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As soon as the park comes into view, Buffy tucks her arm around Giles’ and walks more closely against his side, briefly leaning her head against his shoulder affectionately. It had been difficult enough keeping her hands off of him the second they’d stepped out the front door. He keeps his hands tucked into his pockets for now, but squeezes his elbow against hers in a returned gesture, and she glances up at him as she straightens her head to spot the contented smile on his face. He’s not much for big public displays of affection, but she’ll sneak in as much as she can - especially since they aren’t so often able to do the private displays of affection, either. At least, not as much as she’d like them to.
The memory of his eager desire burns her skin, and she quickly looks away from him before he can question the blush on her face.
“I get why you complained about California,” She comments on the weather as she gazes across the park, trying to force her mind to focus on something else other than him. “The heat difference is one thing, but your weather here changes all the time.”
“That’s what I said.” He points out somewhat haughtily, a sparkle in his eyes when she glances his way again, and she huffs at him. “The rain makes you appreciate the sunlight so much more, hm?”
“Yeah, variety is the spice of life and all that,” She begrudgingly admits whilst slipping in a bit of snark for the sake of it. She can’t resist admiring the dappled light coming through the trees. “It’s beautiful. This place has really grown on me, you know?” She ponders aloud, wondering if she’d feel so relaxed strolling through nature if things had happened differently.
The Buffy pre-Sunnydale Crater would totally have seen this as a waste of time. She certainly wouldn’t have even envisioned walking arm-in-arm with Giles, of all people. Much less get caught staring at the way the sunlight shines across the line of his profile.
“You’re beautiful.” He murmurs to her, and it turns out he’s been staring for even longer, because he’s smiling softly and then reaching up to tuck a windblown strand of hair behind her ear.
“Careful Mr. Giles,” She quips in a saucy tone, “you’re dangerously close to some PDA right about now,”
“Well good heavens, we can’t have that can we.” He teases right back, and gives her enough of a lingering look that she hesitates. Maybe he is open to the idea of a little PDA right about now… Then he smiles quietly, and returns his focus ahead of them as he leads the way down the path.
She huffs again, under her breath this time, and she can see him smirk for a second before he schools his features.
They’re passing a Louis Vuitton before she realizes where they are.
“Giles,” She gasps lowly, tugging on his arm, and he pointedly tugs right back, his stride unfaltering.
“Absolutely not.” He states firmly. She whines quietly in protest and then turns to spot the other stores nearby.
“Ooo, I could get-!”
“No.”
“But-” She valiantly tries a third option, “Dior.”
“Buffy, it is neither Christmas nor your birthday, and my wallet certainly cannot handle a shopping excursion with you on these streets.”
“I bet if we sold one of your aunts’ vases in the living room we could,” She grumbles non-threateningly, but Giles looks mildly horrified anyway.
“Absolutely not! Those are antiques!”
“So, worth a suit or two, right? A nice bag, shiny necklace?” Teasing again, she stretches up to nuzzle her nose briefly against his ear, “Yummy cologne?”
“Stop trying to give me a heart attack,” Giles giggles, using his shoulder to brush her away from him without actually disentangling their arms.
“C’mon, I’ve seen the Ralph Lauren in your closet.” She raises her eyebrow at him wryly as they pass said store, and he purses his lips.
“Hardly comparable,” He returns, and then adds after a half-second, “Besides, it’s not as if they’re top shelf shirts, anyhow.”
Interestingly, she feels him loosen up more as the expensive name brands fall away and the storefronts become a little more crowded together, a little less familiarly-named to her. She wonders if they’re in another area he used to run around as Ripper, but she tables the question for later, not wanting to put a dampener on the light mood between them.
“These little side streets everywhere,” She shakes her head, “If I was in a car I’d get so lost all the time.”
“I wouldn’t dare have you drive in London.” Giles declares, and at her affronted look, he quickly adds, “I do my best not to drive in London, myself. Absolutely horrid.” He shifts his shoulders and gives her arm a little squeeze against his side again. “Besides, it’s much better to walk, anyway.”
