Trick or Truth by Elyse
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: through current season six
PAIRING: Buffy/Giles--duh! :o)
DISCLAIMER: Nothing is mine, it all belongs to Joss and Mutant Enemy.
SUMMARY: In response to Tricia's trick or treat challenge, I was somehow
inspired by a little story that won't leave my head till I write it all
down. Lessee: Buffy and trick or treaters, check. Buffy in amusing
costume, check. Giles in sexy costume, check. Original reason for him to
come back from England, well...maybe not original, but at least canon.
Unsexy candy eating, check. Sexy Mr. Gordo reference, check. Scary ghost
story, well...I changed it to a scary movie because writing a story is one
thing, writing a story-within-a- story is another!
DISTRIBUTION: please ask first--I'm planning to put it on my webpage and
will be offering a direct link to my page rather than posting to individual
pages.
NOTES: Thanks to my wonderful beta, Gail!
*********
Chapter Three: Effects
"Bloody hell..."
"What the...?" Buffy jumped from the sofa with lightning speed, and went to
the door, peering out through the diamond panes cautiously. There were two
or three young boys--teenagers, actually--on the porch, all in costume. She
thought she recognized the one who was pounding on the door. She opened it,
letting some irritation seep into her voice. "Guys, Trick or Treat time is
over, and you should definitely *not* be out this late."
"Sorry, Miss Summers," said the one dressed in swathes of bandages. He
stepped forward into the light. "It's me, Jason." He grinned. He glanced
back at the other two boys, who also stepped up.
Buffy recognized them both as recent visitors to her office. "Billy,
Vincent." She nodded to each of them. "What are you guys doing out this
late? You know it's not safe." She turned her attention back to Jason.
"And how come you weren't at school today, Mister Anderson?"
"I-I had to take care of something at home," Jason explained hastily. "And
my mother just dropped us off down the street fifteen minutes ago, so we
haven't been out very long, and...and we wanted to make sure we stopped by
your house, to...to..." His eyes darted downward from her face, and then
quickly back up, whereupon he grinned again. "Who are you supposed to be,
anyway? Not that it's a bad costume..." He snuck another peek at her
cleavage before glancing back at her face and grinning again.
Buffy didn't know whether to be offended that he was checking out her stuff,
or that he didn't recognize the outfit. "I'm Wonder Woman," she explained
as she would to a four-year-old.
The teens looked at her blankly and shrugged. "Who?"
"You have got to be kidding," Buffy replied incredulously. "Wonder Woman?
You have heard of Superman? Batman and Robin? Spiderman?"
"Oh yeah," Vincent piped up. "We just saw Spiderman over the summer. That
redhead chick was *hot.*"
"Well, Wonder Woman was their pal, their contemporary. Didn't you ever
watch the Cartoon Network? The Justice League *must* be on in reruns."
"Perhaps it's because there isn't a movie about her currently," Giles
surmised from the living room.
"Huh. That's a possibility," Buffy agreed. Then she got back to her
original point. "Really, you guys need to go home, it's late, you never
know what's gonna sneak up on you on a night like this, and will you quit
already with the looking down my top?!?"
All three pairs of eyes snapped back to her face and assumed identical
innocent looks.
Buffy sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Look boys, this is really not a good
idea." She reached for the candy dish as she spoke. "You can have some
candy, but just go home, okay? And lock your doors behind you." It might
not be a busy night for the undead, but there was no sense in pushing it.
The boys stepped forward and she put a handful of sweets into each
outstretched bag.
"Um, Miss Summers?" Jason began. "Could we maybe use your phone? It'll only
take a couple of minutes, I swear. I'll call my mother and have her pick us
up right away." He smiled tentatively.
"Alright, but make it quick," Buffy answered without thinking. "I'm kind
of busy at the moment." She darted a glance over her shoulder at Giles, who
had turned off the television and was getting up from the couch hastily as
she let the boys in.
"Buffy?" He queried. "Do you know these boys?" He looked a little anxious
as he approached.
"Oh, yeah, Giles--they're from school. No worries." She patted his arm
with a smile, and was overwhelmed again by his scent and her
suddenly-pounding heart. Her fingers tightened a little on his arm and she
leaned in close, feeling a little dizzy.
