"The Unicorn" - 4/4
"The Unicorn"
Part 4/4
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.
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
Giles felt a suffusion of strength and magic that coincided with the loss of his fear regarding Thaluth and the havoc the demon could wreak. The power spread through him, intertwining itself with his very being and becoming part of his magic as a Watcher. It was like filling in gaps between loose bricks and cementing a foundation to support a great weight. He knew he could kill Thaluth now, and any Arch Demon that might follow after.
"Did it work?" Buffy asked him, and he sighed.
"Yes. I feel the magic settling inside me. I think we did it right." He was smiling gently, almost fully relaxed on the floor and gazing up at her with sleepy pleasure.
"Guess you're not a virgin anymore," Buffy said, smiling down at him. His answering hum was content and joyful.
"Guess not," he murmured.
"Then we can stop now," she said, touching his chest lightly for a moment, lost in thought. His smile faded as she moved to withdraw from him, and she caught the silent longing in his face. "You don't want to stop, do you?" she said softly. He didn't answer for a long moment, but touched her face with both hands, then her shoulders.
"I don't have the right to ask," he replied quietly, running his hand lightly down her arm with hesitant tenderness. Buffy settled her weight on him again gently, accepting him completely inside her, and he hissed softly, closing his eyes for a moment.
"Yes, you do," she said. He swallowed hard, stroking up across her shoulder again.
"You mean more to me than I've ever been able to express," he whispered. "I never...never thought of trying to show it this way...but I want to make love to you. This feels...it's unbelievable. I didn't know it could be so incredibly sweet."
"I think it's different with different people," Buffy told him softly. She leaned down to kiss him gently. "Depends how you really feel about each other." She smiled at his expression of innocent wonder. "Do you want to change positions? Or do you want me to keep going?"
"I like what we're doing now," he said, finally putting his hands on her hips. "Go slowly with me. I want to savor it."
The next time she rose up off of him, it was a deliberate thrust and drove a strangled grunt of ecstasy and astonishment and awe from deep in his throat. Her eyes were half‑closed, not revealing her inner emotions, but he could see and feel her desire in the way she moved. She rose again, plunged down on him with excruciating slowness, then again, and again until it was a continuous, building wave of pressure and joy inside him that was so intense it felt like it would rip him asunder. "Oh my God," he growled. "God, Buffy, does this feel to you the way it feels to me?"
"I dunno," she whispered, leaning on his chest and bending down to kiss him as she paused for a moment. "Does it feel like you've been waiting all your life to do it?" He knew what he needed to do then, and he sat up from the floor and turned her over carefully, ignoring the boundaries of the pentagram now. He settled his weight on top of her and pushed deep, drowning in the satisfaction of being able to fill her this way, and lowered himself to devour her mouth with soft, thorough acceptance and wanting. She answered with pure hunger, her arms around his neck, welcoming him as totally as a woman could welcome a man. He relaxed and then gave another slow, sensuous thrust. Her legs wrapped around his, holding him to her, and he let out a long, shivering breath.
She couldn't tell him this was what she wanted, that she wanted him to take this from her as surely as she had taken him at first. He was trembling, his body straining to go slow, to keep control of this as he rocked her with deep, full thrusts. He was relishing each one, wringing every last ounce of sensation and delight, his face unconsciously showing her the strength of what he couldn't say aloud.
Her hand stroking at the soft hair of his neck gradually gave way to an iron grip around his shoulder, each breath coming harder and more labored as he moved them toward some indefinable conclusion. Sweat pooled between their bellies, his back slick with it and the hollow of her throat glistening.
"Breathe, luv," he whispered, laughing softly. "You've got to breathe."
"Feels too good," she moaned. "You feel too good, Giles..." That name uttered with such longing and passion made fire ripple up his back.
"Oooh, God," he breathed, brushing his mouth along her shoulder. "I'm close, Buffy. God, it's fantastic."
"Come on," she said. "Want to see you." He hissed softly against her skin, letting go of the tension that had held him back, the reluctance that had made him afraid to let her see that she could rouse this in him. It had shocked him to discover it, but now it felt like the conclusion of a long journey they had begun unknowingly. The flame gathered in his loins, at the base of his spine, liquid sensation coalescing into a point of intolerable glory. It could only have been a few pounding heartbeats that he felt the climb, but the traveling itself was delicious beyond his imagination.
"God, Buffy," he panted. "Oh, Jesus ‑‑" The climax was like none he had known. No sudden explosion, no violent release, just a huge, consuming wave that lifted him up and filled him with ecstasy. His cock let go suddenly, surging quick and hard, making him shudder again with the need to spill his seed in her and claim her somehow with the act. His throat ached, his voice rending the quiet house with tormented, joyful groans and whimpers. He knew it had to go away, and when the orgasm faded it was like losing part of his soul, and he moaned with loss. He kissed her throat, lingering there with tenderness as his blood cooled and he was left with the sated serenity of his love for her.
"What is it?" she asked, rubbing her fingers through his hair and stroking his jaw. He nuzzled her gently.
