FIC: Ain't No Sunshine (Part 1/?)
What: BtVS fanfic
Posted in: Summer of Giles 2012
Pairing: Faith/Giles
Rating: PG, FRT for some strong language and sexual themes.
Setting: Post "Chosen," no comics. Any similarity to the comics is coincidence as I haven't read them, though I have read some synopses of them online.
Disclaimer: I own nothing in the BtVS universe and no one pays me for my fan fiction either (sadly).
Summary: Sometime after Sunnydale imploded, Faith has left Cleveland and Robin and come to England to find Giles. Giles has been working to rebuild the Council, and Faith is hoping she can be of some help to him.
Note: My first fanfic evah! This is part one of a Giles and Faith story that was inspired when I was listening to Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine.
There weren’t many people in the pub. He sat on a stool with his guitar. Playing softly. He looked at his hands playing. Never at the audience. He seemed to sing only for himself.
“Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
It's not warm when she's away.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
And she’s always gone too long anytime she goes away.”
She cocked her head and watched him with interest, sipping on a cold, fresh pint of beer, and having a hard time stopping herself from chugging it down. He looked up once, still lost in his own thoughts. His eyes were shining, but no tears fell.
“Wonder this time where she's gone.
Wonder if she's gone to stay.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
And this house just ain't no home anytime she goes away.”
Faith had never heard him sing before. He was good. Damn good.
“Hey, I oughta leave the young thing alone.
But ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
Only darkness everyday.”
When he played out the last note there was a spattering of applause from the few people there. Faith thought he deserved a fucking standing-o. She decided to tell him as much.
As he sang she’d slowly walked closer to him without him noticing. She now stood in front of him, but he was still lost in himself. His hands moving over the guitar, no longer touching the strings or making any sounds, but moving as if playing.
As if he couldn’t stop playing.
She waited. She assumed he’d sense her closeness and look up, but he didn’t. Faith reached out and touched his arm. He still didn’t look up. So she said softly with a smile, “Hey G... you got some pipes.”
He slowly looked up then and blearily tried to focus on her. Finally he said, “Faith?” with a half-smile. The old Watcher training kicked in then, and he was all business for a second. He stood too quickly, dropping his guitar, knocking the stool over and asking, “Is anything wrong?” Faith now saw that the man who had seemed so smooth, steady and stone-cold sober, if emotional, when he was singing, was actually incredibly drunk. He swayed in front of her. Her slayer reflexes were poised to catch him if necessary, but then he seemed to steady himself.
Her brow slightly furrowed, she decided to answer his question before he stared a hole through her. Well, her or the wall, he still wasn’t really focusing well, though he was doing that drunk thing where you try to look extra hard at someone as if to fool them that you are sober. Her inclination was to give a cutesy defensive answer, but she didn’t have the energy for games today. She’d had a long flight, with too many thoughts and feelings roiling inside. She was weary. Besides, seeing Giles like this was the last thing she'd expected, and it caught her off guard. Still, she knew he was asking about apocalypsy-type stuff, vamps and death... not whether her and Robin had broken up or anything personal like that.
“Five by five, G, no worries.”
He visibly relaxed, almost turning to jello, any pretense of sobriety gone. A shit-eating grin spread over his face and he reached out toward her. Faith wasn’t sure if he meant to hug her or shake her hand or pat her on the arm, but he ended up losing his balance and nearly tackling her to the floor. Slayer strength and reflexes saved them both from hitting the dirt as she caught the Watcher in her arms, fully supporting his weight until he got his feet under him again.
His face now centimeters from hers, their chests plastered together, she smelled more than a few drinks on him. The acrid perfume of booze wafted from his pores. This is a guy who hadn’t been sober in a week... if then. It showed in his eyes, the smell of his skin, hair, and breath... the tremors affecting his movements. And now that ‘professional’-Watcher-Giles knew he wasn’t immediately needed, his speech became terribly slurred.
“Faissss... *hic... ss’cud t’see you.” He clapped her affectionately, but too hard, on the back. Too hard for a regular woman anyway. Faith barely noticed. “Bloody ssslerrrs... *hic”, he frowned comically, “strengsss.”
