FIC: Entangled 2/2 (Giles/Buffy) NC17
Title: Entangled 2/2
Rating: adult
Pairings: Giles/Buffy, Willow/Xander
Continued from part 1.
Giles woke some time later, clear-headed and miserable. The plug was still in his backside, his neck was sore, and he was thirsty. Buffy was still asleep beside him. Dead to the world. He extricated himself from her and slid out from under the blankets. Where had his glasses got to? He found them on the table between the beds. He tiptoed out to the little bathroom. There he washed up, removed the plug, then washed up again. She would want to take him with it again when the urge rose in him in the next hours, but for now he would give his body some relief. He studied himself in the mirror. She’d bitten him on the throat and shoulders, and once on his left buttock. It was deeply satisfying to see the marks, to know she’d give him deeper ones if he begged. And he would be begging before it was over.
He sighed. At least the sex had been good. She had thrown herself into it completely and it had been wonderful.
He ran a cool shower and stepped into it. He hissed when the water hit bruised and scratched skin. She’d been rougher with him than he’d realized. Slayer strength.
Buffy was working out to be the most intense alpha he’d ever been bedded by, and he’d been bedded by Rayne when they were both young and stupid and in love. There was something about her that made this encounter something different even from that. That she was his Slayer? Now that he thought about it, it made some sense that they were alphas. The destiny ensured they could sire children if they wished, but would never be dangerously vulnerable from bearing them. And Watchers- Giles had always assumed they were betas, and that his condition had been an aberration. But then Pryce had turned out to be an omega like him. He’d seen the suppression drugs in the man’s attache. And Giles’s father had never mentioned it, but he was fairly certain that he’d been the one to bear Giles, not his mother. He’d only worked out years later that the woman who’d raised him as his mother had been beta anyway.
Family relationships were tangled and not worth untangling. That was proverbial in most cultures. But he did wonder. Had his father been taken by his own Slayer, back in the day? Had his father’s Slayer been Giles’s own sire?
Unknowable now.
What would happen in the morning? Was this a union of convenience for her? Would it shatter the partnership they’d only just begun to repair? Or would it bind them closer than ever before? More unknowables, at least in the moment.
Giles turned off the taps and rubbed his face into a rough motel towel. It all depended on Buffy. If she considered this a one-time coupling, something done to sate the urge with no deeper mating intended, there might be no change at all. He had no idea what she felt about this. He barely understood what he felt. Did he want Buffy to take him again?
God, yes. Again and again.
“The heat speaking there, Rupert,” he said to his foggy reflection in the mirror.
Giles slipped out of the bathroom quietly. Where were Willow and Xander? They might have returned to the room any time in the last few hours and he wouldn’t have noticed.
On the floor by the door was a piece of paper with his name written on it. Willow’s handwriting. She and Xander had rented a second room. She hoped all was well and reminded him to call them if they needed anything, such as perhaps dinner. So polite and circumspect, Willow was. A sweet girl. Giles sat and thought for a moment, calculating how much time he had before it rose in him again, how hungry he was. He could feel it in the distance, like rain clouds on the horizon on a summer day. Best to plan now to ensure they would all be fed later. None of them were in any fit state to head out to a restaurant. Giles yielded to expedience and dialed for a pizza delivery from the local restaurant that had left flyers in the room.
He picked up the phone a second time to dial the room number she’d left in the note. She was awake and able to take the call, and happy to hear he was okay. She’d wake Xander and bring him by in a few minutes. He hoped the next wave of heat would hold off until after the pizza had arrived, because he would be into pizza for sure.
Time to wake Buffy. He went to the bed and laid a hand on her shoulder. She stirred. “You were on the phone?”
“Ordering pizza.”
“Good. I’m starving.”
She sat up and tugged him down onto the bed next to her. One hand moved up to grip him by the throat, the other down to cup his balls. He wasn’t hard, but she wouldn’t expect him to be. He spread his legs to give his alpha better access to whatever she might desire of him, even in this between-waves state. He wanted her to know his body was hers.
Buffy let go of him. She fiddled with her hair, which was a mess. She seemed to realize this and give up. “Where are they?” she asked him.
“They took a second room for the night.”
“Xander couldn’t hold out, huh?”
Giles frowned. It wasn’t done to refer to rejected alphas that way, at least not in his circle. Buffy didn’t seem to be malicious, but even if was kindly meant, she was still celebrating her conquest at Xander’s expense. Her conquest of Giles’s body.
All he said was, “They’ll join us for pizza.”
“Think you’ll last that long?”
“Should do.”
She smiled at him with an innocent cheerful Buffy smile he’d seen a hundred times before, but now it made him shudder. “If I ordered you to stay naked when they come over, would you?”
Giles hung his head. Yes, he would. The urge in his blood was to be naked for her, and the urge to obey her was nearly as deep. Ethan had often liked to keep him naked. Back then Giles hadn’t minded being shown off to their friends. It had all been a great game, flaunting it to everyone around them. Now it was more than he could take. “Please don’t,” he said, to her bare feet on the floor. “I beg of you.”
“They wouldn’t mind. You’re one of us.”
“Xander would mind.”
“Xander will do what I tell him to do.”
Giles looked up at her sharply. Was it that way with them? An understanding between them? If so, this encounter would change more than he’d thought.
“Yeah,” she said, to his unspoken question. “Xander and me, we have an alliance. After that spell thingie it just made sense.”
“Oh,” he said. She stroked his face. Giles closed his eyes.
“I’ve been wondering what to do about you. Whether I should just take you or what. I was getting sick of pretending not to notice.”
Giles opened his eyes in shock. “You knew?”
She snorted. “I’ve known since I matured. Came in one day and smelled it on you and I knew. But you obviously wanted to avoid me. So I played along. Was conveniently slacking off on your heat days.”
“I- oh God.”
“I thought it was because you weren’t attracted to me, you know? Because I know how protective you feel about me in general.”
“Far more complicated,” he said. His voice was all strange and hoarse.
“Complicated is a good word. Anyway, cat’s out of the bag. Even Xander knows now. He’ll want to take you next month. If I let him.”
He pulled away from her. “If you let- I get to choose.”
“Poor Giles,” she said, but her voice wasn’t sympathetic. “Not tonight you don’t. Put on your jeans and nothing else. I’m going to take a quick shower.”
And with that Buffy vanished into the bathroom. Giles pulled his jeans on over bare skin. A compromise, granting him his modesty but only just. She wanted to flaunt him to Xander. Wanted to make the point to him. Slayer and Watcher, such a sodding farce. He’d never had any authority over her, not even before she’d matured, certainly not after she’d passed Cruciamentum. He hadn’t wanted it. She’d never tolerated it. Society and his body agreed on that point; he would do as she commanded. His head might be clear but he was her omega until the heat was over.
He occupied his hands with cleaning up the shambles she’d made of his bag and her own. Found the rest of his clothes where she’d thrown them, folded them, tucked them into his bag. He wasn’t likely to be allowed to wear anything more than these jeans until it was over. He’d just finished remaking the bed when there was a knock at the door. He flipped on the light by the door and opened it onto the night. Moths flitting about the light, Willow standing there smiling uncertainly at him, Xander hovering behind.
Giles stepped back, polite but cautious as ever. Willow hesitated on the threshold. Xander collided with her.
“Is it okay?”
Giles smiled at her. “Should be.”
She hugged him on her way in. Xander gave him a wide berth, out of respect for Buffy’s superior claim on him. And her position over Xander, he suspected. An arrangement, she’d said. An arrangement Xander had challenged when making a play for Giles earlier, though who knew if Buffy would be upset about that. Alphas had their own rules.
“Yo, Giles. Where’s the pizza?” Xander said.
“Here soon.” Giles felt something inside him relax. He could cope with a food-obsessed with Xander. He could not cope with being pursued by two alphas again.
“Hey, guys.”
Buffy had emerged from her shower. She marched into the room wearing nothing but a towel, which she casually undid to rub at her hair. Arrogant alpha. Xander stared at the floor. Willow looked at Buffy then blushed. Giles let himself openly admire her, which was only right and proper since she was his alpha. She was thin, some might say too thin, but she was all lean muscle. Slayer muscle, which was the sort he liked best. Small breasts, not as much as a handful each, but he liked them. Perhaps she would let him bite her nipples in the next round, if she wasn’t too busy biting his. His cock reacted to this idea. Not fully, not yet, but it was awakening.
Damn, she was putting proper clothes on and hiding that body away. He knew he ought to approve of her discretion in front of Xander and Willow, but a corner of him didn’t want it. A corner of him wanted his jeans off, so he could show her his re-awakening body.
The pizza had best arrive soon.
Xander relaxed a little now that Buffy was dressed again. He flung himself onto the bed across from Giles and made it bounce. “So, hey, Giles. You’re omega. You never said.”
“No,” Giles said. He looked away. No, he hadn’t told Xander, because then he’d have been rolled onto his face and buggered into oblivion on his very next cycle by a man more than twenty years his junior who’d never read a book willingly in his life. The hormones didn’t care about Xander’s age or his literacy level or his sweet nature. They cared about Xander’s muscles and his shaggy dark hair, though. And his prick. Everything about those was quite pleasing. If he had first encountered Xander as a stranger, he could have submitted willingly. But he hadn’t, so he fretted. And there had always been Buffy, looming between them with her claim on his attentions.
“Somehow I thought Watchers were betas. You know, power behind the throne types. Never thought you were hiding this from us.”
Giles shrugged. He’d be hiding it still if he could. Though if what Buffy said was true, that she’d known all along, Xander had been unusually unobservant.
“Are Watchers ever betas?” Willow said. Then she made an apologetic gesture at him. He understood her curiosity, however.
“Travers was,” Buffy said. “No smell at all.”
