( continues...) afterglow without so much as touching her sweater. He can’t bring himself to be “The bad guy” as Buffy would say.

It’s too late to go home by the time he’s sorted through the latest set of runes for Buffy, and he’s exhausted and has a headache. He let his Sumerian slide so he could get a life, as the children say, and most nights he’s more acquainted with “Free Bird” than ancient text translation.

He can hear soft giggles and a woman’s voice pleading on the stereo...Joyce’s stereo. He lets himself remember that night fully, and simultaneously curses his mawkish slide into nostalgia.”Bit late to die before I get old,” he mumbles and then thinks “Bugger! Talking to myself.” He has to smile at the thought of them, waiting with breath bated for it to be late enough for the old fussy Watcher to pass out, but the music is a bit loud so he goes to the door. He gets to it but before he can knock he hears Willow’s voice saying “Go ahead. Ask him.”

Tara comes out and looks shocked to see him. “M-mr. Giles. I didn’t ...summon you, did I?”

“Only through young Ms. McClachlan. Her pining’s awfully loud.”

The young witch steps back, wearing a well-washed cotton T-shirt and some part of Giles he’d forgotten wonders if being summoned by this woman would be a bad thing.”Well, that’s good, about the summons...I’ve been thinking about you tonight, actually, and sometimes when I really concentrate...poof.”

Rupert Giles, he told himself, you are not allowed to be chuffed by that. But the thought proved it was too late. “That’s really remarkable, in someone of your...”

“ Oh, it’s nothing. And I’m so sorry about the music thing....I’ll tell Sarah she’s stuck with quiet desperation like the rest of us.” It was an old comment for such a young woman and it made something in Giles hurt.

“It sounds fine...I’ve just got this vile headache.”

”Then I guess you can’t look over this spell for me and Will, then.”

“Of course, I can try.”

“Well, not if you’re sick...Willow cares a lot about you and I wouldn’t want to face her if I hurt you.”

Suddenly he thought his glasses felt smudged. But he resisted that habit to say “Not at all. Stiff upper lip firmly in place.”

“Oh, my Gaia, I am such. an idiot. Standing here talking and I didn’t turn the music down. One second.”

Giles came inside and sat in Buffy’s old desk chair. “Hey, Giles,” Willow said. “Kinda like old times, with Buffy light, though.”

Not remotely, Willow. “ Let’s look at the problem, shall we?”

“It’s like a protective spell,” Tara explained. “From deepest yearnings, peace springs free. Willow says it’s Sumerian...like yours. My mother must have just used it translated....Willow’s such a brainiac.” Tara smiled fondly.

“I translated it back, but nothing happened.” Willow said. “Nothing bad, though, either. I really checked this time.” She flipped through the spiral notebook on the table next to her.

Giles took the book and read, frowning for a moment. “Dear Lord.”

Tara’s eyes got big.

“Don’t worry, babe,” Willow said. “He always says that.”

“Forgive my surprise, but for such a simple error, it carries a lot of freight. You have the wrong accent on the second word here.”

”Ok, so I’ll put it in,”Willow said. “all fixed.”

“Possibly for next time, yes. But it changes the meaning of the spell you read earlier today...that isn’t “yearnings” at all, but something else...”

“What?” Tara asked. “You’re turning colors, Mr. Giles.” Giles cleared his throat and cleaned his glasses but there still wasn’t enough air in the room. “Deepest desires,”

“From deepest desires, peace springs free.” Willow repeated.

“Shh...don’t repeat that. “ Tara warned. “The more times you say a thing like that, you make it take effec...Willow, darling, put aside that book and fuck me. I know I said I’d be patient, but after every session of magic group, I spend so much time in the shower I’m a prune. I know you want to, I can feel it. It makes me wet how much.”

This assertive creature was inside quiet Tara? Giles was captivated. The (continued...)

( continues...) magic drove him to cross the room and clasp Tara to him, planting a movie-style kiss on her inviting pink lips. “I’m sorry...you just excited me.” He said when his breath came back.

“No apology necessary,” she said, “At least you can say what you want.”

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong...I’ve had that thought about Willow for years, blast me. It was disgusting of me...I proctored her study hall.”

Tara embraced Giles and ran her hands through his hair. “It’s okay. You’re human too. Let somebody take care of you for a change, poor, poor Giles.” And she kissed his forehead tenderly.

