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The scent of warm sugar and yeast hit Buffy before she even reached the top of the stairs to his apartment, but nothing could have prepared her for the sight that greeted her when Giles opened the door.
The usually immaculate Watcher looked like he’d survived a flour explosion. He wore a kitsch apron, but it hadn’t done much good; a fine dusting coated his trousers and a puff of white sat in his hair like a patch of premature grey. To top it off, a distinct smudge of chocolate was smeared squarely across the bridge of his nose. Behind him, every flat surface in the apartment was buried under an astonishing array of cakes, tarts, biscuits, and pastries.
"Giles?" Buffy blinked, stepping into his home and looking around in awe. "What in the Great British Bake Off happened here?"
Giles blinked back, looking remarkably like a deer caught in headlights. He pushed his glasses up with the back of a floury hand, only succeeding in adding a white streak to his cheek. "Ah. Buffy. Yes. Well. I found myself with a bit of nervous energy, and, uh, one recipe sort of led to another."
"One recipe? Giles, Mary Berry called, she wants her Fantastic Feasts back..." A small smile tugged at her lips.
"Yes, well. Quite." He cleared his throat, suddenly looking eager, wiping his hands down the front of his apron. "Since you’re here... I don’t suppose you could lend your expertise? I require an objective palate."
Before she could protest, Giles ushered her to the one clear chair at his desk, brandishing a notepad and pen. At first, it was a game. Buffy would take a bite, and Giles would watch her with the intense focus he usually reserved for crumbling scrolls, scribbling notes as she spoke. “The scones are a little dry,” she’d said of the first batch, and he’d looked so crestfallen she immediately added, “But the jam is a world-beater!” That had earned her a small, pleased smile. An hour later, she was deep in a sugar-induced wonderland.
"Okay, the poppy seed lemon drizzle muffins," Buffy said, chewing thoughtfully while Giles watched her with intense, wide eyes. "Incredible. Tangy but sweet. Total 9 out of 10. The chocolate fudge cake? A bit rich, but the frosting is elite. 8.5. But this..." She pointed an accusing, joyful finger at a small raspberry tart. "This is a masterpiece. Eleven out of ten, Giles. You’re wasted on ancient prophecy."
Giles actually beamed, a rare, boyish flush creeping up his neck that had nothing to do with the heat of the oven. "High praise indeed."
A timer chimed from the kitchen, and Giles held up a finger. "Ah! The piece de résistance."
He vanished into the kitchen and returned a moment later carrying a baking tray. The scent that followed him was heavenly—pure, buttery bliss. On the tray sat a row of 4 perfectly golden, flaky croissants, still gently steaming.
"They need a few moments to set," Giles murmured, setting them down. He fetched a clean tea towel and carefully lined a small wicker basket. With gentle precision, using a pair of tongs, he transferred three of the warm croissants into the basket and folded the cloth over them, trapping the warmth inside. He handed it to her like a precious artifact. "For you. It’s entirely unacceptable for you to be out there saving the world on an empty stomach."
Buffy held the basket against her chest. It felt warm and grounding. "Giles, you’re spoiling me."
“Nonsense,” he said softly, a genuinely sweet smile softening his face. The fourth and final croissant sat in front of him and he looked down at it with more than just hunger in his eyes, he reached over for his pot of honey and drizzled it over the top of the lightly golden surface with the care of a brain surgeon performing a delicate operation. He took a large bite out of the pastry and closed his eyes, going very still and very quiet, the way a person does when they don’t want the moment to end.
"Show me?" Buffy asked suddenly, setting the basket down. "How you get the layers like that. I usually just burn everything."
"It's all in the lamination, you see," Giles said, his tone instantly shifting into his comforting, instructional teacher-mode. He guided her over to the kitchen counter, where a fresh block of pastry dough was proofing.
He stood just behind her, his chest close to her back, reaching around her to place his hands over hers on the heavy wooden rolling pin. The contrast was striking—his hands were warm, huge in comparison and dusted with flour, guiding hers with a gentle, deliberate pressure.
“You must roll it out evenly,” he explained, his voice low and right by her ear, close enough that she was suddenly aware of her own stillness. “Then fold it into thirds, like a letter. That creates the pockets of butter, and air. It requires... patience.”
