You and Me of the 10,000 Wars

By Rainne

Copyright © 2003

Djgirl1978@bellsouth.net

"You know, looking back, sometimes I think everything went wrong on my seventeenth birthday, and it's just been keeping on going wrong ever since. Spiraling out of control."

"Buffy, no, 's not your fault."

"Giles."

"Mm?"

"Shush. I'm trying to be philosolophical."

"You're drunk, Buffy."

"Pot to kettle, pot to kettle, do you read me? Over."

A snort of laughter, followed by the sound of liquid sloshing into a glass. "Well, have another, then."

"Why, thank you, kind sir. I do believe I shall." A long pause. "What was I talking about?"

"I believe you were about to go into a rather long monologue about how everything that's occurred in the past several years has been your fault for sleeping with Angel."

Another pause. "Oh, yeah. 'S exactly what I was gonna do. How'd you know?"

He laughed then. "Because we've been getting stinking drunk together at least once a week since destroying Sunnydale and every time we do, you rehash the same tired guilt trip."

"Sorry, didn't realize I was boring you. Maybe I'll make everything your fault tonight." But the grin on her face told him she was just teasing, so he grinned back and offered a toast.

"To chaos and mayhem!"

"Hey, yeah!" she agreed, leaning over to clink the rim of her glass against his, and they both tossed back another mouthful. She shuddered. "Bleh."

There was another long stretch of silence. "It's not as though I didn't foul things up as much as you did," he finally said. "I mean, granted, I've not shagged any vampires recently, but still... I made mistakes."

"Nah. Perfect Watcherguy. My perfect Giles."

"Oh? Dare I dredge up, since we're discussing your birth celebrations, your eighteenth birthday?"

She sighed. "Do we gotta?"

"Well, if you're going to drag yourself through the mud, it only seems fair that I should do the same."

"Well, then, let's talk about something else." She cast about for a conversation topic. "Um. Oh! Emmitt Smith is leaving the Cowboys."

He blinked. "What are you blathering about?"

She shrugged. "Sports. Guys like sports. You're a guy." She seemed to think that explained everything.

"Well, thank you for finally noticing," he mumbled sarcastically.

She rolled over on her couch and glared across the coffee table at him. "What's that s'posed to mean?"

He sat up. "Nothing." He poured himself another drink. "Have another." He held out the bottle.

She held out her glass to be refilled. "Now spill. Whadda you mean thank me for noticing? I've always known you were a guy. I mean, look at you. Big, British guy-type person."

"Yes, and old and very, very gross," he replied, sarcasm fairly dripping from his words.

She glared at him. "What do you expect? I mean, I come to you for help, I come looking for Giles, and what do I get? Hugh Hefner. I'm surprised she didn't have bunny ears on." She paused. "Unless you had 'em upstairs. You didn't, did you?"

He burst out laughing. "No, Buffy, I most certainly did not."

She sighed in relief, pouring herself a refill and only spilling a little bit on the table as she drained the bottle into her glass. "We're out," she said glumly.

"I've more," he responded laconically. "Never fear."

"Oh, good. So, yeah, don't make all surprised with me. I know about you, stevedore-man. I heard my mom think all about you. You never did tell me what a stevedore was," she finished petulantly.

His mouth quirked in a half-smile. "It defies definition, my dear." He stood and made his way across the room to the liquor cabinet, rummaged through it, and turned to face her. "We seem to've exhausted the scotch and the whiskey. Or possibly we simply didn't buy more. Or something."

She blinked at him. "Well..." she paused, thinking, her face screwed up into an expression of drunken concentration. "Oh!" she exclaimed, her face lighting up. "There's Pucker in the freezer."

His face moved into an expression of disgust. "Pucker?"

She grinned. "Yup. It's good. You mix the apple and the watermelon and you call it a Jolly Rancher. Hold on. I'll get it." She stood and nearly fell onto the coffee table. "Oh, maybe I'm drunker'n I thought I was."

"I daresay," he replied, watching her catch her balance and weave across the room and into the kitchen. She returned a moment later, two bottles and a plastic pitcher in hand. "What's that for?"

She sat down heavily and looked across the room at him. "Well, maybe you can hold it together enough at this point to mix drinks, but I can't, so I figured I'd just pour it all into the pitcher and save us both the trouble of having to scrub the carpet in the morning."

"Quick thinking. I've always liked that about you," he commented as he came to sit down again. "You've always been quick on your feet."