“I have a theory,” Giles said. “That the ones who end up with Slayers are not. We’re omegas. I’ve known three for sure and I have my suspicions about another woman I knew.”
“You, Wesley, who else?”
“A man who died years ago.”
“Oh jeez, Wesley,” said Xander. “It was so hard not to just take that guy.”
“He would quiver when I stared at him.” Buffy flopped down next to Xander, who shifted aside to give her room. She was still pushing on him, apparently. Giles watched this with curiosity. Would Xander fight back at any point?
Xander said, “He would flinch when I came near him, like he was gonna go down on his knees any second and start begging me.”
Giles frowned. “He was on the drug.”
Buffy and Xander both shrugged. “You covered a lot better.”
“Out of necessity. They read me the riot act. I was not to reveal it to you until you were of age. I was to maintain control as often as possible. He was probably under the same orders.”
“So that was why,” Buffy said, quietly. She was staring at him. Giles took off his glasses and made a show of polishing them. It was why, yes, but it was only part of the reason. When she’d come of age it had been such a mess between them. Angel, dark brooding Angel, back from hell. It had taken Giles some time to forgive her that. And by that time she’d been busy with college and ignoring him and things had begun to fragment. “The other guy who was omega- who was that?”
“My father,” Giles said. He saw Buffy register that and think it through.
Someone knocked at the door. The pizza had arrived. Xander popped up and snagged the cash from the table to pay. He seemed quite himself again, relaxed and cheerful. Attractive. Giles wouldn’t mind being taken by him, not really. He objected on principle, but his body knew better. He’d enjoy it. If Buffy weren’t there. He’d thought about it before. Then he felt a wave of guilt. He paced across the room, away from Buffy, where she was putting more than her fair share of pizza onto a paper plate, so she couldn’t detect that he’d thought about another alpha even for an instant. Then another wave of emotion came over him. He knelt next to Buffy because the idea of being anywhere else was impossible. He had to be near her, touching her, sheltering against her. And on his knees, because he couldn’t be naked as he ought to be. Buffy petted his hair and fed him pieces ripped off from her slice of pizza. He ate them from her hand. He would possibly be ashamed of the memory in the morning, something told him, but he couldn’t imagine why just then.
Certainly it was making the other alpha, the one he didn’t belong to, glower, and that was lovely to think about. He came fully erect just thinking about that. He squirmed a little where he was kneeling, because his jeans were binding. He reached into them without thinking and adjusted himself so his prick was upright against the fly. Much better.
“Is it starting again?” his alpha said to him.
Giles stroked a hand over the bulge in his jeans, showing himself off a little. “Yes.”
“Sweet,” she said to him. She gave him another piece of pizza crust. He licked her fingers. She tasted good, his alpha did. His Buffy. And it wasn’t just the pizza. She slipped two fingers into his mouth and he sucked on them eagerly. She wasn’t male, so there was no point in showing off his skills, but he wanted her to know he was willing and ready and completely hers.
“What a mouth,” the other alpha said, the one hadn’t won him. Xander. That was his name. Giles flared up in anger.
“Shut up. Show some respect.”
“I respect Giles!”
“He’s mine and you can’t touch him.”
Another wave of need rippled over his skin, prickles of desire. He had no dignity left at all, now, not a scrap of it, because Buffy was stripping him in front of the other two and he could not bring himself to protest. He needed her too much. He was angry anyway, because she ought to have thrown Xander out first. Alphas and their damnable games with each other, with panting omegas as their pawns. Damn him for eating from her hand. He would have his revenge later when he maneuvered them as he wanted them, but for now he was on his knees on the bed, with his hands clasped at the back of his neck, arching his back and spreading his thighs wide, showing himself off to his infuriating Slayer. Damn her.
She kissed him and he almost forgave her. Soft lips, delicate tongue in his mouth, thrusting into him. Her hands were all over him as well, pinching his nipples, tickling his stomach, stroking over the insides of his thighs. She wasn’t touching his cock yet, frustrating woman, but she was touching everywhere else. His balls, the line leading back from them to his arse. God, yes, touch him there, please. The wave was on him fully now and that meant his entire body was sensitive and alive and any touch from his alpha would give him pleasure. But there especially, his arse and his cock. He begged her to touch him there, to give him what he needed.
She knew it. She moved around behind him and spread him wide. Dignity, to perdition with his dignity, he wanted her fingers inside him again. And yes, there it was, the cool slick lube on him, then the pressure of her thumb. He opened for her immediately. If she were male she’d be inside him now, but of course she wasn’t. She was female. He’d be inside her soon.
“Hold onto your hat, cowboy. You’ll be inside me when I say you can be, and not a second earlier.”
“Sorry,” he said. He wasn’t sorry, though. He wanted her. Damn, he’d said that aloud, for she was laughing at him.
“You want me, huh?”
“Course I bloody well want you. You’re my bloody Slayer. My infuriating, difficult- fuck!”
She’d penetrated him, hard and fast, giving him no time to adjust, no time to breathe, even. She pushed him down with a merciless hand on the back of his neck, so he was face down on the bed with his plugged backside in the air. And now she was fucking him with the plug, just as roughly. He braced himself as best he could, fingers dug into the sheets.
“Difficult? I’m difficult?” she said.
“Yes, dammit! Oh fuck, please-”
“Please what?”
“Please let me inside you. If I’m gonna come, I want it to be inside you.”
“Take it back. Tell me I’m not difficult.”
“Can’t. Won’t lie to you. You’re bloody difficult. Infuriating, contrary, disobedient, frustrating, lovely, desirable, brave, strong, sexy-”
She slammed into him on every word out of his mouth, but he wouldn’t stop. His body was hers but damned if his mind was. She was his Slayer. “My property,” he said. “Mine.”
“Yours? Haven’t you got that backwards?”
“My Slayer,” he said. “My alpha.”
She’d stopped fucking him. He let his head drop down to rest on the bed. He was covered with sweat and breathing hard. He’d almost come, had no idea how he’d managed not to. Desperation.
She stroked his head. He let out a long breath. The wave of impending orgasm had receded.
“Yours, huh? I always thought you were mine.”
“Mutual. All tangled up with each other. Been that way since I met you.”
“All tangled up,” she said, softly, echoing him.
She nudged him over onto his back. Her eyes were on his cock, curving up over his belly, as hard as it ever got. She stroked it almost idly. Giles breathed in and out, slowly. His control over himself was even more ragged than it had been through the first wave. He could remember her name and his own name when he concentrated. Count from one to ten in English, in Latin, in Greek, in Japanese. He couldn’t do it. Why was he trying?
She had put a condom on him, and that meant he was about to get what he needed. He lay back and waited. But she was lying down beside him and tugging him onto his side.
“Come here. I want you on top this time. You can do all the work. Since I’m yours.”
Giles knelt up again between her thighs and looked down at her body. Lovely. Ready for him, wet and open. He took his cock in hand and leaned over her. “As hard as you were fucking me just now?”
“As hard and fast as you want.”
“As slow as I want?”
She smiled up at him. “As slow as you want. You don’t want slow, though.”
Giles snarled. “You have no idea what I want.”
The surge of defiance rose in him. He was going to make her wait for it. To take her slowly, deliberately, giving himself time to enjoy each push into her, to squeeze down on the plug inside him as he moved and let that pleasure spark through him. To at last bend his head to her breasts and bite at her nipples and make her gasp. It took almost more self-control than he had to do it slowly, to make her whimper and complain and plead with him to go faster, to bring them both off already. Orders from his alpha, so tempting, so important, less important than her first order to go as fast or as slow as he wanted. And he liked hearing her moan under him. A little added spice, a little naughty transgression, this business of doing all the work while his alpha lay passive under him panting.
It was no surprise to him when she eventually lost patience and rolled him onto his back unceremoniously. It was going to end as it began, hard and fast and brutal. He rose to meet her as she slammed down on him, giving her what she wanted as she gave it to him. There was no stopping it in him now, no more delays possible. The orgasm exploded through him, from his balls to the tip of his cock, running up and down his body, long moments of shuddering as he emptied himself into her.
Then the slow come-down, while she remained astride him and the aftershocks finished. His breathing returned to normal, slowly. Second orgasm, more shattering than the first. This one had been- God, it had been soul-destroying.
“Bloody hell,” Giles said. He let himself fall back onto the bed. What was the next one going to feel like if the second was like that? “That was-”
“Yeah. It was. Next time I know exactly what I’m going to do with you.”
Giles pushed himself up onto an elbow to ask what she meant by that, but Buffy was already asleep.
Xander was watching Buffy and Giles have sex without seeming in the least embarrassed about it. Willow couldn’t say the same about herself. She looked away, if only because Giles deserved some respect and would probably appreciate it once his heat was over. Once he’d regained that control he so prized. She couldn’t stop up her ears, though. She’d never heard Giles moan before and now she was never going to be able to unhear it and it was sexy but embarrassing. She would never ever mention it to him, not even in the face of certain doom.
She tugged at Xander’s elbow. “We need to go back to our room.”
“What?”
He was hard again and his hands were shaking. His temples were wet with sweat. Pupils wide, face flushed. Oh, damn, that was a bad sign. The pheromones had done it to him again. She should never have let him go back into the room with those two, no matter what he said about it being okay. It wasn’t okay.
“Come on, Xander. You can have sex when we get back to our own room.”
“Yeah? With you? Really?”
“With me. Come on.”
She took him by the sleeve and led him out. He followed eagerly, his hands wandering. She fended him off just long enough to walk along the length of the motel block to their room.
Xander was grabbing her the moment the door closed behind them. She distracted him for a minute by telling him she needed to use the bathroom first. She locked herself in and washed herself and drank some water and listened to him pacing. She loved Xander. Always had, as long as she could remember, and always would. She could do this and it would be okay. She opened the door. He leapt on her, picked her up, and carried her to the bed.