“Sometimes, I guess.” Buffy relents, hemming just to make him fussy, and sure enough he takes the bait.
“Americans.” He rolls his eyes, and she merely grins at him.
“We’re in a different part of London now, aren’t we?” She muses as she pays more attention to their surroundings and the types of people they were passing.
“How could you tell?” Giles returns dryly, and she gives him a look. She keeps her tone softer, though, as she gives in to her curiosity,
“You’re more relaxed. Old stomping grounds?”
“One of them.” He admits. “There were, um, all the trappings a young punk could dream of.” His eyes shift sideways toward the shop they are passing, and Buffy raises her eyebrow at the scantily clad figures adorning the posters on the windows. “Nightclubs, shops, pubs, but more importantly the kind of people I thought I wanted to surround myself with.”
“Riff raff?” Buffy guesses, and he shrugs one shoulder.
“The opposite of my family.”
“Were there this many gay bars back then?” She wonders with surprise, and he shakes his head before tilting it slightly to the side.
“Yes and no. Not so outwardly proud, perhaps, but anyone deemed socially unacceptable was accepted here. For a short while, anyway, before gentrification began to take over as it does.”
“Did your band play around here?” She also notices that music seems just as important to these streets as self expression is, and this time Giles’ expression holds a touch of pride in it.
“As often as we could.” He grins lopsidedly as he gets caught up in memory. “There was one weekend we started playing on a Friday night, carried our gear from pub to pub, slept for a few hours in one of the dance halls when it was early enough in the morning hardly anyone was there, and proceeded to roam from club to pub until the following Monday.” He chuckles to himself as Buffy stares at him. “One of the worst bloody hangovers of my life.”
She’s known for a long time that he’s got a colorful past, and she even knows quite a bit about it already, but trying to connect that sort of young street punk behavior to her Watcher still proves difficult. Especially the man that she knows these days, who prefers to sit at home with a book than any ‘carousing’ of any sort.
They cross another street and suddenly the energetic music wafting from open doorways grows quiet, and the storefronts are starting to look a little more understated again.
“Here we are,” Giles announces soon enough, drawing her toward one of the doorways, and she looks up at the sign to realize they’re at a gelato place. “We don’t have Dairy Queen’s around here,” He teases her lightly as he holds the door open for her, “but there’s plenty of gelato shops to choose from. This one happens to be one of my favourites.”
Immediately entranced by the mouthwatering smells, Buffy drifts toward the glass display that boasts long rows of a variety of flavour choices. He orders the dulce de leche and she goes with the pistachio, and she teases him about his sweet tooth but once they’re done admiring the pretty flower-like scoops of Italian ‘ice cream’, they share a bite of one another’s dessert.
Continuing their walk, he leads the way to the Royal Horse Guards where he proceeds to tease her about “finding her new friends” and in the same breath explain rather solemnly about the rules behaving around the guards at the gate. Buffy needs no excuse to keep her distance from those horses - they’re bigger than any horses she’s seen in her life. Not that she’s seen many, but still. She’s pretty sure the policeman’s horse that she’d met before wasn’t even as large as these.
One of the guards marches out on foot after a little while, presumably to check on the one on horseback but Buffy doesn’t really know why - what she does notice is how his cursory glance over the pedestrians hesitates on Giles. He continues to mutter something to the soldier on horseback, then gives the horse a brief neck rub before suddenly turning sharply on his heel and facing them, posture once more stiff as a board.
Buffy blinks at him, wondering if she’s broken some unknown rule, but then the guard inclines his head ever so slightly in Giles’ direction before turning ninety degrees and marching off back behind the gate.
“What was that about?” Buffy wonders, and Giles’ half-smile looks a little bit strange.
“They know who I am, as well.” He says in a somewhat mysterious tone, and then rests his hand against the small of her back to turn her back toward the park. “Come along, the real reason for our walk today…”
As it turns out, his plan is to find a nice spot in the sun in the park, and people-watch as they sit together with their backs against a tree. Buffy nestles in against his shoulder, and he even lets her tangle her fingers between his and hold his hand atop her thigh. Basking in the sun with her beau is nice, she thinks, and she can’t resist the soothing desire to rub her thumb against his knuckles.