"A-alright...if you're sure..." Giles replied, his eyes capturing her gaze.
He couldn't even remember why he'd been nervous a moment ago, because of the
warmth that spread from the place on his arm where she touched him outward
to every corner of his body. He shook his head, knowing it was important,
but the thought slipped away again, and all he could see was Buffy.
"...be here any minute, Miss Summers."
"Huh?" Buffy turned to the sound of the voice, and remembered. "Oh...oh
yeah. You made your phone call already?" The three boys were lined up by
the door, watching expectantly. "You're welcome to wait out on the front
step for her," she told them as she opened the door. They filed out, and
Jason turned to her with a smile. "Thanks a lot Miss Summers." He glanced
in at Giles, who had moved behind her. "You two have fun, now." He winked,
and followed his buddies down the stairs.
Buffy shut the door behind her and leaned back against it, releasing a sigh.
"That's it, I'm turning off the porch light like I should've done two hours
ago."
Giles took a step back from Buffy, and if he'd been wearing his glasses, he'
d have been wiping them with a handkerchief, which he also did not have at
the moment. His original thought had come back to him again. What was the
matter with him? "Buffy," he began, pushing his hand through his hair.
"What were you thinking when you invited those boys in?"
"It's okay, Giles, I know them." But she knew what he was getting at, and
her brow furrowed. There was no "spidey sense tingle" when she saw them,
right? But then, all she could feel--even now--was heat and thick air
and...*Giles* whenever she was anywhere within ten feet of her Watcher.
That wouldn't interfere with her Slayer senses, would it? Nah, there was no
way she'd just invited a few teenage vampires into her house. Besides, they
'd left with nary a fang-flash. Everything was cool. "Don't worry about
it, Watcher mine." She shook her head with a grin. "They're typical
teenage boys. I just had proof of that."
"Proof?" Giles asked, walking back into the living room.
"Number one clue: the ogling of my goodies."
"P-pardon?" Giles stuttered as his eyes went to the bowl next to the door.
"Not the candy, Giles."
"Oh? Oh...well, yes, of course." Giles blushed a little, and could not
keep his own eyes from wandering down...just for a moment. "But I wouldn't
be too hard on the boys, luv," he told her, feeling a bit Ripper-ish again.
He stepped closer, and pitched his voice about an octave lower. "*My* eyes
have been fighting a losing battle with that bodice-line all night."
"Wh-hat? They have...?" Buffy stuttered, all at once feeling the floor drop
out from under her feet. 'Did he just say what I think he said?' Buffy
suddenly found her thought processes to be somewhat impaired by the purr in
Giles' voice and that breathtaking thick-air-heart-pounding phenomenon that
was assaulting her once again. "I mean, *you've* been ogling my goodies too?
A-all night?"
Giles chuckled, and touched her cheek with his fingers. "Well, if truth be
told, I've been 'ogling', as you so charmingly put it, for much longer than
just tonight." His fingertips ever-so-lightly traced the curve of her cheek
as he spoke, and his stomach knotted when her eyelids fluttered closed and
she leaned into his palm.
"You have?" Buffy murmured, mesmerized as she opened her eyes again. She
looked up at him through her lashes, her eyes dark with growing
anticipation. "Like, since when?" She watched as color suffused his face,
and a slow smile spread across her mouth. "It's been since high school,
hasn't it?"
"Mmm-hmm," Giles replied as his other hand slid up Buffy's bare arm and
over her shoulder. Electricity sparked and popped between them as his thumb
brushed her earlobe.
Buffy's lips curled into a knowing grin. "Giles, that is so...skanky." She
closed the space between them, her heart hammering as reality faded away.
"What's even skankier are the thoughts I've had about *you* since I was
about sixteen..."
If Buffy had planned on elaborating on her confession, it abruptly became
impossible now--what with Giles' mouth covering hers with the hottest,
steamiest, most sanity-erasing kiss of her life. All the tension and
electricity that had been building between them since Giles first appeared
on her doorstep tonight coalesced and conflagrated until breathing seemed
like a waste of precious time and her heart became one huge beat--it was no
longer rhythmic, but chaotic; her skin was no longer simply a covering for
her flesh and bones, but a container for the joy and glory that was burning
underneath them. She'd been set on fire, and Rupert Giles was the arsonist.
