"The Unicorn" - 1/4
"The Unicorn"
Part 1/4
Pairing: Giles/Buffy
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
A Blast Furnace Production
Original material copyright © 1999 by A. Manley Haight
ahaight@blastfurnace.org
Flames are welcome and are, in fact, encouraged for psychological study.
This story is not in any way intended to infringe on copyrights held by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox Television, or 20th Century Fox. This story may be distributed only with prior permission of the author, and may not be posted to any archive, ftp site, or web page without the written permission of the author. This story is distributed for the individual personal entertainment of persons of legal age for viewing sexually explicit material in areas where such viewing is legal, and is not subject to purchase or sale by anyone.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: To make the premise of this story work, I've altered at least one concrete event in the show, and made some assumptions about Giles' unspoken background. I don't think it's much of a stretch, speaking from some personal experience.
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The library had been quiet for a while except for the occasional sound of pages turning. Giles, Buffy, Xander, Willow and Oz were there on a Saturday looking for a way to kill a demon that had so far proved annoyingly difficult to kill. Buffy had emerged unharmed from a battle with it, but in spite of the application of several weapons, including high voltage electricity, Thaluth had also escaped without a scratch. Giles had discovered this was because Thaluth was an Arch Demon, of the higher ranks of Hell, and protected by stronger magic than most demons. Research so far had proved singularly unenlightening because they had yet to even find a reference to Thaluth, much less a recommended method of destroying same. Finally, someone spoke.
"Oh Lord," Giles sighed. "Here it is."
"What?" Buffy said, bemused by Giles' tone, which had conveyed dismay rather than excitement. He handed the book over to her and Xander read over her shoulder.
"Aw, jeez," Xander exclaimed. "Not another virgin sacrifice. If we keep this up, we're not gonna have any virgins left in this town, and then there's gonna be real Hell to pay."
"It's not a virgin sacrifice," Giles said. "It's a ritual that has to be performed by a virgin, or in this case, the ritual itself requires that the virgin lose her virginity. The virgin is thus consecrated and is the only person who can kill the demon." He stepped closer but she held onto the book, reading. "What does it say about the sacrifice?"
"'The virgin shall be a living human,'" Buffy read, "'of good physical form and free of the consumptive and wasting diseases. If female, she shall have had her first moon flow."
"Menarche," Giles said, taking off his glasses absently to see the dense print better. "She has to have reached puberty. Go on."
"'If male, he shall be of no fewer than fourteen years.'"
"An adult, in other words," Giles murmured. At the sight of his wistful, upside‑down reading, Buffy gave the book to him with an amused smile, and he took it with a sheepish glance before putting the stem of his glasses in his mouth and looking down to read again. "The virgin's partner doesn't have to be a virgin himself," he said thoughtfully, lost in the scholarly nature of the text. "Does have to be human, not surprisingly. Well, as sordid as it sounds, I suppose we have to find a virgin who's willing to lose her virginity in the name of destroying evil."
"Again with the her," Buffy said, her smile quirking, and Giles looked up at her blankly and replaced his glasses.
"It's statistically much more likely that any virgin we find of the right age will be female," he said. "Women typically keep it longer and men lose it as quickly as possible." He said the last dryly, and Xander cleared his throat.
"Obviously that crosses my name off the list of people to be deflowered," he said, then perked up. "But not to do the deflowering."
"I think perhaps we should search for another solution to destroying Thaluth," Giles said. "I have problems with the ethics of this." Buffy grunted.
"Then we keep looking," she said, turning back to walk toward the stacks.
"Yes," Giles said in a low voice, and the tone caused her to pause at the top of the steps.
"But?" she prodded.
"But," Giles said, "I'm not going to hold my breath, to use an expression." He gestured with the open book. "Any other weapon we find that would work against Arch Demons would involve killing people ‑‑ small children to be exact ‑‑ or performing a special rite during a full solar eclipse. We're not going to have another full solar eclipse here for several more years. Those are the only means I have ever heard of for dealing with Arch Demons."
