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The demon had been thoroughly vanquished, but not before it managed to fling Rupert Giles into a stack of heavy wooden crates. The resulting crack of his head against the wood had echoed sickeningly through the abandoned warehouse, followed by the immediate, terrifying sight of him crumpling to the floor.
Now, Buffy was practically carrying him up the stairs to his apartment. He was upright, but only technically. His arm was slung over her shoulders, his feet shuffling with a heavy, uncoordinated lethargy that screamed concussion.
"Just a little further, Giles," Buffy murmured, her voice laced with a rare, quiet tenderness.
"I am... remarkably dizzy, Buffy," Giles mumbled, his glasses askew on his nose. "And the stairs appear to be undulating."
"Yeah, definitely no undulating stairs in the lease," she said, managing to awkwardly reach for his keys in his pocket and unlock the door.
She guided him inside, heading straight for the familiar, comfortable sofa. Giles sank into the cushions with a low, pained groan, immediately burying his face in his hands to block out the lamplight.
"Hey, eyes on me, Watcherboy," Buffy ordered gently, kneeling in front of him. She carefully took his hands away from his face and nudged his glasses up. His pupils were slightly mismatched, his gaze unfocused and glassy. "How many fingers?"
Giles squinted at her hand, closing one eye to focus. "Four. No, wait. Three? There's a bit of an overlap."
"Two," Buffy corrected softly, a worried line forming between her brows. "Okay, definitely a concussion. The doctor said you need to stay awake for at least a few hours, and I have to monitor your mental state. So, no sleeping yet."
She hopped onto the sofa next to him, tucking one leg under her body so she could face him. Giles leaned his head back against the cushions, closing his eyes.
"Ask me something," he sighed, his British accent sounding thicker, rounded out by exhaustion. "To prove my... intellectual faculties are intact."
"Alright. What's the name of that spellbook you wouldn't let me touch last week because I had jelly on my fingers?"
"The Chronicles of Fog and Shadow," he answered instantly, though his voice was barely above a whisper. "And it was strawberry jam, Buffy. Far more acidic."
Buffy let out a soft, genuine laugh. "Okay, you're still you. What about your mother's maiden name?"
"Coleridge."
"Your favourite tea?"
"Lapsang Souchong... though at present, the thought of hot liquid makes me slightly nauseous."
"Noted. No tea." Buffy watched him closely. The usual rigid, intellectual armor he wore was entirely stripped away by the injury. He looked vulnerable, lines of pain etching the corners of his eyes. "Does it hurt bad?"
"It feels as though a small, angry gnome is attempting to mining-engineer its way out of my skull," he admitted, a faint, self-deprecating smile touching his lips.
"Aw, poor lumpy Giles."
They sat in a comfortable, quiet companionship for the next hour. Buffy kept him talking, asking random questions about history, Slayer lore, and his rebellious youth, just to keep his brain firing. But as the clock ticked past midnight, Giles’s answers grew shorter, his voice dragging like a slow-playing record.
"Buffy..." he muttered, his eyelids fluttering. "I really must... horizontal..."
"Okay, okay. You can lie down," she said, realising he'd hit his limit. "But I'm staying right here, got it?"
Giles didn't answer with words. He simply let his heavy body shift, tilting sideways to stretch out on the sofa. But because he was so tall, his long legs took up the entirety of the cushions, leaving no room for his upper body.
With a soft, subconscious sigh, he gravitated toward the only available space. Before Buffy could register what was happening, Giles lowered his head right into her lap.
Buffy froze. Her breath hitched in her throat.
Giles turned his face inward, toward her stomach, exhaling a long, shaky breath as he finally relaxed. His glasses were still on, sitting crookedly against his cheek. Carefully, using just two fingers, Buffy plucked them off his face and set them gently on the end table.
She looked down at him. Giles was always so proper, so contained, always the authority figure keeping her grounded. To have him like this—completely trusting, resting his heavy head in her lap—sent a sudden, overwhelming wave of warmth through her chest. It was incredibly comforting. In a world full of monsters and chaos, this quiet room felt entirely safe.
For a long time, Buffy sat stone-still, barely breathing, terrified that any movement would wake him or make things awkward. She just watched the slow, even rise and fall of his shoulders.
It started with a single, hesitant movement—Buffy's hand rising slowly, as though the air were thick with uncertainty, her fingers hovering above Giles's head like a blessing best left unspoken. She hovered there, suspended, the vulnerability of the moment. All her instincts screamed at her to keep distance, but for once she let the defences soften, just enough. With exquisite care, her fingertips descended, sinking gently into the dark, slightly unruly hair that always made Giles look younger than he was, especially now, battered and asleep in her lap.
He exhaled against her leg, the warmth of his breath a gentle ghost through the thin fabric of her jeans. He made a sound, too—a small, involuntary hum, almost a purr—and the simple, domestic intimacy of it nearly undid her. She found herself smiling, lips stretching into an expression so unfamiliar it almost stung: a smile that held no hint of sarcasm, no edge, no darkness stitched along its seams. It was just soft and real, the way she imagined other girls smiled in the safety of a home that would last forever.
Her hand moved with growing confidence, feather-light, sculpting the tousled hair into gentle order. She found the tufts that stood up when he was anxious and smoothed them, the silken strands sliding between her fingers. Occasionally, she let her nails scrape softly along his scalp, earning a twitch, a deeper sigh. With each pass, Giles seemed to sink further, boneless, as if her lap were some cradle he’d never had as a child and desperately needed now.
