Chapter Text
just take what you want from me
and let me indulge you
— "Reignite" by Gallant x Knox Brown
“I think I actually found something that isn’t books,” Buffy announced, her head bent over an open cardboard box.
Giles looked up from the shelf on demon biology in the loft. “Oh? Is the side labeled?”
Buffy checked the outside of the box, spinning it to try and spot his writing somewhere. “Nah, just has a bunch of shoe boxes in it.” She lifted one of the boxes, hearing something inside it shift. “And… a leather bag? More weapons maybe?”
Within seconds, Giles had appeared beside her, slightly out of breath from climbing back down the ladder so fast. “Ah, n-no. It’s nothing.” He cleared his throat and reached for the shoe box she still held. “Nothing we need here at the shop anyway. Must have been loaded up by mistake.”
Curiosity piqued, Buffy stepped back to move the box out of his reach. “That’s not a ‘nothing’ kinda reaction…” She shook it lightly, trying to parse the source of the sound within. “Whatcha hiding in here? Dangerous spells? Spare pairs of glasses?”
Giles lunged for the box but missed it narrowly as Buffy darted back again. He gave a huff of impatience, his hands framing his hips as he looked down his nose at her. “Am I allowed nothing of a personal nature?”
Buffy’s smile dropped and she placed the box back on the table. “Yeah, cause you’re such an open book,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes.
He scoffed at her assertion. “Ah yes, your keen interest in my life has always been extraordinarily apparent.” He loaded the shoe box on top of the rest with perhaps a bit more force than was strictly necessary.
“Cranky!” Buffy crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at him. It was with a little flicker of shame that she remembered how often she had dismissed him as just Research Guy, despite her awareness that there was a lot more to him than that. “You act like I don’t care. Just because I’m not about the invasive questions all the time doesn’t mean I don’t wanna know you better.”
Giles paused, taking a long slow breath and carefully avoiding her gaze. “There are,” he licked his lips, “aspects of my life to which you have shown a, ah… strong aversion.”
Buffy’s brow furrowed in confusion before she recalled the times when she had been maybe less than kind in expressing her opinions. Comprehension dawned and, eyebrows raised, she said, “You keep your sex toys in taped-up shoe boxes? Y'know, most of us just use our bedside drawers.”
“S-sex toys — oh good Lord,” Giles sputtered, pulling a sour face and removing his glasses to vigorously clean them. Buffy clamped her mouth shut, face flaming as she realized her unconscious implication.
Shaking her head and doing her best to change the subject, Buffy said, “Okay then. So, what? It’s like… memory boxes? Old lovers and stuff? There’s no shame in that. I still have the first Valentine’s Day card a boy ever gave me in a caboodle under my bed.” She winced at the confession, cursing her over-share mode. “…please don’t tell the guys I said that.”
Giles fixed her with a look of mild amusement as he placed his glasses back on his face, temporary flare of temper clearly having faded. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Buffy, grateful that he didn't seem to be alluding to her earlier forbidden object storage-slip, replied, “I know.”
Expression warming even further at her soft tone, Giles looked down, one hand massaging the back of his neck. “We, ah, may as well call it a night. Willow said she could come tomorrow and help me arrange the spellbooks and Xander will be here in the afternoon for another round of,” with an exaggerated shudder, “carpentry.”
“I thought you said he was doing a great job?”
“Oh, he certainly is.” Giles nodded. “I’m just not nearly as excited about handling all that wood… s-stop that,” he admonished as Buffy snorted at his language choice, though his eyes were laughing with her.
Buffy’s attention flicked to the open cardboard box and back to her Watcher. “I can carry that out to your car. I promise I won’t even peek.” It was as close to an apology as she could form without admitting any actual fault.
Giles was quiet as he studied her for a long moment, eyes searching hers before roving over her face; it was almost like he was trying to intuit something hidden. Buffy could have sworn his eyes lingered on her lips before he blinked and looked away. With a loud exhale, he reached into the box and set aside one shoe box to pull out the oddly shaped leather bag she’d seen. He unzipped the top and pulled out an object that reminded her a bit of a bulky calculator. He pulled the front part of it up and it was revealed to be a weird looking camera. Depositing the bag on the table, he held it up with both hands and looked at Buffy through the lens. Instinctively, she threw on a cheesy smile and posed but the flash didn’t come.
Giles lowered the camera, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. “No film.”
Buffy’s cheeks heated as she realized that ought to have been obvious. “Right. Duh. It’s been in storage.” She squinted at the semi-familiar shape of the camera. “Is it a… Polaroid?”
“Uh, well spotted. Yes. Likely a much earlier model than you’ve ever used.” He fished around inside the bag and removed a black cartridge. “The battery was built into the film and I haven’t bought a new one in years… Shall we see if it still works?”
