Rating: NC-17
Summary: Willow and Giles do a spell to revisit Willow's Doppelgangland alter ego.
Story Notes: Post-"Chosen." The eighth story in the "This Will Be Our Year" Willow/Giles series.
Disclaimer: It's Joss's world - I'm just in love with it.

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Signs of Life
Gwynnega
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Maybe it was all those years helping to slay vampires, or maybe it was having dated a werewolf, or maybe it was being bitten by Harmony back in college, but Willow had never gone in much for biting - whether giving or receiving. But one rainy Sunday afternoon in bed with Giles, she was on top of him, and she was kissing his neck. That led to licking and sucking on his neck, and then she added just a slight pressure of teeth. He let out a moan and writhed beneath her.

She bit down a little harder. He cried out, grabbed her hips and began thrusting up hard, grunting into her. He came with a yell.

"You liked that," she said afterwards, curled into his side. "When I bit you."

"I liked it."

"You really liked it." She looked up to see his half-smile, that satisfied after-sex look he had. "The Watcher likes to be bitten," she teased. "I guess I should've remembered your little run-in with the Three Sisters."

He looked sheepish. "Oh, you heard about that?"

"Buffy and Riley may have mentioned something about nuzzling..." She nuzzled his chest. "Were those sisters very sexy?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"Well, Dracula was kinda sexy. I remember thinking that, and I was gay at the time."

He raised his eyebrows. "And here I thought Buffy was the only one of you lot who had a thing for vampires."

"I didn't have a thing for them. After all, I got to see what I'd be like as one." She saw a little flicker of something in his eyes when she said that. "Did you think my vampire alter ego was sexy?"

He ruffled her hair. "I refuse to answer on the grounds that any response would incriminate me."

"Did you think she was sexier than me?"

"That would be impossible." He stroked her shoulder with his fingertips. "Willow, where is this coming from?"

"Just curious." She didn't know where it was coming from, exactly. It was just that he liked being bitten, he really liked it, and that was new to her. But when she thought about it, it really wasn't new. "You've been bitten before, right? I mean, you sought it out, when you were younger?"

He stared at her. "How did you know that?"

"That time when Buffy found out about the vamp brothel - you knew about those places, and I got the impression it was from experience."

He sighed. "It was incredibly stupid of me. And yet, I suppose it gave me some insight, later, as a Watcher."

"Tell me about it?"

"Not much to tell. Ethan and I heard about a place, and we went. Spent a bit of money. It was a rush. A sordid, idiotic rush, like bad drugs - something else we experimented with in those days."

"What did the vamp look like, the one who drank from you?"

"Haggard, skeletal. Not like the Three Sisters..." Aha, Willow thought - so the Three Sisters were hot. Not temperature-wise, but still. "But the Three Sisters didn't actually drink from me. Mostly they just...tickled me."

Willow giggled. "So who was sexier - my vamp double or the Three Sisters? I'm assuming haggard and skeletal puts the vamp prostitute out of the running."

"Darling, none of them held a candle to you."

She gave him a little shake. "Answer the question!"

"Your double was sexier...in a disturbing sort of way."

"Really." For some reason, that pleased her. She kissed him on the cheek, then on the lips. "You know, I'll never forget the way you hugged me that time, when you thought I'd been turned."

Lying in his arms, she could still feel that hug, all these years later. The way he'd gripped her, unexpected and forceful, and how hot and real his body had been. How big he was, how strong, such a different body from Oz's or even Xander's.

He was quiet for a few moments, and then he said, "I felt so bereft when I thought you were gone. And when I saw you again, and you were alive, I was so very happy. The feeling was so powerful, it was almost like grief." He held her tighter.

"You surprised me - it was quite a hug."

"I surprised myself...and then I was sorry I'd frightened you. And then I put the incident as far from my mind as possible."

"You didn't frighten me - you just startled me. If I hadn't been with Oz at the time...well, let's just say, it felt good when you hugged me. It felt so good, it made me feel guilty."

"I see..." He was quiet. She knew it was hard for him to acknowledge any feelings beyond friendship that he might've had for her when she'd been, in his view, still a child. Yet for some reason she wanted so much for him to have had those feelings, back then.

"Besides," she said, "afterwards, you were staring at my breasts when I was in that leather getup."

He gave her a wry smile. "They were rather hard to miss, Willow. And that outfit was quite fetching."