She thought he was happy to see her, and jokingly complaining about slayer strength, but it was really hard to tell. “G! What the hell? I think I better take you home man.”
She thought for a minute he was going to argue with her, but whatever thoughts he could pull together in his drink-addled brain were thankfully reasonable ones. “Kay,” he nodded. “Sss’not far,” he managed, gesturing incoherently.
Faith reluctantly put down the nearly full beer she’d just started, and that she’d managed not to spill a drop of even while she assisted her unwieldy charge. She grabbed his guitar and helped Giles to the door, supporting most of his weight and nearly dragging him out since he could barely put one foot in front of the other. She spared a dirty look at the bartender for allowing her friend to get in this state, and a wistful look at the beer. “Should’ve chugged it when I had the chance”, she thought. The bartender watched them leave, stony-faced, apparently taking no responsibility for the state of the Watcher. The old Faith would have liked to kick his ass into next week, but she held herself in check and got Giles outside.
Faith propped Giles up against the wall outside the pub and slung his guitar on her back, fitting the strap snugly between her breasts. She stepped closer to him and put her hands on his face, trying to get his eyes to focus on her. “G, I’m out of the states for the first time in my life. I don’t know where I am, or where you live, so I hope you can tell me.”
She thought he was trying to speak, but he could barely keep his eyes open or make his mouth work. She slapped him to wake him up a bit. He blinked several times, then clumsily got a hold of his wallet and wrested it free of the back pocket of his pants, nearly falling in the process, and dropping the wallet. Faith caught it and him, and he grabbed the wallet from her to show her his ID, with his address on it. “Great, I got your address G, but I don’t know where we are, so how can I get us there?”
Someone else came out of the bar just then. She let go of Giles and turned to the stranger. “Hey, can you tell me where this is?” showing him the address on the ID card. Giles was slowly sliding down the wall to the ground behind her, either not noticing he was falling, or not able to stop himself. The stranger gave her a weird look. “You’re on Carriagecross Lane." He looked over her shoulder at her fallen comrade, then back at Faith. "Are you takin’ the piss?” he asked, sounding slightly miffed and very suspicious.
“What?” Faith didn’t know what the hell that meant. Piss? Was he some kind of Golden-showers freak? To each their own and all that, but Faith didn't have time for this shit. She wanted to get G home.
“You American?” he asked.
“Yeah, I just got here today, and I’m not really sure where ‘here’ is.”
The guy frowned at her and pointed the direction she needed to go.
“Thanks!” She gave him a dazzling, if artificial, smile, and the guy suddenly smiled back. She turned away, rolling her eyes, thinking, “I still got it”, grinning to herself.
Faith turned back to Giles and sighed. "This weeble wobbled and did fall down," she thought. Giles looked like a homeless dude from back home, begging on a street-corner. He was sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall, his head lolling on his chest, nearly unconscious. He just needed a paper coffee cup propped in his limp hand. “Good thing I’m a hot chick with superpowers,” Faith mumbled to herself, and picked Giles up and put him on his feet. She smacked his face again, harder. “This’ll be easier if you at least try to stumble along with me.”
Thankfully Giles didn’t live far from the pub at all. And he lived on the ground floor, so no dragging him up or down a flight of stairs. She got him to his door, and propped him roughly against the wall to check for his keys. That last slap she gave him and the damp night air of foggy ol' London had roused Giles enough that he could keep his feet okay by himself. She took the guitar off her back and set it on the floor next to Giles' door.
“Keys,” she said aloud. Giles wasn't quite coherent enough to help her. So, she started with his jacket pockets first, but no luck. Not one to hesitate, she thrust her hand into first one of his front pants pocket then the other, finally finding the keys. Giles’ beer-addled brain and body responded on instinct to a nice-smelling female-someone apparently feeling him up.