"This fighting evil thing sucks," Xander declared grumpily, sitting down at the table with a thump. "It can't be something simple like burning a few plants and chanting. No, it has to be virgins and baby killing and things that only happen when all the planets are aligned and the moon rises red and it rains fish for three days in a row."
"Regrettably, the Hellmouth didn't send a stone goblin to harass us," Giles said.
"Oh yeah? What do you have to do to get rid of them?"
"Throw salt over your left shoulder and say the goblin's name backwards three times," he said deadpan, and from up in the stacks Buffy gave a strangled laugh.
"Hey, do not taunt happy fun ball," Xander said.
"You're mean, Giles," came Buffy's voice again from behind the section labeled 'Western Hermeticism.' "Xander, stone goblins are what they call the bricks that pave the road to Hell. It's 'cuz they try to trip you and cut your feet."
"I'm glad to hear that you've been paying attention," Giles said to her.
"I had nightmares about it the day after you told me," she replied sarcastically. Then she sighed. "I can't find anything else about how to kill Thaluth in the Demon Hierarchy or the Forty Steps of Hell." She emerged from behind the stacks and came down the steps.
"Ooh, here's something," Willow said, speaking up for the first time. She had Giles' rare copy of Chaos of the QBLH and had been slogging through the labyrinthine English. Her face fell a few seconds later. "Oh, wait. It's the solar eclipse thing."
"Anything else?" Giles asked, leaning forward on the table. She kept reading but shook her head.
"Nope."
"That pretty much exhausts our avenues of exploration, then," Giles said.
"Guess we better start looking for a virgin," Buffy said. She glanced at Xander. "Xander and Faith and I are out. What about you guys?" She was looking at Willow and Oz, who exchanged a look, and then Willow flushed.
"Um, I think we're out, too," she said.
"Swell," Buffy said. "Somehow I can't really see us roaming the school interrogating people to find a virgin, assuming they'd tell us the truth anyhow."
"And assuming we don't get arrested," Xander added.
"We cannot involve outsiders," Giles said flatly, warningly, and Buffy sat back on the table.
"Yeah. So what do we do?"
"Does homosexuality count?" Oz said.
"Huh?" Buffy said.
"Well...men can be virgins with other men without being virgins with women," Oz said. "I think. At least, some people talk about it that way. Even if the other person has to be female, couldn't she penetrate him with something? Her fingers? Then Willow and I could do it."
"Do you eat with that mouth?" Xander said to him, looking overwhelmingly squeamish.
"That isn't a mating," Giles said in response to Oz's question. "Plus I don't know what the consequences would be of trying to interpret the text that way. It could be dangerous."
"So much for that idea," Buffy sighed. "Good try, though, Oz."
"There is, um, one other person we haven't considered," Giles said, looking uncomfortable with both hands in his pockets. They all looked at him expectantly.
"Oh yeah?" Xander said with sincere curiosity. "Who?"
"Yeah, Giles, who?" Buffy said. "I think we've pretty much covered the bases here, unless you mean Cordelia, and even if she is a virgin, I don't think we could talk her into this." Her tone was wry.
"I don't mean Cordelia," Giles said. "I mean me."
There was a pregnant silence, Buffy more than any of the rest of them looking at him as if he had just announced he was Tiamat, the dragon of Sumer.
"No way," Buffy said finally, in a tone of utter disbelief and incredulity. "You mean you're...but Miss Calendar..." Giles merely shook his head slightly.
"Our relationship never progressed that far," he said plainly. He caught the expression of mild sympathy on Xander's face and forced himself not to scowl at the boy. Oz merely looked intrigued. Willow looked like she couldn't believe they were even talking about Giles' sex life, much less whether or not any aspect of it were normal or not. "It's by choice and not inability, if I may be allowed to defend my own virility," he finally said, irritated. Buffy jerked her head back slightly, startled by the heat in his voice.
"So you mean you're a...a virgin?" she said.
"Yes," he said, in the flat tone he had used before, as if daring her to mock him for it.