“Buffy,” He murmurs after a few minutes, and she feels him nuzzle her hair briefly. “You are making it quite difficult not to kiss you right now.”
“I’m not doing anything,” She protests with amusement, and easily enough spots one of the numerous couples around them acting a little more flirty than some of the others. “Look,” She nudges her shoulder a little more firmly against his side, “A quick smooch wouldn’t be nearly the most PDA going on out here anyway,”
She tilts her head up to look at him, an innocent expression on her face, and his is knowingly amused. The sparkle in his eyes tells her that she doesn’t have to persuade him of anything, and she slowly smiles at him.
Without hesitation he tightens his arm around her to turn her a little closer, so that she doesn’t have to crane her neck so much, and dips his head to give her a warm, lingering kiss.
He tastes like sweet milky caramel, and when she presses in a little closer and dips her tongue between his lips to enjoy more of that flavour, he doesn’t protest. They kiss slowly and lingeringly, until Buffy starts to feel maybe a little too tingly, and she has to bite her lip when she pulls away and notices how Giles follows her a little before accepting the end of the kiss.
That gives her a little thrill, but then a young toddler darts by enthusiastically babbling about the ducks, closely followed by his amused but harried mother, and Buffy swallows hard as she relents from the temptation to see just how far she can push Giles here.
They relax beneath the tree for longer than Buffy would have had she been alone, but it’s easy to let her mind settle and be quiet when she’s around him. Now that she’s been paying more attention to them, there’s a lot of Watcher/Slayer perks that she wishes she’d taken advantage of a long time ago.
Instead of heading back home once they do decide to move again, they meander around the lake the long way, enjoying the great weather until they reach the palace Buffy needs no introduction to.
“Wow,” She murmurs as they stroll closer, unable to keep from reacting to the sheer size and opulence of the gates and building. “The TV doesn’t really do it justice.” At Giles’ curious glance, she explains, “I didn’t come this close, last time I was here.”
“And here I was worried that you’d somehow stumbled your way inside,” He teases.
“Do you think she’s in, right now?” She wonders. The tourists in this area are much more concentrated, particularly along the gate, but for all the movement going on this side of the fence line, she doesn’t see an inch of movement on the other side.
“See the flag?” Giles gestures with his chin toward the flagpole on the roof. “That is the Royal Standard, and indicates that she’s in residence. Were she out, you would see the Union Jack instead.”
“Do you think she really writes letters about us to other departments? It’s probably somebody on her team,” Buffy muses, imagining there are a lot of other important regular-world problems for her to deal with then one little secretive ‘society’.
“Well…” At Giles’ hesitation, she turns to him with a raised eyebrow. “While I do tend to correspond more with Downing Street regarding threat assessments, I have received a letter from her, once.”
“You didn’t tell me that! When? What for?”
“Not long after I was named officially Head of the Council. She sent her condolences regarding the attacks on us from the First, and encouragement for my new position in leadership…” He shifts his shoulders in a way that Buffy recognizes means that he is uncomfortable, and she prods him with her elbow.
“C’mon, you can’t tell me you don’t have that thing framed in your office somewhere.”
“It’s considered confidential correspondence,” Giles is blushing slightly, which she grins at, and he says under his breath, “So it resides in the top drawer of my desk.” She opens her mouth to tease him further, but he shoots her a look and quickly adds, “You’ve been in my office, you know very well there’s only one thing deemed important enough to take up valuable space on my desk.”
“Me?” She wiggles her eyebrows at him, and his blush deepens but he shifts his attention forward for a moment to try and hide it.
“A picture,” He stresses with a soft huff, “of my Slayer.”
Buffy slides her fingers around his elbow and holds onto his arm, leaning into him as she bats her eyelashes at him.
“What kinda picture?”
“You know exactly which one.” He tries to maintain his stoicism, but the tips of his ears are pink.
Buffy beams and relents, lifting on her toes to slide a quick kiss against his cheek before she laughs and pulls away from him, giving him his space again.