Giles, for his part, was experiencing almost identical feelings of
coming-apart: every tiny sound that escaped Buffy's throat fueled the
incandescence inside him; every stroke of her tongue against his, every
searing touch--it all combined to push him past reason, toward a glowing,
shimmering... *something*, he knew not what. He only knew that wherever
Buffy Summers lead him, he would follow, and if they both ceased to be
themselves and melted as one into the ecstatic light, then what else could
he wish for?
And just as that thought formed, he knew there was something wrong with it.
He opened his eyes, becoming aware that he was kissing a spot just below
Buffy's clavicle. He groaned, not wanting to pull his lips from the sweet
flesh, but knowing he needed to think. "Buffy..." he whispered hoarsely.
"Please, Giles...don't stop..." her hands, which had just finished pulling
his shirt from the waistband of his pants, found their way underneath to the
sensitive areas under his ribs.
Giles gasped, but held on to the thread of sanity he'd found. As Buffy's
lips and hands branded his skin, he cast his gaze around the room, finally
resting on the floor by the front door before he was distracted by her lips
again.
If he'd closed his eyes right then, he might have missed the faint,
throbbing glow that caught his eye, down at the corner of the doorway. A
thought occurred to him, and he gently disentangled himself from Buffy's
embrace, focusing on the spot. "What...?" He left Buffy standing in the
middle of the room, panting, as he moved to stand by the front door. Yes,
there it was--a tiny bundle of herbs and petals, tied together with some
sort of natural fiber twine. He picked it up, sniffed it carefully. The
scent was surprisingly strong, and it set off a wild flush throughout his
entire body. "No wonder..." he mused aloud as he identified each of the
ingredients. Then he tensed and uttered a mild curse. "Willow..."
Buffy stood like a statue for a few moments before her brain registered that
Giles was no longer holding her against him, or even anywhere near her. Her
gaze immediately snapped to his as he looked up from the corner, and with
some effort she suppressed the wave of heat that flooded her. "What?
Did you say something about Willow?" She met him at the door and Giles held
the tiny bundle out to her. She could smell it from where she was and Giles
saw her pupils dilate before she visibly got control of herself. "What is
it? It smells strange. Like...magic." Giles nodded. "Did Willow cast a
lo--a spell?" She immediately remembered the sneaky behavior at the door
earlier that evening...and by the bedroom window yesterday. "She did, didn
't she." Buffy exhaled loudly, then went to the couch and flopped down on
it. "I should have known...what was she thinking? She needs to be more
careful." She glanced up at Giles and remembered the uber-passionate clinch
they'd been in not sixty seconds ago. She reddened and then blanched,
suddenly wishing she could press herself to the inside of the couch. "And
that means you...we did something...you'd never...geez, I'm such an
idiot..."
Giles immediately moved to her side. " Buffy, no--don't even think it." He
held up the bundle, and now that he knew what it was, he felt a little more
in control. "This was a spell, yes. For which Willow will have to answer,
by the way." He stopped for a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose. "But
it wasn't...that is, I believe it's purpose is to clarify that which
is...confused, or not out in the open, something that's already there." His
face became thoughtful. "Plus, there must've been some extra dragonwort
thrown in, which would explain the extreme heat and inability to breathe..."
"You noticed that too?" Buffy ventured. "What about the simultaneous
heartbeats?
"That was more likely from the foxglove."
"Oh."
Buffy began to look a little less like crawling under a rock, and Giles
continued, "The Latin name of the spell translates to: 'all doors and
windows are thrown open to the light of truth.'" He lowered his head and
chuckled ironically. "Obviously I've been keeping something from you...and
from myself." " His gaze shot up to hers again as another thought occurred
to him. "And perhaps..."
Buffy arrived at the same realization. "Maybe I've been keeping something
from you too?" She met his gaze, feeling calmer for the first time that
night. "I think you're right." She took the bundle from him and stared at
it for a minute. "How do you break this spell? Because I don't want my
feelings to be dictated by a magic dust bunny."
"Untie the twine and let the components fall to the ground. That should do
it."
Buffy did so, and repeated the task at each door and window in the house.
It was fifteen minutes before she and Giles sat back down, at opposite ends
of the couch.