It wasn’t the first time this had happened with her and Xander, but it had been a long time since that once. Oz had been too hurt by it. He’d understood, because every beta knew it was something you did for your friends sometimes, but he’d hated it. Xander and Willow had both quietly made sure it hadn’t happened again and they’d been successful until now. Today had been too much, Willow could tell. Exposure to Giles had been too much. Too long in one car together, too long in one motel room together, too long fighting with Buffy over him. Damn Giles for letting this happen. Then Willow felt guilty, because Giles hadn’t wanted it either and he’d gone a long long time without any slip-ups. Her college friends were always messing their cycles up. And high school had been chaos.
But here she was, being stripped naked by a hyper-attentive and scarily focused Xander, who seemed incapable of even imagining that she might not follow his orders. Or be sent into a haze of desire by what he was telling her they’d do next. He was puzzled by her slow responses, in fact. Too decent a human being not to notice them, too much an alpha not to take them as a challenge to his technique.
Finally she tipped over the edge from wary obligation mode to turned on in the moment mode. Xander noticed instantly and smiled, showing all his teeth, and then he nipped at her throat. Bitey, he had been bitey last time too. Was that a thing? He was nipping his way down her throat, bite and lick, bite and lick, until he found his way to her breasts.
“Nice breasts,” he said. He bent his head to them and kissed each nipple. A little teeth, a little tongue. Willow liked the tongue and he did more of that. He rolled himself all the way onto her and got himself ready to penetrate her. Willow squeaked at the first touch of his penis on her body.
He pulled back immediately. “Condom. Do I need a condom? Dammit, am I screwing up?”
“It’s okay, Xander. No condom.” He’d forgotten she was a beta, which was nice.
“Fuck yeah. Gonna come inside you.”
The idea obviously made him almost wild with excitement, which was a turn-on for her though it wasn’t her paradigm, as Oz might have said. A little twinge of guilt for thinking about him right now, over in another moment because Xander was urging her to come so he could too, he was right on the edge, ready to pop. Willow needed a little more before she could get there, though, a little eyes-closed concentration, a little bit of fantasizing, and then she was coming. Xander followed immediately, triggered by her. And of course he wanted to lie on top of her, still inside her, for a while afterward, all heavy and hot and itchy, but it would be impolite to object. After a while, though, she nudged him off. He didn’t object. He fell asleep right away, though, half on top of her with his hand on her throat. She nudged him away. He grumbled but didn’t wake up.
Willow got out of bed to do all the things she needed to do, like put on pajamas and brush her teeth and comb out her hair and wash off her makeup. This changed- what did it change? If Xander was right, it would change a lot. It was all up to Buffy, though. Xander on his own wasn’t about to found a family. Definitely when he was older. Many people never ended up in troops. Betas paired off, as often with omegas as each other, but alphas floated around. Nobody would judge them for it. There was a lot of romantic movies about alphas settling down with that one true omegas. Everybody liked that idea. In action movies they didn’t, though. They screwed the good-looking willing omegas and then rode out of town afterward with their cowboy hats on. Ronin alphas.
Xander was the settling type, though. Buffy was not. She was ronin cowboy super-spy ride out of town all the way. Except there was Giles and that was an emotional entanglement Buffy would never escape. Or want to. Giles protected her in ways that omegas never protected alphas. Buffy ought to protect him that way in return. Troop? Only if Buffy wanted it. She might want to pair off.
So. It all depended on what was going on in the other room. They had seemed sort of angry with each other when she’d dragged Xander away. She hoped they’d gotten over that.
Xander was awake when she came back into the main room. He was sitting up in bed with the blankets over his lap. He’d grown more hair on his chest than the last time Willow had seen him naked. How had she not noticed that earlier?
“You good?” he said. He sounded anxious. Willow did her best to reassure him: she was okay, he hadn’t pushed her into anything she hadn’t wanted or enjoyed, he’d been great, he should just chill out and feel okay. Finally he agreed that yes, Willow was okay.
He rumpled up his hair and sat forward in the bed, elbows on knees. "Think there’s any pizza left?
Willow smiled at him. “You ate the last slice just before we took off. Besides, you’re not going back in that room until it’s all over.”
“Damn. I’m hungry.” He flopped back on the pillows. “C’mere. Cuddle with me.”
Willow was okay with that. She’d been cuddling with Xander for a long time. Cuddling was good. She got settled comfortably with her head his shoulder and his arm wrapped around her. She was a little sleepy now but apparently he wasn’t.
“If I asked you if you wanted to make love again, what would you say?”
Willow shrugged. “I would say maybe. I would need to be persuaded.”
“Huh.” Silence for a while. Then, “You wanna know what’s weird?”
“What?”
“You can have sex any time.”
“Well, yeah. So can you.”
“Technically. But I don’t. No sweet pheromones, no sex. Doesn’t even cross my mind. There’s usually somebody around going into heat often enough that I can fake it. But you, you can be persuaded. You get into the mood without somebody being around smelling good.”
“So that question was just theoretical.” Willow felt a surprising pang of sadness at that. She’d felt wanted for a little while, and now she knew better.
Xander looked uncertain. “Um. Maybe not?”
“No pheromones, no sex.”
He disentangled himself from her and leaned over her. Nose to her neck, a long sniff and a lick. He sat up again and he looked even more puzzled than before.
“You smell good to me. Mostly betas smell, I don’t know, meh, like nothing? I mean, I can smell that it’s you and we had sex recently but it’s not the same as, you know, usually, except you smell good right now. I want you. Yeah?”
Which jumble Willow eventually untangled into a repetition of his earlier question, only not theoretical this time. Even as she said yes to him, Willow’s mind was filing away a resolution to go back and read that paper on troop formation dynamics her replacement psych prof had mentioned a couple of classes ago. It was relevant. Probably. Later. Right now, she had a happy aroused alpha on top of her.
Xander was in his right mind this time and it was a lot better. Tons better. Some of the best sex she’d ever had, though she felt a little like she was betraying Oz’s memory by thinking that. She was slower coming this time because it was soon after the first time, but Xander didn’t seem to mind. He seemed to consider it a challenge to his skills. He was really good at observing what she reacted to then doing more of that, bringing her right up to the edge and holding here there, then backing off and doing something else entirely. He was still bossy in ways that Oz had never been, but that was something she could ride along with.
Giles surfaced to wakefulness. Buffy was on top of him, most uncomfortably, and most deeply asleep. He needed to use the loo. He extricated himself from her and was happy that she did not wake, for it gave him time to regroup. He was sore all over, sore where she’d bitten him, sore where she’d taken him so roughly with the plug. He would feel worse in the morning, for it wasn’t over yet. One more wave, if he held true to his usual pattern, and this one would be the most intense. He could feel prickles washing over the skin of his arms and his stomach, which meant it was not far off. What little remained of his control over his emotions and his actions would soon be stripped. He would be groveling and begging his Slayer to take him, to sire children upon him, to do whatever she wished with him. His entire body would be an erogenous zone and he would then experience, according to Willow’s textbooks, the most intense orgasm human beings normally experienced. The blessing given to omegas, that orgasm. Consolation enough? For many, yes.
For him? This time… perhaps. It was Buffy this time. That changed everything. She’d said she wanted to do it again. Did she mean to claim him? She hadn’t used the word. If she asked would he agree? He shuddered. He would agree to anything. It was so fraught, this business of mating with the people one loved. It was so much easier with strangers. One thrashed around, had sex, said things that no one took seriously, and walked away in the morning.
If she walked away it would break him. God, he needed her.
It had already started. Giles swore and washed his hands hastily. He almost ran back to the bed. She was awake and waiting for him. He climbed up and knelt beside her the way she liked. He saw her nose wrinkle, then she breathed in deeply. She smiled: alpha scenting her mate. He spread his thighs wider to better show off his body, heavy balls, thick cock rising before her gaze, assets any alpha could appreciate in an omega. His backside was also something she would like, and it was there her hands went first, fondling, squeezing.
Every touch was erotic now. It wouldn’t take much. But he had to be inside her. Now. He begged her for it, pleaded with her.
“Take me, take me please. Sire your children on me. I’m ready now. See me? Ready for you. All yours.”
“I thought I was yours.”
“Both ways. My Slayer.”
“My Watcher.”
“You know it. Take me, please. I can’t bear waiting any longer.”
Then she thrust her tongue in his mouth and silenced his begging if not his whimpers. He clung to her and kissed her desperately. She kissed him back, just as desperate, hold him tight against herself. Soothing kisses, as always. She was here, she had him, it was going to happen. He would not go unfulfilled and desperate. No lonely masturbation this time. Buffy was going to take him.
“It’s time,” she said. She shoved him down onto the bed. No submission games now, no time for that. She was in charge and she would do whatever it took to make it clear. He was hers and he would do whatever it took to prove it.
There was something they were forgetting. What? It came to him.
“Condom,” he said. His voice was hoarse. Buffy snarled at him but got one from the bedside table. He lay on his back, palms up, and struggled not to thrust up into her hand while she rolled it onto him. Even that felt wonderful to him.
And then she was astride him and he was inside her and in heaven. No mercy, no slow gentle union, this. She rode him hard and fast, driving them both to the brink and beyond, until he couldn’t bear it, he was going to burst out of his own skin, he was going to catch fire, he was surely going to die. Die the little death, which he did, losing himself in her, giving his essence to her so that she might give it back and change him.
He lay under her and breathed. His mind was slowly returning to him. Aftershocks of orgasm ran through him, little shivers as she moved slowly on top of him. He wouldn’t dream of asking her to separate from him. Not now, not ever.