“You’re so cute when you blush.” She cooes at him, which only makes him blush harder, though the flustered expression on his face does shift toward something like an actual frown… or maybe just a pout.
“I’m a grown man, I’m not cute.” He whines under his breath, his voice almost too low for Buffy to hear him, and Buffy shoots him a cheeky wink before she spins to face front and leads the way home for a little bit.
A part of her’s sort of worried that if she keeps playing with him like that right now, she’s gonna blurt out all kinds of silly girly things. Grown women don’t do that… right?
She’s starting to sort of regret not having Willow in-the-know to be able to talk girly stuff with. Then the thought of how to actually break the news to Willow - and worse, Xander - quickly curtails that thought process. Supportive of Giles’ studliness or not, telling a mutual longtime friend that the two of you have been secretly dating for a little while is not going to land easily.
Maybe she needs to start thinking of ways how she can slowly drop some hints, to lead up to a softer blow of news.
But first and foremost, breaking the news to the others is a conversation that needs to happen with Giles. Pushing her wandering concerns aside, Buffy slows her step and shifts herself back to Giles’ side, tucking her hand in his. He squeezes her fingers and they easily fall into step together.
… … …
During her short patrol that night, she returns to St. James’s Park again. She’s come to discover that some of the green areas in the city close at night but others remain open to the public, which is probably normal for a city, but even now she’s still learning how to live in a place that reacts more normally to possible danger than Sunnydale ever had.
She’s not surprised when she has to sneak around the occasional police officer in this one, however she is surprised when she rounds a small copse of trees and nearly barrels right into one.
“Eh,” He catches her arms to steady her, but not even a breath passes through her before she thrusts the heels of her palms against the front of his protective vest, giving him a hard shove away from her.
She palms her stake but keeps it low, not wanting to deal with the pepper spray he’d yet to reach for on his belt.
“Woah, Slayer, hold it,” He shifts his body at a defensive angle and holds his hand out between them, the universal gesture for ‘time out’.
His immediate movements are what makes her pause, though, and she straightens slightly as she tilts her head sideways.
“You’re not just playing dress up, are you?”
“Well, I do miss when I was superintendent in 1878… The uniforms have certainly gone downhill since then, I must say.”
“You’re still working?” Buffy half-states and half-questions.
“Night shifts,” He replies as if it had been a simple question. She stares at him, and as he sees she isn’t immediately set to stake him anymore, he slowly straightens from his defense posture as well. “I’m low in the pecking order now. Makes it easier to be saddled with the hours no one else wants, particularly when the man giving the orders is my partner in crime.” He grins toothily at that, and Buffy narrows her eyes at him. He sighs and adds, “Figure of speech, more or less. We stop crime, we don’t kill people.”
“You’re a vampire,” She says slowly, dubiously, “In a high-stress job, occasionally working against people actively trying to kill you… or at least annoy the hell out of you. A job that puts you on the front lines of accidents? Bloody accidents?”
“A job I’ve been performing for over one hundred years, and quite proudly mind you.” He sniffs like she’s insulted him, and she raises her eyebrows in surprise again. “I’m not some mindless beast.”
“You’re a demon.” Buffy reminds him flatly.
“I know who you are, Buffy Summers,” He returns lazily, folding his arms across his chest as he leans his shoulder against the tree beside him. He gives her a brief lookover and shakes his head, chuckling, “Acting as if you’ve never met a vampire with a soul, before.”
Buffy stares at him now, speechless and uncomprehending, and he arches his eyebrow at her (rather impressively, she’ll think later).
“What, you think it’s a thing that only happens in America?” He snorts and rolls his eyes. “God give me strength, you colonials are all the same. Think the world only revolves around you.”
“Hey,” Buffy frowns, starting to get mildly offended for her country though most of her thoughts are still on the other thing. “We’re not all so snobby, Captain Snob.”
“It’s Detective Sergeant, actually.”
“Detective?”
“I work in a… particular unit,” He admits, straightening to a more relaxed stance than his forced casualness of before. “We investigate crimes of the supernatural nature.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I don’t joke when it comes to the letter of the law, Miss Summers.”