"Yeah?"

He nodded. "Yes."

She grinned and emptied the two bottles into the pitcher, then poured them both a cup of the resulting mix. "It's sour," she warned him before tossing her own back.

He shuddered at the flavor but stuck his cup back out for a refill. "With any luck it'll burn my taste buds out," he offered.

She laughed. "We shoulda started doing this years ago," she said suddenly.

"What, getting drunk together?"

She shook her head. "No, hanging out. Being... you know, Buffy and Giles instead of Watcher and Slayer all the time. Mighta saved some trouble."

"No doubt," he said softly, thinking about that. "Certainly a lot of what happened your first year of college. Spike tearing us all apart. Could've prevented that if we'd been closer, you and I. Damn Travers and his test and his buggering father's love."

She was looking at him, face expressionless, eyes slightly glazed from drink but alert. "Travers," she declared, "was a poncy sod."

He stared at her, his jaw dropping. "A what?"

She giggled. "You think I didn't learn anything listening to you? How about, a pillock. Yeah?"

"D'you even know what a pillock is?" he asked her.

She pondered it. "Um, nope. Know it’s bad, though."

He shook his head at her. "Never mind, then." He tossed back another mouthful of Buffy's concoction and shuddered again. "Well here we are now, getting stinking drunk together. Not very Watcher-Slayer now, are we?"

She nodded. Then she shook her head. Rapidly she became confused, and simply lay back down on the couch again. "Nope." She lay there for a moment, simply looking at him. "Never the twain shall meet," she suddenly said mournfully.

"What d'you mean, Buffy?"

She sighed. "Just sounded right. Me 'n you, I mean. 'Cause we always seem to miss each other. You know?" She paused. "I dunno if I'm making much sense right now. I'm pretty drunk."

He snorted. "I've seen you drunker. Just a few days ago, in fact. And yes, it made sense. We always seem to be going in the same direction, and we never manage to come together."

She sat up then, eyeballing him, and it seemed suddenly that there was no trace of alcohol anywhere on her. Her eyes were clear and unnaturally bright as she studied him. "You know," she said suddenly, "you're not my father."

"No, Buffy, I'm not."

She shook her head. "I'm fuzzy. This isn't going to come out right so bear with me." She heaved a sigh. "Travers said that you were like my father. And when you gave me the money, after I came back, I said it was like having Mom back again. but I didn't mean it in a parental way. I didn't think you were my dad, or... or even my rakish uncle," she smiled. "But you felt... you made me feel safe. Like I could count on something, anything, in the middle of all the chaos, there was you and you could help make it better."

He sighed. "I tried, Buffy, and-"

She waved a hand. "I know, Giles. Believe me. I totally blew up over you leaving, and I totally let my inner Cordelia out to play for a while after that... but when I stopped and made myself look at things from your end, I got it. And you were probably right to do it. If you'd stayed, I probably would've gone into total meltdown. That's not the point." She frowned. "At least, I don't think so. Let me catch up." She thought for a moment, then smiled. "I remember. Travers. He said you had a father's love for me. But you're not my father."

"No," he said, his mouth suddenly dry. He reached for the pitcher. "No, I'm not."

"So..." she paused. "And I'm not your daughter. And... and you're not old. Or gross. I was mad, and I wanted to hurt you. I didn't mean those things. And I should've said that when it happened. I'm sorry I hurt you, Giles." She looked up at him, and suddenly she was crying. "I'm so sorry. All the times I was so stupid and every time I hurt you, and I could have not done it, but I did it anyway. I was such a bitch. I'm not surprised you left me. I'd have left me, too."

He was by her side, holding her close to him, before he even realized he'd moved. She clutched at his shirt, sobbing miserably into his chest, as he rubbed her back and made soothing noises. "I'm sorry, Giles," she said over and over. "I'm so sorry."

"Stop, now," he finally said quietly. "Stop crying... you'll be sick. And I want you to listen to me. Many of the things you did, happened because you were a child. You were immature, self-centered and thoughtless as children tend to be. It's not a reflection on you, but rather on the way you were raised. You've changed so much since then. You're a sensitive, intelligent, caring young woman who pays attention to the people around her. You've been through so much in the last few years, Buffy, that I'm surprised you haven't, as you put it, gone into total meltdown over it. Look at me, Buffy." When she finally looked up into his face, her tear-filled eyes meeting his own, he whispered, "I forgive you. I forgive you every thoughtless word and selfish action. I’m sorry, too, for everything I did to hurt you. Please don’t cry any more."