"Patience isn't really a Slayer trait," Buffy whispered, turning her head slightly to look up at him.
They were incredibly close now. Giles stopped moving the rolling pin. He looked down at her, his eyes dark and intensely focused behind his spectacles. The frantic energy of the afternoon had completely melted away, replaced by a quiet, breathless stillness.
"No," Giles agreed softly, his gaze dropping to her lips before rising back to her eyes. "I suppose it isn't."
Buffy shifted, letting go of the rolling pin entirely to turn around in the small space between him and the counter. She reached up, her thumb gently brushing against his nose, wiping away the smudge of chocolate. Giles didn't pull back; instead, his breath hitched, his hands moving instinctively to rest flat against the counter on either side of her, framing her.
Buffy didn't so much speak as exhale the words, “You missed a spot,” her voice thinner and more breakable than she’d meant it to be. The effect of standing this close to Giles, their bodies not quite touching but tethered all the same by some urgent and invisible line, was like a shot of adrenaline. But it was the opposite of the battle-high—her body was crackling, not with violent readiness, but with a trembling, unfamiliar anticipation. Maybe this was how other people, regular people, felt before their first kiss: restless, urgent, and more than a little afraid.
Giles’s answer was similarly breathless, so quiet she could feel it more than hear it: “Thank you.” And she realised he was nervous, too, though he’d never admit it. The resolve that powered him through paranormal libraries and ancient hexes was here, gentler but no less determined, in the slant of his mouth and the careful way he held her gaze. Buffy wondered, with a little spike of panic, if he knew how this would change everything—not just for them, but for the delicate machinery of their lives. But then she realised it didn’t matter, because Giles was already leaning in, and it was too late to be cautious.
She met him halfway, tilting her chin, and the kiss was everything that nothing in their lives had ever been: slow, deliberate, almost ceremonial. Giles’s lips were warm and soft, but not uncertain. He kissed her like a man who’d been afraid to kiss anyone before, but dreamt of it for his whole life. The taste was immediately, absurdly English: a shadow of honey, a hint of strong black tea, and something else wholly Giles like.
Buffy’s hand came up to his face without her permission, fingertips finding the edge of his jaw, feeling the roughness of stubble and the solid heat of his cheek. She felt the moment he relaxed—something releasing in his shoulders, a half-step forward, a gentle downward lean into her, as though he'd been holding himself at a careful distance his whole life and had only now decided to stop. His hand cradled her jaw, thumb moving slowly along her cheekbone. Buffy had spent years being the strongest thing in any given room. She hadn't known, until now, that there was something she'd wanted more than that.
When the kiss broke, Giles didn’t retreat. He stayed close, his forehead resting against hers, breathing uneven and a little shaky. The world suddenly seemed very small, shrunken to the two of them and the dough and the sunlit kitchen and the sugar dust floating in the air. For a long moment there was only their shared breath, and a bright, humming silence.
Buffy wanted to say something sharp—break the tension with a joke, a quip, anything to cover the fact that her hands were trembling—but she couldn’t. She looked at him, really looked at him: the way his glasses sat crooked on his nose, the flour streaks at his temples, and the faint, incredulous smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. This was Giles, her Giles, and he looked at her now as if he’d been holding this moment in reserve, like an antique bottle of scotch.
She reached out with her thumb and wiped a final, stubborn chocolate smudge from the side of his jaw. He caught her hand in his, pressing her palm to his mouth in a gesture so gentle it made her chest ache. For a moment, neither of them said anything, letting the silence stretch and breathe.
“Buffy,” he said at last, the word a question, an apology, and a prayer, all at once.
She laughed, surprising herself. “You know this is weird, right?”
He grinned—a real, open smile that she’d only ever seen a handful of times. “Given the alternative, I’ll take weird.”
They both started laughing then, helpless and a little breathless, as though the kiss had knocked loose a dam somewhere inside them. The kitchen felt lighter, the air electric with possibility.
Giles ran a hand through his hair, dislodging a cloud of flour and looking, for the first time in a long while, entirely at ease. He looked at her, eyes shining with something unguarded and deeply fond.
"Well," Giles murmured, his eyes full of a quiet affection. "That was... certainly not in the recipe book."
Buffy smiled, leaning into his touch. "I’d definitely give it an eleven out of ten."