“You get paid to fight vampire crime?”
“Not just vampire. Anything deemed ‘particularly strange’ winds up on our desks. Some of the strangest things I’ve seen are what humans will do to each other… But we get the occasional Fyarl demon and the like. Oh, I dealt with a werewolf once. He was even American, I think.”
While he rambles on, caught up in his memory lane, Buffy’s mind whirs in a different direction. Well, a few different directions actually. Ensouled vampires don’t seem to be all that rare or special after all…? And, maybe high school career fairs aren’t always so off the mark. The scenarios her mind conjures are more and more intriguing, particularly compared to the alternative of being stuck inside an office or a classroom (even if that classroom was a dojo for super-powered girls) and having to do paperwork.
“Do you have to do a lot of paperwork?” Buffy asks aloud suddenly, and he halts whatever story he’d been telling at this point, and gives her a curiously confused look.
“Sorry? Well, yes on occasion,” As she begins to deflate at that news, he continues on with a chuckle, “Though nice thing is we’ve got a few DC’s on the team I can foist it off to,” He grins, and Buffy blinks as a sort of calm suddenly washes through her.
It’s very close to the same feeling that came over her when she’d had her realization about Giles… almost an ‘Oh. Duh.’ sort of feeling.
“Do you have a card?” She asks him, and he hesitates as he eyes her warily.
“You’re not going to continue to try to fight me?” He checks, and she shakes her head impatiently. She wants to head home and talk to Giles about this. Obviously surprised, he slowly opens a velcro pocket on his vest and reaches in with the other to pluck a business card out for her. “You’re the first Slayer I’ve met that’s believed me right out of the gate,” He admits, still wary as he holds the card out for her between his first two fingers.
“Edward?” She reads from the card, and he gives her a disarming half-grin when she meets his eyes again.
“My friends call me Ted.”
As they return to the lit path nearby, a young boy of perhaps ten suddenly darts from around the bend and runs between them, giggling and shouting, “balls to your curfew!” Buffy twists to watch him run off in surprise, but her new ‘friend’ sighs heavily as he adjusts the protective vest atop his shoulders.
“Even in a big city like London you come to recognize the repeat offenders.” He informs her wryly, before taking off after the kid. “Oi! You wee gobshite, stop running! I told your mum last time that if I caught ya’ again I’d be locking you up!” The young boy just cackles at him.
“He was a vampire!” Buffy can’t help but exclaim, and Ted slows and turns to jog backwards for a moment as he advises her,
“You’d best read up on the local lore!” With a grin he turns and lays on the speed, soon disappearing after the boy around the next far bend in the path.
“All this time, I’ve only seen a kid vampire once.” Buffy muses to herself, growing somber at the thought. She’d asked Spike about it once, and could agree with some of the reasons he’d given albeit from a different side of things; the young were generally less emotionally stable, and more prone to uncontrollably evil behavior as the demon grew stronger. It was supposedly nigh impossible to hide a child vampire - unless, Buffy supposes now, that one has a sort of community and connections in a large city such as London. As the Slayer, she’s simply glad that she hasn’t had to stake any herself. Evil demons or not, she can’t picture herself doing that… and hopes she never has to.
This London society of vampires suddenly makes a lot of sense, though… she thinks over past comments shared with Giles, and how only now she realizes that it’s possible he had side-skirted some things on purpose… because he knows more than he wants to say? But why would he keep something like this a secret from her? It doesn’t make any sense as the Head of the Council, and most certainly as her Watcher.
Filled with questions and newfound energy with her considerations, Buffy picks up a light jog on the way back home, eager to speak with Giles as soon as possible.
… … …
The house is quiet and mostly dark when she returns, with just the small hall lamp left on for her convenience. There is a post-it note attached to the lampshade with Xander’s handwriting mentioning a new stock of ice cream in the freezer, and Buffy smiles warmly in appreciation at both gestures as she tugs the note free and turns the lamp off. She’s ice-cream’d out for the day (and that gelato was something else, anyway), so she heads straight upstairs.