"Oh," she said. Her mind was racing. What did you say in response to a revelation like that? Sticking to the subject seemed like a good idea. "So...if you're willing to do the ritual, who does the deflowering part?" Giles looked down at his shoes for a moment, hands still in his trouser pockets, and cleared his throat.
"The mating has to be a male-female union, so it would have to be a female," he replied. "Not necessarily a virgin herself. Pretty much any female will do, as long as she's human." Buffy became aware of eyes on her, and turned slightly to her friends.
"Why are you guys all looking at me?" she demanded with the nervous avoidance of the obvious. Giles cleared his throat again, then glanced up.
"Um, would you all mind giving us some time?" he asked. "Buffy and I need to talk privately."
"Sure," Willow said, discreetly pulling on Xander's sleeve as she and Oz moved toward the library exit. "We'll be out in the hall."
"I'm sorry about that," Giles said when they were alone. "I don't want you to think that I meant ‑‑ "
"No, hey, it's okay," Buffy said, still nervous. She perched on the edge of the table and took a deep breath. She wasn't used to having to be quite this mature about something when Giles was around. Usually he was the confident one. Now he was vulnerable and she had to be careful. "We should talk about it." Giles nodded, still not looking at her. She resisted the most obvious thing to say next; so, you're really a virgin, huh? "Um...sorry I'm acting kind of weird about this. I mean...I try not to think about whether the grownups I know have sex or not, but I guess we just assume that they have at least once."
"It's a reasonable assumption," Giles acknowledged. "It doesn't offend me that people think that. M‑mostly it doesn't come up at all."
"Yeah," Buffy said. "Guess not." She looked down at her shoes for a moment. "So...what are we going to do about Thaluth?"
"I'll do the ritual," Giles said, in the tone of someone accepting that tomorrow he would walk to the guillotine. He was looking at her now, with a curious, unflinching bravery. "Then I'll be consecrated and I can kill Thaluth myself. We can't allow him to walk the Earth even a day longer than absolutely necessary. There's no other way, and my emotional modesty is in no way as important as the lives of innocent people, not to mention our own. To be honest, whoever it is has to also be able to take a weapon against the demon, and that will require some skill and experience even with the protection of the consecration's magic."
"Well," Buffy said slowly, "I'm fresh out of ideas for a partner for you, if you're going to insist on excluding me..."
"I am," Giles said firmly.
"So who, then?" she asked, exasperated by his misplaced chivalry. "Faith? I'm sure she'd be only too happy to say yes."
"She's too young," Giles said. "Both of you are, her own promiscuity notwithstanding."
"The book says she just has to have reached puberty," Buffy said.
"That book was written four hundred years ago," Giles said. "Girls got married when they were twelve or thirteen back then. Plus, it's just an absolute outside boundary. The ritual would technically work with you...or a girl even younger...but I won't consider it. It's not acceptable."
"It doesn't look to me like you have a lot of choices here," Buffy replied, still annoyed.
"I thought...I thought perhaps we could ask your mother," he said in a low voice, not meeting her eyes. "If she'd be willing."
"Do you, uh, do you like my mom that way?" Buffy wondered with a faintly distressed and disgusted look. Giles shook his head.
"No. She's a lovely woman and I do like her, but no, not 'that way.' It just seems like a more appropriate choice."
"It'd make things really complicated between you two," Buffy said.
"As if it wouldn't make things complicated between you and me?" Giles snapped, and Buffy was silent, looking at him. He looked away, then pushed away from the banister to pace the floor. "I could...well, I could hire a prostitute," Giles said, putting his back to her and pausing by the counter. "There's no reason for you to be involved. Any woman will suffice."
"No," Buffy said angrily. "I won't let you do that. Jesus, Giles, this isn't just about defending the world from evil. This is special for you. It should be with someone you care about...even if you don't necessarily love them." Her uncertainty made her voice falter, and he wanted to turn and embrace her gently, but kept still to let her regain her composure. "Giles, do you really want your first time to be like that? Hollow and impersonal?" She saw his shoulders sag as he let out a deep, tired breath.
"No," he said, almost inaudibly. "I don't. I wanted it to be something I chose to do...with someone I loved and trusted."