Her mouth dropped open. "Years later, the truth comes out! Shame on you, Rupert Giles - transfixed by a teenage girl's breasts!"

"Yes, I know I'm going to hell. Of course, where your breasts are concerned, I'm still thoroughly transfixed." To illustrate, he caressed them. Willow grinned. That had been a pretty sexy outfit, even if it had belonged to her evil twin - and even though it had made breathing a challenge.

An idea popped into her head. Maybe it was a bad idea. "If you want, I could try on that outfit again."

"The leather one?" His eyes gleamed.

"Not just the leather. I mean, the whole package. The fangs, the yellow eyes, the lumpies. Without the being evil part. If you wanted, I could do a spell. We could play around a little. I could bite you. I mean, the fangs wouldn't actually hurt. It might be fun."

Giles's cock began to tent the sheet. Well, she'd definitely called that one.

But even if his penis liked the idea, Giles looked a bit queasy at the notion. "It's my worst nightmare," he said. "And yet..."

"It gets you hot. Because it's forbidden? A Watcher being with a vampire?" Although, she thought, Buffy had kind of cornered the market on that taboo - slayer in love with vampire, etc. At any rate, the idea made Willow's heart race - whether from excitement or fear, she wasn't sure.

"I don't know, Willow. Can I think about this for awhile?"

She felt relieved. "Of course. I only suggested it because I thought it was something you might like."

"I might," he said. He was still touching her breasts. "So soft, so warm," he murmured. His thumbs flicked over her nipples.

"Unlike a vampire," she said.

"Yes," he said, "very unlike." His skin was hot to the touch, and he was sleek all over. Willow was glad neither of them was a vampire. He rolled onto his side, reached between her legs and traced slow circles there. That idea of hers had obviously unnerved them both, and they made love with the utmost gentleness, facing each other, her leg over his. They moved slowly together, staring into each other's eyes. They kissed softly, and Willow felt as though they were melting into each other, as the rain fell outside. Giles reached between them and rubbed her clit until she did a blissful dissolve, and he came soon after. They held each other and talked no more of spells that day.

***

They didn't talk about it all week, and Willow thought perhaps Giles had decided against it. Then on Saturday afternoon, when they were sitting on the living room sofa, doing a little light reading (he leafing through a Sumerian text, she poring over a grimoire), he looked up at her. "Let's try the spell," he said.

That buzz of excitement came right back. "You sure?"

He nodded. "If it's too odd, we can always stop." He sounded calm and rational, yet he had that dark look in his eye that he had when he was about to seize her and rip her clothes off.

"Okay." She felt nervous, and yet she wanted to do the spell. Heck, she'd been nervous about the spell with the mandrake root the first time they did it, and look at how well that had turned out. This felt forbidden, scary - yet it would be no scarier than if she'd donned a Halloween mask. It wasn't real, it was just a game.

They discussed the spell. "I don't want you to simulate lack of pulse or body temperature," Giles said. "That would be too upsetting."

"Agreed. And I don't want to actually pierce your skin with my fangs. I don't want to drink your blood. I don't even want to make it seem like I'm drinking your blood. The idea of you bleeding...I wouldn't like it at all." Then the memory hit her. "I made you bleed once." The shame of it came back to her.

He looked at her with such acceptance, it made her want to weep. "I made you bleed too, Willow."

"Only because I was hurting people. I'm so sorry, you know I'm so sorry. You came to help me, and I hurt you - "

He put his arms around her. "All in the past, sweetheart. I love you, I love you so much."

"I love you, Giles." They held each other. Then she chuckled. "You know, for a couple of people who used to tread on the dark side, we really are a couple of wimps. For all the authenticity we're going to end up with, I might as well buy a leather outfit and some plastic fangs."

"Let's do the spell," he said. "At the very least, I'm looking forward to seeing you in that outfit."

She gathered together the few items she needed - a few crystals and herbs, standard stuff. And there she and Giles were again, she naked in the bedroom doing an incantation. If she'd only known, when she was first learning magicks, that she'd wind up doing all these sexy spells with Giles when she was all grown up! She'd have been amazed. Then again, Xander wasn't the only one who'd checked out those history of witchcraft books with the semi-nude engravings in them. They might well have given her a clue.