Giles thrust one hand into Faith’s hair, the other around her back, pulling her roughly towards him. He began to cover one of her ears and neck with soft, breathy kisses, sending an electric tingle throughout her body. The way he was holding her had twisted her arm in such a way that she couldn’t pull her hand holding the keys out of his pocket without ripping his pants. It was at this moment a disgruntled neighbour poked a sleepy head out of his flat, probably wondering at the thumping and banging -- caused by a five-foot-something Faith trying to drag a six-foot-something drunk guy and a guitar into the foyer and down the narrow hallway -- had been. He saw his neighbour, Mr.Giles, whom he had originally thought would be no trouble, busily making out with a sexy young thing, maybe half his age (how in the hell did that pencil-pusher manage that? he wondered idly in the back of his mind). She seemed pretty into it, her hand working in his pants pocket, presumably waking up Mr.Giles' (likely under-used) dick, the neighbour thought.
“God, can’t you take it inside?” the disgusted neighbour asked. “It’s the middle of the night, and some of us do have jobs to go to tomorrow you know.”
Faith whipped her head around to look at the intruder, while Giles continued his ministrations, not seeming to notice the interruption. Faith hated being told what to do. This is none of your god-damn business she thought angrily! Then she realized the spectacle the dude was seeing, and what he must be thinking is going on. G's gettin' some, and dude is probably jealous! Her eyes sparked at the neighbour and she said saucily, “Good, I was hoping for an audience.” She ground her pelvis into Giles then, causing him to re-double his response to her. The hand he had on her back started sliding under her shirt reaching for her bra clasp. Then for spite at the neighbour, Faith kissed Giles passionately. It was very much Faith's style to act first, and deny there were any consequences later.
The neighbour went back into his apartment in a huff and slammed the door, mumbling something about calling the police. Losing herself in the moment, Faith barely heard him leave. She was enjoying what Giles was doing to her far too much, and continued kissing him and rubbing herself against him for several seconds longer than necessary to keep up the pretense for the nosy neighbour. He a day or two worth of stubble that scratched her face, but his lips were soft.
Maybe it was her... less-than-savory upbringing, but the smell of booze and cigarettes on a guy flipped a switch in her. It was familiar, sensuous, almost... comforting... and it turned her on more than any expensive cologne ever could. And the girl in her who'd never really been loved couldn't help but respond to someone obviously wanting her, even if it was just physical. It had gotten her into trouble any number of times. Not that she couldn't handle any trouble that came her way of course.
Just as her free hand started to reach for the button on his jeans, to free his hardening arousal, she came to her senses and remembered she was here on business (sort of), and that this was Giles for god’s sake, and she was supposed to be helping her 10-sheets-to-the-wind friend get home safe. She pulled away from his mouth where he'd been massaging her tongue with his in a surprisingly erotic way. An inch from his face, they breathed heavily into each other's mouths for a moment. She had to admit to herself, she was feeling damn tempted to just say, “Fuck it”, and go for it. It wasn’t at all what she’d come here for but she had some confusing shit to sort through, and a good shag -- as the locals might say -- might be the best medicine to get it out of her system. How the hell Giles was able to get it up in the state he was in she didn't know, but she was impressed.
Faith sighed, and trailed her free hand slowly down the side of Giles' face and touched his lips with her fingertip. He kissed the finger that was on his lips. A memory surfaced then of a time gone by, "If I'da known they came that young and cute, I would've requested a transfer." She smiled, remembering how pissed Buffy had looked when she'd said that, and how Giles had blushed. His arms felt good around her, and he had her bra half undone, another second and he'd have the other clasp free. “Why did I have to grow a conscience?” she wondered quietly aloud. She pulled away from Giles then, pushing him back against the wall with her free hand, and wrenching the other from his pocket with the keys. She smiled to herself. It did feel like he had something nice down there for her if she ever got the urge... she shook her head. “He’s fuckin’ destroyed. He isn’t going to remember a damn thing tomorrow,” she reminded herself. He drunkenly reached for her again, but she pushed him back again, saying commandingly, “Stop.” Even a wasted Giles knew that no means no, and he swayed slightly, but kept his hands to himself.
She unlocked the door to his flat then and helped him inside. She started to ask him where the bedroom was so she could get him to his bed, when he flopped face down on his couch and passed out.