"Then let me do it," she said gently, and she heard him sigh again. Walking up behind him, she carefully put her hand on his back. His breath caught but he didn't pull away, his head turning slightly. "Okay, so it's not the kind of love you wish it was...but we do love each other, don't we? As friends? And trust each other, too?" He didn't answer, and she could see his profile. His head was bowed, lips pressed together tightly. She realized he had slowly tensed under her hand, so she withdrew the touch. He didn't relax, but glanced sidelong at her. His eyes were hard, reflecting everything back and not allowing her to see into his thoughts or feelings.
"It would be grossly unfair to you," he said finally, his voice low and as unrevealing as his eyes.
"Giles," she said quietly, "I'm the Slayer. Nobody said this job was easy. If I could take your place, you know I would, but I can't, and I also can't let somebody else do what I should do myself. That's not right. I know you think it's sort of perverted...but it's okay. I mean, jeez, I did it with a guy who was two hundred and forty, and not even human besides. That's about as perverted as it gets without crossing over into farm animals and rubber bedsheets." Giles let out a long sigh and took off his glasses to rub at his eyes with one hand.
"God, I can't believe we're talking about this," he murmured.
"Ditto," she said. "Anyway, I'm legal. It's not like you'd be breaking the law or anything."
"It's not the law I'm worried about breaking," Giles said. He moved away from her, back toward the table, where he sat down heavily in one of the chairs and threw his glasses on the table carelessly. She followed him, sitting in the chair at the table's end, not forcing him to look at her.
"I know it'll affect our relationship," Buffy said. "Everything that happens to us affects our relationship. The world's not on 'pause,' Giles. Stuff happens and we deal. That's the way it works." She reached out for his hand where it rested on the table, and he squeezed gently, accepting the kindness. "If you'll let me, I'd feel really privileged to be your first." She saw his mouth quirk in a wan smile, his gaze still focused on something nonexistent on the other side of the library.
"You sound very sure of yourself," he commented.
"Really?" Buffy said, her eyebrows knitting. "Must be something in the water." He laughed quietly, hardly more than a breath, but it was a good sign. "Can I ask you something?" He actually looked at her finally, his expression unconsciously open and guileless.
"If you wish," he said.
"Why?" she asked. "Why wait this long?"
"I never met anyone I was that close to," he said simply. He glanced away again, but then forced himself to meet her eyes once more. "It's not something I can do casually. I just...can't. I've had sexual experiences...had girlfriends when I was younger. I just...never wanted to take that last step. It's too private, too close to the center of who I am. Jenny...maybe we would have done that eventually, maybe not. I can't say. I loved her ‑‑ I loved all the women I was with ‑‑ but I never really knew them. Do you understand?"
"I think so," she said, thinking about how little she knew Angel, and yet had made love to him anyway. She wondered if that had been a mistake. "Did Jenny know you were a virgin?"
"No," he said. "I've rarely ever told anyone. It seems unnecessary unless I get to the point where I would want to do anything about it, and any woman I felt that close to wouldn't be the sort to mind that I was new to it." He thumb was rubbing the back of her hand slowly, and there was a long silence between them. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked at last.
"Yeah," she said, covering his hand with her other one. "I'm sure."
"We'll have to go pretty fast," he said. "We should do it tonight." She looked briefly anxious, then nodded.
"I know," she sighed. "It's okay. Your place, I guess?"
"Yes. I've got most of what we need. The rest I can get on the way home. Can you come at about six?"
"No problem. Do you want me to bring anything?
"I'd, um, suggest a change of clothes," he said shyly, "and if you eat supper first, eat lightly, or wait until after. If you wish I'll take you to dinner." He was mildly surprised when she giggled.
"The old sex for food routine, huh?" she said, and he flushed. Before he could object, she waved her hand at him. "Relax, Giles. Joke. Lighten up." Her Watcher gave a deep sigh.
"Sorry," he said. "This is just very embarrassing."
"Yeah, I know," she agreed. "I guess we should tell the guys."
