Ficlet: Sequential, Inconsequential (Faith/Giles, PG13)
I don't think got round to posting my complaint here about not being able to write the Still Grrr prompts for May. I had a complete mental block for most of the month, somehow the contrast of colour and emotion kept distracting me, even though we didn't have to write for both elements together.
But yesterday something dislodged and I wrote a bunch of colour-based drabbles for the Mood Ring theme. Starring Willow, Spike, Xander and Joyce as Green/Black/Blue/Yellow respectively.
But that did nothing for the mood prompts, and I was grabbed by the sequence of moods unsettled/passionate and very happy/relaxed and at ease. It sounded like a relationship I recognised... and then I twigged. It's a textbook definition of Faith/Giles in the Rulesverse. I haven't written them for ages - busy world building around them - but I couldn't resist adding this fill-in-the-blanks for a very early stage of their relationship, about five weeks after Morning After. A touch of self-indulgence again, but the Rulesverse is my sandpit, dammit!
(Sorry about the tricksy title. It happens now and again.)
Title Sequential, Inconsequential
Author Brutti ma buoni
Rating PG13
Word Count 410
Prompt Mood ring rainbow! (Unsettled/Passionate and Very Happy/Relaxed and At Ease)
Characters/Pairing (if any) Faith/Giles
It had been three weeks since he’d seen Faith. Not nearly long enough to forget. Long enough to become unaccustomed to her, however.
Presumably more than enough time for her to have repented of whatever strange urge had led her into his bed (or, more precisely, had led her to take him to bed). Twelve days of sheer enjoyment, but that was undoubtedly his lot.
Which made the urge to meet her at the airport exceedingly ill-judged. She’d be polite.
(Really, Rupert? Faith? She’d be honest, more like. It might well hurt.)
Planning to take her to a good restaurant on the way home was foolish. Booking a room at the attached hotel was presumptuous, and a waste of his deposit.
God, he hated the single track roads to the castle. Never a passing place when you needed them. Bloody school bus in his way. Couldn’t they tell he had an important appointment?
Even if it was finished, he needed to know it.
*
Good call on the restaurant. Excellent call on the bedroom.
From the moment Faith inadvertently knocked him to the floor in Arrivals (“Sorry G. But hey - missed you!”), there had been an unfamiliar bubbling of warm joy in the pit of his stomach.
When Faith, guzzling oysters with enthusiasm, slipped off one battered trainer and ran her bare toes up his inseam, the warmth moved lower, and started to sizzle.
By the time they got into the lift, he felt rather as though he were incubating a volcano. In a good way.
Had he laughed this much in years? It seemed unlikely. If she killed him with sex (which seemed entirely probable), he would at least go happy.
*
If they didn’t sleep soon, they weren’t going to at all.
He felt quite all right about that.
Faith would never precisely be a cuddler, he suspected. However, sweaty and crumpled exhaustion bred a togetherness that she plainly enjoyed.
His hand was tangled in her hair. Not stroking. Not petting. Just... enjoying. Her head was somewhere around his waist level, face buried in his side, one hand resting on his belly, said hair tangled round them both. Stimulating, if he hadn’t been far beyond such a response.
Admit it. He would like to feel this way again. Often. This felt about right.
Were he less wrung out, that thought would have been frightening. As it was, he let his fingers relax and slip out of her hair. And slept, after all.
***
But yesterday something dislodged and I wrote a bunch of colour-based drabbles for the Mood Ring theme. Starring Willow, Spike, Xander and Joyce as Green/Black/Blue/Yellow respectively.
But that did nothing for the mood prompts, and I was grabbed by the sequence of moods unsettled/passionate and very happy/relaxed and at ease. It sounded like a relationship I recognised... and then I twigged. It's a textbook definition of Faith/Giles in the Rulesverse. I haven't written them for ages - busy world building around them - but I couldn't resist adding this fill-in-the-blanks for a very early stage of their relationship, about five weeks after Morning After. A touch of self-indulgence again, but the Rulesverse is my sandpit, dammit!
(Sorry about the tricksy title. It happens now and again.)
Title Sequential, Inconsequential
Author Brutti ma buoni
Rating PG13
Word Count 410
Prompt Mood ring rainbow! (Unsettled/Passionate and Very Happy/Relaxed and At Ease)
Characters/Pairing (if any) Faith/Giles
It had been three weeks since he’d seen Faith. Not nearly long enough to forget. Long enough to become unaccustomed to her, however.
Presumably more than enough time for her to have repented of whatever strange urge had led her into his bed (or, more precisely, had led her to take him to bed). Twelve days of sheer enjoyment, but that was undoubtedly his lot.
Which made the urge to meet her at the airport exceedingly ill-judged. She’d be polite.
(Really, Rupert? Faith? She’d be honest, more like. It might well hurt.)
Planning to take her to a good restaurant on the way home was foolish. Booking a room at the attached hotel was presumptuous, and a waste of his deposit.
God, he hated the single track roads to the castle. Never a passing place when you needed them. Bloody school bus in his way. Couldn’t they tell he had an important appointment?
Even if it was finished, he needed to know it.
*
Good call on the restaurant. Excellent call on the bedroom.
From the moment Faith inadvertently knocked him to the floor in Arrivals (“Sorry G. But hey - missed you!”), there had been an unfamiliar bubbling of warm joy in the pit of his stomach.
When Faith, guzzling oysters with enthusiasm, slipped off one battered trainer and ran her bare toes up his inseam, the warmth moved lower, and started to sizzle.
By the time they got into the lift, he felt rather as though he were incubating a volcano. In a good way.
Had he laughed this much in years? It seemed unlikely. If she killed him with sex (which seemed entirely probable), he would at least go happy.
*
If they didn’t sleep soon, they weren’t going to at all.
He felt quite all right about that.
Faith would never precisely be a cuddler, he suspected. However, sweaty and crumpled exhaustion bred a togetherness that she plainly enjoyed.
His hand was tangled in her hair. Not stroking. Not petting. Just... enjoying. Her head was somewhere around his waist level, face buried in his side, one hand resting on his belly, said hair tangled round them both. Stimulating, if he hadn’t been far beyond such a response.
Admit it. He would like to feel this way again. Often. This felt about right.
Were he less wrung out, that thought would have been frightening. As it was, he let his fingers relax and slip out of her hair. And slept, after all.
***