"Just don't want it to stop," he whispered. "Let me pull out and I'll do something for you -- " She held him when he tried to pull away from her.
"No," she said. "It's fine. Just...just stay here for a minute." He sank into her embrace again, holding her close for as long as he dared now that he was losing his erection. He knew he needed to get the condom off, and he finally gave a quiet sigh. "I know," Buffy said in his ear, sounding distinctly amused. "Go ahead."
"Maybe I should just get a vasectomy and be done with it," he muttered, and she gasped as he withdrew from her. He removed the condom carefully, tied the end into a knot, and wrapped it in a tissue before using the towel again to clean himself as much as he could. "I should go tonight," he said, reaching for his boxer shorts and quickly starting to dress. "I'm sorry for how this looks," he said wryly, "but Thaluth should be dealt with immediately. It shouldn't take me long. You're perfectly welcome to stay here. More than welcome, truthfully." His voice was warm and quiet, the sort of voice she had never heard from him before tonight.
"I'm going with you," she said, crawling to the edge of the comforter to find her underwear and jeans. Giles stopped her when she tried to stand up.
"No," he said. "You won't be able to fight him and he could kill you."
"But you can't go by yourself. Even lightning won't take that guy out."
"I'm invulnerable to him now, Buffy," he said gently. "He can't harm me."
"But what if the ritual didn't work right?" she said. "What if...if something went wrong and Thaluth winds up killing you?"
"If that's true, then you coming with me won't prevent it, and if I can't kill Thaluth now, then there's nothing we can do to stop him from destroying the entire city of Sunnydale and moving on. I have to go alone." She watched him, frowning, as he went to the chair again to retrieve the scabbarded broadsword he had put there earlier. He drew the blade with a rasp, examined it once more in the firelight cursorily, then sheathed it again and sat in the chair to put on his boots. "This house is yours, as always," he said when he looked up. "Take a bath or get something to eat if you wish. When I come back we can talk about dinner, if not tonight, then another time." He went forward to kneel in front of her. "You've given me a greater gift tonight than you realize," he whispered, and kissed her softly. "I'll be back in a little while."
"Be careful," she said, hugging him.
"I will."
****
The house seemed too quiet after he left, and Buffy blew out the candles from the ritual, then lay down on the comforter on the floor, thinking. Her body ached from their lovemaking, a pleasant ache that made her wonder how much she might have hurt him if she felt this exhausted. He hadn't seemed to be in pain, but maybe that was just the power from the ritual.
She hoped that the spell worked as advertised. Giles had been quite sure that it would, and she had to trust his judgement. Waiting around like this was going to be hell. She wished she had followed him, just to have something to do. She still could go, but she knew Giles was right that she would only be putting herself at risk needlessly. She'd brought a book with her that she was in the middle of reading, so she decided that a shower and a change of clothes was a good idea. Then she could get lost in the book and not think about whether or not her Watcher was going to get killed tonight and precede the total destruction of Sunnydale.
"If I die before I get to finish this book," she muttered on her way up the stairs, "I'm gonna be really pissed."
****
They knew where Thaluth was living. His trip to the earthly plane had not been easy to accomplish. Normally it would have been impossible, but the Hellmouth had provided the necessary thinness between the dimensions. He was hiding for a time, waiting until he was fully recovered from his arrival before he set upon the world of men. Even so, he was already more than even a Slayer could handle, and once completely recovered, no manmade weapon would be able to harm him.
Giles went to the shipyard, where pleasure boats lined the slips in dark, gently bobbing rows. Beyond this were the commercial docks, where ships came in with cargo. One seaworthy vessel was tied up there, a few lights on inside the inner cabins, but Giles went still farther down the wharf, to where an old, scuttled tanker lay in the still ocean. The outer hull was breached and rusting, only still afloat at all because of the double-hull that some tankers had. It was far from seaworthy, however, and had been abandoned for several years awaiting a refit by a shipping company that had since gone bankrupt.
Oddly enough, there was a gangplank up to the ship's bow, presumably so that Thaluth's minions would be able to come and go easily. Giles drew his sword and went up the wide board carefully, wary not only of his footing, but of being detected by whatever might be inside the ship. He reached the deck in silence, pausing for a moment to listen, but the only sound he heard was the slow lapping of black water at the hull many feet below and the occasional, irregular clanging of a depth buoy out in the channel.
He went in through an open hatch, finding two beyond it to be dogged tight, but the corridor led him down into the bowels of the ship, where he began to encounter electric lights. Bemused, he wondered where the power was coming from, then decided that someone must have run a power cable to the ship, since there was no sound of a generator. He wondered what demons needed light for. Vampires could see quite well in almost total darkness, and Thaluth himself surely had no need of artificial lighting.
The answer came when Giles entered one of the ship's cargo holds, where the light was brightest. Thaluth, Lord of Hell, was reclining on a large pile of textiles and blankets, reading a large book by the light of a floor lamp that had obviously been brought in for the purpose. Giles made his way silently into a corner of the room, staying behind crates and in the shadows of the electric lights.
