Fic: Giles/Buffy, PG/FRT
Title: Four Times Giles Cleaned His Glasses Instead of Kissing Buffy--And One Time He Didn't
Author: Mr. Twisted Whispers (mrtwstedwhsprs)
Rating: PG/FRT
Pairing: Giles/Buffy
Summary: Everything takes time
Spoilers/Setting: Setting variable, references Beer Bad, Hush, and The Body.
Warnings: Some alcohol, language and angst (hey, I wrote it, what do you expect?)
Disclaimer: Characters belong to to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and large corporate entities with lots of lawyers. I am not claiming anything otherwise.
Special thanks to lostgirlslair, for the beta, and for helping me with the idea. (Heck, pretty much giving me the idea.)
1) The Middle Distance
There had never been any doubt that the tasks would be hard. Every book written for Watchers was filled with sentences that combined synonyms for "care" with synonyms for "detachment." The idea being that a Slayer was to be cared for the way a fine sword is cared for; honed, sharpened, hardened, and ready to be easily replaced as soon as it was broken off a the hilt.
But in time, he had learned to read her emotions. When the wisecracks, obsessive practicalities, distractions, and all her other defense mechanisms fell away, Buffy would be left staring into the middle distance. If her jawline was tense, it meant that she would soon snap into a flurry of activity, righting whatever part of her world had been broken by whatever means necessary, piecing it back together like a favorite vase one would never throw away.
When her jaw was loose it meant she would be staring for long time, trapped within a pain neither easily healed, nor redressed. He stood across the room from her, facing her back, a distance somewhere between five feet and five miles between them. He ached to put a hand on her shoulder, to kiss away the tears she wouldn't allow to fall. Instead, he turned away, pulled the glasses from his face, and cleaned them, his thumb pressing into the back of the lens, smooth, cold and hard.
2) How to Take the Good with the Bad
Parker lay unconscious in the street. Giles glanced down at him, knowing that behind his closed eyes parts of his brain dedicated to the justification of actions would be attempting to tally and file the events of the night. Constructing a viable explanation that would fit into the world view which they'd previously constructed.
They would fail miserably, of course, and instead construct something that that resembled a discarded script to a slapstick comedy written during one bender, and discarded in the next. Sunnydale was quickly becoming the tin-foil hat capital of California, no mean feat.
Still, he tried to be disapproving and calm as he walked away, his compulsive lens polishing keeping him from openly chuckling. There had been at least one benefit of Buffy's trip back in time: The ability to perform actions equally necessary and amusing, if frowned upon.
3) It's Only Me
Click. Click. Click. The needle slid against the end of the run-out groove. Giles had hidden his Scotch bottle as soon as he'd heard her distinctive knock at the door. He had forgotten in the hurried seconds to hide the letter--airmail straight from England--Olivia telling him that yes, it was too much after all.
Buffy had smelled the Scotch immediately, and winced. She had winced harder at the Jethro Tull he'd been playing all night long. He cleaned his glasses again, for the hundredth time that night. It was dust that clung to the inside of the lenses, he told himself, not salt, not salt.
Buffy didn't say a word. She pulled his Scotch from behind the lamp and handed it to him, then lifted the arm from the center of the record and placed the needle at the start. As "Aqualung" started for the seventh time that night, he looked up at her, knowing that though she may not appreciate the intricacies of Jethro Tull, she understood the simplicity of being told that yes, it is all too much.
4) Sunset
Giles had been in Southern California exactly three days when he was informed that the smog was quote -- responsible for the beautiful sunsets -- end quote. He heard it on the fifth day, and the seventh, and many times since, always hearing it as, "Yeah, smog gives us beautiful sunsets. . .err. . .sorry about the smog." He had even heard people unfavorably comparing the "smogsets" in Sunnydale to the far-more-impressive ones in Los Angeles.
This sunset--spent in Buffy's house, a house both literally and figuratively more empty--was neither beautiful, nor impressive. It sagged through the windows, crawling across the floor in a consuming red light, like cooling lava. Buffy sat straight, unnaturally straight, in the chair, a marionette with its strings tangled and hung on a peg.
