Rulesverse Fic: Higher Than An Eagle (Giles/Faith, PG13)
Title Higher Than An Eagle
Author Brutti ma buoni
Rating PG13
Words 1250
Prompt More for the Fall Fandom Free For All, this time for Snickfic, who wanted some Faith/Giles. Don't let this put you off writing F/G for Snick if you fancied that prompt. I keep on writing Rulesverse for her, but I would love for someone else to give fandom some F/G
A/N This is now definitely set in the Rulesverse (late 2005/early 2006 for those keeping track, so relatively early in their relationship and before all the mushy stuff). It is a sequel to the wingfic I wrote for Snick's crackficathon Learn to Fly, which is now promoted from Rulesverse lite to actual canon. They went to Pylea. Turns out if vampires show their demon selves in Pylea, Slayers show their powers. By growing wings. Then Faith got shot - and here's what happened next.
Splinting her wing was a painful, messy thing, which unnerved them both. Faith hadn’t had the wings long enough to get accustomed to them, surely? And yet Giles watched her mope at the loss of flight, grimly quiet in the evening. Hmm.
He wasn’t terribly skilled in matters ornithological, let alone basic veterinary aptitudes, but he’d done his best with bandaging the wing. She’d flinched, but no more than with a basic patch-up job, so he had hopes she wasn’t worse hurt than had at first appeared. He wondered what the chances were of persuading her to get an early night while he and Dawn sorted out at least plan A for the morrow. But since his common sense answered that the chances were (broadly) zero, he wasn’t foolish enough to open his mouth and suggest it.
Faith sat, grumpily, still wearing her half-shredded jacket, and with the wings furled around herself. He thought it was for psychological protection rather than warmth; the night was balmy enough and their small fire was plenty to remove any chill. Wrapping herself in Slayerness. Hmm. Metaphorical of her. She barely contributed to the planning and research session, preferring to brood.
There was a small part of Giles that thought she looked like a rather peeved raven, huddled by the fire, but that he was also not sufficiently foolish to articulate.
Thank heavens for Dawn’s insistent research activism. It filled what would otherwise have been some painful conversational lacunae. Unfortunately, Dawn’s plan A was to suggest they needed more firepower given the local hostility and Faith's injury, and that she should therefore portal herself back out of Pylea and bring a backup team. “I mean, we could all go, but we’d have to get back to the car to go together, and we left it way back, so...”
Mmm. Hard to argue, though Giles had a brief, hideous vision of Pylea becoming increasingly cluttered with abandoned automobiles as more and more unsuccessful Slayer teams arrived and sent Dawn back for more Slayers and... Good lord.
“Dawn? I think, in view of the wing factor, it would be sensible to limit the number of Slayers. Perhaps just a few volunteers? It must be quite a... troubling... experience to sprout wings spontaneously.” He ignored a firm snort from the corvid-alike across the fire. “Some of the heartier Watchers, perhaps, for backup?”
What he really wanted was someone with experience of Pylea, but the chances of that were even less than of Faith getting some trauma-soothing sleep. (Lorne had simply refused, point blank, and Wesley had closed in on himself before the request was even made. Most troubling was Illyria, who had gone into a flat spin that apparently mimicked Fred’s breakdown. Everyone backed off the subject hastily after that). Dawn at least took sensible bearings with her so that the backup party could find them again.
He would never quite become used to the sight of Dawn devolving herself into a portal, undeniably useful though the trick was. He looked over at Faith, finding her bolt upright, wings outstretched in the portal-draft. With the dark night, the fire and the fading green shine of the portal, the wings made her look simply unearthly, pale face and neck glowing vividly against the enveloping dark. A harpy or an angel, or simply herself, but whichever it was he enjoyed watching it. And here he was, alone with his Slayer in the night. How dreadful duty could be at times.
“Hey, G?” He could hear the smile in her voice.
As Buffy would say, busted. At least his open admiration had cheered her up.
“Faith?” He tried for neutral. Settled for not-actually-drooling.
“You like the wings, hmm?”
“I think they suit you.” That was the truth, at least, if not the whole of it.
“Wanna have sex with an angel?”
“Not really.” That was also wholly true. “But with you? Always.”
Too emotional? Too committed? Always a fine judgement to make. But she was laughing as she hopped across the fire to him, still off-balance with her new wings but not catching the flames - those Slayer senses were formidable.
She’d been thinking about the mechanics of this, clearly, which was deeply promising. “Good thing I was never a missionary kinda girl.”
He lay back, letting her take the lead. Watching her wings stretch upward, dark into the darkness above. The glint of flame on the undersides picking up flashes of pink and green. As she moved, the wings moved too, lazily beating at the unending heavens.
*
Giles mentally apologised to Faith for his sarcastic thoughts about wrapping herself in wings. They were extraordinarily comfortable, a combination of blanket and fur which insulated them perfectly. He really didn't want to move when dawn broke.
He especially didn't want to move, or indeed open his eyes, when someone - not Faith - noisily cleared her throat approximately three feet from him. Ah. It would appear that reinforcements had arrived.
Faith was laughing silently into his neck. All very well for her, she was still wearing her part-shredded upper garments, not to mention the modesty factor implicit in having her own wings. He had absolutely no such protection. What happened in Pylea, unfortunately, probably did not stay in Pylea.
He sighed, gustily. "Could I perhaps ask you all to give me a moment of privacy?"
"Uh-uh. Sure, Giles. That's okay. Not a problem, big guy," came the multiple responses. Snickering.
As he groped for his trousers, Giles tried not to realise exactly how many people were there. Or that Dawn, Xander, Buffy and Gunn were among them.
He would never live this down.
*
On the other hand, they now had a Pylea expert and what turned out to be three uninjured Slayers to help out with the mission. Not to mention that Faith was largely recovered too. They had what amounted to an air force. He looked suspiciously at the girls who had come along for the mission. They were definitely here primarily to play around with having wings. Caridad was positively preening, and showing off for Gunn.
Buffy's wings - and Giles acknowledged he might be a trifle prejudiced on this - were rather more cutesy than Faith's, and not half so awe-inspiring. More dove, less raven. He felt a tiny, idiotic, bubble of possessive pride. But Buffy's wings were rather efficient, and between them, the Slayers could airlift the entire party towards what Gunn identified as the capital.
Giles enjoyed the feel of Faith's arms round him, though rather less the knowledge that he was several hundred feet up in the air and suspended only by the wings of a recently-injured Slayer. Even with his eyes closed, and hands clutching his precious glasses tightly to his face, though, he could feel the power of those wings.
Slayer power, made manifest. With all the time he'd spent with Slayers, learning about them, training them, supporting them, (burying them…) Giles didn't think he'd ever felt quite so surrounded by it as this moment.
They might all take a while to become accustomed to the weight of the wings, and the fact that they were magnets for Pylean arrows was inconvenient, but he simply had no doubt that the mission would succeed.
On the whole, and recent public humiliations notwithstanding, Giles was awfully glad he'd seen the Slayers find their wings.
***
Third and final wing ficlet is here