She stops on the boys’ floor, seeing that both of their bedroom doors are closed and Xander’s appears to be dark. There is dim light underneath Giles’ door so, eager once more, she tiptoes to Giles’ quietly and twists the knob and slips inside. Closing it behind her, she stands with her back against the door as she lets her eyes adjust to the room and tries to come up with a quick excuse as to why she’s just walked in without notice.
She hasn’t been inside since near when they’d first moved in, and she’d helped Xander muscle the heavier furniture up the staircase. The room is simple, but comfortable – it reminds Buffy a lot of his loft in the Sunnydale apartment. Lots of warm fabrics and dark wood. There is a double-sided picture frame atop the dresser that she remembers from Sunnydale are of his parents, and a pile of stuff beside that she suspects are from his pockets. The bedside table closest to him holds the lit lamp and a couple of books piled together. There’s another single picture there, too, but it’s facing the bed more than it is her and she can’t quite tell what it is.
Giles himself is asleep, half-propped up on a few pillows, a book laying open across his chest and his glasses still on his face.
Smirking to herself, she sidles closer to see what he’s been reading before bed lately. The topmost book on the bedside table has something to do with Saudi Arabia, and the one he’d fallen asleep reading is nondescript and leatherbound, with a pen tucked in the middle.
Her fingers itch to touch it, the upside-down scrawl telling her that it’s one of his personal journals. It doesn’t look like any of the ones she’s seen him write on in the past, when he was noting down Watchery stuff, so she wonders if it’s personal-personal. Glancing up to his face again as she bites her lip and considers if she can sneak it away from him without waking him, she gets distracted from the temptation to snoop by the temptation that is him.
His face is totally relaxed in sleep, peaceful even, and it allows her to take in his features without wondering about his expressions. She thinks again about the way the sunlight had highlighted his cheekbones this morning, and how soft the lamplight now touches him. Her hand hovers over him almost of its own accord, her fingertips tingling with the desire to stroke the side of his face. She finds herself rather entranced by his eyelashes, of all things.
Giles snuffles heavily and shifts his shoulders, startling her to freeze before she touches him. Then worried that he’s about to roll onto his side, she quickly steps closer to pluck up the book and move it to safety with the others. More gently she uses both hands to pull his glasses from his face, and that’s when his eyes sleepily blink open.
“Buffy?” He sounds like he’s still asleep as his brow furrows and he looks up at her in confusion.
“You’re very pretty, you know that?” She tells him as she folds his glasses and puts them aside as well. He blinks slowly as he tries to process that, and beams up at her adorably.
“Should I be telling you that?”
“Sorry to wake you,” She hesitates as she considers perching herself on the side of the bed next to him. Now that his eyes are open, that desperation to talk about everything with him hits her like a truck again. She’s never going to sleep, herself, at this point, if she doesn’t talk it out.
“Something wrong?” He starts to grow concerned as he tries to push himself up, but Buffy quickly shakes her head and touches his shoulder, urging him to stay relaxed.
“Nothing wrong, patrol was uneventful. Well, mostly uneventful. I met a vampire.”
He just looks all rumpled and confused, so she sighs as she gives in and sits beside his knee.
“Right, that’s the normal part. Okay, not-so-normal part – or maybe it is more normal than I realize – he supposedly has a soul.” She pauses to gauge Giles’ expression, but his blinks are still slow and sleepy despite his gaze being zeroed in on her. She suspects that she’s not going to get a whole lot out of him tonight, so decides to save the grilling about London vampire factions for another time. “He claims so, anyway, and for sure his behavior was… weird. Of the not normal evil vampire type of weird. Also, there was a kid.”
“The vampire was attacking a child?” Giles immediately starts to look worried again, and she quickly shakes her head and pats his knee comfortingly.
“No, no – the kid was a vampire too.”
“Oh. Oh my.” So apparently he hasn’t heard of that all that often, either.
“Anyway, that’s not the point – the vampire was a policeman.”
Giles furrows his brow again as he works on processing this information, and she has to smile a little bit at how adorable it looks. She’s pretty sure he’s not even fully awake still.