****
CONTINUED IN PART 2
Part 1/4
Pairing: Giles/Buffy
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
A Blast Furnace Production
Original material copyright © 1999 by A. Manley Haight
ahaight@blastfurnace.org
Flames are welcome and are, in fact, encouraged for psychological study.
This story is not in any way intended to infringe on copyrights held by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox Television, or 20th Century Fox. This story may be distributed only with prior permission of the author, and may not be posted to any archive, ftp site, or web page without the written permission of the author. This story is distributed for the individual personal entertainment of persons of legal age for viewing sexually explicit material in areas where such viewing is legal, and is not subject to purchase or sale by anyone.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: To make the premise of this story work, I've altered at least one concrete event in the show, and made some assumptions about Giles' unspoken background. I don't think it's much of a stretch, speaking from some personal experience.
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
The library had been quiet for a while except for the occasional sound of pages turning. Giles, Buffy, Xander, Willow and Oz were there on a Saturday looking for a way to kill a demon that had so far proved annoyingly difficult to kill. Buffy had emerged unharmed from a battle with it, but in spite of the application of several weapons, including high voltage electricity, Thaluth had also escaped without a scratch. Giles had discovered this was because Thaluth was an Arch Demon, of the higher ranks of Hell, and protected by stronger magic than most demons. Research so far had proved singularly unenlightening because they had yet to even find a reference to Thaluth, much less a recommended method of destroying same. Finally, someone spoke.
"Oh Lord," Giles sighed. "Here it is."
"What?" Buffy said, bemused by Giles' tone, which had conveyed dismay rather than excitement. He handed the book over to her and Xander read over her shoulder.
"Aw, jeez," Xander exclaimed. "Not another virgin sacrifice. If we keep this up, we're not gonna have any virgins left in this town, and then there's gonna be real Hell to pay."
"It's not a virgin sacrifice," Giles said. "It's a ritual that has to be performed by a virgin, or in this case, the ritual itself requires that the virgin lose her virginity. The virgin is thus consecrated and is the only person who can kill the demon." He stepped closer but she held onto the book, reading. "What does it say about the sacrifice?"
"'The virgin shall be a living human,'" Buffy read, "'of good physical form and free of the consumptive and wasting diseases. If female, she shall have had her first moon flow."
"Menarche," Giles said, taking off his glasses absently to see the dense print better. "She has to have reached puberty. Go on."
"'If male, he shall be of no fewer than fourteen years.'"
"An adult, in other words," Giles murmured. At the sight of his wistful, upside‑down reading, Buffy gave the book to him with an amused smile, and he took it with a sheepish glance before putting the stem of his glasses in his mouth and looking down to read again. "The virgin's partner doesn't have to be a virgin himself," he said thoughtfully, lost in the scholarly nature of the text. "Does have to be human, not surprisingly. Well, as sordid as it sounds, I suppose we have to find a virgin who's willing to lose her virginity in the name of destroying evil."
"Again with the her," Buffy said, her smile quirking, and Giles looked up at her blankly and replaced his glasses.
"It's statistically much more likely that any virgin we find of the right age will be female," he said. "Women typically keep it longer and men lose it as quickly as possible." He said the last dryly, and Xander cleared his throat.
"Obviously that crosses my name off the list of people to be deflowered," he said, then perked up. "But not to do the deflowering."
"I think perhaps we should search for another solution to destroying Thaluth," Giles said. "I have problems with the ethics of this." Buffy grunted.
"Then we keep looking," she said, turning back to walk toward the stacks.
"Yes," Giles said in a low voice, and the tone caused her to pause at the top of the steps.
"But?" she prodded.
"But," Giles said, "I'm not going to hold my breath, to use an expression." He gestured with the open book. "Any other weapon we find that would work against Arch Demons would involve killing people ‑‑ small children to be exact ‑‑ or performing a special rite during a full solar eclipse. We're not going to have another full solar eclipse here for several more years. Those are the only means I have ever heard of for dealing with Arch Demons."