“ I really must get to the bottom of this,” Giles said, but less certainly than usual. He was really enjoying all of Tara’s warm attentions. Maybe he shouldn’t wait for somebody to die to want to hug them. She felt good, smelled good, too. He sniffed her Herbal Essence when she leaned her head on his shoulder. It was ridiculous but he could sit like that forever with a witch’s head on his shoulder. It reminded him of a very beautiful summer he stayed in Devon.” You’ll figure it out. Tomorrow. Today, we’ll lock ourselves in so you won’t have to have your big sexy brain dragged across the floor.”

Willow sat if stunned. When she thought of all the nights she spent alone in high school, it felt weird to hear so much love coming her way. She loved them too.But when she didn’t know what to do, she tended to bury her head in a book.”What did I tell you about that?” Tara said, playfully, taking the notebook.

“Give that back!” Willow begged, eyes shining

“Make me!” Giles couldn’t believe the transformation.

“Volvere,” Willow said.

“No, not like that. “ Kiss me and I’ll give you a page.” Willow kissed her, fully and passionately. The notebook seemed forgotten as the witches’ tongues twined together. “You taste like strawberries,” Tara murmured.”Are you my Strawberry Girl?”

“Yes, yes, always.” “Because you know what I like to do with strawberries.” Giles couldn’t believe the wicked glint in the blonde witch’s eye. She hadn’t been able to look at him when they met, and now it was like she was appraising him, too.

“Oh, yes, please.”

”You’re not going to run off and break my heart with a musician are you?”

“Oh, no, never...Oz was different.”

“ Because if you want a musician, Giles plays, don’t you, Giles?”

“On a very minor scale, yes.” Somehow it didn’t seem the right moment to defend that particular prowess. Maybe when circulation returned to enable higher brain functions. He was already having to take sunset at Stonehenge off his Most Beautiful Sights list.

“And he’s kind of hot, too. Or he would be if I thought about men that way. But you kiss very well, Mr. Giles. I could get into that, maybe.” She brushed his hand so sensuously that in itself was like a sexual experience. Giles flushed.

“I don’t want my girl to feel like she’s missing anything.”

“Oh, Tara. I never would. You’re beautiful and sexy and just looking at you makes me feel all squishy. That said...” Incredibly Willow grabbed Giles by the collar, kissed him and put her tongue in his mouth. “I’ve wanted to do that since high school. I’m sorry. Deepest desires.”

”No apologies necessary. Say that again.”

”What? Desires?” Willow teased. She moved toward the bed, but Giles choked out “No, not on Buffy’s bed.” He had no idea why Buffy’s bedroom carpet felt different, but Willow had removed her blouse and thrown it across the room, not the best time for logic. For once this pile was going to be shag.” You don’t think it was the Latin that got my attention during research breaks was it?” The pair lay on the carpet. Giles nuzzled Willow’s breast and licked her nipple into a rosy point.

“May I?” Tara didn’t understand why, but something about Mr. Giles made her want to have perfect grammar, excellent manners, and to have given up visiting the vending machine at the dorm, no matter how much she liked Good&Plenty.

“Of course,” Giles said, cursing his upbringing that made such expressions so automatic. “After you.” He really wished he could have kept the beautiful (continued...)

( continues...) blonde’s attention. Possibly Ripper could’ve, but that was another power he gave sparing attention these days. Unleashing it and creating that triangle with himself, Deidre and Ethan had been at least as destructive as having a young man die unexpectedly. They fought relentlessly, carping about small sums of money, washing-up liquid, household chores. One night, he’d caught them in bed, and when the jealousy simmered within him, he had no idea of its object. It was very loud and angry, their sex, as if they were using each other to get to him. By sunrise, he’d decided to clean up and go home, but it took another week to get through what people here would call “the denial” and in between the ritual went horribly wrong.
He wonders, as an older man, if that much sexual energy mixed with the dark arts wasn’t the true culprit, but he doubts he will ever share that knowledge with Buffy. It doesn’t seem appropriate...even as he thinks that thought, he feels foolish. Nothing is appropriate now, least of which includes watching a beautiful blonde witch lick somebody he’s known since she was a very awkward sixteen like an ice-cream cone, and finding it...personally gratifying. He reminds himself of Roland...something(He really isn’t thinking clearly right now.), an 18th century Watcher whose broad-minded take on both the Enlightenment and his job title involved watching his Slayer engage “in lewd and grievous acts” with the butcher’s apprentice after a kill. The overweening presence of the Watcher’s council dated from the resultant scandal, and Giles had had ample occasion to curse his portrait in the codex. And now he wasn’t acting much better, letting the creamy whiteness of Willow’s naked skin overwhelm him. But he can’t look away, not for anything, especially as Tara strokes Willow’s nether lips with her finger and says “You’re so wet. For me.” As if it is the greatest spell in the world. And for all of them, Giles thinks it is.