“Surely that is not more concerning than the child, we’ve met vampires that were once from all sorts of lifestyles and occupations.”
“He’s still a policeman.” Buffy raises her eyebrow pointedly, and Giles blinks, this time less sleepily.
“Oh.”
“He gave me his card,” She digs into her pocket for it to show him, and he looks consternated now, struggling against the pillows again.
“You got his number?” He protests, and Buffy pauses as she holds the card half-aloft, and she gives him a wry look.
“Seriously? We weren’t flirting, we were talking about work!”
“Oh.” He immediately settles again, and after a beat tilts his head in confusion. “Work?”
“We should really have this conversation in the morning,” Buffy sighs, tucking the card back into her pocket, and Giles pouts.
“You’re leaving?”
She raises her eyebrows in surprise, having not expected him to be the one to try to persuade her to stay in the room for the night.
“You mean there’s the option?”
“I…” He pauses, and eyes her very carefully. “Am I not dreaming, right now?”
She snorts and grins at him in amusement.
“You often dream of me sneaking into your room and showing off about my vampire conquests of the night?”
“Well, er…” He blushes adorably, not quite looking at her directly, and then he shifts a little and fiddles with the edge of the duvet cover over his chest. “M-maybe you’re right-”
“Ohh, say that again!” Buffy purrs teasingly, “I love it when you say I’m right,” and his flush darkens slightly.
“We can talk about this tomorrow…” He presses through, though his tone is still far too soft and his expression is one of… longing, if anything.
“Are you sure?” She lightly prods, wanting to nudge a little bit. Even if… “Look, I’ll behave,” She insists, shifting back to her feet. “I’ll sit right here, won’t even touch the bed.”
He hesitates for an agonizingly long moment, the muscle in his jaw twitching while he thinks.
“You want to work for the police department?” He wonders softly, eventually, and Buffy relaxes as she gazes down at him for a beat. He’s genuinely interested in her hopes, her desires, despite the very-early-morning hour and his sleepiness. It’s… endearing, and encouraging, and a hundred other things she’s not sure she has the words for.
“Pass me one of those pillows, would you?” She gestures toward the unused set on the bed beside him, and he seems almost shy as he passes one to her.
“If one of us is sleeping on the floor tonight, it should be me,” He starts, and she snorts immediately and raises her eyebrow dubiously as she snags the throw blanket neatly folded across the foot of his bed.
“Are you kidding, at your age? Please. I’m the Slayer, anyway – my back can handle it.”
“Well, now I know I’m awake. You never dig at my age in my dreams.”
“It’s not a dig, it’s a tease,” She corrects him chidingly, poking him on the side of his knee.
“Ow.” He whines, although she knows it hadn’t hurt the slightest.
She settles on the floor beside him, trying not to smile too smugly as his scent wafts up around her from the pillow beneath her head, and she snuggles all of her limbs beneath the blanket as she pulls it up to her chin. Certainly better than any lavender scented anything; she can feel her body calm and she’s no longer worried at all about missing sleep for whatever hours were left of the night.
The silence between them seems somewhat awkward for a moment, perhaps more so for Giles than for her – this is just like sleepovers with the Scoobies in the old days, really, so she just goes with it.
“There’s a special police force, did you know about that? They investigate supernatural stuff. But like cops do, I think, not like the Initiative. Well, I would guess not, since vampires are on the team. Vampires with souls. Or maybe only the one has a soul? He acted like it was common. But I remember you were just as surprised about Angel as I was, and then with Spike… well, I dunno. Maybe souls are more common than we think? And then the kid – the cop guy talked like there was this whole community they had, and they seem to be… functioning. Like, within human society.”
“Buffy…”
“Sorry, I’m rambling and you’re still partially asleep. These detectives, I think… I think I’d like to talk to them. Find out more about what they do.”
“There’s a lot of paperwork and research in investigating,” He points out in a careful tone. “It’s not like that television show Willow likes.”
“But there are people on the team that can do that stuff. I could be the boots on the ground.”
“Not to start with,” He sounds amused now, but still encouraging. “You’ll have to work your way up there.”