Fading, fading now. He felt himself begin to soften. Buffy rose away from him and collapsed onto her back. Giles sat up and dealt with the condom. Blessed invention of blessed civilization, for indeed he had begged her to sire children on him. Love-talk from omegas to their alphas, best not treated seriously because they rarely meant it once the hormones had faded. Giles would not have wanted anyone to ask him now if he’d meant it. The answer might disturb him. She was his Slayer, after all, and his suspicions about Watchers and Slayers were very likely correct. He couldn’t even make resolutions this time. He might swear to himself that he’d have the drug at hand next month, that he’d bar his doors against her, but he wouldn’t.
Resolutions were pointless anyway. She might not even come to him.
He lay back on the bed and swore very quietly to himself. He needed a shower but he was too sore and stiff already to want to walk across the motel room. That enviable orgasm had its downsides; he would be even more sore tomorrow. Drained. Nothing left in him. Now was when the alpha was supposed to be wakeful and protective. As often as not they fled as soon as they’d recovered from their own post-orgasmic haze.
Buffy was stirring now, and sitting up. He kept his face as blank as he could. Whatever it was he felt about her, it would have to be bottled up again. There was no telling how she would react now that the pheromones were gone. There was no obligation for her to stay with him. They’d used a condom. He had no hold on her. She would likely not mock him, but she might return to her prior attitude of indifference and distance. It would break his heart if she did, but he was determined to give no sign.
Buffy pulled her tank top over her head and got out of bed. She paced the length of the motel room, door to bathroom, and back again. Giles watched her pace, bare legs and slim backside. Why had she put on the shirt but not covered her sex? He remembered how she’d felt when he’d been buried all the way inside her, so hot and wet. What would it have felt like to be bare inside her, flesh to flesh? Exchanging seed with her as they lay joined together afterwards? He bit his lip. He wanted it, though he suspected it would never happen, even now as the heat faded away he wanted it. What was she working up to tell him? That this ended his relationship with her as her Watcher? Please, not that. He’d give up everything else to keep that.
Damn his rationalizations to himself, to risk coming on this trip, to have let this happen to them. He’d never forgive himself if she disengaged now.
Then she climbed back onto the bed and straddled his hips. Giles lay still below her, waiting for her to speak.
“I’m claiming you,” she said at last. “Slayer claims her Watcher as a mate. Do you submit?”
Giles was grateful to be on his back, because he’d begun trembling when she’d said the word. He was silent, trying to think despite the emotion that made his chest hurt. She’d said claim. Formal language, the stylized language of the proposal of alpha to omega. And she’d said Slayer and Watcher. She meant more than just the monthly night of lust. Her face was still, her brows furrow, and she was focused on him. Poor Buffy. So little luck with her partners. He’d sworn to be faithful to her even when the rest of the world was not. He’d sworn to be her Watcher until death parted him from her, and that oath was binding on him. There was, he realized, no way he could ever have refused this once she asked it. He must have known that all along. The Council must have known it. Bastards.
Only one thing frightened him. He swallowed.
“Are you going to sire children on me?”
Her face changed. Giles knew Buffy well enough to read what he saw there, or at least to guess at it. She was as taciturn as he was about the emotions that mattered, but they leaked through sometimes. Then her chin set. “Yes.”
He shivered underneath her. Very well. He would take his place in the long line. He would bear the next generation of Giles Watchers.
“I submit to your claim.”
She smiled at him, very briefly, then went solemn again.
There was a ritual for this in every culture Giles had ever studied in his long career as an historian. The modern world was more casual than most of what had gone before it, but even Californian Buffy wanted to treat the situation with the gravity it deserved. And it deserved a great deal. He’d just handed himself over to her and agreed to bear her children.
He offered his throat to her. She leaned over him and sank her teeth into the flesh just below his jaw. She was being careful with her strength, he knew, but even so the bite was deep and painful, just short of breaking his skin. He moaned half in pain, half in ecstasy, for now he had secured an alpha for himself. He was, to his utter shock, half hard again.
She released him and sat up. He raised his hand to the sore place on his throat unconsciously.
“I’ll give you a token when we get back to Sunnydale. Probably a bracelet, if you’ll wear one.”
“I’ll wear whatever you give me,” he said. It would have her name on it, and he would take it off only under duress. She would spent the next month courting him, giving him little gifts, taking him out to dinner. And he would spend it waiting until his next heat when they would solemnize the relationship. Some pairs postponed it so they could invite family to a formal dinner on the night of the heat, but he suspected she wouldn’t wait. And he had no family left but the the three of them.
She helped him out of bed and half-carried him into the shower. She’d been rough with him, far rougher than even Ethan had been typically. Slayer strength, wielded by an alpha in the throes. Buffy must have terrified that poor boy she’d bedded back in the fall. Giles smiled wanly to himself. His bruises would fade. The bite marks would fade. In another month she’d renew them all, inadvertently. He’d love every moment of it, beg her for more. And then, if luck were with them, he’d bear her child.
She was gentle with him now that that it was over. She washed his hair for him, used a light touch on the places where she’d bitten him. Still, he was at the end of his endurance. She laid him back down onto the bed and pulled the blankets over him.
“I’ll deal with the mess,” she said. “You sleep.”
Giles obeyed.
Willow let herself sleep in the next morning, with a gently snoring Xander wrapped around her. They’d been up a long time having sex, talking, then having sex again. And now it was the morning, and time to pack up and head back to Sunnydale, where her final exams were starting to loom. She had a paper due that week and would be happy to get back in time to get it started. She kicked Xander out of bed- literally, because he complained but didn’t open his eyes when she took the pillow away- and got everybody wrangled and packed and out to the truck.
Giles seemed shy to see them, but calm and collected again. He was moving slowly and gingerly, and there was a spectacular hickey on his neck. He was making no attempt to hide it, which meant it was deliberate. Buffy was still showing him off, then, still taunting Xander. Xander was in a good mood, though, more or less un-tauntable. He’d gotten himself laid last night after all, more than once. Willow could understand, after that, why Giles was sore. Alphas were unrelenting when the pheromones were in their noses.
Not that she was complaining. It had been good sex. More orgasms in one night than she’d thought possible.
They packed the truck with their stuff and piled in. Xander drove this time and headed straight for Denny’s. They got a booth, because Buffy wanted Giles right up next to her. He was quiet, a trifle withdrawn and thoughtful, but he seemed content enough to do exactly as she asked. She even ordered his breakfast for him, which he let pass with only a raised eyebrow. It was the same one he ordered normally anyway, as Willow remembered it, so this was just Buffy in hyper-protective mode. Maybe making up for leaving that hickey on him.
The waitress swung by and topped off their coffee cups. Caffeinated, because Willow had forgot to say anything.
“So,” Willow said. “Everything good?” She was looking at Giles, who didn’t answer. Instead he looked at Buffy. The two of them stared at each other for a bit, until Giles finally nodded to Buffy.
She said, “We have some news. We’re- I’m claiming Giles. He’s mine.”
“Congratulations,” Xander said to Buffy, with a surprising amount of grace.
But it was Giles Willow looked at. He’d flushed and hung his head when Buffy had made her announcement, but he looked happy. That was what mattered to her. She nudged his shin with her toe under the table.
“Congratulations, Giles,” she said. He met her gaze and nodded to her.
“I’m claiming you guys as well,” Buffy said, magnificently indifferent to whether they wanted to be claimed or not. But Xander had been right. They were in Buffy’s troop already, Xander because of that incident that still shocked Willow a little bit, and Willow because of, well, close connections. And because she wanted to be there.
“Okay,” she said.
Buffy pulled a serious business face. “Been thinking it was time to set up a household. I know I’m supposed to wait until I’m out of college, blah blah, but whatever. I might not last that long.”
Giles made a harrumphing sound that Willow echoed, because it was good form to object. As alphas went, Buffy would be a very strong leader as long as she lived. That was the painful part. Giles would plan things for them all, including what would happen if Buffy died again. In a couple of days, that was. Once he was fully calm again. Then he’d be giving Xander orders and Xander would be obeying, with even more snap than he’d had before because now they were officially together.
“I guess we’ll have to find a place for us all,” Willow said, to change the topic.
Giles cleared his throat. “I’ll cope with that. Shouldn’t be difficult. Sunnydale’s real estate market is a bit, er, depressed. Just the four of us, or, um, the traditional household?”
“I’m gonna ask Tara,” Xander said.
Buffy looked at Willow for approval, to her surprise. Willow said, “That would make me happy.” Happy and a little wriggly with nerves, because she and Tara had kissed maybe a couple times, but not much more. But now they would be closer for sure.
“Okay then. Need one more. Somebody for Willow.”
“No rush,” Willow said. “We’ll meet somebody.” The implication was, Oz wasn’t coming back any time soon. Giles would hear that message for sure.
Xander said, “We’re overlooking something vitally important here.”
Buffy tilted her head at him. “What are we overlooking, Xander?”
“I get to kiss Giles now.”
Xander wriggled out of the booth and went around to Giles. He looked at Buffy for permission, then when he got it, he half-dragged Giles out onto his feet. When he kissed Giles, he did it alpha-style, with a hand curled around the back of Giles’s neck and another gripping his belt. Giles yielded with good grace, perhaps even with pleasure. The kiss went on open-mouthed for some time, until Buffy announced that that was enough. Giles was hers for the next several months, and so was Xander for that matter. Giles went back to her side immediately, flushing bright red.
He liked being fought over, secretly. Willow could tell. She winked at him and he made a face at her. Buffy stretched out a hand across the table. Willow took it and squeezed. That was Buffy’s way of saying they’d talk soon. And probably do more than talk, which made Willow feel all goopy and strange inside. In a good way.
The waitress showed up then, with a tray full of plates. “Who gets what now, hon?” she said, addressing no one in particular.
“Grand slam’s mine,” said Xander. “You know it.”
“No, it’s mine.” Buffy reached for his plate.
Giles said, “You both ordered them. Stop bickering.”