Underneath the shock of being needed—really, truly needed—Buffy felt a trickle of old, unclaimed loneliness. There was always someone to save. There was rarely someone to save her, and never someone to comfort. She could count on the fingers of one hand the times anyone had simply taken care of her, without expectation or debt, and she understood, with a sudden ache, that Giles was perhaps the only one left who knew how.
She swept her thumb across his temple, searching for any sign of pain. She remembered, with the intensity of a wound, all the times Giles had patched her up after patrol or after school, the rough gentleness of his hands dabbing antiseptic onto gashes barely closed. She recalled the time he’d carried her, broken and small, setting her down on the couch and sitting beside her for hours, saying nothing, being nothing but a steady shape in the darkness.
Now the roles had inverted, the quiet shelter of his body folded into her own. She marveled at how different he seemed asleep: the harsh lines of worry and vigilance erased, replaced with something boyish and half-remembered. He was impossibly tall on the couch, and yet the vulnerability of his posture—sprawled, open, defenceless—made him look almost childlike. Buffy traced the ridge of his brow, the sweep of his eyelashes, the faint stubble along his jaw. Each detail felt precious, as if she were cataloguing a constellation, afraid it might disappear.
When her hand drifted to the back of his neck, she found a tiny, perfect curl nestled at the base of his hairline just behind his ear, soft as silk and impossibly fragile. She turned it between her fingertips, rolling it gently as though it held the secret to all his wisdom. The gesture felt ancient, ritualistic—something that mothers did for sons, lovers for lovers, a touch so intimate that Buffy felt, for a moment, embarrassed by her own tenderness. She brushed her knuckles along his skin, feeling the subtle shiver that followed, and wondered if, even now, Giles could sense the unspoken comfort she was trying to offer.
She kept up the soothing rhythm, letting her hand rise and fall with the slow tide of his breathing. The rest of the world retreated to the periphery. The streetlights outside cast pale, watery shadows across the living room, painting everything in a subdued, holy glow. For the first time in months, maybe years, Buffy’s entire being unclenched, the knot of guilt and duty in her chest loosening with each breath Giles took.
She leaned her head back against the sofa, eyes half-closed, lost in the simplicity of the moment. She wondered what it would be like to have this every night, to share these silences without fear that the next dawn would bring blood or grief. The thought terrified her more than any demon ever had.
Time slipped by in long, unhurried increments. Giles’s weight grew heavier in her lap as sleep dragged him deeper. Occasionally he would murmur something—half a word, a snippet of memory or lecture—before drifting off again. She listened to each sound, memorizing its cadence, as if afraid that he might never make it again.
The clock on the wall ticked past one, then two. Still Buffy watched over him, her hand never leaving his hair. She was determined, in a way she couldn’t even articulate to herself, to be the guardian tonight—not just of the Hellmouth or the world, but of this single, battered heart entrusted to her for safekeeping.
When finally Giles stirred, his eyelids fluttering open with the slow confusion of someone torn from the depths of a dream, Buffy was right there—steady, warm, and ready. He blinked up at her, eyes glassy and boyish in their vulnerability. "How long have I been out?" he asked, voice raw and thick with sleep.
She glanced at the tiny clock on the wall over the room. "Couple hours. You snore," she said, but the joke was too gentle, almost a caress.
"Ah." He started to push himself up, but paused when her hand—still in his hair—applied the faintest pressure, tethering him gently to the present.
"Doctor’s orders," she said. "Rest until you’re not seeing three of everything."
He inhaled deeply, and she felt the movement all the way through her thighs. He was embarrassed, she could feel it, the way his body tensed before relaxing again, as if letting himself be held like this was an act of tremendous will.
"I'm afraid I may have—" He struggled for words, not at all like her Giles, and Buffy had to look away before her own face could reveal how much it mattered to her, this loss of composure, this moment of honest need.
"S’okay," she said, thumb rubbing circles just above his ear. "I do this with Dawn all the time. Well, not the concussion part, so much as the… you know, the holding."
"I imagine you’re quite good at it." His voice was lower than before, the edges of his accent sanded away by painkillers and fatigue.
She smiled again, this time letting herself lean forward until her hair fell around them, making a tent of privacy in the half-lit room. "It’s a skill. Kinda had to learn as I went."
He didn’t reply immediately, but she could feel words building behind his ribs, pacing restlessly for release. "Buffy," he said at last. "I’m… I’m not certain what I would do without you."
The words should have embarrassed them both, but they didn’t. Maybe because Buffy knew, in a way she hadn’t known before, that Giles had spent entire months, entire years, wondering if she’d survive any given week. Maybe because she liked the idea of someone needing her for the small things as well as the big ones.
She let the silence settle thick for a minute, comfort growing in the places that used to be raw. The city outside was a faraway rumour, nothing more.
Finally, Giles shifted, not quite looking at her. "Will you stay tonight?"
It was said so softly, she almost missed it—the way he asked, needing but not demanding.
Buffy nodded before she even realised she was deciding. She considered what that would mean, her stretched-out body next to his on the cramped sofa, the tangle of limbs and shared blanket, the late-night muttered dreams.
"Yeah," she said, giving his head a gentle squeeze. "I’ll stay."
And when he drifted back down into sleep, his face turned to her belly, she did not once consider the monsters outside or the violence waiting just beyond the window. She let the world be just this: the quiet hum of two hearts, the forgiving hush of midnight, and the slow, healing rhythm of care.