The demon was as big as Giles remembered, probably about nine or ten feet tall when standing upright. His skin was a deep scarlet, his tabard and loincloth of fine, black fabric that draped his muscular body. His feet were like a camel's padded toes, his large hands surprisingly dexterous as he studied the book he held with intense interest, turning a page now and then. Folded neatly behind and partially under him were the enormous wings Giles had seen before, spanning a dozen yards when unfurled. He had a serious, not unattractive face, although it was vaguely doglike, with a square muzzle, flared nostrils and dark, intelligent eyes. Arch Demons were of approximately human intellect, but were more dangerous by virtue of centuries of experience. His ears were like a deer's, set high on his head and relatively mobile, and a pair of ebony horns curved sharply away from his temples.
"Mortals write some interesting books," Thaluth said in a deep, contemplative voice, and Giles realized that the demon had a companion, a vampire, who was sitting on another pile of cloth nearby. "It's good that only a few of them are intelligent enough to think like this, though. Do you read much, Anton?" The vampire shrugged slightly.
"Not much anymore, Master," the vampire said easily. "I spent a hundred years reading and then couldn't find anything new that was worth it." Thaluth hummed thoughtfully, still paging through the book which Giles now recognized as a sorcerer's journal, because of the gold and silver inlaid design on the cover. The magical seal was intended to keep the book from being read. Obviously it hadn't given the demon much trouble. The vampire lifted his head suddenly, peering out across the cavernous room. Thaluth glanced up at him.
"Do you smell something?" the demon lord asked. "Mortals aboard the ship?"
"One, Master," the vampire replied, standing slowly. "In this room with us." Thaluth sighed, and Giles decided there was no more to be gained by hiding. He came out into the open, giving himself room to use the sword.
"Who the Hell are you?" the demon grunted, surprised but not particularly concerned. "No, that just doesn't sound right. I suppose I should be saying 'who on Earth are you?'"
"My name is Rupert Giles," Giles said, moving farther into the room slowly. "And I am a Watcher."
"Ah, yes, I remember," Thaluth said, getting a better look at him. "You and the Slayer tried to electrocute me the other day. Perhaps I should have told you it wouldn't work, but no one ever believes me. You think you can destroy me just because you're good and I'm evil. Quite a few knights died during the Crusades because of that conviction. So where is your Slayer?"
"Safe," Giles replied. "And you might want to stand up before you die. It would be rather undignified for one of the Lords of Hell to die sitting down with a book in his lap."
"Oh, have you come to kill me?" Thaluth asked, still unmoving from his comfortable position with the book, wings folded around him like a leather hammock. He waved one hand at his vampire associate. "Eat him, won't you, Anton?"
"Thank you, Master," the vampire said, rising to his feet to approach Giles warily. Giles kept his distance for a moment, holding the sword ready in both hands. The weaponless vampire would have had a lot of trouble with a sword-bearing enemy even under the best of circumstances. Giles, however, wasn't even worried about the vampire. That was not the reason he was here. Anton finally made a lunge and Giles took the creature's head with barely a sound, the suddenly headless corpse bursting to ash to dust the floor lightly.
Giles turned to face Thaluth, saying nothing, but watching the demon lord carefully. Thaluth closed his book and put it aside, never taking his eyes off of Giles as he stood and flexed his wings one at a time.
"You took the Earth from us, mortal," he said in a voice that was now devoid of humor. His unusually long canines were visible when he spoke. "We will take it back, and now that I have risen I will flatten this city and open the Hellmouth once more. The lower demons have been too weak, but you won't find a Lord of Hell so easy to kill, Watcher."
Giles knew he had one chance, not because the demon would harm him, but because once Thaluth realized that Giles could not be killed, he would flee and then they would never find him. He charged, running at full speed, and Thaluth lazily lifted a hand, palm out. Giles willed himself to keep going as a ball of white flame formed in Thaluth's grasp, and then bolted toward him in a flash of deadly light.
The fireball passed harmlessly through Giles' body like a phantom, and Giles saw an instant of confusion in the demon's face before driving his blade home through Thaluth's heart with such force that it emerged from the other side gouting blood. They stood for a moment, frozen, Giles with both hands on the sword hilt, gazing up into the astonished eyes of a creature almost twice his height. Then a great shudder passed through the demon's body, and he fell to his knees hard. Giles pulled the sword free and Thaluth gave a blood-choked gasp. "You were a virgin?" the Lord of Hell said in a strangled voice.
"Thanks to my Slayer, no longer," Giles said, and with a growl of effort, sliced the demon's neck cleanly in two with a smooth, arcing stroke, and Thaluth's head fell to the floor as Giles wiped demon blood from his face with a tired hand.
He started to leave, then paused as he remembered the sorcerer's book that Thaluth had been reading. Hard to know if the magical seal would let him read it, also, but it wasn't the sort of thing that should be left lying around, so he picked it up and took it with him. On his way out of the ship, Giles cut the power line, and the cable fell into the water with a rasp and a hiss of electric fire.
****
Buffy started violently at the sound of the front door opening behind her, and she turned on the couch to see her Watcher enter, splashed in crimson blood and carrying his sword in its sheath.
