Sign of Life
"This is all that matters." Buffy/Giles, post-"Once More, With Feeling", Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Summary: "This is all that matters." Buffy/Giles, post "Once More, With Feeling"
AN: This is very experimental for me – the subject matter, the style, the lack of quotation marks, everything. It's also un-betaed, so any mistakes are mine alone. I'd love to know what you think.
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, blah blah, Mutant Enemy, blah blah, not mine. Get the picture? Some lines are taken from the show, and I'm obviously not claiming I came up with them myself.
I can't even see/if this is really me/and I just want to be alive - Buffy, "Going Through the Motions"
She raps her knuckles on the dark wood of his hotel room door, unsure of what she's doing or why she's even here. Just minutes before she'd been kissing Spike, her eyes shut tight, trying to convince herself that this was good, that this was what she needed. That he didn't feel like death with every touch.
She shivers, knocking on the door again. She'd broken the kiss and run, not knowing where until she showed up at his hotel, realizing something in her head had been whispering Giles. Giles makes everything better.
The door swings open and there he is, holding an ancient text in one hand.
Buffy.
He steps back to let her walk in the room, a trace of interest -- but not surprise, she notes -- in his eyes. The door shuts behind her.
She smiles up at him, a small facial expression that causes her far too much energy. It didn't used to hurt this much.
Giles. I'm sorry it's so late.
Not at all. Are you quite all right?
She laughs, a hollow, bitter laugh.
Trick question, Giles?
His forehead furrows in sympathy. She hates sympathy, under normal circumstances, but Giles's sympathy is never coupled with pity or condescension or anything other than genuine concern, and she's always appreciated that.
I apologize. I imagine -- well, what you revealed tonight, Buffy, it's rather awful -- that is to say--
Major suckage, Giles, I got it. Lived -- or rather, died -- to tell the tale, remember?
Yes. I remember.
I suppose if they're anything like me, they just find the whole subject too, um...
Unseemly? Damn. Love ya, but you Watchers can be such prigs sometimes.
Painful, I was going to say.
Buffy, to have lost what you have, it's understandable that you'd be feeling disconnected from the rest of the world. You mustn't let it discourage you.
Disconnected? That's what you call this? Am I even alive, Giles? Because it sure as hell doesn't feel like it.
You are, and for that I've been grateful every day since your return. Even now, when we know--
Stop, Giles. You weren't responsible for this. None of you were. You had no way of knowing, and I know that.
She stops talking, leaving the room in silence. He turns his back to her, laying his book and glasses on the bedside table, then turns to face her again, waiting for her to speak. She wonders how to explain this emptiness inside her, how to explain that even with the taste of heaven she's had, all she really wants is to feel that connection to her friends, to this world, to life that she used to feel.
She starts off hesitantly.
You know what I miss?
He shakes his head.
I miss being warm. I miss crying at those sappy movies Mom used to love. I miss laughing with Xander and Willow, and pulling stupid sister pranks on Dawn. I miss falling asleep in the library and waking up to find jelly donuts on the table.
They share a small smile over that memory. She steps to him, placing her hand on the soft cotton of his sweater.
I miss feeling someone else's heartbeat. Actually, at this point, I'd settle for feeling my own.
His forehead wrinkles in question.
Buffy--
Shh.
She doesn't know what she's doing, what she's waiting for, until it happens.
Thump.
Her fingers lightly clench his shirt as she feels his heartbeat under her hand, feels it send a tingle through her palm and up the length of her arm.
Thump-thump.
For the first time since her death, she can literally feel the blood pulsing through her veins. Thump-thump, thump-thump -- his heartbeat or hers? She can't tell, and she's not sure she cares. A long-ago memory surfaces in her consciousness.
Love isn't brains, children, it's blood – blood screaming inside you to work its will.
She feels like laughing. Spike was right. The irony of Spike's words echoing in her head at this moment isn't lost on her, but damn, he was right. Blood screaming inside you to work its will -- that's what love and life and living is really like.
Am I meant to understand what's happening here?
His voice is soft and low, with a hint of amusement and a slight rumble that makes her heart jump and when the hell did she start thinking his voice was sexy?
Just your Slayer having an emotional breakthrough. No worries, Watcher-man.
She slides her hand up the front of his shirt, her fingers resting just above his carotid artery, feeling the pulse there. That sign of life, of blood pumping and heart beating and--
Wow.
Her breath hitches as she feels her body respond to his proximity. Her brain desperately sends messages -- girl, get a grip, this is GILES -- that quickly get drowned out by her too-quick breathing and all the other sensations that are apparently back with a vengeance. She waits for him to pull away, because that's what he does. She gets in his face and he retreats and that's how they've always been--
Except he doesn't, this time. He lifts his hand to her outstretched arm, grips her wrist, pulls her in, and -- oh. Oh, god.
He's kissing her.
Her knees buckle at the feeling of warm lips on hers, of a scratchy face rubbing against her skin, a hand trailing down her hip -- all these things that scream alive.
As quickly as the kiss began, it stops. He pushes away from her, pacing across the room. She lifts her hand to her mouth, already missing the sensation of his lips on hers. She thinks if she'd known Giles could kiss like that before, high school would have been a whole lot more interesting.
I shouldn't have done that, he says, unable to look her in the eye. I didn't mean to take advantage, I don't know what on earth I was thinking--
Enough of this crap.
In seconds she has him against the wall, her fingers wrapped around his upper arms, their faces mere inches apart.
Kiss me again, she dares him.
Why?
Because I asked you to. Isn't that enough? she whispers, knowing that will always be enough for him, knowing that it's not fair for her to even ask, but not caring. His mouth presses against hers with surprising force, his heart beating an erratic rhythm against her chest. It's all so perfectly imperfect, so real, that playing fair is the last thing she cares about. She's feeling something besides death and cold, and fuck everything else. This is all that matters.
end
Posted by Carrie on 02:31 PM