"If you need help with the arrangements. . ." Giles cut his sentence short, as Buffy looked up at him, eyes red-rimmed. He turned towards the window, squinting his own eyes shut to stem his tears, and cleaned his glasses. Arrangements were for flowers. They were for weddings, for hotel reservations and conspiracies. Not for this.
The shadows lengthened. They always did.
5) What's Missing
"It's almost a two-and-a-half-hour drive, we have to pick everyone up first, so to get there by nine, we have to leave at. . ."
"Six-thirty," Buffy glanced at him sideways, "You do remember that I've already taken the SAT, right?"
Giles snorted. There are many things for which a Watcher is trained, allowing for California traffic is not included. Mainly due to how many would prefer to run into a nest of vampires unarmed, while wearing a necklace made of raw meat and a T-shirt that said, "Bite me." Well, there was at least one.
Giles pulled his glass off and began to clean them, "Yes, but if we get delayed by the end of rush hour. . ." CRACK. ". . .Oh, bloody hell."
"What is it now?"
"They broke in half.” Giles said, a little stunned. “I was cleaning them, and they just broke in half.” He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “Lovely, now there's a lens somewhere on the floor."
"It was bound to happen the way you do that all the time. They must have been the cleanest glasses on the planet."
Giles stooped down and felt around the floor, semi-blindly. "Ironic, when you break your glasses, you can't find the missing pieces without your glasses."
Buffy dropped down across from him, her hands sweeping over the floor. They both saw the lens at the same moment, crawling toward it-and one another-on hands and knees. They reached for it at the same moment, too, and their heads bumped. Giles looked up, an apology on his lips. It never made it out. The words died as he brought his head up and found himself staring into Buffy's eyes.
Somewhere in the blurry fog of astigmatism, their lips met. Walls of sorrow, regret, duty, and the seeing of too much in a time always too short, fell away, sliding like sheer white curtains around a window open to a spring breeze and morning sunlight.
When their mouths finally parted, there was nothing to say that didn't seem far too practical, but the practical things were a lot less weighty. "You know, I'll never be able to get a new pair before we leave."
"It's okay.” Buffy shrugged. “I'll drive."
"This mission just became a lot more dangerous." This time, they both smiled sideways, and Giles could just barely see the hint of promise hovering around Buffy's mouth. His glasses were broken, but at least they'd given their life for a good cause.
Author: Mr. Twisted Whispers (mrtwstedwhsprs)
Rating: PG/FRT
Pairing: Giles/Buffy
Summary: Everything takes time
Spoilers/Setting: Setting variable, references Beer Bad, Hush, and The Body.
Warnings: Some alcohol, language and angst (hey, I wrote it, what do you expect?)
Disclaimer: Characters belong to to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and large corporate entities with lots of lawyers. I am not claiming anything otherwise.
Special thanks to lostgirlslair, for the beta, and for helping me with the idea. (Heck, pretty much giving me the idea.)
1) The Middle Distance
There had never been any doubt that the tasks would be hard. Every book written for Watchers was filled with sentences that combined synonyms for "care" with synonyms for "detachment." The idea being that a Slayer was to be cared for the way a fine sword is cared for; honed, sharpened, hardened, and ready to be easily replaced as soon as it was broken off a the hilt.
But in time, he had learned to read her emotions. When the wisecracks, obsessive practicalities, distractions, and all her other defense mechanisms fell away, Buffy would be left staring into the middle distance. If her jawline was tense, it meant that she would soon snap into a flurry of activity, righting whatever part of her world had been broken by whatever means necessary, piecing it back together like a favorite vase one would never throw away.
When her jaw was loose it meant she would be staring for long time, trapped within a pain neither easily healed, nor redressed. He stood across the room from her, facing her back, a distance somewhere between five feet and five miles between them. He ached to put a hand on her shoulder, to kiss away the tears she wouldn't allow to fall. Instead, he turned away, pulled the glasses from his face, and cleaned them, his thumb pressing into the back of the lens, smooth, cold and hard.
2) How to Take the Good with the Bad
Parker lay unconscious in the street. Giles glanced down at him, knowing that behind his closed eyes parts of his brain dedicated to the justification of actions would be attempting to tally and file the events of the night. Constructing a viable explanation that would fit into the world view which they'd previously constructed.
They would fail miserably, of course, and instead construct something that that resembled a discarded script to a slapstick comedy written during one bender, and discarded in the next. Sunnydale was quickly becoming the tin-foil hat capital of California, no mean feat.
