he eased off, and simply held her close against his chest. Buffy trembled in his arms, coming down slowly.

"God, you're marvelous. Have you had your fill, my Slayer?"

"Yeah." No eloquence from Buffy right now. A mumble was all she could manage after that. "How 'bout you?"

"Mm. I'd like to finish, if I may."

Buffy sigh happily. "'Course. Can't believe you held out through all that. How many times? Oh man."

"I wasn't certain I would be able to come again this week after last night," he said. "I wouldn't have survived five seconds if we'd done this two days ago. Here."

He withdrew and eased her onto her back. He lifted her legs to rest on his shoulders and pushed in deep, far deeper than he'd been before. He groaned, this time in earnest, and thrust hard, still moving more slowly than she might have expected, more slowly than any of her other lovers ever had. It felt good, but Buffy felt no need to come again, or do anything other than squeeze him, cradle him and help him feel good too.

"Oh, God, Buffy. You're so beautiful. So sexy."

He was looking down, at the place where their bodies were joined. He looked thrilled.

"Do you like that? Looking at yourself inside me?"

He groaned again. "Yes. Lord, yes. The idea... It's primal. I'm inside you. I'm taking you. You're mine. I'm gonna, gonna come inside you. Again. Bloody hell."

"Why's that exciting?"

He shifted her legs down and let his weight rest on her. He wrapped his arms around her. Buffy tucked her heels behind his knees. He was moving hard and fast now.

"Pure biology. Come inside you, oh fuck, Buffy. So close. I need to--"

"Ssh. Go for it, sweetie."

No more words from him, just harsh breaths and half-choked moans in her ear, his hands clutching her back tighter, his hips pushing hard against hers, not thrusting any more but stilled, and then he was gasping out her name. He stayed inside her, a solid warm weight on top of her, breathing slower as he recovered, brushing kisses against her neck, until he softened and slipped out. Then he rolled off and onto his back.

Buffy sat up on one elbow and looked at him. Sprawled out, sweaty again, face and chest flushed, eyes shut. He looked wrecked.

"You okay?"

He opened his eyes. "Bloody brilliant. I'll die a happy man. Right here. Never moving again."

Buffy smiled and leaned down to kiss his forehead. He'd closed his eyes again. That had been a lot of exercise on top of the workout, she supposed. She'd have to give him a break for a couple of days. She had to, anyway. She had a ton of coursework piling up, and another paper to write. College never stopped. She pouted to herself, but she didn't mean it. College was good. This was good. So many things in her life right now were good, balancing out the nightly drag of Slaying and trying to save people.

She snugged herself up against Giles' side. Warm, heartbeat, chest rising and falling with breath. This man, right next to her, was one of the good things. What had kept her away from him for so long? She'd been foolish. She'd treated him as the enemy, sulked at him as if he'd been the one who'd made her the Slayer, and as if he hadn't been trapped by destiny just as much as she had.

This man stood for everything that kept her alive every night. This man was her ally. A compass pointing north, a knife in her boot, a guard at her door, an ally at her back. Her Watcher.

"I get it," she said, into his shoulder.

"Pardon?"

"You're on my side. Like, in everything."

Giles didn't budge, or open his eyes. "'Course I am."

"Why?"

"Sent here for you, wasn't I."

Buffy shifted so she could see his face. His eyes were still closed. "Are you okay with that?"

"Complicated. There were times... But now, yes. I'm your man." He sighed.

"Isn't it hard sometimes?" She knew, as she said it, that this was a stupid thing to ask. Dead friends, shattered relationships, scars on once-broken fingers.

"There are compensations." Now he opened his eyes. He seemed as if he were about to ask a question, but Buffy sat up and interrupted him.

"I'm sticking to this mat. Shower time now?"

Giles lifted his head just enough to glare at her. "Thought we established this. I'm never moving again." He let his head thump back down.

"How about if I lure you with tea?"

He made a show of putting his hands behind his head. "I'll take a cup here. Wake me when it's ready."

"Sorry, ally-guy, you need a shower now. You are stinky."

Buffy popped up, seized the mat, and dragged her giggling Watcher down the hall.

Continued in "Liegeman".