And wonder of wonders, they shut up. Willow grinned at Giles and he grinned back.
Rating: adult
Pairings: Giles/Buffy, Willow/Xander
Continued from part 1.
Giles woke some time later, clear-headed and miserable. The plug was still in his backside, his neck was sore, and he was thirsty. Buffy was still asleep beside him. Dead to the world. He extricated himself from her and slid out from under the blankets. Where had his glasses got to? He found them on the table between the beds. He tiptoed out to the little bathroom. There he washed up, removed the plug, then washed up again. She would want to take him with it again when the urge rose in him in the next hours, but for now he would give his body some relief. He studied himself in the mirror. She’d bitten him on the throat and shoulders, and once on his left buttock. It was deeply satisfying to see the marks, to know she’d give him deeper ones if he begged. And he would be begging before it was over.
He sighed. At least the sex had been good. She had thrown herself into it completely and it had been wonderful.
He ran a cool shower and stepped into it. He hissed when the water hit bruised and scratched skin. She’d been rougher with him than he’d realized. Slayer strength.
Buffy was working out to be the most intense alpha he’d ever been bedded by, and he’d been bedded by Rayne when they were both young and stupid and in love. There was something about her that made this encounter something different even from that. That she was his Slayer? Now that he thought about it, it made some sense that they were alphas. The destiny ensured they could sire children if they wished, but would never be dangerously vulnerable from bearing them. And Watchers- Giles had always assumed they were betas, and that his condition had been an aberration. But then Pryce had turned out to be an omega like him. He’d seen the suppression drugs in the man’s attache. And Giles’s father had never mentioned it, but he was fairly certain that he’d been the one to bear Giles, not his mother. He’d only worked out years later that the woman who’d raised him as his mother had been beta anyway.
Family relationships were tangled and not worth untangling. That was proverbial in most cultures. But he did wonder. Had his father been taken by his own Slayer, back in the day? Had his father’s Slayer been Giles’s own sire?
Unknowable now.
What would happen in the morning? Was this a union of convenience for her? Would it shatter the partnership they’d only just begun to repair? Or would it bind them closer than ever before? More unknowables, at least in the moment.
Giles turned off the taps and rubbed his face into a rough motel towel. It all depended on Buffy. If she considered this a one-time coupling, something done to sate the urge with no deeper mating intended, there might be no change at all. He had no idea what she felt about this. He barely understood what he felt. Did he want Buffy to take him again?
God, yes. Again and again.
“The heat speaking there, Rupert,” he said to his foggy reflection in the mirror.
Giles slipped out of the bathroom quietly. Where were Willow and Xander? They might have returned to the room any time in the last few hours and he wouldn’t have noticed.
On the floor by the door was a piece of paper with his name written on it. Willow’s handwriting. She and Xander had rented a second room. She hoped all was well and reminded him to call them if they needed anything, such as perhaps dinner. So polite and circumspect, Willow was. A sweet girl. Giles sat and thought for a moment, calculating how much time he had before it rose in him again, how hungry he was. He could feel it in the distance, like rain clouds on the horizon on a summer day. Best to plan now to ensure they would all be fed later. None of them were in any fit state to head out to a restaurant. Giles yielded to expedience and dialed for a pizza delivery from the local restaurant that had left flyers in the room.
He picked up the phone a second time to dial the room number she’d left in the note. She was awake and able to take the call, and happy to hear he was okay. She’d wake Xander and bring him by in a few minutes. He hoped the next wave of heat would hold off until after the pizza had arrived, because he would be into pizza for sure.
Time to wake Buffy. He went to the bed and laid a hand on her shoulder. She stirred. “You were on the phone?”
“Ordering pizza.”
“Good. I’m starving.”
She sat up and tugged him down onto the bed next to her. One hand moved up to grip him by the throat, the other down to cup his balls. He wasn’t hard, but she wouldn’t expect him to be. He spread his legs to give his alpha better access to whatever she might desire of him, even in this between-waves state. He wanted her to know his body was hers.
Buffy let go of him. She fiddled with her hair, which was a mess. She seemed to realize this and give up. “Where are they?” she asked him.
“They took a second room for the night.”
“Xander couldn’t hold out, huh?”
Giles frowned. It wasn’t done to refer to rejected alphas that way, at least not in his circle. Buffy didn’t seem to be malicious, but even if was kindly meant, she was still celebrating her conquest at Xander’s expense. Her conquest of Giles’s body.
All he said was, “They’ll join us for pizza.”
“Think you’ll last that long?”
“Should do.”
She smiled at him with an innocent cheerful Buffy smile he’d seen a hundred times before, but now it made him shudder. “If I ordered you to stay naked when they come over, would you?”
Giles hung his head. Yes, he would. The urge in his blood was to be naked for her, and the urge to obey her was nearly as deep. Ethan had often liked to keep him naked. Back then Giles hadn’t minded being shown off to their friends. It had all been a great game, flaunting it to everyone around them. Now it was more than he could take. “Please don’t,” he said, to her bare feet on the floor. “I beg of you.”
“They wouldn’t mind. You’re one of us.”
“Xander would mind.”
“Xander will do what I tell him to do.”
Giles looked up at her sharply. Was it that way with them? An understanding between them? If so, this encounter would change more than he’d thought.
“Yeah,” she said, to his unspoken question. “Xander and me, we have an alliance. After that spell thingie it just made sense.”
“Oh,” he said. She stroked his face. Giles closed his eyes.
“I’ve been wondering what to do about you. Whether I should just take you or what. I was getting sick of pretending not to notice.”
Giles opened his eyes in shock. “You knew?”
She snorted. “I’ve known since I matured. Came in one day and smelled it on you and I knew. But you obviously wanted to avoid me. So I played along. Was conveniently slacking off on your heat days.”
“I- oh God.”
“I thought it was because you weren’t attracted to me, you know? Because I know how protective you feel about me in general.”
“Far more complicated,” he said. His voice was all strange and hoarse.
“Complicated is a good word. Anyway, cat’s out of the bag. Even Xander knows now. He’ll want to take you next month. If I let him.”
He pulled away from her. “If you let- I get to choose.”
“Poor Giles,” she said, but her voice wasn’t sympathetic. “Not tonight you don’t. Put on your jeans and nothing else. I’m going to take a quick shower.”
And with that Buffy vanished into the bathroom. Giles pulled his jeans on over bare skin. A compromise, granting him his modesty but only just. She wanted to flaunt him to Xander. Wanted to make the point to him. Slayer and Watcher, such a sodding farce. He’d never had any authority over her, not even before she’d matured, certainly not after she’d passed Cruciamentum. He hadn’t wanted it. She’d never tolerated it. Society and his body agreed on that point; he would do as she commanded. His head might be clear but he was her omega until the heat was over.
He occupied his hands with cleaning up the shambles she’d made of his bag and her own. Found the rest of his clothes where she’d thrown them, folded them, tucked them into his bag. He wasn’t likely to be allowed to wear anything more than these jeans until it was over. He’d just finished remaking the bed when there was a knock at the door. He flipped on the light by the door and opened it onto the night. Moths flitting about the light, Willow standing there smiling uncertainly at him, Xander hovering behind.
Giles stepped back, polite but cautious as ever. Willow hesitated on the threshold. Xander collided with her.
“Is it okay?”
Giles smiled at her. “Should be.”
She hugged him on her way in. Xander gave him a wide berth, out of respect for Buffy’s superior claim on him. And her position over Xander, he suspected. An arrangement, she’d said. An arrangement Xander had challenged when making a play for Giles earlier, though who knew if Buffy would be upset about that. Alphas had their own rules.
“Yo, Giles. Where’s the pizza?” Xander said.
“Here soon.” Giles felt something inside him relax. He could cope with a food-obsessed with Xander. He could not cope with being pursued by two alphas again.
“Hey, guys.”
Buffy had emerged from her shower. She marched into the room wearing nothing but a towel, which she casually undid to rub at her hair. Arrogant alpha. Xander stared at the floor. Willow looked at Buffy then blushed. Giles let himself openly admire her, which was only right and proper since she was his alpha. She was thin, some might say too thin, but she was all lean muscle. Slayer muscle, which was the sort he liked best. Small breasts, not as much as a handful each, but he liked them. Perhaps she would let him bite her nipples in the next round, if she wasn’t too busy biting his. His cock reacted to this idea. Not fully, not yet, but it was awakening.
Damn, she was putting proper clothes on and hiding that body away. He knew he ought to approve of her discretion in front of Xander and Willow, but a corner of him didn’t want it. A corner of him wanted his jeans off, so he could show her his re-awakening body.
The pizza had best arrive soon.
Xander relaxed a little now that Buffy was dressed again. He flung himself onto the bed across from Giles and made it bounce. “So, hey, Giles. You’re omega. You never said.”
“No,” Giles said. He looked away. No, he hadn’t told Xander, because then he’d have been rolled onto his face and buggered into oblivion on his very next cycle by a man more than twenty years his junior who’d never read a book willingly in his life. The hormones didn’t care about Xander’s age or his literacy level or his sweet nature. They cared about Xander’s muscles and his shaggy dark hair, though. And his prick. Everything about those was quite pleasing. If he had first encountered Xander as a stranger, he could have submitted willingly. But he hadn’t, so he fretted. And there had always been Buffy, looming between them with her claim on his attentions.
“Somehow I thought Watchers were betas. You know, power behind the throne types. Never thought you were hiding this from us.”
Giles shrugged. He’d be hiding it still if he could. Though if what Buffy said was true, that she’d known all along, Xander had been unusually unobservant.
“Are Watchers ever betas?” Willow said. Then she made an apologetic gesture at him. He understood her curiosity, however.
“Travers was,” Buffy said. “No smell at all.”
“I have a theory,” Giles said. “That the ones who end up with Slayers are not. We’re omegas. I’ve known three for sure and I have my suspicions about another woman I knew.”