She calmed slowly, but kept her hands wound in the fabric of his shirt. He was content simply to hold her, feeling the warmth of her body against his chest as he gently rubbed her back. He had just begun to wonder if she’d fallen asleep when she spoke again. "You don’t have to apologize to me, you know. Everything you ever did to me was for my own good, except for that stupid test which is such ancient history. And even that, you couldn’t keep it up. You finally warned me." She reached down to touch his hands, which had never healed right after Angelus. "Even after everything. So I forgive you, Giles."

He found himself weeping, for the first time since she came back from running away that dreadful summer. She pulled him to her and held him close, letting the tears wash away the pain. As he began to calm, he reached for the pitcher again, but she took his hand. "No. No more of that tonight, for either of us. Maybe it’s time for us both to quit with the drowning of the sorrows and start with the making with the happiness. You think?"

He sorted through her words for the meaning, smiled, and nodded. "I think," he agreed.

She sat up. "I’m hungry."

"Why am I not surprised?"

They slipped out the front door of the two-bedroom apartment they were sharing, careful not to make any noise and possibly wake Willow, Xander and Kennedy, who were sharing the apartment across the breezeway, or Andrew and Dawn, who shared the apartment next door. They walked down the stairs and out across the parking lot of the apartment complex, to the street. Two blocks down, a yellow-and-black sign shone brightly in the darkness, and they made their way drunkenly down the sidewalk toward it.

"I’m glad we decided not to go to Cleveland," Buffy said at about the halfway point. "The new girls will do fine there with Robin and Faith, and I’m way too drunk to be fighting vampires right now."

"As am I," he replied, grinning. "But not too drunk to fight a waffle."

They entered the Waffle House restaurant laughing at each other for having tripped over a curb and then tripped over one another. They made their way through the nearly-empty building and slid into a booth in the far back corner together, side by side. The waitress, a tired-looking young woman with golden eyes, came to take their order. "Water and a salad, please," Buffy ordered, and Giles turned outraged eyes on her.

"Absolutely not. I forbid it."

She and the waitress both blinked at him. "Excuse me, Watcher-mine?"

He took her by the wrist and held her arm up. "You’re nothing but skin and bones. The anorexic look does nothing for you but make me fear for breaking you in half whenever we spar. You’ll eat, and real food." He grasped the menu. "She wants eggs," he told the waitress, "fried, and sausages, and toast with butter, and… what on earth are grits?"

"You want feedin’ her something’ll stick to ‘er ribs, you feed ‘er some grits," the waitress replied with a grin. "Put ya a li’l butter ‘n some waffle syrup in ‘em, make ‘em sweet."

"Very well, grits she shall have, then. And I’ll have the same, barring the grits."

"Oh, I don’t think so," Buffy countermanded with a grin. "If I’m eating grits, you’re eating grits." She winked up at the waitress, who grinned back.

"What y’all want to drink?"

"Coffee," Buffy replied, nearly overriding Giles’s similar declaration.

The waitress winked at them, stepped back, turned toward the short-order cook, and began to shout their order in the incomprehensible shorthand of Waffle House employees. She brought them their coffees then, and moved to serve another couple who’d just entered the restaurant and sat at the far end.

"I think the best part about the whole ordeal, for myself at least, was that little sod’s face when you threw that sword and nearly took his head off."

Buffy laughed at the memory of the Councilman nearly wetting himself. "I said no talking," she recalled, grinning. She leaned back and sighed. "Oh, I so ate too much."

"How’d y’all like ‘em grits?" the waitress asked, coming over to take their plates.

"They were, er… unique," Giles temporized. "I’ve never eaten anything quite like them before."

Buffy nodded her agreement and the waitress grinned. "Y’all ain’t from ‘round here, are ya?"

Giles shook his head. "California," he replied.

"Y’all’s a long way from home, then, ain’t ya?"

Buffy grinned. "This is home, now. We’re here to stay."

"Any reason in particular? Navy?"

Buffy shook her head. "Dart on a map," she replied. "Is there a big Navy population here?"

The waitress nodded. "Oh, yeah. We got… lemme see… three bases in town, and three more down the highway within about an hour’s drive. Lots of military here – Navy, Air Force, Marines. They come and go." She shrugged. "Get y’all some dessert?" Then she grinned. "Bet y’all ain’t never had a decent pecan pie before, have you?"