Buffy shrugged. “All I have left tonight is patrol and I am so okay with putting that off. It’s been slow the last couple of nights.”
“More than likely it's the last of the summer doldrums,” Giles observed as he loaded the cartridge into the camera with a practiced ease. “There shall certainly be plenty of activity in no time.”
“Oh, goody.”
He chuckled and looked through the camera lens again. “I’m certain Riley would be happy to keep you, ah, company.”
“Not you?” Buffy tilted her head questioningly.
His eyes snapped away from the camera to rest on her face, his tongue darting out to swipe his bottom lip before saying quietly, “If you like.”
“I mean, I did ask you to be my Watcher again, Council or no Council.” Buffy leaned against a chair that had been pulled away from the table to hold more boxes of books. “And it’s nice. Knowing you have my back out there.”
She absentmindedly twisted her hand around the top part of the chair feeling oddly vulnerable, like she was confessing some big secret. Maybe it was because of what she wasn’t saying, she thought. Because the wasn't-saying of it all was that Riley wasn’t really a great asset on patrol. He was like a big, friendly golden retriever when what she needed was a well trained, stealthy… other kind of animal. Panther, maybe? Probably something catlike.
Either way, Giles was definitely a better fighting partner. He could blend with her style as needed, anticipate her moves, and make himself scarce if he knew he was outgunned. Plus, she missed patrolling with him. She missed his calm presence, the way he never doubted her ability to succeed — or the contrast between her abilities and his. Buffy hadn’t really appreciated Giles' quiet confidence until Riley had started getting all competitive…
There was a flash and Buffy started, blinking rapidly. “What the…? Tryin' to blind me?”
“It wasn't that bright,” Giles tutted, “and I prefer candids, truth be told.” He gave her a gentle smile, cheeks flushing slightly while he fiddled with the narrow camera strap. “You looked quite —” For the briefest second, their eyes locked and Buffy wondered wildly if something was going to happen. It was a something that made her stomach do a little involuntary flip — but not in a bad way. Then Giles cleared his throat, glancing down at the camera and saying briskly, "It was a nice moment."
“Lemme see!” She reached for the gray photo as it was spat out but Giles pulled back.
“Remember not to touch until its done developing, hm?” Grabbing it gingerly by the edges, he laid it on the table.
Mildly chastised, Buffy shifted her focus to the shoe boxes. “Are those all filled with photos?”
“Mostly. A few other trinkets perhaps. Memories.” Giles was looking through the lens towards various parts of the shop. “Not unlike your caboodle. Whatever that questionably named object might be.”
Buffy rolled her eyes and pulled the shoe boxes out, stacking them on the table. “It’s a way better storage system than yours. Weren’t you worried about water damage?”
“In Southern California?” The flash went off again but not in her direction.
“You’ve seen the freeways when it rains. Flash flooding is a real thing.”
Giles conceded her point with a shrug. “Frankly, I had forgotten I had them all shipped out here. I thought I’d left all this in storage in England.”
Tracing the scribbled writing she’d found on the side of one box, Buffy muttered, “For when you, uh, go back?” Though she wasn’t looking at him, she could feel him grow suddenly still. It was as though the air in the room had changed, gotten thicker.
Giles paused, set the camera down, and shifted the boxes to take a seat on the tabletop facing her, one of his knees close enough to almost touch Buffy's hip. He smoothed a hand down one of his long thighs and she found her eyes following the movement.
“I-is something on your mind, Buffy?”
She wanted to laugh at that because wasn’t there always something? Too many somethings, more like. Drawing a breath from deep within her chest, Buffy looked at him with a thin smile. “I’d really miss you, is all. You know?”
Giles gave her a mildly troubled look, narrowing his eyes almost like he was trying to read very small text in a book. “I’ve just bought property in a prime location of the Sunnydale market. I have a Slayer to continue training, a business to run, and Scoobies to… I don’t know, impart life lessons upon, I suppose? I have a very full existence again. Right here.”
Buffy felt her chest ease up just a bit at his reassurance. “I guess I maybe forget that you really did have a whole life before us. Before me.” She ran a finger over the top of one sealed shoe box. “This was a weird reminder.” Meeting his eyes again in the dim, partially installed shop lighting, Buffy felt an unexpected fizz of electricity go up her spine. She couldn’t seem to look away.
Giles was leaning toward her, balancing his upper body with a hand braced on one thigh. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped lower in both timbre and tone. “Do you really want to see what’s in those boxes?”
Not quite finding her voice again, as everything inside her seemed to be feeling a little trembly, Buffy simply nodded with a shaky exhale. Giles’ jaw twitched and he pursed his lips, leaning over the table to draw one box closer.