“You, Wesley, who else?”
“A man who died years ago.”
“Oh jeez, Wesley,” said Xander. “It was so hard not to just take that guy.”
“He would quiver when I stared at him.” Buffy flopped down next to Xander, who shifted aside to give her room. She was still pushing on him, apparently. Giles watched this with curiosity. Would Xander fight back at any point?
Xander said, “He would flinch when I came near him, like he was gonna go down on his knees any second and start begging me.”
Giles frowned. “He was on the drug.”
Buffy and Xander both shrugged. “You covered a lot better.”
“Out of necessity. They read me the riot act. I was not to reveal it to you until you were of age. I was to maintain control as often as possible. He was probably under the same orders.”
“So that was why,” Buffy said, quietly. She was staring at him. Giles took off his glasses and made a show of polishing them. It was why, yes, but it was only part of the reason. When she’d come of age it had been such a mess between them. Angel, dark brooding Angel, back from hell. It had taken Giles some time to forgive her that. And by that time she’d been busy with college and ignoring him and things had begun to fragment. “The other guy who was omega- who was that?”
“My father,” Giles said. He saw Buffy register that and think it through.
Someone knocked at the door. The pizza had arrived. Xander popped up and snagged the cash from the table to pay. He seemed quite himself again, relaxed and cheerful. Attractive. Giles wouldn’t mind being taken by him, not really. He objected on principle, but his body knew better. He’d enjoy it. If Buffy weren’t there. He’d thought about it before. Then he felt a wave of guilt. He paced across the room, away from Buffy, where she was putting more than her fair share of pizza onto a paper plate, so she couldn’t detect that he’d thought about another alpha even for an instant. Then another wave of emotion came over him. He knelt next to Buffy because the idea of being anywhere else was impossible. He had to be near her, touching her, sheltering against her. And on his knees, because he couldn’t be naked as he ought to be. Buffy petted his hair and fed him pieces ripped off from her slice of pizza. He ate them from her hand. He would possibly be ashamed of the memory in the morning, something told him, but he couldn’t imagine why just then.
Certainly it was making the other alpha, the one he didn’t belong to, glower, and that was lovely to think about. He came fully erect just thinking about that. He squirmed a little where he was kneeling, because his jeans were binding. He reached into them without thinking and adjusted himself so his prick was upright against the fly. Much better.
“Is it starting again?” his alpha said to him.
Giles stroked a hand over the bulge in his jeans, showing himself off a little. “Yes.”
“Sweet,” she said to him. She gave him another piece of pizza crust. He licked her fingers. She tasted good, his alpha did. His Buffy. And it wasn’t just the pizza. She slipped two fingers into his mouth and he sucked on them eagerly. She wasn’t male, so there was no point in showing off his skills, but he wanted her to know he was willing and ready and completely hers.
“What a mouth,” the other alpha said, the one hadn’t won him. Xander. That was his name. Giles flared up in anger.
“Shut up. Show some respect.”
“I respect Giles!”
“He’s mine and you can’t touch him.”
Another wave of need rippled over his skin, prickles of desire. He had no dignity left at all, now, not a scrap of it, because Buffy was stripping him in front of the other two and he could not bring himself to protest. He needed her too much. He was angry anyway, because she ought to have thrown Xander out first. Alphas and their damnable games with each other, with panting omegas as their pawns. Damn him for eating from her hand. He would have his revenge later when he maneuvered them as he wanted them, but for now he was on his knees on the bed, with his hands clasped at the back of his neck, arching his back and spreading his thighs wide, showing himself off to his infuriating Slayer. Damn her.
She kissed him and he almost forgave her. Soft lips, delicate tongue in his mouth, thrusting into him. Her hands were all over him as well, pinching his nipples, tickling his stomach, stroking over the insides of his thighs. She wasn’t touching his cock yet, frustrating woman, but she was touching everywhere else. His balls, the line leading back from them to his arse. God, yes, touch him there, please. The wave was on him fully now and that meant his entire body was sensitive and alive and any touch from his alpha would give him pleasure. But there especially, his arse and his cock. He begged her to touch him there, to give him what he needed.
She knew it. She moved around behind him and spread him wide. Dignity, to perdition with his dignity, he wanted her fingers inside him again. And yes, there it was, the cool slick lube on him, then the pressure of her thumb. He opened for her immediately. If she were male she’d be inside him now, but of course she wasn’t. She was female. He’d be inside her soon.
“Hold onto your hat, cowboy. You’ll be inside me when I say you can be, and not a second earlier.”
“Sorry,” he said. He wasn’t sorry, though. He wanted her. Damn, he’d said that aloud, for she was laughing at him.
“You want me, huh?”
“Course I bloody well want you. You’re my bloody Slayer. My infuriating, difficult- fuck!”
She’d penetrated him, hard and fast, giving him no time to adjust, no time to breathe, even. She pushed him down with a merciless hand on the back of his neck, so he was face down on the bed with his plugged backside in the air. And now she was fucking him with the plug, just as roughly. He braced himself as best he could, fingers dug into the sheets.
“Difficult? I’m difficult?” she said.
“Yes, dammit! Oh fuck, please-”
“Please what?”
“Please let me inside you. If I’m gonna come, I want it to be inside you.”
“Take it back. Tell me I’m not difficult.”
“Can’t. Won’t lie to you. You’re bloody difficult. Infuriating, contrary, disobedient, frustrating, lovely, desirable, brave, strong, sexy-”
She slammed into him on every word out of his mouth, but he wouldn’t stop. His body was hers but damned if his mind was. She was his Slayer. “My property,” he said. “Mine.”
“Yours? Haven’t you got that backwards?”
“My Slayer,” he said. “My alpha.”
She’d stopped fucking him. He let his head drop down to rest on the bed. He was covered with sweat and breathing hard. He’d almost come, had no idea how he’d managed not to. Desperation.
She stroked his head. He let out a long breath. The wave of impending orgasm had receded.
“Yours, huh? I always thought you were mine.”
“Mutual. All tangled up with each other. Been that way since I met you.”
“All tangled up,” she said, softly, echoing him.
She nudged him over onto his back. Her eyes were on his cock, curving up over his belly, as hard as it ever got. She stroked it almost idly. Giles breathed in and out, slowly. His control over himself was even more ragged than it had been through the first wave. He could remember her name and his own name when he concentrated. Count from one to ten in English, in Latin, in Greek, in Japanese. He couldn’t do it. Why was he trying?
She had put a condom on him, and that meant he was about to get what he needed. He lay back and waited. But she was lying down beside him and tugging him onto his side.
“Come here. I want you on top this time. You can do all the work. Since I’m yours.”
Giles knelt up again between her thighs and looked down at her body. Lovely. Ready for him, wet and open. He took his cock in hand and leaned over her. “As hard as you were fucking me just now?”
“As hard and fast as you want.”
“As slow as I want?”
She smiled up at him. “As slow as you want. You don’t want slow, though.”
Giles snarled. “You have no idea what I want.”
The surge of defiance rose in him. He was going to make her wait for it. To take her slowly, deliberately, giving himself time to enjoy each push into her, to squeeze down on the plug inside him as he moved and let that pleasure spark through him. To at last bend his head to her breasts and bite at her nipples and make her gasp. It took almost more self-control than he had to do it slowly, to make her whimper and complain and plead with him to go faster, to bring them both off already. Orders from his alpha, so tempting, so important, less important than her first order to go as fast or as slow as he wanted. And he liked hearing her moan under him. A little added spice, a little naughty transgression, this business of doing all the work while his alpha lay passive under him panting.
It was no surprise to him when she eventually lost patience and rolled him onto his back unceremoniously. It was going to end as it began, hard and fast and brutal. He rose to meet her as she slammed down on him, giving her what she wanted as she gave it to him. There was no stopping it in him now, no more delays possible. The orgasm exploded through him, from his balls to the tip of his cock, running up and down his body, long moments of shuddering as he emptied himself into her.
Then the slow come-down, while she remained astride him and the aftershocks finished. His breathing returned to normal, slowly. Second orgasm, more shattering than the first. This one had been- God, it had been soul-destroying.
“Bloody hell,” Giles said. He let himself fall back onto the bed. What was the next one going to feel like if the second was like that? “That was-”
“Yeah. It was. Next time I know exactly what I’m going to do with you.”
Giles pushed himself up onto an elbow to ask what she meant by that, but Buffy was already asleep.
Xander was watching Buffy and Giles have sex without seeming in the least embarrassed about it. Willow couldn’t say the same about herself. She looked away, if only because Giles deserved some respect and would probably appreciate it once his heat was over. Once he’d regained that control he so prized. She couldn’t stop up her ears, though. She’d never heard Giles moan before and now she was never going to be able to unhear it and it was sexy but embarrassing. She would never ever mention it to him, not even in the face of certain doom.
She tugged at Xander’s elbow. “We need to go back to our room.”
“What?”
He was hard again and his hands were shaking. His temples were wet with sweat. Pupils wide, face flushed. Oh, damn, that was a bad sign. The pheromones had done it to him again. She should never have let him go back into the room with those two, no matter what he said about it being okay. It wasn’t okay.
“Come on, Xander. You can have sex when we get back to our own room.”
“Yeah? With you? Really?”
“With me. Come on.”
She took him by the sleeve and led him out. He followed eagerly, his hands wandering. She fended him off just long enough to walk along the length of the motel block to their room.
Xander was grabbing her the moment the door closed behind them. She distracted him for a minute by telling him she needed to use the bathroom first. She locked herself in and washed herself and drank some water and listened to him pacing. She loved Xander. Always had, as long as she could remember, and always would. She could do this and it would be okay. She opened the door. He leapt on her, picked her up, and carried her to the bed.