Watcher and Slayer looked at each other and shrugged. "What the heck?" Buffy grinned. "let us have some."

Sometime later, after they’d eaten and listened to the other couple play country love songs on the jukebox, they finally paid and sauntered out of the little restaurant. It was still dark, but the stars shone brightly overhead as they made their slow way back toward the apartment complex. They strolled slowly, reveling in their newly-refound friendship, sharing happy memories and laughing together as they recounted their own foibles and those of the ones they loved, even those who had passed on, without feeling that they needed to weep for their losses.

The street they walked down, though wide, was relatively untraveled at this late hour, and they were left in a cocoon of almost-silence as they walked. Buffy suddenly giggled. "That waitress thought we were together."

He looked down at her. "Eh?"

"The waitress. When I was paying, and you were outside, she said you were a good man and I should hang on to you." As if in response to those words, her arms snaked around his waist. "I think she was right," she added softly.

"B-Buffy, I –"

"Shh." She put one finger over his lips. "Don’t talk. Just… just feel." Her hand came around the back of his neck and pulled him down to her, and she placed a gentle kiss on his lips. His hands came to her cheeks almost of their own accord, cupping the soft skin gently as he returned her kiss reverently. They came apart gently and he pulled her to him, holding her close and feeling her heart beat with his. She laid her cheek against his chest and sighed deeply.

"Oh, Buffy," he whispered softly. "You don’t know how long…"

She smiled into his shirt. "Oh?" she asked archly. She leaned back and looked up at him with a sardonic half-grin. "What do you think Parker was about?"

"Parker?" He blinked. "The young pillock Willow and Xander told me about with the short attention span?"

"The very one," Buffy responded. "You’ll recall he came in the direct aftermath of your Hugh Hefner impression."

"Oh. Oh, dear."

She leaned up and brushed another gentle kiss onto his lips. "Yeah. I so wanted to slay Olivia."

He hugged her tightly. "Buffy, I’m –"

"Don’t." She interrupted him. "Don’t say it any more. I have an idea." She stood up and grinned brightly at him. "Why don’t we start all over again, brand new?" She stuck her hand out. "Hi, I’m Buffy."

He grinned back and took the bait. "Giles," he responded. "Rupert Giles."

"Nice to meet you, Giles," she said brightly. "Wanna come home with me for the rest of my life?"

They couldn’t get the door unlocked fast enough, and nearly fell into the living room, giggling madly while pulling at one another’s clothes. She finally got his shirt unbuttoned enough to run her hands through his crisp chest hair and groaned. "You feel so good," she told him.

"As do you, my love," he whispered back as he slid his hands under her sweater.

Somehow the rest of their clothing disappeared, and before either of them knew it, they were falling, giggling and naked, onto his bed. They wrestled playfully for several minutes before he won by cheating when he took her breast in his mouth. The feel of his hot mouth on her sensitive flesh made her moan his name and he grinned, scraping the sensitive bud with his teeth as his hand came up to tease the other. He looked up after a moment and grinned at her. "Well, then," he teased gently. "Takes a bit of effort to make you properly submissive, eh?"

She flipped them over so that she straddled his waist and grinned. "More than that, Watcher," she growled at him and set to work on his own nipples before sliding slowly down his body, licking and sucking his skin on the way across his torso and down his belly. She arrived at the glaring evidence of his arousal, grinned, and slid off him onto the floor. "Come here."

He looked over and saw her kneeling next to the bed, her hair falling in waves around her and a lascivious grin on her face. He gasped. "Buffy, you don’t have to…"

"I know," she said quietly. "I want to. Please? Come here?"

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. She was between them in no time, scraping her nails lightly up the insides of his thighs to the beautiful music of his groans. His eyes fluttered closed on her wicked grin. A moment later he felt her hand wrap around the base of his penis and the soft touch of her tongue stroke across the head. "Oh, Buffy…" he sighed. His hand came to rest gently on the top of her tousled blonde head.

She licked up the underside of his penis, sliding the tip of her tongue into his slit and tasting the faintly sweet drops of precum gathering there. She listened to his breathing quicken and slowly took him into her mouth as far as she could. She stroked the remainder of his base with one hand and lifted the other to fondle his scrotum. The sounds of ecstasy he made caused her belly to grow hot, and her intense desire to please him grew even more so. She relaxed her throat and began to take him in even farther.