“I bet I could prove myself pretty quickly.” She grumbles obstinately, and he chuckles with obvious adoration in his tone as he replies,
“I’ve no doubt you will.”
His phrasing isn’t missed on her, and it fills her with pride and confidence. She actually has a job aspiration… a real one, a relatively ‘normal’ one, that works alongside the Slayer life she can’t remove herself from. And encouragement from the guy she loves more than anyone else.
It’s probably good that she’s no longer right next to him within arms’ reach, because she wants to kiss him again.
“I’ve… heard rumours of an investigations unit, but always brushed it off as fanciful. I’ve never interacted with any of them personally, not even in my time thus far as Head. I’ve always assumed the Council itself handles any particularly public… events.” Only Giles could be this tired and still say words like ‘thus far’; Buffy rolls her eyes affectionately at that.
“Was the Council that large of an organization?” Buffy isn’t sure she’s ever truly realized. In her mind’s eye, there was mostly Travers and his hoard of cronies, and maybe a handful of other Watchers that were slightly more chill. And, of course, the mysterious entity of “the Board”.
“At one point in time.” Giles’ voice is quiet again, but Buffy can’t quite tell if it’s due to his tiredness, or reservation to the topic. The loss of the old Council might always be a mixy mess of feelings for him.
“And this hidden, interwoven community of vampires?”
“Well… it’s not a vindictive secret,” Giles says softly. “You know how old London is. Vampires have existed here long before that. And with the Council headquarters here…”
“Parlays were reached?” Buffy figures, not sure how she feels about that. According to that very same Council, a Slayer's one and only duty – one and only reason for living – was to take out said vampires. No cease-fires or alliances allowed.
“An accordance, of sorts.” A long pause passes before Giles adds, “But they’ve always had strict laws to follow. And especially now, with so many Slayers available to us, any deviation from those laws would… not end well for them. They are not trusted by any means.”
“So how can they get jobs like that? Especially in the emergency field?”
“That,” Giles releases a long, quiet breath, “is a very good question.” She can tell by his tone of voice that he wants to do some research of some fashion later on, and she rolls her eyes fondly again as she stares up at the ceiling above them.
She lets many minutes pass before she pipes up again,
“Hey Giles?”
“Hm?” He’s nearly asleep, again.
“How many times do you lay in bed and tell yourself that I’m right up there?”
“Mm. Well, er… just about every night, safe to say.”
Brightening with a bit of energy again at his admittance, Buffy shifts herself up onto her elbows.
“Giles?”
“Yes, Buffy?”
She pushes up further onto her knees and shuffles close to his bedside, leaning her folded arms against the bed. He turns his head only a little bit toward her, his tired gaze a wary one, as well.
“I’m right here, this time.” She gives him a little smile, careful and hopeful, and his wariness battles with a few other things as he faces her a little more and his eyes dip across her.
“Please behave.” He insists wearily now, though his eyes are still lingering over her face, and she inches herself a little bit closer.
“Just a little kiss goodnight?” She requests innocently. “Then I swear we can talk about the rest of this stuff tomorrow.”
“You will be the death of me.” He proclaims, and she feigns total innocence.
“Who, me?”
He half-sits up on one elbow, putting himself much closer to her, close enough that when she dips her head in she can touch her forehead against his.
“Someday I’d like to fall asleep kissing you.” He murmurs, and she snorts out a laugh as she lifts a hand to rest against his cheek, keeping him from pulling away.
“If anyone else said that, I think it might be an insult, but…” She sighs softly as she strokes her fingers against the curve of his jaw, and she brushes a very light kiss briefly across his lips. “I get what you mean.”
He tilts his head just so and kisses her fully, and it’s intent but different than ones before. She can feel his exhaustion, in the slightly uncoordinated heaviness of his mouth, in the less-controlled hunger with the way he moves his lips against hers.
It’s not quite the same as the fiery passionate goodnight kiss against the wall, or even quite the adoring one snuck at the front door where the others couldn’t see, but it’s something like… like the blanket and the pillow on the floor, surrounding her with warm Giles-y comfort.
It’s the kind of feeling she wants for the rest of her life.