“Welcome to England Faith,” she muttered to herself.
Part 2
Posted in: Summer of Giles 2012
Pairing: Faith/Giles
Rating: PG, FRT for some strong language and sexual themes.
Setting: Post "Chosen," no comics. Any similarity to the comics is coincidence as I haven't read them, though I have read some synopses of them online.
Disclaimer: I own nothing in the BtVS universe and no one pays me for my fan fiction either (sadly).
Summary: Sometime after Sunnydale imploded, Faith has left Cleveland and Robin and come to England to find Giles. Giles has been working to rebuild the Council, and Faith is hoping she can be of some help to him.
Note: My first fanfic evah! This is part one of a Giles and Faith story that was inspired when I was listening to Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine.
There weren’t many people in the pub. He sat on a stool with his guitar. Playing softly. He looked at his hands playing. Never at the audience. He seemed to sing only for himself.
“Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
It's not warm when she's away.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
And she’s always gone too long anytime she goes away.”
She cocked her head and watched him with interest, sipping on a cold, fresh pint of beer, and having a hard time stopping herself from chugging it down. He looked up once, still lost in his own thoughts. His eyes were shining, but no tears fell.
“Wonder this time where she's gone.
Wonder if she's gone to stay.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
And this house just ain't no home anytime she goes away.”
Faith had never heard him sing before. He was good. Damn good.
“Hey, I oughta leave the young thing alone.
But ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
Only darkness everyday.”
When he played out the last note there was a spattering of applause from the few people there. Faith thought he deserved a fucking standing-o. She decided to tell him as much.
As he sang she’d slowly walked closer to him without him noticing. She now stood in front of him, but he was still lost in himself. His hands moving over the guitar, no longer touching the strings or making any sounds, but moving as if playing.
As if he couldn’t stop playing.
She waited. She assumed he’d sense her closeness and look up, but he didn’t. Faith reached out and touched his arm. He still didn’t look up. So she said softly with a smile, “Hey G... you got some pipes.”
He slowly looked up then and blearily tried to focus on her. Finally he said, “Faith?” with a half-smile. The old Watcher training kicked in then, and he was all business for a second. He stood too quickly, dropping his guitar, knocking the stool over and asking, “Is anything wrong?” Faith now saw that the man who had seemed so smooth, steady and stone-cold sober, if emotional, when he was singing, was actually incredibly drunk. He swayed in front of her. Her slayer reflexes were poised to catch him if necessary, but then he seemed to steady himself.
Her brow slightly furrowed, she decided to answer his question before he stared a hole through her. Well, her or the wall, he still wasn’t really focusing well, though he was doing that drunk thing where you try to look extra hard at someone as if to fool them that you are sober. Her inclination was to give a cutesy defensive answer, but she didn’t have the energy for games today. She’d had a long flight, with too many thoughts and feelings roiling inside. She was weary. Besides, seeing Giles like this was the last thing she'd expected, and it caught her off guard. Still, she knew he was asking about apocalypsy-type stuff, vamps and death... not whether her and Robin had broken up or anything personal like that.
“Five by five, G, no worries.”
He visibly relaxed, almost turning to jello, any pretense of sobriety gone. A shit-eating grin spread over his face and he reached out toward her. Faith wasn’t sure if he meant to hug her or shake her hand or pat her on the arm, but he ended up losing his balance and nearly tackling her to the floor. Slayer strength and reflexes saved them both from hitting the dirt as she caught the Watcher in her arms, fully supporting his weight until he got his feet under him again.
His face now centimeters from hers, their chests plastered together, she smelled more than a few drinks on him. The acrid perfume of booze wafted from his pores. This is a guy who hadn’t been sober in a week... if then. It showed in his eyes, the smell of his skin, hair, and breath... the tremors affecting his movements. And now that ‘professional’-Watcher-Giles knew he wasn’t immediately needed, his speech became terribly slurred.
“Faissss... *hic... ss’cud t’see you.” He clapped her affectionately, but too hard, on the back. Too hard for a regular woman anyway. Faith barely noticed. “Bloody ssslerrrs... *hic”, he frowned comically, “strengsss.”