Giles was still fully dressed, but when that outfit materialized on her, she could tell neither of them would stay clothed for long. She looked down at her cleavage, set off by red lace. "Hey, look at those," she said.

"Already looking," he said, and he was upon her, kissing her mouth, her breasts. This was all to the good, and what's more, since these were magical garments, the leather corset didn't pinch and obstruct her breathing like the one she'd worn back in high school. Giles pulled back and unbuttoned his shirt, never taking his eyes off her. Then he seemed to remember something. "You look unbelievably enticing," he said. "But...the rest of it?"

"Oh, the fangs and the lumpies and the yellow eyes? They'll show up of their own accord, just like on a real vampire. Maybe when I get really excited."

"Let's see what we can do about that," he said, and pulled her down onto the bed.

By the time he'd pulled off her boots and leather pants (leaving on the bust-enhancing top, naturally) and she was on her back, he inside her, she'd begun to wonder whether the rest of the spell had been a botch job. Then she forgot all about the spell - she was too busy moaning and pushing up her hips to meet his thrusts.

All at once, she felt it. The fangs emerged in her mouth, and the ridges erupted from her forehead. It was a strange sensation, to say the least. She wanted to see herself, and she'd done the spell so that she'd still have a reflection, but then again she didn't really want to stop what they were doing.

But when he saw her, he froze above her. He gaped at her.

She touched his face. "It's still just me, Giles. You've seen me a lot scarier than I am right now, right? I'm not veiny or homicidal, I'm just regular me. And still warm, right?"

"Yes, you're still very warm." He moved inside her again. "Sorry about that. It's just...very realistic."

"Do I look a lot like she did?" she asked. "The other Willow?"

"Very much so. A few years older, of course."

"I hadn't thought of that. If she's still alive - undead, I mean - in her world, I guess she still looks like a teenager."

That seemed to give him pause, she wasn't sure why. Then he carefully kissed her mouth, avoiding the fangs as best he could. He kissed the ridges on her forehead and ran his tongue along them. They felt sensitive to the touch, almost like erectile tissue. She wondered if that was how they felt to a vampire, and she gasped with pleasure at his mouth on her.

He pulled out of her and lay on his back, his cock sticking straight up. She mounted him. He gazed up at her with a lust-fogged look and placed his hand on the back of her head. "Come here," he said. "Feed on me."

She lay over him, tentatively opened her mouth and bared her fangs. "Now, you tell me if it gets to be too much," she said. She pressed the tips of her teeth against his neck. He sighed, and pushed her head into him. She bit more deeply.

"Oh god, yes," he said hoarsely, "bite me, drink from me." She knew the teeth couldn't hurt him, yet it still frightened her when she pushed them all the way in and began to suck. She feared there might be blood after all, it felt so real. But all she tasted was Giles's neck, and that was nice.

He thrashed beneath her, his hips thrusting upward. They were inside each other's bodies now, she thought.

"Feed on me, drink from me," he muttered, and she sucked harder. The fangs couldn't hurt him, but he was probably going to wind up with one hell of a hickey. "Drink from me, Willow, and then I'll drink from you, and we'll be together for eternity..."

She froze. She withdrew her fangs. "Huh?"

"Don't stop," he exhorted her. "Bite me, turn me. Then we can be together forever, and we'll never get older..."

"No," she said, "stop it." She sat up. "Return," she said, and her outfit vanished, leaving her naked on top of him. She felt her face - the fangs were gone, and the lumpies.

Confused, he looked up at her. "Willow?"

"It was too much," she said. How could he have said those things - he was a Watcher! She began to move on him again. "Giles, I love you..." I don't need you to stop getting older, she wanted to say, but instead she kissed his mouth (happy she could kiss him properly again, now that the fangs were gone) and ground into him until she cried out, and he followed soon after.

Afterwards, lying with her head on his chest, she didn't want to talk about it, but she knew they had to. What he'd said had put a pall over everything for her. "Giles, I know the spell was my idea...but you were kinda freaking me out."

"I gathered that. Willow, it was just a fantasy." He stroked her hair consolingly.

"I think it's a little more than that. You said you didn't want to get older. I mean, you said we wouldn't get older, but I assume you were talking about yourself." She shook her head. "This thing about your age, it's getting old."

"Well, so am I."