He gasped when he felt the head of his cock begin to slide down her throat. "Oh. God, Buffy... oh, love, you drive me insane..."

She worked him as she'd never done before, using tongue, lips, teeth, hands - any trick she could think of to bring him pleasure. She felt his balls suddenly tense in her hand and he tried to push her back, but she held fast, not moving, simply continuing giving him the best blowjob he'd ever had. She heard him groan and drew back, scraping his shaft with her teeth as she did so, and then plunged forward to engulf him completely once more as he lost control and came in her mouth, calling out her name.

She swallowed everything he gave her cheerfully, and when he opened his eyes again, she was wiping at the trickles and licking her fingers, an extremely self-satisfied expression on her face. She sat back on her heels and looked up at him. "What was that about submission?" she asked innocently.

He growled and leaned down, grabbing her by the waist and tossing her back onto the bed, then pushing her thighs apart and settling between them to return the favor. He licked and kissed his way up her thighs to the place where they joined, holding her hips tightly in his hands, and began to lick and suck at her pussy with abandon. She arched under him and cried out at the sensations he was bringing to her body. Without ever penetrating her with anything but his tongue, he brought her to two separate orgasms in the space of roughly five minutes, and gave himself another raging erection.

As she whimpered her way back down from the second orgasm, he slid up her body and kissed her passionately, tasting himself on her even as she tasted herself on him. The head of his cock nudged gently at her wet slit and she gasped, then raised her hips in invitation. He needed no further instruction but slowly began to sink himself into her hot depths, both of them moaning as they fit themselves together. She grasped at the small of his back, pulling him closer to her, and moaned as he bent down and bit her neck gently. "Oh, God, Giles... you feel so good in me."

"I know, love, I know... you feel like hot silk... burning me to my core..." He whispered these words to her as he slowly began to thrust with his hips, pressing himself into her as deeply as he could reach. She raised her legs and wrapped them around his waist to allow him even deeper penetration, and he groaned even as she mewled in pleasure.

"Oh, God, Giles... yes... oh, baby, you feel so good... harder, baby, harder, I'm gonna come so hard for you..."

"Come for me, then, my love," he growled into her ear, thrusting so hard that the headboard of his bed banged against the wall. "Come for me, let me hear you."

She gasped as he thrust more deeply into her than any other man ever had. "Oh, God... oh, God... Giles!" She cried out his name in sheer ecstasy as the waves gripped her and carried her over the edge and into the deep chasm of bliss. He thrust twice more as her inner walls squeezed at him and came as well, with a roar of her name and a flood of hot seed that filled her.

They lay together in the aftermath, holding each other close and simply being together. They had wrapped themselves around each other when it was done, not wanting to give up any kind of contact. Her head was nestled in the crook of his shoulder and his arms were wrapped around her. One of her hands played idly with his chest hair.

"I love you, you know," she said softly after a long time.

His hand came up to stroke her cheek. "I know," he whispered.

"I meant what I said about the rest of my life," she told him then. "Whether it turns out to be five days or fifty years. I meant it. I want you with me always. I... when you were gone... I hurt so much, and I didn't understand why. At the time, I thought I was just angry because you'd left me when I needed you. But that wasn't why. It was because half my soul was gone. It was with you."

He pulled her even tighter against him. "Oh, my heart," he said softly into her hair. "Don't you know that I felt the same way?"

They lay together then, silent in the knowledge of their love.

"Do you think it was worth it?" she said finally, in her sleepy-voice.

"What, love?" he asked.

"All the pain. All the heartache. Was it worth all that to you, for us to come together here, now, like this?"

He thought about that for a moment. "Yes," he finally said. "Yes, it was. If I could know that I had this waiting for me, that your love would be here when I arrived at this moment again, I would go back and redo everything the same way, never changing a thing. If I only knew that when I got to this moment again, you would still be lying here beside me."

She sniffled. "That's beautiful, Giles. And... I don't have the words, but I feel the same way."

He kissed her hair. "I know, love. Sleep, now."

"You sleep too," she said softly, as Morpheus 's arms carried her away.

He lay next to her for a long time, feeling her breathe, smelling the scent of her shampoo and the musk of their passion on her skin, and then finally Morpheus came to take him as well.

The moon, unnoticed, shone in the window on the two sleeping lovers, and for a while, all was right in the universe.

The End

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