Buffy swayed on her feet. For a split second, she’d been struck by the wild notion that he was leaning in to kiss her! Even wilder, she had been ready to let him. Maybe even kiss him back. Which was totally crazy and un-Buffy-like and… and probably gross? It hadn’t really seemed all that gross. In fact, she was still thinking about his lips and wondering if they were as soft as they looked.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. Was there a spell happening?
She swallowed hard a couple times and pulled out a nearby chair to plop herself down in before she did something stupid — like try to make out with her way-old Watcher. Even if he was technically younger than her first boyfriend by like a century and a half. Head-spinning math, right there.
Giles shifted back further on the table, putting more distance between them as he plucked at the edges of the tape and slowly pulled the lid off of his chosen box. “It may shock you to know that I did not keep to much of a filing system in those days.” He said it almost apologetically as he pulled a handful of photos from the box and looked at their backs before offering her the small stack. “Some are labeled. Some…” He gave a half-shrug with a dismissive wave.
Buffy shuffled through the photos carefully, noting that some were very faded but others still easy to see. Most of them seemed to be of various people she didn’t recognize. A couple were city-scapes taken at strange angles that made her tilt her head to one side then the other. There was one very faded photo of a horse that appeared to be moving toward the camera. “You were going for… artsy?” she guessed, shooting him a cheeky grin.
“Mm. Musician, photographer, fancied myself a poet for a few months as well.” At her quick double-take, lips parted to voice the questions suddenly begging for answers, Giles shook his head firmly. “No. Those are long gone, thank goodness.” He handed her another stack of photos to peruse.
More buildings, some graffiti, a weird shot of lights in motion that made her a little dizzy to look at. And then a face she did recall, albeit much younger. “Ethan.”
Without looking up from the box, he hummed a confirmation. “He’ll be in here quite a bit, I'd wager.”
She looked at the familiar angular face, long body relaxed against what looked like the corner of a bar and while holding a lit cigarette. Behind him were the blurry outlines of another man and a young woman. It was bizarre to think about an Ethan who wasn’t The Enemy, who was just a guy about her age having a night out with friends. Even more bizarre to think that Giles had been one of those friends, probably smoking and drinking as he snapped photos. He had probably been wearing ripped jeans and a dangling earring, maybe sporting a fresh black eye from his latest bar brawl. He’d have been handsome even with the bruise — maybe more so because of it. Seductively dangerous.
Buffy dropped the photo into her lap as her mind seemed to stutter to a halt at that last thought. A quick glance at Giles told her he hadn’t noticed. His attention was fixed on something in the box she couldn’t see and his face had gone serious.
“You, uh, okay?” She fished the Ethan photo from her lap and placed it on top of the pile forming on the table.
“Hm? Oh, yes.” He gave her a wan smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “Wasn’t exactly prepared for a walk down memory lane tonight.”
Disliking the note of melancholy he couldn’t quite hide from her, Buffy stood up and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know I was all jokey-joke about it before but… I like that you kept this stuff. Really,” she affirmed at his dubious look. “Cause it’s like this window into who you were and how you got to be the you that’s so… you.” She grimaced. “Look, I never claimed to be any kind of poet, okay?”
That got a genuine laugh out of him and her hand slid to his forearm and gave it an affectionate squeeze, the muscle deceptively solid beneath his long sleeved t-shirt. His hand cupped her elbow and squeezed back; she tried not to pay too much attention to the way they both let the friendly contact linger.
“Perhaps I ought to get some photo albums,” he mused, then glanced around the shop. “A project for another time, certainly.”
Buffy agreed with a huff of her own laughter. “You’ve definitely got your hands full here right now.” Their hands dropped away from one another almost simultaneously as Giles got to his feet. “But hey, if you want help with that one, well, you’ve got my number.”
As they stood side by side to repack the photos, Giles nudged her with his elbow. “I thought Willow was the one with the boundless curiosity.”
“She is. Willow’s curious about everything. I’m only curious about things that I… things that matter,” she redirected her statement to more innocuous territory at the last second. It was late and she was feeling… Things. Things that weren’t ready to be put into words right now — if ever.
Giles hefted the box under one arm, cocking his hip to support it from underneath while saying softly, “It’s, ah, rather nice to know I'm a thing that matters.”
“Don’t be silly. Who else would host Scooby meetings and make us all tea and cookies? My mom would kick us out in a heartbeat and you know it.”
He shot her a dry look and Buffy almost regretted retreating behind humor. Impulsively, she leaned in for a quick side hug, gratified when his free arm wrapped immediately around her as her head collided with his chest. No sooner had she uncoiled from his side than they were heading toward the door.
“Want me to drop you at one of the cemeteries?” He held keys aloft in his free hand as she opened the door for both of them.
“Nah, I can walk.” It was a warm night and she had a lot on her mind. She really hoped there were some things to kill before she got too lost in her thoughts.