Still, he tried to be disapproving and calm as he walked away, his compulsive lens polishing keeping him from openly chuckling. There had been at least one benefit of Buffy's trip back in time: The ability to perform actions equally necessary and amusing, if frowned upon.
3) It's Only Me
Click. Click. Click. The needle slid against the end of the run-out groove. Giles had hidden his Scotch bottle as soon as he'd heard her distinctive knock at the door. He had forgotten in the hurried seconds to hide the letter--airmail straight from England--Olivia telling him that yes, it was too much after all.
Buffy had smelled the Scotch immediately, and winced. She had winced harder at the Jethro Tull he'd been playing all night long. He cleaned his glasses again, for the hundredth time that night. It was dust that clung to the inside of the lenses, he told himself, not salt, not salt.
Buffy didn't say a word. She pulled his Scotch from behind the lamp and handed it to him, then lifted the arm from the center of the record and placed the needle at the start. As "Aqualung" started for the seventh time that night, he looked up at her, knowing that though she may not appreciate the intricacies of Jethro Tull, she understood the simplicity of being told that yes, it is all too much.
4) Sunset
Giles had been in Southern California exactly three days when he was informed that the smog was quote -- responsible for the beautiful sunsets -- end quote. He heard it on the fifth day, and the seventh, and many times since, always hearing it as, "Yeah, smog gives us beautiful sunsets. . .err. . .sorry about the smog." He had even heard people unfavorably comparing the "smogsets" in Sunnydale to the far-more-impressive ones in Los Angeles.
This sunset--spent in Buffy's house, a house both literally and figuratively more empty--was neither beautiful, nor impressive. It sagged through the windows, crawling across the floor in a consuming red light, like cooling lava. Buffy sat straight, unnaturally straight, in the chair, a marionette with its strings tangled and hung on a peg.
"If you need help with the arrangements. . ." Giles cut his sentence short, as Buffy looked up at him, eyes red-rimmed. He turned towards the window, squinting his own eyes shut to stem his tears, and cleaned his glasses. Arrangements were for flowers. They were for weddings, for hotel reservations and conspiracies. Not for this.
The shadows lengthened. They always did.
5) What's Missing
"It's almost a two-and-a-half-hour drive, we have to pick everyone up first, so to get there by nine, we have to leave at. . ."
"Six-thirty," Buffy glanced at him sideways, "You do remember that I've already taken the SAT, right?"
Giles snorted. There are many things for which a Watcher is trained, allowing for California traffic is not included. Mainly due to how many would prefer to run into a nest of vampires unarmed, while wearing a necklace made of raw meat and a T-shirt that said, "Bite me." Well, there was at least one.
Giles pulled his glass off and began to clean them, "Yes, but if we get delayed by the end of rush hour. . ." CRACK. ". . .Oh, bloody hell."
"What is it now?"
"They broke in half.” Giles said, a little stunned. “I was cleaning them, and they just broke in half.” He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “Lovely, now there's a lens somewhere on the floor."
"It was bound to happen the way you do that all the time. They must have been the cleanest glasses on the planet."
Giles stooped down and felt around the floor, semi-blindly. "Ironic, when you break your glasses, you can't find the missing pieces without your glasses."
Buffy dropped down across from him, her hands sweeping over the floor. They both saw the lens at the same moment, crawling toward it-and one another-on hands and knees. They reached for it at the same moment, too, and their heads bumped. Giles looked up, an apology on his lips. It never made it out. The words died as he brought his head up and found himself staring into Buffy's eyes.
Somewhere in the blurry fog of astigmatism, their lips met. Walls of sorrow, regret, duty, and the seeing of too much in a time always too short, fell away, sliding like sheer white curtains around a window open to a spring breeze and morning sunlight.
When their mouths finally parted, there was nothing to say that didn't seem far too practical, but the practical things were a lot less weighty. "You know, I'll never be able to get a new pair before we leave."
"It's okay.” Buffy shrugged. “I'll drive."
"This mission just became a lot more dangerous." This time, they both smiled sideways, and Giles could just barely see the hint of promise hovering around Buffy's mouth. His glasses were broken, but at least they'd given their life for a good cause.