"This fighting evil thing sucks," Xander declared grumpily, sitting down at the table with a thump. "It can't be something simple like burning a few plants and chanting. No, it has to be virgins and baby killing and things that only happen when all the planets are aligned and the moon rises red and it rains fish for three days in a row."
"Regrettably, the Hellmouth didn't send a stone goblin to harass us," Giles said.
"Oh yeah? What do you have to do to get rid of them?"
"Throw salt over your left shoulder and say the goblin's name backwards three times," he said deadpan, and from up in the stacks Buffy gave a strangled laugh.
"Hey, do not taunt happy fun ball," Xander said.
"You're mean, Giles," came Buffy's voice again from behind the section labeled 'Western Hermeticism.' "Xander, stone goblins are what they call the bricks that pave the road to Hell. It's 'cuz they try to trip you and cut your feet."
"I'm glad to hear that you've been paying attention," Giles said to her.
"I had nightmares about it the day after you told me," she replied sarcastically. Then she sighed. "I can't find anything else about how to kill Thaluth in the Demon Hierarchy or the Forty Steps of Hell." She emerged from behind the stacks and came down the steps.
"Ooh, here's something," Willow said, speaking up for the first time. She had Giles' rare copy of Chaos of the QBLH and had been slogging through the labyrinthine English. Her face fell a few seconds later. "Oh, wait. It's the solar eclipse thing."
"Anything else?" Giles asked, leaning forward on the table. She kept reading but shook her head.
"Nope."
"That pretty much exhausts our avenues of exploration, then," Giles said.
"Guess we better start looking for a virgin," Buffy said. She glanced at Xander. "Xander and Faith and I are out. What about you guys?" She was looking at Willow and Oz, who exchanged a look, and then Willow flushed.
"Um, I think we're out, too," she said.
"Swell," Buffy said. "Somehow I can't really see us roaming the school interrogating people to find a virgin, assuming they'd tell us the truth anyhow."
"And assuming we don't get arrested," Xander added.
"We cannot involve outsiders," Giles said flatly, warningly, and Buffy sat back on the table.
"Yeah. So what do we do?"
"Does homosexuality count?" Oz said.
"Huh?" Buffy said.
"Well...men can be virgins with other men without being virgins with women," Oz said. "I think. At least, some people talk about it that way. Even if the other person has to be female, couldn't she penetrate him with something? Her fingers? Then Willow and I could do it."
"Do you eat with that mouth?" Xander said to him, looking overwhelmingly squeamish.
"That isn't a mating," Giles said in response to Oz's question. "Plus I don't know what the consequences would be of trying to interpret the text that way. It could be dangerous."
"So much for that idea," Buffy sighed. "Good try, though, Oz."
"There is, um, one other person we haven't considered," Giles said, looking uncomfortable with both hands in his pockets. They all looked at him expectantly.
"Oh yeah?" Xander said with sincere curiosity. "Who?"
"Yeah, Giles, who?" Buffy said. "I think we've pretty much covered the bases here, unless you mean Cordelia, and even if she is a virgin, I don't think we could talk her into this." Her tone was wry.
"I don't mean Cordelia," Giles said. "I mean me."
There was a pregnant silence, Buffy more than any of the rest of them looking at him as if he had just announced he was Tiamat, the dragon of Sumer.
"No way," Buffy said finally, in a tone of utter disbelief and incredulity. "You mean you're...but Miss Calendar..." Giles merely shook his head slightly.
"Our relationship never progressed that far," he said plainly. He caught the expression of mild sympathy on Xander's face and forced himself not to scowl at the boy. Oz merely looked intrigued. Willow looked like she couldn't believe they were even talking about Giles' sex life, much less whether or not any aspect of it were normal or not. "It's by choice and not inability, if I may be allowed to defend my own virility," he finally said, irritated. Buffy jerked her head back slightly, startled by the heat in his voice.
"So you mean you're a...a virgin?" she said.
"Yes," he said, in the flat tone he had used before, as if daring her to mock him for it.
