tarnished -- part one -- trekker |
Chapter Eight | |
Sacrifice |
He couldn't bear the thought of an entire afternoon cloistered away in that dreary office, so he gathered up his things and headed for the riverside park after lunch. It was a cool day, but sunny, with a hint of warm in the breeze. The park was fairly crowded, with mothers and small children, mostly, but just as Giles was heading for an empty table, a figure sitting off alone a few yards away caught his eye.
Ethan.
Sitting, leaning back on his elbows, in his sunglasses, his face tilted back as though to catch the sun like a flower might. The way his shirt hung over his torso he look almost frail. He seemed completely lost in the sunlight, a million miles away.
Giles stopped and was about to turn and walk away, but Ethan must have seen him. In a heartbeat he went from perfect stillness to his usual frenetic energy, rolling to his feet and ambling towards Giles with all the innocent goodwill of a puppy.
Giles tensed all over, felt the leather handle of his briefcase creak under the strain of his grip.
He took a small step back before Ethan reached him, and said, "Get away from me, Ethan."
Ethan just smiled and said, "Oh, hang on, I think I know this one."
Giles didn't change his expression, though inside, he was seething, remembering now everything Ethan had done. The chocolate, the Halloween costumes, the Fyarl... and throwing Buffy to Eyghon. And god knew what else he'd done in twenty years.
"I mean it. Stay away from me."
Looking almost bemused, Ethan cocked his head and furrowed his brow. Giles' heart pounded as he clamped down on the temper that was threatening to well up. There were too many people here for him to lose his cool now.
"You're a monster, Ethan. And I want nothing to do with you. I don't care what I may have said or done, I'm through with this."
He backed another step away, said, "Don't follow me, don't try to find me, don't come to my flat, this is over," then he turned heel and fled.
***
He got back to his flat and set his things out on the coffee table, and found himself trying not to think about the fact that three weeks ago he'd been companionably smoking with Ethan right where his feet were now.
He'd been better than this once. He knew he had. There had been a time, he was sure, not so long ago, when he'd been useful. He'd been, maybe, even happy. Or perhaps he was deluding himself.
But if he hadn't been happy, he'd at least been useful those first few years with Buffy. He'd been doing what he'd very nearly been born to do, what he'd been trained to do his entire life. Being assigned a Slayer was an opportunity he'd been despairing of ever being awarded, after the council had not given him a Potential Slayer after he finally graduated from Oxford.
Still, he'd had a life before Buffy. Had a job that he'd enjoyed, when he was a museum curator. He'd had friends at the Council. Somehow, now, all that seemed lost. He'd given it up, for her, because it was what he was meant for.
But one thing they rarely talked about was what happened to Watchers after their Slayers were gone.
***
They were in their old flat, where the windows rattled every time the trains passed, and they were moving together with the tidal rhythm of loving-making. Ethan was thin, not lean, all smooth skin and long hair, and Giles wondered why he'd ever thought that Ethan had aged. He was still young, still beautiful.
Still hot and slick and clenched around Giles' cock, his hand as solid and real as anything against Giles' side.
He looked up at Giles with eyes dark with sex, no, with magic, and spoke Latin words that Giles didn't know. All he knew was the sudden surge of magic sparking around them, and he buried his hands in long curls...
No, in straight, short hair. Willow, not Ethan at all, and they were in the Magic Box. Dressed, and standing across from each other.
Willow smiled and said, "It's just magic, Rupert. Nothing to be afraid of. Just a bit of fun. It's perfectly safe."
And then she laughed as horns and scales torn her skin to shreds and made her something else. Made her not-Willow, and he staggered backwards, away, saying, "She's lost control," but when he looked, Buffy was just standing by the ladder, looking lost and tired.
She said, "I can't. I can't do it, Giles." Then she wandered away.
Willow-Eyghon laughed again, deep and booming, and they were back in London, and Ethan, older now, was pressed back against the bricks of an alley with the demon bearing down on him.
It wasn't Willow anymore. She was gone, he'd let it take her. Ethan could be saved, someone had to be saved, he hated this, hated that he could grab her and slam her down and that suddenly they were on a flimsy tower shaking in the wind as he pressed his hand over her mouth and felt her teeth gnash against his palm until she died.
But when he looked up, Ethan was shaking his head.
"I never asked you to save me," he sneered, and then walked off the edge.
***
Giles jolted awake on the couch, covered in sweat.
tarnished -- part one -- trekker |