*****
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: through current season six
PAIRING: Buffy/Giles--duh! :o)
DISCLAIMER: Nothing is mine, it all belongs to Joss and Mutant Enemy.
SUMMARY: In response to Tricia's trick or treat challenge, I was somehow
inspired by a little story that won't leave my head till I write it all
down. Lessee: Buffy and trick or treaters, check. Buffy in amusing
costume, check. Giles in sexy costume, check. Original reason for him to
come back from England, well...maybe not original, but at least canon.
Unsexy candy eating, check. Sexy Mr. Gordo reference, check. Scary ghost
story, well...I changed it to a scary movie because writing a story is one
thing, writing a story-within-a- story is another!
DISTRIBUTION: please ask first--I'm planning to put it on my webpage and
will be offering a direct link to my page rather than posting to individual
pages.
NOTES: Thanks to my wonderful beta, Gail!
*********
Chapter Three: Effects
"Bloody hell..."
"What the...?" Buffy jumped from the sofa with lightning speed, and went to
the door, peering out through the diamond panes cautiously. There were two
or three young boys--teenagers, actually--on the porch, all in costume. She
thought she recognized the one who was pounding on the door. She opened it,
letting some irritation seep into her voice. "Guys, Trick or Treat time is
over, and you should definitely *not* be out this late."
"Sorry, Miss Summers," said the one dressed in swathes of bandages. He
stepped forward into the light. "It's me, Jason." He grinned. He glanced
back at the other two boys, who also stepped up.
Buffy recognized them both as recent visitors to her office. "Billy,
Vincent." She nodded to each of them. "What are you guys doing out this
late? You know it's not safe." She turned her attention back to Jason.
"And how come you weren't at school today, Mister Anderson?"
"I-I had to take care of something at home," Jason explained hastily. "And
my mother just dropped us off down the street fifteen minutes ago, so we
haven't been out very long, and...and we wanted to make sure we stopped by
your house, to...to..." His eyes darted downward from her face, and then
quickly back up, whereupon he grinned again. "Who are you supposed to be,
anyway? Not that it's a bad costume..." He snuck another peek at her
cleavage before glancing back at her face and grinning again.
Buffy didn't know whether to be offended that he was checking out her stuff,
or that he didn't recognize the outfit. "I'm Wonder Woman," she explained
as she would to a four-year-old.
The teens looked at her blankly and shrugged. "Who?"
"You have got to be kidding," Buffy replied incredulously. "Wonder Woman?
You have heard of Superman? Batman and Robin? Spiderman?"
"Oh yeah," Vincent piped up. "We just saw Spiderman over the summer. That
redhead chick was *hot.*"
"Well, Wonder Woman was their pal, their contemporary. Didn't you ever
watch the Cartoon Network? The Justice League *must* be on in reruns."
"Perhaps it's because there isn't a movie about her currently," Giles
surmised from the living room.
"Huh. That's a possibility," Buffy agreed. Then she got back to her
original point. "Really, you guys need to go home, it's late, you never
know what's gonna sneak up on you on a night like this, and will you quit
already with the looking down my top?!?"
All three pairs of eyes snapped back to her face and assumed identical
innocent looks.
Buffy sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Look boys, this is really not a good
idea." She reached for the candy dish as she spoke. "You can have some
candy, but just go home, okay? And lock your doors behind you." It might
not be a busy night for the undead, but there was no sense in pushing it.
The boys stepped forward and she put a handful of sweets into each
outstretched bag.
"Um, Miss Summers?" Jason began. "Could we maybe use your phone? It'll only
take a couple of minutes, I swear. I'll call my mother and have her pick us
up right away." He smiled tentatively.
"Alright, but make it quick," Buffy answered without thinking. "I'm kind
of busy at the moment." She darted a glance over her shoulder at Giles, who
had turned off the television and was getting up from the couch hastily as
she let the boys in.
"Buffy?" He queried. "Do you know these boys?" He looked a little anxious
as he approached.
"Oh, yeah, Giles--they're from school. No worries." She patted his arm
with a smile, and was overwhelmed again by his scent and her
suddenly-pounding heart. Her fingers tightened a little on his arm and she
leaned in close, feeling a little dizzy.