"That was quick," Buffy said, surprised. Her heart had leapt at the sight of him, and she got up from the couch. "So did you kick Thaluth's ass?" she asked with a grin. Giles grunted, and then held his hand up when she moved as if to hug him.
"Better not touch me yet," he said, overwhelmed by his pleasure in seeing her again, knowing that he had saved her life because of her own courage and his trust. "I'm covered in demon's blood. Let me take a shower first." Buffy giggled, taking in his ruined clothes.
"Guess those go into the fire, huh?" she said.
"Indeed," he said with a chuckle, dropping the sword on the floor by the kitchen counter and quickly unbuttoning his shirt. Buffy watched him raptly, a wry smile on her mouth. "Burn that, would you?" he asked, handing her the shirt. She pretended to be grossed out, taking it daintily between two fingers.
"Ick. With pleasure. What's that?" she asked, nodding her chin at the large book he set down on the countertop.
"A sorcerer's journal, I think," Giles replied. "Thaluth was reading it when I came upon him. It shouldn't be allowed to fall into the wrong hands, and may prove valuable to us."
"Huh. The things demons do nowadays."
****
He hadn't been quite sure how to act when he'd returned to the house. It all still seemed a little unreal -- he'd killed an Arch Demon! And it had been easy. Well, no, that wasn't quite the truth. The difficult part hadn't been running the demon through with his sword. The difficult part was still in the house with him. He bagged his clothes as he took them off, intending to destroy them as he'd asked Buffy to do with his shirt. A cool shower was next. He felt overheated and anxious, and right now wanted only to be clean of what he had done to Thaluth.
But did he want to be clean of her? He'd left the house with her scent still strong in his nose and his thoughts. The sweetness of their lovemaking had given him the resolve to enter the darkened ship, had given him the courage to face the demon with such calm. They couldn't go back to the way things had been between them. They had been transformed by letting themselves be seen with such utter clarity by the other. He was still her elder by many years, and she was still only on the verge of adulthood, but she was a Slayer, and he was her Watcher. She had been right in saying that such a relationship was never easy.
He got out of the shower and dressed in clean clothes with an uncomfortable weight in the pit of his stomach. He didn't know how to feel now. He knew he loved her, but it wasn't the romantic love he had longed for all his life. Yet it was more than just as a father would love a daughter, more than just as a friend. She'd been right in that, too. They had committed a brutal transgression, shattered a taboo that was surrounded by disgust and revulsion and fear, and on the other side of that terror, they had found delight and contentment. For their lives to go forward, both of them were going to have to admit that.
****
She was sitting on the couch again, reading, when he came down the stairs. She looked up at the sound of his footsteps, and got up to leave the book behind and come over to him. He grunted as she embraced him, holding with more strength than he had expected, and he hugged her to him fiercely.
"I was so afraid you wouldn't come back," she murmured against his chest.
"How could I leave you?" he replied softly. "You're the center of my life. Without you I'm aimless and empty." She was silent for a long moment, letting him rock her slowly.
"So now that Thaluth's dead, what do we do?" she asked. He sighed deeply.
"That's a good question," he said. He let go of her and made her look at him, his hands on her face gently. "You were right before when you said I was afraid that I might enjoy making love to you. I did enjoy it. It was wonderful and sweet and satisfying. I don't know where we should go with that, or if it should go anywhere. If we were meant to be lovers, we did it too soon. Buffy...I love you. I don't know what kind of love it is, or what it may mean for us, but we must be careful."
"Go slow, you mean, in whatever direction," she said. Giles nodded. She had her hands around his waist, and looked down for a long moment. "I couldn't stop thinking about you while you were gone. Not just worrying about you, but thinking about us...about what we did. I've wished for a long time that we could be closer, although mostly what I wanted was just a friendship. I guess one of the reasons I wanted to be your first was because I saw it as a way of getting to know you. You're hard to get to know. You don't let anybody in, but you had to this time. That sounds cruel, and actually I'm kind of ashamed that I did it, for that reason, anyway."
"Don't be," he said, lifting her chin so he could look at her eyes. He saw there how much she loved him, even though she couldn't say it. "You were gentle with me, and I appreciated that more than you know. I don't think we should pretend this didn't happen. It's all right to just let it be, to remember it for what it was; a moment of profound love. The rest...we can get to know each other, the way you wanted, the way we should." He paused for a moment, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "Your friends aren't going to understand. Not at first, if ever."
"Yeah, I know," she said, looking away again but not evading his touch. "Guess we'll have to be careful about that, too."
"We can talk about it later," he said. "As it becomes necessary."
"You said before you'd take me to dinner, if I wanted," she said with a smile. "That offer still good?" Giles chuckled softly.
"Yes. You want to go tonight?"
"Mm hm. I'm in the mood for Japanese."
"As you want, then," he said. "Let me get my coat." He opened the front door for her, and they stepped out onto the porch.
"So how does it feel to not be a virgin anymore?" she asked. Giles shut the door and stood still for a few moments, considering.
"Different," he murmured. "Not sure how yet. Ask me some other time." He smiled and they left together, arms around each other.
