Rating: G
Author: Trekker
Pairing: no pairing
Fandom: Buffy
Johnson was always the quiet boy. As long as Giles had known him, at the Academy, and when they’d roomed together at Oxford, he’d been least likely to speak up, most likely to be found holed up in their room, reading. In an academy of to-be Watchers, being the most bookish was quite a distinction.
It was that quiet that drew Giles to him tonight.
"This seat taken?" he asked, standing off a few paces from the secluded pub table where Johnson was finishing off his meal. The candle light caught on Johnson’s glasses as he raised his head. His brows knitted slightly and his hand clenched, crumpling a napkin.
"No... No. I was just... just leaving," he said, not looking away from Giles for a moment as he hurriedly gathered basket and napkins and books.
Giles winced. A few months ago, that would have been the reaction he’d hoped for. Tonight, it was like an unexpected, though unsurprising, fist to the gut.
"No, no, it’s all right. I... I was wondering if you’d mind if I joined you. Buy you a beer," he said, pulling the seat opposite out from the high, round table.
Johnson opened his mouth, then shut it, then said, "Er. Um. All right, I suppose. I should... I’ll need to go soon. I have a paper--"
"’Sall right," Giles said, taking the seat. "So do I. I won’t keep you any longer than you can stay. Just thought... thought we could maybe, you know... catch up?"
"Ah... of course. Yes. Of course."
Then the awkward silence fell. Giles found himself captivated by Johnson’s hands, spread wide and pressed flat to the polished, dark wood veneer, a trace of steam forming around them. Those hands betrayed Johnson’s otherwise convincing portrayal of nonchalance, and Giles found that this, like so many other things lately, stung. He wondered if Johnson was merely afraid of him, or if he hated him, as well.
He didn’t ask, of course. He didn’t say anything, but to signal the waitress and order a pair of Guiness.
"So, is it true, then?" Johnson finally said, after the waitress was long gone. "What they say. What you... What happened?"
Giles moved his attention to his own hands, resting on the table. He idly thumbed the pinky ring, still not used to its resumed presence.
"Yeah. Reckon so," he said, allowing for the fact that rumors may have exacerbated the severity of his rebellion. Though he couldn’t imagine anything much worse than the truth. "I... did idiotic things with the wrong sorts of people. Got a friend killed."
He didn’t like to talk about it, and that’s why he did. It should hurt. The wound should not be left alone to heal painlessly. He deserved to remember the lightening-flash shock of Randall’s scream, the heat of fresh blood on his skin.
Then there was silence, again, and Giles didn’t look up, expecting his companion to leave. But instead, after a time, Johnson simply said, "Why?"
Giles looked up. Johnson watched him, gravely. Some of the fear, oddly, was gone from his posture, perhaps because the known was always less frightening than the unknown.
"I guess I never asked that. I guess I asked ‘why not?’" Giles paused, then added, "Didn’t stop until I got my answer, I suppose. Stupid. Really stupid."
"I didn’t think they’d take you back. God knows they wouldn’t have taken me back if I’d-- I’d... run off to London on a lark, to play with dark forces."
Giles blinked at Johnson’s unexpected anger. "I-- My father--"
"Yes, I know. You, your father, your grandmother, all the portraits hanging in the Hall of Watchers. Some of us don’t have all that, you know." Johnson crushed a napkin in his hand as he said, "My parents are dead. Killed by vampires. My brother and sister, too. The Council took me in when one of their teams found me in an alley with a gun, cornered by the very vampires I’d been hunting, half-starved. They made me an offer. Do well, and I could stay."
"God, Johnson. I-- I didn’t know."
"Why should you?" Johnson said. "All you were concerned with was being entertained, weren’t you?"
"I’m sorry," Giles said. "I-- I am. God, it was stupid, and I know that now--"
"I know," Johnson said, pushing away the ruined napkin, his shoulders slouching again. "I know that. Sorry. I just don’t like to talk about it." Then after a moment, he said, "I covered for you, you know?"
Giles furrowed his brow. "How do you mean?"
"After you left." Johnson swirled the dregs of his beer, watching the foam move. "When your father called, or your mentors asked after you. I told them you’d just stepped out, or that you’d gone off to study, or out with friends."
"Why?"
"I suppose I thought you’d be back. That you’d realize..." He shrugged. "I couldn’t keep it up for long, in any case."
Giles was still unsure what to make of this. Given what Johnson had just said about walking a fine line with the Council, lying to his superiors hardly seemed like a prudent course of action. "Lying about the whereabouts of a Watcher’s Council trainee is a punishable offense."
"Yes. I received a hearty lecture from Reginald. Given the circumstances, and that I didn’t really know where you were, they let me off with a warning."
Giles considered this quietly for a moment. Then, looking down at the dark wood grain, he said, "It wasn’t me."
He looked up then, found Johnson watching him, but not speaking. So, Giles continued, "It was *me*, but it wasn’t... It wasn’t who I was. Sometimes... sometimes I just... I just wanted to go home. When things got so..."
He stopped then, shaking his head, unable to adequately explain how it had been. How much he’d come to hate the violence and the drugs, the constant *fear* of that world he’d become so deeply enmeshed in. How badly, sometimes, he’d simply wanted to curl up with a book again, see evil again only through the safe filter of pages. Near the end, it had seemed the drugs and the magic were the only things that kept him sane, that kept the terror at bay. It had been life lived on a tightrope and once the initial adrenaline-rush first few months had passed, it had been exhausting.
"Ironic, I suppose. I thought... I thought maybe it would be a way to get away from fear. Truth to tell, I’ve been afraid ever since my father told me I was to be a Watcher."
"Maybe it’s not all bad."
Giles didn’t vocalize his reaction, he only allowed himself a small twitch of his brow.
Johnson shrugged slightly with one shoulder. "One of the first things the Council said to me was that the best Watchers... the best were the ones that knew evil. That had looked it in the eye, and seen it. Felt it, tasted it. Lost something to it."
"Ah," Giles said, faintly.
Johnson tilted his head slightly, and moved his hands into his lap, relaxing. "We, all of us, are looking for answers. That’s what we do. Sometimes, the answers are written in books. Sometimes, in the stars. Sometimes, in blood."
Then he stood, gathering his coat. He pressed his hand to Giles’ shoulder for a moment, and said, "May the next year bring you some peace, my friend."
Then, with a small smile, he walked away.
Giles sat quietly for a long time.
The End