It wasn’t the first time this had happened with her and Xander, but it had been a long time since that once. Oz had been too hurt by it. He’d understood, because every beta knew it was something you did for your friends sometimes, but he’d hated it. Xander and Willow had both quietly made sure it hadn’t happened again and they’d been successful until now. Today had been too much, Willow could tell. Exposure to Giles had been too much. Too long in one car together, too long in one motel room together, too long fighting with Buffy over him. Damn Giles for letting this happen. Then Willow felt guilty, because Giles hadn’t wanted it either and he’d gone a long long time without any slip-ups. Her college friends were always messing their cycles up. And high school had been chaos.
But here she was, being stripped naked by a hyper-attentive and scarily focused Xander, who seemed incapable of even imagining that she might not follow his orders. Or be sent into a haze of desire by what he was telling her they’d do next. He was puzzled by her slow responses, in fact. Too decent a human being not to notice them, too much an alpha not to take them as a challenge to his technique.
Finally she tipped over the edge from wary obligation mode to turned on in the moment mode. Xander noticed instantly and smiled, showing all his teeth, and then he nipped at her throat. Bitey, he had been bitey last time too. Was that a thing? He was nipping his way down her throat, bite and lick, bite and lick, until he found his way to her breasts.
“Nice breasts,” he said. He bent his head to them and kissed each nipple. A little teeth, a little tongue. Willow liked the tongue and he did more of that. He rolled himself all the way onto her and got himself ready to penetrate her. Willow squeaked at the first touch of his penis on her body.
He pulled back immediately. “Condom. Do I need a condom? Dammit, am I screwing up?”
“It’s okay, Xander. No condom.” He’d forgotten she was a beta, which was nice.
“Fuck yeah. Gonna come inside you.”
The idea obviously made him almost wild with excitement, which was a turn-on for her though it wasn’t her paradigm, as Oz might have said. A little twinge of guilt for thinking about him right now, over in another moment because Xander was urging her to come so he could too, he was right on the edge, ready to pop. Willow needed a little more before she could get there, though, a little eyes-closed concentration, a little bit of fantasizing, and then she was coming. Xander followed immediately, triggered by her. And of course he wanted to lie on top of her, still inside her, for a while afterward, all heavy and hot and itchy, but it would be impolite to object. After a while, though, she nudged him off. He didn’t object. He fell asleep right away, though, half on top of her with his hand on her throat. She nudged him away. He grumbled but didn’t wake up.
Willow got out of bed to do all the things she needed to do, like put on pajamas and brush her teeth and comb out her hair and wash off her makeup. This changed- what did it change? If Xander was right, it would change a lot. It was all up to Buffy, though. Xander on his own wasn’t about to found a family. Definitely when he was older. Many people never ended up in troops. Betas paired off, as often with omegas as each other, but alphas floated around. Nobody would judge them for it. There was a lot of romantic movies about alphas settling down with that one true omegas. Everybody liked that idea. In action movies they didn’t, though. They screwed the good-looking willing omegas and then rode out of town afterward with their cowboy hats on. Ronin alphas.
Xander was the settling type, though. Buffy was not. She was ronin cowboy super-spy ride out of town all the way. Except there was Giles and that was an emotional entanglement Buffy would never escape. Or want to. Giles protected her in ways that omegas never protected alphas. Buffy ought to protect him that way in return. Troop? Only if Buffy wanted it. She might want to pair off.
So. It all depended on what was going on in the other room. They had seemed sort of angry with each other when she’d dragged Xander away. She hoped they’d gotten over that.
Xander was awake when she came back into the main room. He was sitting up in bed with the blankets over his lap. He’d grown more hair on his chest than the last time Willow had seen him naked. How had she not noticed that earlier?
“You good?” he said. He sounded anxious. Willow did her best to reassure him: she was okay, he hadn’t pushed her into anything she hadn’t wanted or enjoyed, he’d been great, he should just chill out and feel okay. Finally he agreed that yes, Willow was okay.
He rumpled up his hair and sat forward in the bed, elbows on knees. "Think there’s any pizza left?
Willow smiled at him. “You ate the last slice just before we took off. Besides, you’re not going back in that room until it’s all over.”
“Damn. I’m hungry.” He flopped back on the pillows. “C’mere. Cuddle with me.”
Willow was okay with that. She’d been cuddling with Xander for a long time. Cuddling was good. She got settled comfortably with her head his shoulder and his arm wrapped around her. She was a little sleepy now but apparently he wasn’t.
“If I asked you if you wanted to make love again, what would you say?”
Willow shrugged. “I would say maybe. I would need to be persuaded.”
“Huh.” Silence for a while. Then, “You wanna know what’s weird?”
“What?”
“You can have sex any time.”
“Well, yeah. So can you.”
“Technically. But I don’t. No sweet pheromones, no sex. Doesn’t even cross my mind. There’s usually somebody around going into heat often enough that I can fake it. But you, you can be persuaded. You get into the mood without somebody being around smelling good.”
“So that question was just theoretical.” Willow felt a surprising pang of sadness at that. She’d felt wanted for a little while, and now she knew better.
Xander looked uncertain. “Um. Maybe not?”
“No pheromones, no sex.”
He disentangled himself from her and leaned over her. Nose to her neck, a long sniff and a lick. He sat up again and he looked even more puzzled than before.
“You smell good to me. Mostly betas smell, I don’t know, meh, like nothing? I mean, I can smell that it’s you and we had sex recently but it’s not the same as, you know, usually, except you smell good right now. I want you. Yeah?”
Which jumble Willow eventually untangled into a repetition of his earlier question, only not theoretical this time. Even as she said yes to him, Willow’s mind was filing away a resolution to go back and read that paper on troop formation dynamics her replacement psych prof had mentioned a couple of classes ago. It was relevant. Probably. Later. Right now, she had a happy aroused alpha on top of her.
Xander was in his right mind this time and it was a lot better. Tons better. Some of the best sex she’d ever had, though she felt a little like she was betraying Oz’s memory by thinking that. She was slower coming this time because it was soon after the first time, but Xander didn’t seem to mind. He seemed to consider it a challenge to his skills. He was really good at observing what she reacted to then doing more of that, bringing her right up to the edge and holding here there, then backing off and doing something else entirely. He was still bossy in ways that Oz had never been, but that was something she could ride along with.
Giles surfaced to wakefulness. Buffy was on top of him, most uncomfortably, and most deeply asleep. He needed to use the loo. He extricated himself from her and was happy that she did not wake, for it gave him time to regroup. He was sore all over, sore where she’d bitten him, sore where she’d taken him so roughly with the plug. He would feel worse in the morning, for it wasn’t over yet. One more wave, if he held true to his usual pattern, and this one would be the most intense. He could feel prickles washing over the skin of his arms and his stomach, which meant it was not far off. What little remained of his control over his emotions and his actions would soon be stripped. He would be groveling and begging his Slayer to take him, to sire children upon him, to do whatever she wished with him. His entire body would be an erogenous zone and he would then experience, according to Willow’s textbooks, the most intense orgasm human beings normally experienced. The blessing given to omegas, that orgasm. Consolation enough? For many, yes.
For him? This time… perhaps. It was Buffy this time. That changed everything. She’d said she wanted to do it again. Did she mean to claim him? She hadn’t used the word. If she asked would he agree? He shuddered. He would agree to anything. It was so fraught, this business of mating with the people one loved. It was so much easier with strangers. One thrashed around, had sex, said things that no one took seriously, and walked away in the morning.
If she walked away it would break him. God, he needed her.
It had already started. Giles swore and washed his hands hastily. He almost ran back to the bed. She was awake and waiting for him. He climbed up and knelt beside her the way she liked. He saw her nose wrinkle, then she breathed in deeply. She smiled: alpha scenting her mate. He spread his thighs wider to better show off his body, heavy balls, thick cock rising before her gaze, assets any alpha could appreciate in an omega. His backside was also something she would like, and it was there her hands went first, fondling, squeezing.
Every touch was erotic now. It wouldn’t take much. But he had to be inside her. Now. He begged her for it, pleaded with her.
“Take me, take me please. Sire your children on me. I’m ready now. See me? Ready for you. All yours.”
“I thought I was yours.”
“Both ways. My Slayer.”
“My Watcher.”
“You know it. Take me, please. I can’t bear waiting any longer.”
Then she thrust her tongue in his mouth and silenced his begging if not his whimpers. He clung to her and kissed her desperately. She kissed him back, just as desperate, hold him tight against herself. Soothing kisses, as always. She was here, she had him, it was going to happen. He would not go unfulfilled and desperate. No lonely masturbation this time. Buffy was going to take him.
“It’s time,” she said. She shoved him down onto the bed. No submission games now, no time for that. She was in charge and she would do whatever it took to make it clear. He was hers and he would do whatever it took to prove it.
There was something they were forgetting. What? It came to him.
“Condom,” he said. His voice was hoarse. Buffy snarled at him but got one from the bedside table. He lay on his back, palms up, and struggled not to thrust up into her hand while she rolled it onto him. Even that felt wonderful to him.
And then she was astride him and he was inside her and in heaven. No mercy, no slow gentle union, this. She rode him hard and fast, driving them both to the brink and beyond, until he couldn’t bear it, he was going to burst out of his own skin, he was going to catch fire, he was surely going to die. Die the little death, which he did, losing himself in her, giving his essence to her so that she might give it back and change him.
He lay under her and breathed. His mind was slowly returning to him. Aftershocks of orgasm ran through him, little shivers as she moved slowly on top of him. He wouldn’t dream of asking her to separate from him. Not now, not ever.