The End
Part 4/4
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.
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
Giles felt a suffusion of strength and magic that coincided with the loss of his fear regarding Thaluth and the havoc the demon could wreak. The power spread through him, intertwining itself with his very being and becoming part of his magic as a Watcher. It was like filling in gaps between loose bricks and cementing a foundation to support a great weight. He knew he could kill Thaluth now, and any Arch Demon that might follow after.
"Did it work?" Buffy asked him, and he sighed.
"Yes. I feel the magic settling inside me. I think we did it right." He was smiling gently, almost fully relaxed on the floor and gazing up at her with sleepy pleasure.
"Guess you're not a virgin anymore," Buffy said, smiling down at him. His answering hum was content and joyful.
"Guess not," he murmured.
"Then we can stop now," she said, touching his chest lightly for a moment, lost in thought. His smile faded as she moved to withdraw from him, and she caught the silent longing in his face. "You don't want to stop, do you?" she said softly. He didn't answer for a long moment, but touched her face with both hands, then her shoulders.
"I don't have the right to ask," he replied quietly, running his hand lightly down her arm with hesitant tenderness. Buffy settled her weight on him again gently, accepting him completely inside her, and he hissed softly, closing his eyes for a moment.
"Yes, you do," she said. He swallowed hard, stroking up across her shoulder again.
"You mean more to me than I've ever been able to express," he whispered. "I never...never thought of trying to show it this way...but I want to make love to you. This feels...it's unbelievable. I didn't know it could be so incredibly sweet."
"I think it's different with different people," Buffy told him softly. She leaned down to kiss him gently. "Depends how you really feel about each other." She smiled at his expression of innocent wonder. "Do you want to change positions? Or do you want me to keep going?"
"I like what we're doing now," he said, finally putting his hands on her hips. "Go slowly with me. I want to savor it."
The next time she rose up off of him, it was a deliberate thrust and drove a strangled grunt of ecstasy and astonishment and awe from deep in his throat. Her eyes were half‑closed, not revealing her inner emotions, but he could see and feel her desire in the way she moved. She rose again, plunged down on him with excruciating slowness, then again, and again until it was a continuous, building wave of pressure and joy inside him that was so intense it felt like it would rip him asunder. "Oh my God," he growled. "God, Buffy, does this feel to you the way it feels to me?"
"I dunno," she whispered, leaning on his chest and bending down to kiss him as she paused for a moment. "Does it feel like you've been waiting all your life to do it?" He knew what he needed to do then, and he sat up from the floor and turned her over carefully, ignoring the boundaries of the pentagram now. He settled his weight on top of her and pushed deep, drowning in the satisfaction of being able to fill her this way, and lowered himself to devour her mouth with soft, thorough acceptance and wanting. She answered with pure hunger, her arms around his neck, welcoming him as totally as a woman could welcome a man. He relaxed and then gave another slow, sensuous thrust. Her legs wrapped around his, holding him to her, and he let out a long, shivering breath.
She couldn't tell him this was what she wanted, that she wanted him to take this from her as surely as she had taken him at first. He was trembling, his body straining to go slow, to keep control of this as he rocked her with deep, full thrusts. He was relishing each one, wringing every last ounce of sensation and delight, his face unconsciously showing her the strength of what he couldn't say aloud.
Her hand stroking at the soft hair of his neck gradually gave way to an iron grip around his shoulder, each breath coming harder and more labored as he moved them toward some indefinable conclusion. Sweat pooled between their bellies, his back slick with it and the hollow of her throat glistening.
"Breathe, luv," he whispered, laughing softly. "You've got to breathe."
"Feels too good," she moaned. "You feel too good, Giles..." That name uttered with such longing and passion made fire ripple up his back.
"Oooh, God," he breathed, brushing his mouth along her shoulder. "I'm close, Buffy. God, it's fantastic."
"Come on," she said. "Want to see you." He hissed softly against her skin, letting go of the tension that had held him back, the reluctance that had made him afraid to let her see that she could rouse this in him. It had shocked him to discover it, but now it felt like the conclusion of a long journey they had begun unknowingly. The flame gathered in his loins, at the base of his spine, liquid sensation coalescing into a point of intolerable glory. It could only have been a few pounding heartbeats that he felt the climb, but the traveling itself was delicious beyond his imagination.
"God, Buffy," he panted. "Oh, Jesus ‑‑" The climax was like none he had known. No sudden explosion, no violent release, just a huge, consuming wave that lifted him up and filled him with ecstasy. His cock let go suddenly, surging quick and hard, making him shudder again with the need to spill his seed in her and claim her somehow with the act. His throat ached, his voice rending the quiet house with tormented, joyful groans and whimpers. He knew it had to go away, and when the orgasm faded it was like losing part of his soul, and he moaned with loss. He kissed her throat, lingering there with tenderness as his blood cooled and he was left with the sated serenity of his love for her.
"What is it?" she asked, rubbing her fingers through his hair and stroking his jaw. He nuzzled her gently.
"Just don't want it to stop," he whispered. "Let me pull out and I'll do something for you -- " She held him when he tried to pull away from her.