She thought he was happy to see her, and jokingly complaining about slayer strength, but it was really hard to tell. “G! What the hell? I think I better take you home man.”
She thought for a minute he was going to argue with her, but whatever thoughts he could pull together in his drink-addled brain were thankfully reasonable ones. “Kay,” he nodded. “Sss’not far,” he managed, gesturing incoherently.
Faith reluctantly put down the nearly full beer she’d just started, and that she’d managed not to spill a drop of even while she assisted her unwieldy charge. She grabbed his guitar and helped Giles to the door, supporting most of his weight and nearly dragging him out since he could barely put one foot in front of the other. She spared a dirty look at the bartender for allowing her friend to get in this state, and a wistful look at the beer. “Should’ve chugged it when I had the chance”, she thought. The bartender watched them leave, stony-faced, apparently taking no responsibility for the state of the Watcher. The old Faith would have liked to kick his ass into next week, but she held herself in check and got Giles outside.
Faith propped Giles up against the wall outside the pub and slung his guitar on her back, fitting the strap snugly between her breasts. She stepped closer to him and put her hands on his face, trying to get his eyes to focus on her. “G, I’m out of the states for the first time in my life. I don’t know where I am, or where you live, so I hope you can tell me.”
She thought he was trying to speak, but he could barely keep his eyes open or make his mouth work. She slapped him to wake him up a bit. He blinked several times, then clumsily got a hold of his wallet and wrested it free of the back pocket of his pants, nearly falling in the process, and dropping the wallet. Faith caught it and him, and he grabbed the wallet from her to show her his ID, with his address on it. “Great, I got your address G, but I don’t know where we are, so how can I get us there?”
Someone else came out of the bar just then. She let go of Giles and turned to the stranger. “Hey, can you tell me where this is?” showing him the address on the ID card. Giles was slowly sliding down the wall to the ground behind her, either not noticing he was falling, or not able to stop himself. The stranger gave her a weird look. “You’re on Carriagecross Lane." He looked over her shoulder at her fallen comrade, then back at Faith. "Are you takin’ the piss?” he asked, sounding slightly miffed and very suspicious.
“What?” Faith didn’t know what the hell that meant. Piss? Was he some kind of Golden-showers freak? To each their own and all that, but Faith didn't have time for this shit. She wanted to get G home.
“You American?” he asked.
“Yeah, I just got here today, and I’m not really sure where ‘here’ is.”
The guy frowned at her and pointed the direction she needed to go.
“Thanks!” She gave him a dazzling, if artificial, smile, and the guy suddenly smiled back. She turned away, rolling her eyes, thinking, “I still got it”, grinning to herself.
Faith turned back to Giles and sighed. "This weeble wobbled and did fall down," she thought. Giles looked like a homeless dude from back home, begging on a street-corner. He was sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall, his head lolling on his chest, nearly unconscious. He just needed a paper coffee cup propped in his limp hand. “Good thing I’m a hot chick with superpowers,” Faith mumbled to herself, and picked Giles up and put him on his feet. She smacked his face again, harder. “This’ll be easier if you at least try to stumble along with me.”
Thankfully Giles didn’t live far from the pub at all. And he lived on the ground floor, so no dragging him up or down a flight of stairs. She got him to his door, and propped him roughly against the wall to check for his keys. That last slap she gave him and the damp night air of foggy ol' London had roused Giles enough that he could keep his feet okay by himself. She took the guitar off her back and set it on the floor next to Giles' door.
“Keys,” she said aloud. Giles wasn't quite coherent enough to help her. So, she started with his jacket pockets first, but no luck. Not one to hesitate, she thrust her hand into first one of his front pants pocket then the other, finally finding the keys. Giles’ beer-addled brain and body responded on instinct to a nice-smelling female-someone apparently feeling him up.