"A-alright...if you're sure..." Giles replied, his eyes capturing her gaze.
He couldn't even remember why he'd been nervous a moment ago, because of the
warmth that spread from the place on his arm where she touched him outward
to every corner of his body. He shook his head, knowing it was important,
but the thought slipped away again, and all he could see was Buffy.
"...be here any minute, Miss Summers."
"Huh?" Buffy turned to the sound of the voice, and remembered. "Oh...oh
yeah. You made your phone call already?" The three boys were lined up by
the door, watching expectantly. "You're welcome to wait out on the front
step for her," she told them as she opened the door. They filed out, and
Jason turned to her with a smile. "Thanks a lot Miss Summers." He glanced
in at Giles, who had moved behind her. "You two have fun, now." He winked,
and followed his buddies down the stairs.
Buffy shut the door behind her and leaned back against it, releasing a sigh.
"That's it, I'm turning off the porch light like I should've done two hours
ago."
Giles took a step back from Buffy, and if he'd been wearing his glasses, he'
d have been wiping them with a handkerchief, which he also did not have at
the moment. His original thought had come back to him again. What was the
matter with him? "Buffy," he began, pushing his hand through his hair.
"What were you thinking when you invited those boys in?"
"It's okay, Giles, I know them." But she knew what he was getting at, and
her brow furrowed. There was no "spidey sense tingle" when she saw them,
right? But then, all she could feel--even now--was heat and thick air
and...*Giles* whenever she was anywhere within ten feet of her Watcher.
That wouldn't interfere with her Slayer senses, would it? Nah, there was no
way she'd just invited a few teenage vampires into her house. Besides, they
'd left with nary a fang-flash. Everything was cool. "Don't worry about
it, Watcher mine." She shook her head with a grin. "They're typical
teenage boys. I just had proof of that."
"Proof?" Giles asked, walking back into the living room.
"Number one clue: the ogling of my goodies."
"P-pardon?" Giles stuttered as his eyes went to the bowl next to the door.
"Not the candy, Giles."
"Oh? Oh...well, yes, of course." Giles blushed a little, and could not
keep his own eyes from wandering down...just for a moment. "But I wouldn't
be too hard on the boys, luv," he told her, feeling a bit Ripper-ish again.
He stepped closer, and pitched his voice about an octave lower. "*My* eyes
have been fighting a losing battle with that bodice-line all night."
"Wh-hat? They have...?" Buffy stuttered, all at once feeling the floor drop
out from under her feet. 'Did he just say what I think he said?' Buffy
suddenly found her thought processes to be somewhat impaired by the purr in
Giles' voice and that breathtaking thick-air-heart-pounding phenomenon that
was assaulting her once again. "I mean, *you've* been ogling my goodies too?
A-all night?"
Giles chuckled, and touched her cheek with his fingers. "Well, if truth be
told, I've been 'ogling', as you so charmingly put it, for much longer than
just tonight." His fingertips ever-so-lightly traced the curve of her cheek
as he spoke, and his stomach knotted when her eyelids fluttered closed and
she leaned into his palm.
"You have?" Buffy murmured, mesmerized as she opened her eyes again. She
looked up at him through her lashes, her eyes dark with growing
anticipation. "Like, since when?" She watched as color suffused his face,
and a slow smile spread across her mouth. "It's been since high school,
hasn't it?"
"Mmm-hmm," Giles replied as his other hand slid up Buffy's bare arm and
over her shoulder. Electricity sparked and popped between them as his thumb
brushed her earlobe.
Buffy's lips curled into a knowing grin. "Giles, that is so...skanky." She
closed the space between them, her heart hammering as reality faded away.
"What's even skankier are the thoughts I've had about *you* since I was
about sixteen..."
If Buffy had planned on elaborating on her confession, it abruptly became
impossible now--what with Giles' mouth covering hers with the hottest,
steamiest, most sanity-erasing kiss of her life. All the tension and
electricity that had been building between them since Giles first appeared
on her doorstep tonight coalesced and conflagrated until breathing seemed
like a waste of precious time and her heart became one huge beat--it was no
longer rhythmic, but chaotic; her skin was no longer simply a covering for
her flesh and bones, but a container for the joy and glory that was burning
underneath them. She'd been set on fire, and Rupert Giles was the arsonist.