"No," she said. "It's fine. Just...just stay here for a minute." He sank into her embrace again, holding her close for as long as he dared now that he was losing his erection. He knew he needed to get the condom off, and he finally gave a quiet sigh. "I know," Buffy said in his ear, sounding distinctly amused. "Go ahead."
"Maybe I should just get a vasectomy and be done with it," he muttered, and she gasped as he withdrew from her. He removed the condom carefully, tied the end into a knot, and wrapped it in a tissue before using the towel again to clean himself as much as he could. "I should go tonight," he said, reaching for his boxer shorts and quickly starting to dress. "I'm sorry for how this looks," he said wryly, "but Thaluth should be dealt with immediately. It shouldn't take me long. You're perfectly welcome to stay here. More than welcome, truthfully." His voice was warm and quiet, the sort of voice she had never heard from him before tonight.
"I'm going with you," she said, crawling to the edge of the comforter to find her underwear and jeans. Giles stopped her when she tried to stand up.
"No," he said. "You won't be able to fight him and he could kill you."
"But you can't go by yourself. Even lightning won't take that guy out."
"I'm invulnerable to him now, Buffy," he said gently. "He can't harm me."
"But what if the ritual didn't work right?" she said. "What if...if something went wrong and Thaluth winds up killing you?"
"If that's true, then you coming with me won't prevent it, and if I can't kill Thaluth now, then there's nothing we can do to stop him from destroying the entire city of Sunnydale and moving on. I have to go alone." She watched him, frowning, as he went to the chair again to retrieve the scabbarded broadsword he had put there earlier. He drew the blade with a rasp, examined it once more in the firelight cursorily, then sheathed it again and sat in the chair to put on his boots. "This house is yours, as always," he said when he looked up. "Take a bath or get something to eat if you wish. When I come back we can talk about dinner, if not tonight, then another time." He went forward to kneel in front of her. "You've given me a greater gift tonight than you realize," he whispered, and kissed her softly. "I'll be back in a little while."
"Be careful," she said, hugging him.
"I will."
****
The house seemed too quiet after he left, and Buffy blew out the candles from the ritual, then lay down on the comforter on the floor, thinking. Her body ached from their lovemaking, a pleasant ache that made her wonder how much she might have hurt him if she felt this exhausted. He hadn't seemed to be in pain, but maybe that was just the power from the ritual.
She hoped that the spell worked as advertised. Giles had been quite sure that it would, and she had to trust his judgement. Waiting around like this was going to be hell. She wished she had followed him, just to have something to do. She still could go, but she knew Giles was right that she would only be putting herself at risk needlessly. She'd brought a book with her that she was in the middle of reading, so she decided that a shower and a change of clothes was a good idea. Then she could get lost in the book and not think about whether or not her Watcher was going to get killed tonight and precede the total destruction of Sunnydale.
"If I die before I get to finish this book," she muttered on her way up the stairs, "I'm gonna be really pissed."
****
They knew where Thaluth was living. His trip to the earthly plane had not been easy to accomplish. Normally it would have been impossible, but the Hellmouth had provided the necessary thinness between the dimensions. He was hiding for a time, waiting until he was fully recovered from his arrival before he set upon the world of men. Even so, he was already more than even a Slayer could handle, and once completely recovered, no manmade weapon would be able to harm him.
Giles went to the shipyard, where pleasure boats lined the slips in dark, gently bobbing rows. Beyond this were the commercial docks, where ships came in with cargo. One seaworthy vessel was tied up there, a few lights on inside the inner cabins, but Giles went still farther down the wharf, to where an old, scuttled tanker lay in the still ocean. The outer hull was breached and rusting, only still afloat at all because of the double-hull that some tankers had. It was far from seaworthy, however, and had been abandoned for several years awaiting a refit by a shipping company that had since gone bankrupt.
Oddly enough, there was a gangplank up to the ship's bow, presumably so that Thaluth's minions would be able to come and go easily. Giles drew his sword and went up the wide board carefully, wary not only of his footing, but of being detected by whatever might be inside the ship. He reached the deck in silence, pausing for a moment to listen, but the only sound he heard was the slow lapping of black water at the hull many feet below and the occasional, irregular clanging of a depth buoy out in the channel.
He went in through an open hatch, finding two beyond it to be dogged tight, but the corridor led him down into the bowels of the ship, where he began to encounter electric lights. Bemused, he wondered where the power was coming from, then decided that someone must have run a power cable to the ship, since there was no sound of a generator. He wondered what demons needed light for. Vampires could see quite well in almost total darkness, and Thaluth himself surely had no need of artificial lighting.
The answer came when Giles entered one of the ship's cargo holds, where the light was brightest. Thaluth, Lord of Hell, was reclining on a large pile of textiles and blankets, reading a large book by the light of a floor lamp that had obviously been brought in for the purpose. Giles made his way silently into a corner of the room, staying behind crates and in the shadows of the electric lights.