Fading, fading now. He felt himself begin to soften. Buffy rose away from him and collapsed onto her back. Giles sat up and dealt with the condom. Blessed invention of blessed civilization, for indeed he had begged her to sire children on him. Love-talk from omegas to their alphas, best not treated seriously because they rarely meant it once the hormones had faded. Giles would not have wanted anyone to ask him now if he’d meant it. The answer might disturb him. She was his Slayer, after all, and his suspicions about Watchers and Slayers were very likely correct. He couldn’t even make resolutions this time. He might swear to himself that he’d have the drug at hand next month, that he’d bar his doors against her, but he wouldn’t.
Resolutions were pointless anyway. She might not even come to him.
He lay back on the bed and swore very quietly to himself. He needed a shower but he was too sore and stiff already to want to walk across the motel room. That enviable orgasm had its downsides; he would be even more sore tomorrow. Drained. Nothing left in him. Now was when the alpha was supposed to be wakeful and protective. As often as not they fled as soon as they’d recovered from their own post-orgasmic haze.
Buffy was stirring now, and sitting up. He kept his face as blank as he could. Whatever it was he felt about her, it would have to be bottled up again. There was no telling how she would react now that the pheromones were gone. There was no obligation for her to stay with him. They’d used a condom. He had no hold on her. She would likely not mock him, but she might return to her prior attitude of indifference and distance. It would break his heart if she did, but he was determined to give no sign.
Buffy pulled her tank top over her head and got out of bed. She paced the length of the motel room, door to bathroom, and back again. Giles watched her pace, bare legs and slim backside. Why had she put on the shirt but not covered her sex? He remembered how she’d felt when he’d been buried all the way inside her, so hot and wet. What would it have felt like to be bare inside her, flesh to flesh? Exchanging seed with her as they lay joined together afterwards? He bit his lip. He wanted it, though he suspected it would never happen, even now as the heat faded away he wanted it. What was she working up to tell him? That this ended his relationship with her as her Watcher? Please, not that. He’d give up everything else to keep that.
Damn his rationalizations to himself, to risk coming on this trip, to have let this happen to them. He’d never forgive himself if she disengaged now.
Then she climbed back onto the bed and straddled his hips. Giles lay still below her, waiting for her to speak.
“I’m claiming you,” she said at last. “Slayer claims her Watcher as a mate. Do you submit?”
Giles was grateful to be on his back, because he’d begun trembling when she’d said the word. He was silent, trying to think despite the emotion that made his chest hurt. She’d said claim. Formal language, the stylized language of the proposal of alpha to omega. And she’d said Slayer and Watcher. She meant more than just the monthly night of lust. Her face was still, her brows furrow, and she was focused on him. Poor Buffy. So little luck with her partners. He’d sworn to be faithful to her even when the rest of the world was not. He’d sworn to be her Watcher until death parted him from her, and that oath was binding on him. There was, he realized, no way he could ever have refused this once she asked it. He must have known that all along. The Council must have known it. Bastards.
Only one thing frightened him. He swallowed.
“Are you going to sire children on me?”
Her face changed. Giles knew Buffy well enough to read what he saw there, or at least to guess at it. She was as taciturn as he was about the emotions that mattered, but they leaked through sometimes. Then her chin set. “Yes.”
He shivered underneath her. Very well. He would take his place in the long line. He would bear the next generation of Giles Watchers.
“I submit to your claim.”
She smiled at him, very briefly, then went solemn again.
There was a ritual for this in every culture Giles had ever studied in his long career as an historian. The modern world was more casual than most of what had gone before it, but even Californian Buffy wanted to treat the situation with the gravity it deserved. And it deserved a great deal. He’d just handed himself over to her and agreed to bear her children.
He offered his throat to her. She leaned over him and sank her teeth into the flesh just below his jaw. She was being careful with her strength, he knew, but even so the bite was deep and painful, just short of breaking his skin. He moaned half in pain, half in ecstasy, for now he had secured an alpha for himself. He was, to his utter shock, half hard again.
She released him and sat up. He raised his hand to the sore place on his throat unconsciously.
“I’ll give you a token when we get back to Sunnydale. Probably a bracelet, if you’ll wear one.”
“I’ll wear whatever you give me,” he said. It would have her name on it, and he would take it off only under duress. She would spent the next month courting him, giving him little gifts, taking him out to dinner. And he would spend it waiting until his next heat when they would solemnize the relationship. Some pairs postponed it so they could invite family to a formal dinner on the night of the heat, but he suspected she wouldn’t wait. And he had no family left but the the three of them.
She helped him out of bed and half-carried him into the shower. She’d been rough with him, far rougher than even Ethan had been typically. Slayer strength, wielded by an alpha in the throes. Buffy must have terrified that poor boy she’d bedded back in the fall. Giles smiled wanly to himself. His bruises would fade. The bite marks would fade. In another month she’d renew them all, inadvertently. He’d love every moment of it, beg her for more. And then, if luck were with them, he’d bear her child.
She was gentle with him now that that it was over. She washed his hair for him, used a light touch on the places where she’d bitten him. Still, he was at the end of his endurance. She laid him back down onto the bed and pulled the blankets over him.
“I’ll deal with the mess,” she said. “You sleep.”
Giles obeyed.
Willow let herself sleep in the next morning, with a gently snoring Xander wrapped around her. They’d been up a long time having sex, talking, then having sex again. And now it was the morning, and time to pack up and head back to Sunnydale, where her final exams were starting to loom. She had a paper due that week and would be happy to get back in time to get it started. She kicked Xander out of bed- literally, because he complained but didn’t open his eyes when she took the pillow away- and got everybody wrangled and packed and out to the truck.
Giles seemed shy to see them, but calm and collected again. He was moving slowly and gingerly, and there was a spectacular hickey on his neck. He was making no attempt to hide it, which meant it was deliberate. Buffy was still showing him off, then, still taunting Xander. Xander was in a good mood, though, more or less un-tauntable. He’d gotten himself laid last night after all, more than once. Willow could understand, after that, why Giles was sore. Alphas were unrelenting when the pheromones were in their noses.
Not that she was complaining. It had been good sex. More orgasms in one night than she’d thought possible.
They packed the truck with their stuff and piled in. Xander drove this time and headed straight for Denny’s. They got a booth, because Buffy wanted Giles right up next to her. He was quiet, a trifle withdrawn and thoughtful, but he seemed content enough to do exactly as she asked. She even ordered his breakfast for him, which he let pass with only a raised eyebrow. It was the same one he ordered normally anyway, as Willow remembered it, so this was just Buffy in hyper-protective mode. Maybe making up for leaving that hickey on him.
The waitress swung by and topped off their coffee cups. Caffeinated, because Willow had forgot to say anything.
“So,” Willow said. “Everything good?” She was looking at Giles, who didn’t answer. Instead he looked at Buffy. The two of them stared at each other for a bit, until Giles finally nodded to Buffy.
She said, “We have some news. We’re- I’m claiming Giles. He’s mine.”
“Congratulations,” Xander said to Buffy, with a surprising amount of grace.
But it was Giles Willow looked at. He’d flushed and hung his head when Buffy had made her announcement, but he looked happy. That was what mattered to her. She nudged his shin with her toe under the table.
“Congratulations, Giles,” she said. He met her gaze and nodded to her.
“I’m claiming you guys as well,” Buffy said, magnificently indifferent to whether they wanted to be claimed or not. But Xander had been right. They were in Buffy’s troop already, Xander because of that incident that still shocked Willow a little bit, and Willow because of, well, close connections. And because she wanted to be there.
“Okay,” she said.
Buffy pulled a serious business face. “Been thinking it was time to set up a household. I know I’m supposed to wait until I’m out of college, blah blah, but whatever. I might not last that long.”
Giles made a harrumphing sound that Willow echoed, because it was good form to object. As alphas went, Buffy would be a very strong leader as long as she lived. That was the painful part. Giles would plan things for them all, including what would happen if Buffy died again. In a couple of days, that was. Once he was fully calm again. Then he’d be giving Xander orders and Xander would be obeying, with even more snap than he’d had before because now they were officially together.
“I guess we’ll have to find a place for us all,” Willow said, to change the topic.
Giles cleared his throat. “I’ll cope with that. Shouldn’t be difficult. Sunnydale’s real estate market is a bit, er, depressed. Just the four of us, or, um, the traditional household?”
“I’m gonna ask Tara,” Xander said.
Buffy looked at Willow for approval, to her surprise. Willow said, “That would make me happy.” Happy and a little wriggly with nerves, because she and Tara had kissed maybe a couple times, but not much more. But now they would be closer for sure.
“Okay then. Need one more. Somebody for Willow.”
“No rush,” Willow said. “We’ll meet somebody.” The implication was, Oz wasn’t coming back any time soon. Giles would hear that message for sure.
Xander said, “We’re overlooking something vitally important here.”
Buffy tilted her head at him. “What are we overlooking, Xander?”
“I get to kiss Giles now.”
Xander wriggled out of the booth and went around to Giles. He looked at Buffy for permission, then when he got it, he half-dragged Giles out onto his feet. When he kissed Giles, he did it alpha-style, with a hand curled around the back of Giles’s neck and another gripping his belt. Giles yielded with good grace, perhaps even with pleasure. The kiss went on open-mouthed for some time, until Buffy announced that that was enough. Giles was hers for the next several months, and so was Xander for that matter. Giles went back to her side immediately, flushing bright red.
He liked being fought over, secretly. Willow could tell. She winked at him and he made a face at her. Buffy stretched out a hand across the table. Willow took it and squeezed. That was Buffy’s way of saying they’d talk soon. And probably do more than talk, which made Willow feel all goopy and strange inside. In a good way.
The waitress showed up then, with a tray full of plates. “Who gets what now, hon?” she said, addressing no one in particular.
“Grand slam’s mine,” said Xander. “You know it.”
“No, it’s mine.” Buffy reached for his plate.
Giles said, “You both ordered them. Stop bickering.”
And wonder of wonders, they shut up. Willow grinned at Giles and he grinned back.