"Oh," she said. Her mind was racing. What did you say in response to a revelation like that? Sticking to the subject seemed like a good idea. "So...if you're willing to do the ritual, who does the deflowering part?" Giles looked down at his shoes for a moment, hands still in his trouser pockets, and cleared his throat.
"The mating has to be a male-female union, so it would have to be a female," he replied. "Not necessarily a virgin herself. Pretty much any female will do, as long as she's human." Buffy became aware of eyes on her, and turned slightly to her friends.
"Why are you guys all looking at me?" she demanded with the nervous avoidance of the obvious. Giles cleared his throat again, then glanced up.
"Um, would you all mind giving us some time?" he asked. "Buffy and I need to talk privately."
"Sure," Willow said, discreetly pulling on Xander's sleeve as she and Oz moved toward the library exit. "We'll be out in the hall."
"I'm sorry about that," Giles said when they were alone. "I don't want you to think that I meant ‑‑ "
"No, hey, it's okay," Buffy said, still nervous. She perched on the edge of the table and took a deep breath. She wasn't used to having to be quite this mature about something when Giles was around. Usually he was the confident one. Now he was vulnerable and she had to be careful. "We should talk about it." Giles nodded, still not looking at her. She resisted the most obvious thing to say next; so, you're really a virgin, huh? "Um...sorry I'm acting kind of weird about this. I mean...I try not to think about whether the grownups I know have sex or not, but I guess we just assume that they have at least once."
"It's a reasonable assumption," Giles acknowledged. "It doesn't offend me that people think that. M‑mostly it doesn't come up at all."
"Yeah," Buffy said. "Guess not." She looked down at her shoes for a moment. "So...what are we going to do about Thaluth?"
"I'll do the ritual," Giles said, in the tone of someone accepting that tomorrow he would walk to the guillotine. He was looking at her now, with a curious, unflinching bravery. "Then I'll be consecrated and I can kill Thaluth myself. We can't allow him to walk the Earth even a day longer than absolutely necessary. There's no other way, and my emotional modesty is in no way as important as the lives of innocent people, not to mention our own. To be honest, whoever it is has to also be able to take a weapon against the demon, and that will require some skill and experience even with the protection of the consecration's magic."
"Well," Buffy said slowly, "I'm fresh out of ideas for a partner for you, if you're going to insist on excluding me..."
"I am," Giles said firmly.
"So who, then?" she asked, exasperated by his misplaced chivalry. "Faith? I'm sure she'd be only too happy to say yes."
"She's too young," Giles said. "Both of you are, her own promiscuity notwithstanding."
"The book says she just has to have reached puberty," Buffy said.
"That book was written four hundred years ago," Giles said. "Girls got married when they were twelve or thirteen back then. Plus, it's just an absolute outside boundary. The ritual would technically work with you...or a girl even younger...but I won't consider it. It's not acceptable."
"It doesn't look to me like you have a lot of choices here," Buffy replied, still annoyed.
"I thought...I thought perhaps we could ask your mother," he said in a low voice, not meeting her eyes. "If she'd be willing."
"Do you, uh, do you like my mom that way?" Buffy wondered with a faintly distressed and disgusted look. Giles shook his head.
"No. She's a lovely woman and I do like her, but no, not 'that way.' It just seems like a more appropriate choice."
"It'd make things really complicated between you two," Buffy said.
"As if it wouldn't make things complicated between you and me?" Giles snapped, and Buffy was silent, looking at him. He looked away, then pushed away from the banister to pace the floor. "I could...well, I could hire a prostitute," Giles said, putting his back to her and pausing by the counter. "There's no reason for you to be involved. Any woman will suffice."
"No," Buffy said angrily. "I won't let you do that. Jesus, Giles, this isn't just about defending the world from evil. This is special for you. It should be with someone you care about...even if you don't necessarily love them." Her uncertainty made her voice falter, and he wanted to turn and embrace her gently, but kept still to let her regain her composure. "Giles, do you really want your first time to be like that? Hollow and impersonal?" She saw his shoulders sag as he let out a deep, tired breath.
"No," he said, almost inaudibly. "I don't. I wanted it to be something I chose to do...with someone I loved and trusted."