The demon was as big as Giles remembered, probably about nine or ten feet tall when standing upright. His skin was a deep scarlet, his tabard and loincloth of fine, black fabric that draped his muscular body. His feet were like a camel's padded toes, his large hands surprisingly dexterous as he studied the book he held with intense interest, turning a page now and then. Folded neatly behind and partially under him were the enormous wings Giles had seen before, spanning a dozen yards when unfurled. He had a serious, not unattractive face, although it was vaguely doglike, with a square muzzle, flared nostrils and dark, intelligent eyes. Arch Demons were of approximately human intellect, but were more dangerous by virtue of centuries of experience. His ears were like a deer's, set high on his head and relatively mobile, and a pair of ebony horns curved sharply away from his temples.
"Mortals write some interesting books," Thaluth said in a deep, contemplative voice, and Giles realized that the demon had a companion, a vampire, who was sitting on another pile of cloth nearby. "It's good that only a few of them are intelligent enough to think like this, though. Do you read much, Anton?" The vampire shrugged slightly.
"Not much anymore, Master," the vampire said easily. "I spent a hundred years reading and then couldn't find anything new that was worth it." Thaluth hummed thoughtfully, still paging through the book which Giles now recognized as a sorcerer's journal, because of the gold and silver inlaid design on the cover. The magical seal was intended to keep the book from being read. Obviously it hadn't given the demon much trouble. The vampire lifted his head suddenly, peering out across the cavernous room. Thaluth glanced up at him.
"Do you smell something?" the demon lord asked. "Mortals aboard the ship?"
"One, Master," the vampire replied, standing slowly. "In this room with us." Thaluth sighed, and Giles decided there was no more to be gained by hiding. He came out into the open, giving himself room to use the sword.
"Who the Hell are you?" the demon grunted, surprised but not particularly concerned. "No, that just doesn't sound right. I suppose I should be saying 'who on Earth are you?'"
"My name is Rupert Giles," Giles said, moving farther into the room slowly. "And I am a Watcher."
"Ah, yes, I remember," Thaluth said, getting a better look at him. "You and the Slayer tried to electrocute me the other day. Perhaps I should have told you it wouldn't work, but no one ever believes me. You think you can destroy me just because you're good and I'm evil. Quite a few knights died during the Crusades because of that conviction. So where is your Slayer?"
"Safe," Giles replied. "And you might want to stand up before you die. It would be rather undignified for one of the Lords of Hell to die sitting down with a book in his lap."
"Oh, have you come to kill me?" Thaluth asked, still unmoving from his comfortable position with the book, wings folded around him like a leather hammock. He waved one hand at his vampire associate. "Eat him, won't you, Anton?"
"Thank you, Master," the vampire said, rising to his feet to approach Giles warily. Giles kept his distance for a moment, holding the sword ready in both hands. The weaponless vampire would have had a lot of trouble with a sword-bearing enemy even under the best of circumstances. Giles, however, wasn't even worried about the vampire. That was not the reason he was here. Anton finally made a lunge and Giles took the creature's head with barely a sound, the suddenly headless corpse bursting to ash to dust the floor lightly.
Giles turned to face Thaluth, saying nothing, but watching the demon lord carefully. Thaluth closed his book and put it aside, never taking his eyes off of Giles as he stood and flexed his wings one at a time.
"You took the Earth from us, mortal," he said in a voice that was now devoid of humor. His unusually long canines were visible when he spoke. "We will take it back, and now that I have risen I will flatten this city and open the Hellmouth once more. The lower demons have been too weak, but you won't find a Lord of Hell so easy to kill, Watcher."
Giles knew he had one chance, not because the demon would harm him, but because once Thaluth realized that Giles could not be killed, he would flee and then they would never find him. He charged, running at full speed, and Thaluth lazily lifted a hand, palm out. Giles willed himself to keep going as a ball of white flame formed in Thaluth's grasp, and then bolted toward him in a flash of deadly light.
The fireball passed harmlessly through Giles' body like a phantom, and Giles saw an instant of confusion in the demon's face before driving his blade home through Thaluth's heart with such force that it emerged from the other side gouting blood. They stood for a moment, frozen, Giles with both hands on the sword hilt, gazing up into the astonished eyes of a creature almost twice his height. Then a great shudder passed through the demon's body, and he fell to his knees hard. Giles pulled the sword free and Thaluth gave a blood-choked gasp. "You were a virgin?" the Lord of Hell said in a strangled voice.
"Thanks to my Slayer, no longer," Giles said, and with a growl of effort, sliced the demon's neck cleanly in two with a smooth, arcing stroke, and Thaluth's head fell to the floor as Giles wiped demon blood from his face with a tired hand.
He started to leave, then paused as he remembered the sorcerer's book that Thaluth had been reading. Hard to know if the magical seal would let him read it, also, but it wasn't the sort of thing that should be left lying around, so he picked it up and took it with him. On his way out of the ship, Giles cut the power line, and the cable fell into the water with a rasp and a hiss of electric fire.
****
Buffy started violently at the sound of the front door opening behind her, and she turned on the couch to see her Watcher enter, splashed in crimson blood and carrying his sword in its sheath.