Willow, looking both more relaxed and more excited than Giles has ever seen her, whispers “Yes! Oh, yes,” She is so lovely Giles wishes they could be enchanted forever, but this particular charm is short-term by design, used by pagan and Native American sects in rituals...he already feels responsible enough to have looked that up, and feel some relief, and wonder at such a spell’s traveling the world. It must have good word of mouth, he thinks and groans, both at the pun and Tara, bent over a Willow writhing as if she couldn’t possibly feel anybetter, now or ever. She moans deep in her throat, the most sensual and uninhibited sound to ever come out of shy but talkative Will. This woman never cared what anyone thought. “Oh, damn, Tara,” she murmurs.

Giles is now even more determined to seduce the seducer. He pulls *that* smile out of storage, and aims it at young Ms. McClay with all the force he’s not used since Oxford. She is a tough nut to crack though and just gets up to find and afghan to cover a sated and sleeping Willow. Tara looks down at Willow with such tenderness Giles is stabbed with envy. “Fancy a neck massage?”

“Ok,” she says, “But that’s all.”

“We’ll lie on the couch then,” Giles says. “Or you can. Give the girl a chance to get her strength back.” They exchange knowing smiles in the dark, each taking credit for the fact that Willow smiles her curving smile in her sleep, piled among her magic books. Giles has seen her this way before but always as if tormented by her accidental and fragmented dreams or mumbling in her sleep about frogs. It was strange that being debauched made her look happy and innocent, but it was good for Giles’ heart to see it, not to mention his pride and his blood. It excited him and filled him with love, both. He explains this to Tara, who listens patiently. He loves that about her, no snarky comments, no mental fast-forward, he hadn’t known there were students like her in Sunnydale.

He tells her. She blushes. He leans in close enough so he can smell her, fabric softner, licorice, and if he is not mistaken, Willow. She is warm and inviting, such that (continued...)

( continues...) he forgets about his many elaborate plans and brushes an eyelash off her face and gets lost in another tidal wave of a kiss, one part of him keeps checking to make sure she returns. She seems to, which would be apersonal or political about-face for Tara so they take it very slowly, and as gently as one can under a sexual enchantment.

Kissing Tara feels like kissing when you first learn how, as its own reward, not as a prelude to something else, because you are just young enough not to be sure how something else works. He is perverse enough to love touching the mouth that touched Willow there. He both hopes and feels disappointed by the thought that Willow might sleep through the enchantment without realizing her deepest desire with him and he wondered which one would win out when Tara drew out a condom and said” This is probably the next step, isn’t it? I’ve hardly been with a boy.”

“In that case, my dear,” he said feeling weirdly gallant, “This birth control will be hardly adequate...there’s no magic around for that.”

”I heard Margaret Mead saw some in Samoa.”

“Where’d you get that?”

‘The Anthropology of Magic...it’s 400 level, I got special permission.”

”With that face, I don’t doubt it, my dear...but I mean the condom, love.”

”Joyce’s bathroom, behind some big book...my first urge was to steal it while I was in there...I...didn’t know why then...you don’t mind?”

“Mind? No, I’m flattered enough to make a big mistake with you. But there are many other things we can do.”

And they explored each other fully and with much laughter and affection on Joyce’s brown sofa..he remembered taking Joyce here as well. He loved that piece of furniture very much and what happened now further deepened his attachment. At some point, Willow awakened, and in addition to the glass of water she got up for, she and Giles took their drowsy, slightly unreal, and dreamlike pleasure on the same sofa while Tara dozed. Then, the three of them huddled together as if for warmth and slept deeply,
covering up but not caring that the house bore the stamp of their earlier research frenzy, books and papers flung hither and yon, glasses in the sink, just the sort of disaster Giles would never have stood for in his right mind. His right mind meant a great deal less to him with Tara’s gorgeous head on his chest and Willow curled up like a kitten at his feet, so he let it go. The sun was quite high in the sky when Giles was half-awakened by Buffy letting herself in. He tried to rouse fully but he knew this was an after-effect. Tara made a fetching little sigh in her sleep and he was loath to give up his comfortable position anyway.”Hey, you guys, I’ve been calling...is everything okay?”