She slapped his shoulder. "Don't you get it? I don't care about all that. Being alive with you, that's what matters to me - not how old you are. No, I take that back - how old you are, that's part of you. Your experience, your knowledge, that's part of what I love about you. It's a big part of it. You getting older - that doesn't bother me, it doesn't scare me. It'll still be you, and that's all that matters."

He sat up abruptly. "You say that now. But in ten years, or twenty..."

She sat up too, and pulled the blanket over her. "I'll say that always. That's what this means." She waved her hand with the wedding ring on it. "I didn't take those vows lightly. I meant what I said. I meant always, and no matter what. How can you still be insecure about this? Are you always going to do this 'You're so young and I'm so old' song and dance?"

"You don't understand," he said. "When you're older - "

"Will you stop? How can you think for one minute that I would rather have you undead, just so you wouldn't get any older? Having no pulse, being cold - it'd be pretty damn upsetting, like you said."

"Willow, it was a fantasy. Of course I didn't mean that I wanted - "

"It was a slip of the Freudian variety, Giles. You think it's an appealing idea to me? Not to be able to go out in the sunlight, or have children..."

He stared at her. "What did you say?"

"I said vampires can't go out in the sunlight."

"Have children, you said." He paused, as if he wasn't sure if he should continue. Then he pressed on. "Willow, are you saying you'd want us to have a child together someday?"

She hadn't much thought about having kids. She and Buffy had discussed it a bit, whether she'd want to have children with Giles, or Buffy with Spike. But suddenly she knew. "Well, yes - I mean, we haven't talked about it, but yes, I would. Wouldn't you?"

His eyes softened - but then he laughed harshly. "We'd better get started right away, if I'm not going to be geriatric by the time the child's in grade school."

"Okay," Willow said.

"Okay, what?"

"Okay, let's get started right away. I'll go off the Pill, and we'll start."

"You want to?" He looked as if he didn't dare hope she might really mean it.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you, you big dummy."

His voice became a whisper. "You'd really want to, with me?"

She kissed him, and took both his hands in hers. "Giles, I love you. I love you so much, and not just with my heart or my soul or any of that stuff. My body chose you, Giles. You're the one, the only one I want to commingle my DNA with."

He gave a laugh. "Willow..." he said, and started to cry. He almost never did that, and for a moment she was afraid she'd hurt him somehow.

"Giles, are you okay?"

It took him a moment before he was able to speak. "I had come to believe none of this would ever happen to me. For a long time, I wasn't sure if I'd even want it - to marry and have a family. And then I fell in love with you, and it became so clear, exactly what I wanted. But I didn't know if you would want it too..."

She threw her arms around him, and all they could do was say over and over how much they loved each other.

"So," Willow said a little later, "we're going to start trying to make a baby. That's pretty exciting, huh?" A little scary, too - but it felt right.

He smiled. "I can hardly wait to start."

"Oh, you're just looking for an excuse to have a lot more sex." She snuggled against him.

"Willow, if we had sex any more often than we do at present, neither of us would be able to walk."

She giggled. "You have a point." She glanced up at him. "I don't suppose you'd let me name her Tabitha, if we have a girl?"

Giles looked perplexed.

"You know, Tabitha from Bewitched? Daughter of Samantha Stevens?"

"Bewitched...ah, Elizabeth Montgomery."

Giles went to a happy place, then - but Willow couldn't really blame him. She wouldn't kick Elizabeth Montgomery out of bed herself. "Yeah, she was gorgeous. That was the first time I wanted to be a witch, watching that show when I was little. I wanted to be able to twitch my nose and make vacuum cleaners fly around."

He kissed the tip of her nose, then her lips. "I'd say you've achieved that, and then some."

"But without twitching my nose. I could never really get the hang of that." Just then she noticed something, and she touched his neck. "As I thought," she said. "Your poor neck..." She kissed it.

"What, are there bite marks?"

"No, just the world's most giant hickey."

"I'll wear it in good health," he said.

"Even if the others give you a hard time about it? I bet Spike's going to have a field day." Or Buffy, or Xander, or Dawn, or Andrew, she thought.

"After all, it's not a vampire bite," he said. "When my beloved gives me a love bite, it's something to be cherished - shown off, even. It's a sign of life."

The fact that Giles could pontificate about a hickey made her smile. "With any luck, we're going to have some other signs of life around here in the coming months," she said. A child - theirs. That was magic beyond anything she could comprehend.

"I believe it," he said, and held her close.

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The End
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