"That was quick," Buffy said, surprised. Her heart had leapt at the sight of him, and she got up from the couch. "So did you kick Thaluth's ass?" she asked with a grin. Giles grunted, and then held his hand up when she moved as if to hug him.
"Better not touch me yet," he said, overwhelmed by his pleasure in seeing her again, knowing that he had saved her life because of her own courage and his trust. "I'm covered in demon's blood. Let me take a shower first." Buffy giggled, taking in his ruined clothes.
"Guess those go into the fire, huh?" she said.
"Indeed," he said with a chuckle, dropping the sword on the floor by the kitchen counter and quickly unbuttoning his shirt. Buffy watched him raptly, a wry smile on her mouth. "Burn that, would you?" he asked, handing her the shirt. She pretended to be grossed out, taking it daintily between two fingers.
"Ick. With pleasure. What's that?" she asked, nodding her chin at the large book he set down on the countertop.
"A sorcerer's journal, I think," Giles replied. "Thaluth was reading it when I came upon him. It shouldn't be allowed to fall into the wrong hands, and may prove valuable to us."
"Huh. The things demons do nowadays."
****
He hadn't been quite sure how to act when he'd returned to the house. It all still seemed a little unreal -- he'd killed an Arch Demon! And it had been easy. Well, no, that wasn't quite the truth. The difficult part hadn't been running the demon through with his sword. The difficult part was still in the house with him. He bagged his clothes as he took them off, intending to destroy them as he'd asked Buffy to do with his shirt. A cool shower was next. He felt overheated and anxious, and right now wanted only to be clean of what he had done to Thaluth.
But did he want to be clean of her? He'd left the house with her scent still strong in his nose and his thoughts. The sweetness of their lovemaking had given him the resolve to enter the darkened ship, had given him the courage to face the demon with such calm. They couldn't go back to the way things had been between them. They had been transformed by letting themselves be seen with such utter clarity by the other. He was still her elder by many years, and she was still only on the verge of adulthood, but she was a Slayer, and he was her Watcher. She had been right in saying that such a relationship was never easy.
He got out of the shower and dressed in clean clothes with an uncomfortable weight in the pit of his stomach. He didn't know how to feel now. He knew he loved her, but it wasn't the romantic love he had longed for all his life. Yet it was more than just as a father would love a daughter, more than just as a friend. She'd been right in that, too. They had committed a brutal transgression, shattered a taboo that was surrounded by disgust and revulsion and fear, and on the other side of that terror, they had found delight and contentment. For their lives to go forward, both of them were going to have to admit that.
****
She was sitting on the couch again, reading, when he came down the stairs. She looked up at the sound of his footsteps, and got up to leave the book behind and come over to him. He grunted as she embraced him, holding with more strength than he had expected, and he hugged her to him fiercely.
"I was so afraid you wouldn't come back," she murmured against his chest.
"How could I leave you?" he replied softly. "You're the center of my life. Without you I'm aimless and empty." She was silent for a long moment, letting him rock her slowly.
"So now that Thaluth's dead, what do we do?" she asked. He sighed deeply.
"That's a good question," he said. He let go of her and made her look at him, his hands on her face gently. "You were right before when you said I was afraid that I might enjoy making love to you. I did enjoy it. It was wonderful and sweet and satisfying. I don't know where we should go with that, or if it should go anywhere. If we were meant to be lovers, we did it too soon. Buffy...I love you. I don't know what kind of love it is, or what it may mean for us, but we must be careful."
"Go slow, you mean, in whatever direction," she said. Giles nodded. She had her hands around his waist, and looked down for a long moment. "I couldn't stop thinking about you while you were gone. Not just worrying about you, but thinking about us...about what we did. I've wished for a long time that we could be closer, although mostly what I wanted was just a friendship. I guess one of the reasons I wanted to be your first was because I saw it as a way of getting to know you. You're hard to get to know. You don't let anybody in, but you had to this time. That sounds cruel, and actually I'm kind of ashamed that I did it, for that reason, anyway."
"Don't be," he said, lifting her chin so he could look at her eyes. He saw there how much she loved him, even though she couldn't say it. "You were gentle with me, and I appreciated that more than you know. I don't think we should pretend this didn't happen. It's all right to just let it be, to remember it for what it was; a moment of profound love. The rest...we can get to know each other, the way you wanted, the way we should." He paused for a moment, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "Your friends aren't going to understand. Not at first, if ever."
"Yeah, I know," she said, looking away again but not evading his touch. "Guess we'll have to be careful about that, too."
"We can talk about it later," he said. "As it becomes necessary."
"You said before you'd take me to dinner, if I wanted," she said with a smile. "That offer still good?" Giles chuckled softly.
"Yes. You want to go tonight?"
"Mm hm. I'm in the mood for Japanese."
"As you want, then," he said. "Let me get my coat." He opened the front door for her, and they stepped out onto the porch.
"So how does it feel to not be a virgin anymore?" she asked. Giles shut the door and stood still for a few moments, considering.
"Different," he murmured. "Not sure how yet. Ask me some other time." He smiled and they left together, arms around each other.
The End