Giles, for his part, was experiencing almost identical feelings of
coming-apart: every tiny sound that escaped Buffy's throat fueled the
incandescence inside him; every stroke of her tongue against his, every
searing touch--it all combined to push him past reason, toward a glowing,
shimmering... *something*, he knew not what. He only knew that wherever
Buffy Summers lead him, he would follow, and if they both ceased to be
themselves and melted as one into the ecstatic light, then what else could
he wish for?
And just as that thought formed, he knew there was something wrong with it.
He opened his eyes, becoming aware that he was kissing a spot just below
Buffy's clavicle. He groaned, not wanting to pull his lips from the sweet
flesh, but knowing he needed to think. "Buffy..." he whispered hoarsely.
"Please, Giles...don't stop..." her hands, which had just finished pulling
his shirt from the waistband of his pants, found their way underneath to the
sensitive areas under his ribs.
Giles gasped, but held on to the thread of sanity he'd found. As Buffy's
lips and hands branded his skin, he cast his gaze around the room, finally
resting on the floor by the front door before he was distracted by her lips
again.
If he'd closed his eyes right then, he might have missed the faint,
throbbing glow that caught his eye, down at the corner of the doorway. A
thought occurred to him, and he gently disentangled himself from Buffy's
embrace, focusing on the spot. "What...?" He left Buffy standing in the
middle of the room, panting, as he moved to stand by the front door. Yes,
there it was--a tiny bundle of herbs and petals, tied together with some
sort of natural fiber twine. He picked it up, sniffed it carefully. The
scent was surprisingly strong, and it set off a wild flush throughout his
entire body. "No wonder..." he mused aloud as he identified each of the
ingredients. Then he tensed and uttered a mild curse. "Willow..."
Buffy stood like a statue for a few moments before her brain registered that
Giles was no longer holding her against him, or even anywhere near her. Her
gaze immediately snapped to his as he looked up from the corner, and with
some effort she suppressed the wave of heat that flooded her. "What?
Did you say something about Willow?" She met him at the door and Giles held
the tiny bundle out to her. She could smell it from where she was and Giles
saw her pupils dilate before she visibly got control of herself. "What is
it? It smells strange. Like...magic." Giles nodded. "Did Willow cast a
lo--a spell?" She immediately remembered the sneaky behavior at the door
earlier that evening...and by the bedroom window yesterday. "She did, didn
't she." Buffy exhaled loudly, then went to the couch and flopped down on
it. "I should have known...what was she thinking? She needs to be more
careful." She glanced up at Giles and remembered the uber-passionate clinch
they'd been in not sixty seconds ago. She reddened and then blanched,
suddenly wishing she could press herself to the inside of the couch. "And
that means you...we did something...you'd never...geez, I'm such an
idiot..."
Giles immediately moved to her side. " Buffy, no--don't even think it." He
held up the bundle, and now that he knew what it was, he felt a little more
in control. "This was a spell, yes. For which Willow will have to answer,
by the way." He stopped for a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose. "But
it wasn't...that is, I believe it's purpose is to clarify that which
is...confused, or not out in the open, something that's already there." His
face became thoughtful. "Plus, there must've been some extra dragonwort
thrown in, which would explain the extreme heat and inability to breathe..."
"You noticed that too?" Buffy ventured. "What about the simultaneous
heartbeats?
"That was more likely from the foxglove."
"Oh."
Buffy began to look a little less like crawling under a rock, and Giles
continued, "The Latin name of the spell translates to: 'all doors and
windows are thrown open to the light of truth.'" He lowered his head and
chuckled ironically. "Obviously I've been keeping something from you...and
from myself." " His gaze shot up to hers again as another thought occurred
to him. "And perhaps..."
Buffy arrived at the same realization. "Maybe I've been keeping something
from you too?" She met his gaze, feeling calmer for the first time that
night. "I think you're right." She took the bundle from him and stared at
it for a minute. "How do you break this spell? Because I don't want my
feelings to be dictated by a magic dust bunny."
"Untie the twine and let the components fall to the ground. That should do
it."
Buffy did so, and repeated the task at each door and window in the house.
It was fifteen minutes before she and Giles sat back down, at opposite ends
of the couch.
*****
