Restricted Supplement to the Watchers' Guide, Concerning Amatory Matters, by glossing (NC-17)

[zulu.livejournal.com]

Hi! I'm queenzulu and this is my second turn behind the Buffy-reccing wheel. Like last time, I'm going to be reccing mostly femslash, and like last time, I'm not going to focus on any one pairing. I hope you enjoy exploring both the unconventional and the OTPs with me!

Fandom: BUFFY
Pairing: Buffy/Giles/Oz
Author on LJ: glossing
Author Website: glossings

Why this must be read:

For my first rec, I thought I'd start with something a little off the beaten path. "Restricted Supplement" was written for me in a threesome ficathon, and when I wrote my request it was with Glossing's style in mind. Glossing's been recced several times on crack_van, and deservedly so. She is very much a writer's writer, with prose that is filled with detail and emotion without getting purple and unreadable. Over the course of several stories, she has entrenched a love of Buffy/Oz in me--it's probably the closest thing I have to a het OTP--and her Oz/Giles stories are gentle, yearning, and achingly sweet.

With this story, Glossing touches on several issues from the fifth season with a deft hand: Buffy's trust of Giles and their deepening Watcher/Slayer bond; the mysticism of Buffy's visit with the First Slayer; the idea that Giles could possibly have a life outside of the Scoobies and Sunnydale. The story is warm, comfortable, evoking an amazing mood. I love Buffy and Oz making out; Glossing writes them kissing so calmly, and as if it is the only possible result of their relationship--not different from, not apart from, but inherent somehow, as if they only had to wait long enough to get around to it. It feels abundantly real.

"Breathe," he says and the smoke escapes out of his mouth and breaks over her face. He sounds quiet, authoritative. She gets a flash of training with Giles. There's something about his voice right now, gentle but instructional, and about his other hand resting on her waist, light and sure, that's all Giles.

Buffy closes her eyes, willing herself to go with this, inhaling the traces of smoke.

In the training room, she and Giles have been making a lot of progress. Even if sometimes she feels just like Luke Skywalker, whacking blindly with the light saber while Giles Kenobi chuckles off to the side, she knows it's working. Calisthenics, tai chi, breathing from her solar plexus, all the while *listening* to Giles. His voice runs through her like another set of muscles. She knows her body better than ever before, knows far she can reach, how high she can float; more and more often, she knows what Giles is going to say before he says it.

Back in that room, bare feet squeaking on the mats, she's *with* Giles like she never has been. Like they're sharing body and mind -- not like that jackass Travers said, where she's just Giles' "instrument" or whatever -- and not quite like that spell last spring, either.

There are traces of that spell, though. She saw them in the trance that showed her who Dawn was, saw Giles' face glimmering over her own in the mirror, heard his voice underneath her heartbeat, felt something in her hands, at the back of her mind, ticking like a pendulum.

Maybe Watchers get chosen, too.

Oz's hands go still on her and Buffy tips forward, her forehead coming to rest against his. She can't quite open her eyes as she hears the sizzle and burble of the bong, feels Oz pull away, then slide back against her. Giles is in her, she realizes, somehow for the first time, but she's always known it, too. He's in her, but where is she? He's with Oz. *How*, though?

Oz rolls his forehead against hers and Buffy drags open her eyes just he kisses her lightly. Smoke in his mouth, savory-acrid, and she inhales in surprise, her lips opening, then kisses him back. Past the brush of lips, and Oz has *soft* lips, into a real kiss, harder, into warm mouth, slick and soft. This is what Giles tastes. This is what he feels, what she hasn't felt in way too long, this spreading warm tingle, mouth outward, down her skin, pulling her closer.

Restricted Supplement to the Watchers' Guide, Concerning Amatory Matters