"Then let me do it," she said gently, and she heard him sigh again. Walking up behind him, she carefully put her hand on his back. His breath caught but he didn't pull away, his head turning slightly. "Okay, so it's not the kind of love you wish it was...but we do love each other, don't we? As friends? And trust each other, too?" He didn't answer, and she could see his profile. His head was bowed, lips pressed together tightly. She realized he had slowly tensed under her hand, so she withdrew the touch. He didn't relax, but glanced sidelong at her. His eyes were hard, reflecting everything back and not allowing her to see into his thoughts or feelings.
"It would be grossly unfair to you," he said finally, his voice low and as unrevealing as his eyes.
"Giles," she said quietly, "I'm the Slayer. Nobody said this job was easy. If I could take your place, you know I would, but I can't, and I also can't let somebody else do what I should do myself. That's not right. I know you think it's sort of perverted...but it's okay. I mean, jeez, I did it with a guy who was two hundred and forty, and not even human besides. That's about as perverted as it gets without crossing over into farm animals and rubber bedsheets." Giles let out a long sigh and took off his glasses to rub at his eyes with one hand.
"God, I can't believe we're talking about this," he murmured.
"Ditto," she said. "Anyway, I'm legal. It's not like you'd be breaking the law or anything."
"It's not the law I'm worried about breaking," Giles said. He moved away from her, back toward the table, where he sat down heavily in one of the chairs and threw his glasses on the table carelessly. She followed him, sitting in the chair at the table's end, not forcing him to look at her.
"I know it'll affect our relationship," Buffy said. "Everything that happens to us affects our relationship. The world's not on 'pause,' Giles. Stuff happens and we deal. That's the way it works." She reached out for his hand where it rested on the table, and he squeezed gently, accepting the kindness. "If you'll let me, I'd feel really privileged to be your first." She saw his mouth quirk in a wan smile, his gaze still focused on something nonexistent on the other side of the library.
"You sound very sure of yourself," he commented.
"Really?" Buffy said, her eyebrows knitting. "Must be something in the water." He laughed quietly, hardly more than a breath, but it was a good sign. "Can I ask you something?" He actually looked at her finally, his expression unconsciously open and guileless.
"If you wish," he said.
"Why?" she asked. "Why wait this long?"
"I never met anyone I was that close to," he said simply. He glanced away again, but then forced himself to meet her eyes once more. "It's not something I can do casually. I just...can't. I've had sexual experiences...had girlfriends when I was younger. I just...never wanted to take that last step. It's too private, too close to the center of who I am. Jenny...maybe we would have done that eventually, maybe not. I can't say. I loved her ‑‑ I loved all the women I was with ‑‑ but I never really knew them. Do you understand?"
"I think so," she said, thinking about how little she knew Angel, and yet had made love to him anyway. She wondered if that had been a mistake. "Did Jenny know you were a virgin?"
"No," he said. "I've rarely ever told anyone. It seems unnecessary unless I get to the point where I would want to do anything about it, and any woman I felt that close to wouldn't be the sort to mind that I was new to it." He thumb was rubbing the back of her hand slowly, and there was a long silence between them. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked at last.
"Yeah," she said, covering his hand with her other one. "I'm sure."
"We'll have to go pretty fast," he said. "We should do it tonight." She looked briefly anxious, then nodded.
"I know," she sighed. "It's okay. Your place, I guess?"
"Yes. I've got most of what we need. The rest I can get on the way home. Can you come at about six?"
"No problem. Do you want me to bring anything?
"I'd, um, suggest a change of clothes," he said shyly, "and if you eat supper first, eat lightly, or wait until after. If you wish I'll take you to dinner." He was mildly surprised when she giggled.
"The old sex for food routine, huh?" she said, and he flushed. Before he could object, she waved her hand at him. "Relax, Giles. Joke. Lighten up." Her Watcher gave a deep sigh.
"Sorry," he said. "This is just very embarrassing."
"Yeah, I know," she agreed. "I guess we should tell the guys."
****
CONTINUED IN PART 2