Giles thrust one hand into Faith’s hair, the other around her back, pulling her roughly towards him. He began to cover one of her ears and neck with soft, breathy kisses, sending an electric tingle throughout her body. The way he was holding her had twisted her arm in such a way that she couldn’t pull her hand holding the keys out of his pocket without ripping his pants. It was at this moment a disgruntled neighbour poked a sleepy head out of his flat, probably wondering at the thumping and banging -- caused by a five-foot-something Faith trying to drag a six-foot-something drunk guy and a guitar into the foyer and down the narrow hallway -- had been. He saw his neighbour, Mr.Giles, whom he had originally thought would be no trouble, busily making out with a sexy young thing, maybe half his age (how in the hell did that pencil-pusher manage that? he wondered idly in the back of his mind). She seemed pretty into it, her hand working in his pants pocket, presumably waking up Mr.Giles' (likely under-used) dick, the neighbour thought.
“God, can’t you take it inside?” the disgusted neighbour asked. “It’s the middle of the night, and some of us do have jobs to go to tomorrow you know.”
Faith whipped her head around to look at the intruder, while Giles continued his ministrations, not seeming to notice the interruption. Faith hated being told what to do. This is none of your god-damn business she thought angrily! Then she realized the spectacle the dude was seeing, and what he must be thinking is going on. G's gettin' some, and dude is probably jealous! Her eyes sparked at the neighbour and she said saucily, “Good, I was hoping for an audience.” She ground her pelvis into Giles then, causing him to re-double his response to her. The hand he had on her back started sliding under her shirt reaching for her bra clasp. Then for spite at the neighbour, Faith kissed Giles passionately. It was very much Faith's style to act first, and deny there were any consequences later.
The neighbour went back into his apartment in a huff and slammed the door, mumbling something about calling the police. Losing herself in the moment, Faith barely heard him leave. She was enjoying what Giles was doing to her far too much, and continued kissing him and rubbing herself against him for several seconds longer than necessary to keep up the pretense for the nosy neighbour. He a day or two worth of stubble that scratched her face, but his lips were soft.
Maybe it was her... less-than-savory upbringing, but the smell of booze and cigarettes on a guy flipped a switch in her. It was familiar, sensuous, almost... comforting... and it turned her on more than any expensive cologne ever could. And the girl in her who'd never really been loved couldn't help but respond to someone obviously wanting her, even if it was just physical. It had gotten her into trouble any number of times. Not that she couldn't handle any trouble that came her way of course.
Just as her free hand started to reach for the button on his jeans, to free his hardening arousal, she came to her senses and remembered she was here on business (sort of), and that this was Giles for god’s sake, and she was supposed to be helping her 10-sheets-to-the-wind friend get home safe. She pulled away from his mouth where he'd been massaging her tongue with his in a surprisingly erotic way. An inch from his face, they breathed heavily into each other's mouths for a moment. She had to admit to herself, she was feeling damn tempted to just say, “Fuck it”, and go for it. It wasn’t at all what she’d come here for but she had some confusing shit to sort through, and a good shag -- as the locals might say -- might be the best medicine to get it out of her system. How the hell Giles was able to get it up in the state he was in she didn't know, but she was impressed.
Faith sighed, and trailed her free hand slowly down the side of Giles' face and touched his lips with her fingertip. He kissed the finger that was on his lips. A memory surfaced then of a time gone by, "If I'da known they came that young and cute, I would've requested a transfer." She smiled, remembering how pissed Buffy had looked when she'd said that, and how Giles had blushed. His arms felt good around her, and he had her bra half undone, another second and he'd have the other clasp free. “Why did I have to grow a conscience?” she wondered quietly aloud. She pulled away from Giles then, pushing him back against the wall with her free hand, and wrenching the other from his pocket with the keys. She smiled to herself. It did feel like he had something nice down there for her if she ever got the urge... she shook her head. “He’s fuckin’ destroyed. He isn’t going to remember a damn thing tomorrow,” she reminded herself. He drunkenly reached for her again, but she pushed him back again, saying commandingly, “Stop.” Even a wasted Giles knew that no means no, and he swayed slightly, but kept his hands to himself.
She unlocked the door to his flat then and helped him inside. She started to ask him where the bedroom was so she could get him to his bed, when he flopped face down on his couch and passed out.
“Welcome to England Faith,” she muttered to herself.
Part 2