”What is it, Buff?” Xander asked. “Anyone unconscious?”

“Sort of,” Buffy whispered. “Look!”

They pondered the sleeping Watcher, flanked by dreaming witches. “He doesn’t look half so fogey-ish in his sleep does he?” Buffy said
“Gives new meaning to ‘eat, sleep, and dream this stuff’. Rupert Giles, you are a research-a-holic. When you wake up, I’ll have an intervention for you. God knows I’ve been to enough of them.”

“Aw, Xand...so should we move them or what?”

”Considering I’ve had dreams that ended just this way, I couldn’t do that to another guy.”

“Too much information, Xander.”

“Sorry...guess I’m getting used to Anya.” “Glad one of us is....you don’t think...no, Giles has no life.” “ Nope, none.” “It’s sad, but comforting. Like finding Mom watching the tube in her sweat pants.”

Yesterday's Guitars

Part Seven

Dawn closed her eyes as the cab carried her and Andrew through the streets of Venice. This was not an easy place to concentrate, she realized, as the car zigzagged through narrow streets, like a caffeinated ferret. Still, she pushed the world away in her mind.

There were many ways to work magic, but Dawn had very little aptitude for spell casting. Instead, she and Willow had worked out a simple series of charms and glamours, triggered by concentrating on the image of symbols and sigils that had been seared into her memory. In a very real way, the spells she knew had been burned into her brain, and she desperately needed to know if she could still access them. Calling up the images of the symbols felt like when she quit cigarettes. Her head was racing, and a thing that once seemed simple now had her gnawing her teeth.

“Was not the same force at work in himself when he strove in cold fury to liberate from the marble mass of language the slender forms of his art which he saw with the eye of his mind and would body forth to men as the mirror and image of spiritual beauty?” said Andrew dreamily, as he watched the city careen by at a breakneck pace.

Dawn opened her eye in sudden shock.

“You’re quoting Thomas Mann?” she said.

“I love Death in Venice, he said, smiling. The movie. It’s so … Italian. can we stop for some delicious pasta? I’m hungry.”

“We can stop when I know where we’re going,” said Dawn, closing her eyes again and extending her mind outward. Dawn marveled at how he took all this in stride. It was just another adventure in a series of adventures. Andrew had put a pair of train tickets on his credit card, no questions asked. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him.

Buffy kept a small stash of Euros and American dollars in a wall safe behind a Mprint of Monet’s “Water Lillies” she picked up at museum gift shop somewhere. Dawn snagged a small stack of bills, leaving a note to say she’d explain later. Which was probably a lie, but there you are. She had no idea when she was getting home. Or if she was getting home. She thought of Xander, and then pushed it from her mind. She needed to stay focused on…

There was a flash, like a clip of a movie running in her head. Pavayne at a dingy bus station, a knife in his hand. She could see the reflection of his face in the blade. He was the same, his smile pulled tight like some demented Jack O’ Lantern. She could see him bead down on the girl, who was praying. What language was she…

“French,” said Dawn, under her breath. “She was praying in French. And the signs on the wall…”

She opened her eyes.

“I think he’s in France somewhere,” she said to Andrew, who just nodded. “We’re headed to France.”

“OK,” he said. “Does this mean we can stop to…”

“We can eat on the train.”

“OK,” said Andrew, obviously disappointed, but not complaining.

Dawn could begin to feel tiny synapses begin to fire in her brain, as symbols began to burn their way across her consciousness. In her own, small way she could touch the infinite again. She felt like she could see again after being blind for hours.

She was ready to hunt.

Is Shrift around? Leviathan is hanging for me.

I don't think shrift is ever in this thread. Anyway, I got to Leviathan fine. (And I got your e-mail and will reply when I'm finished nursing husband through job crisis.)

No rush, and I'm very sorry to hear of the crisis. It seems to have been a temporary hang on Leviathan.

Sorry if that sounded curt. I was trying to talk on the phone at the same time, usually a mistake.

Is he safely docked at the port of Sanity?