Crack Pairings 001
Old friends were old friends for a reason.
Missouri didn’t so much as pause when she saw him sitting on her porch, staring at nothing. In fact, she kept right on talking to her latest customer, soothing him with white lies like she always had. “Yes sir, just keep at it and that promotion will be yours’ before you know it…”
Giles looked up as the man passed, watching him as he hurried down the steps. He looked happy enough with the news he’d been given, but Missouri had a certain tone of voice she used when she was lying. She always sounded at her most reassuring when she was lying. But her customer left with a spring in his step and Missouri wouldn’t have let him out the door without paying. So that was probably all right, then, at least for Missouri.
Missouri didn’t spare the man a second glance. Giles was jolted from his reflective reverie by the feeling of her hand on his shoulder.
“Come on. Tea’s up.”
Giles nodded. Unconsciously, he reached up to take Missouri’s hand in his. Just for a second, a small second of vulnerability, and then he let her haul him back up to his feet. She understood, and she smiled.
“I know I look good for my age, Rupert, but you know better than to stare.” And then she patted him affectionately on the cheek. Giles ducked his head, embarrassed, but he smiled despite himself.
“Sorry.”
She had already turned and was walking back inside the house. She didn’t need to gesture for him to follow. Giles took a seat in the sitting room while Missouri continued on to the kitchen. The kettle was indeed whistling.
The sitting room nothing you would expect of a psychic and everything you would expect of Missouri Moseley. From the exact number of chairs to the polished coffee table to the radio on the cabinet to the ancient, yellow wallpaper. The bookcases were crammed with books that would probably have a fifty-fifty chance of being perfectly ordinary and being…less perfectly ordinary.
Before Giles knew it, Missouri walked back into the room carrying two mugs of tea. She set them both down on the table.
“Just like you like it,” she saidHe picked up the mug, letting the heat seep into his hands, inhaling the scent and letting it calm him.
Missouri gave him a minute, letting her own mug cool on the table. She’d never liked tea. She’d always preferred coffee. It was an old argument that would never be resolved.
“Now,” she said, after he’d taken a sip. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t you already know?” Giles asked, smiling wryly and steadfastly avoiding her calm gaze. It was easier to stare slightly over her shoulder at the old yellow wallpaper than to look into those brown eyes, wise and strong and older than they had any right to be.
“I’m psychic, Rupert, but I’m not that psychic. I know something’s happened over in that madhouse you got stuck with. I felt it when it did, every hack sensitive in the country probably did. And I know it’s hurting you and yours’. But you’re going to have to fill in the blanks. So, start filling.”
And now even the yellow wallpaper was too bright, too much summer and not enough winter. The room was suddenly too big and too cluttered and too much, even looking at Missouri hurt. Giles bowed his head, staring into the mug, watching the tea and the little ripples made by the shaking of his hands.
“It’s Buffy,” he whispered.
He heard her make a quiet noise of mild surprise. “The Slayer? Your Slayer?”
Giles nodded, closing his eyes because he could feel the familiar, warning burn. His Slayer. The girl he had been charged to guide, to protect, to keep safe in a world that wanted nothing more than her horrible death. The girl who had touched his world and changed his life and done so much and shone like a star in the darkness.
The girl he’d failed.
Missouri inhaled sharply, understanding dawning without words. He had wondered for a very long time whether she could really read minds or whether she was just that good at reading people. She’d always been able to read him like a book.
It would be so easy to break down and cry right now. He hadn’t, not since that very first night, but it would be so easy to let down those walls because Missouri would understand. But Giles didn’t want understanding or absolution. He couldn’t have it, anyway, not yet. He wasn’t here on his own behalf, he was here on behalf of her best friends and the vampire who had loved her and her little sister left all alone. So he had to keep holding it together, even now, especially now, because Missouri was their last hope.
Giles clenched his hands around the mug until his knuckles went white, took a deep breath, and spoke. “We…we don’t know what to do,” he said. “It, it started a few days after...things getting thrown, furniture damaged, noises in the night. Everything you might expect from an angry spirit. I might have handled it myself, but Dawn said…” He had to stop for breath, at that, and in the moment of silence he heard Missouri get up from the couch. Giles looked up, startled, to see Missouri walking through another doorway that led into the rest of the house. She was gone for less than a minute, and when she returned, she was holding a brush and dustpan.
“Sorry,” she said, smiling and giving his shoulder an apologetic squeeze. “I’m just getting so absentminded, nowadays. Forget my own head if it wasn’t screwed on.”
“Missouri, you’re the least forgetful person I’ve ever met.”
“True enough. But it sounded better than just flat out saying ‘hold on, I need to get a dustpan.’” Her expression turned somber again. “That was still incredibly rude of me. I know that. But you’ll see in a minute.”
“I’m sure that I will.”
Her hand on his shoulder was a tiny gesture of comfort that nevertheless meant a great deal. Giles leaned briefly into the touch before they both pulled away. There was business to attend to.
“You think it’s her, then?” asked Missouri, taking her seat on the couch and settling the brush and dustpan on the floor in front of her. “This angry spirit - you think it might be Buffy?”
Giles shrugged helplessly. “Willow and Tara w-were, um, looking into it. They…aren’t certain.” He didn’t need to say that the uncertainty was far worse than either conclusion they might have come to. “But for the time being, they’ve taken Dawn and left the house.”
Missouri nodded. “Of course. Only sensible, when you don’t know what you’re facing.”
“But if it is her…” Giles found himself staring into his half empty mug again. The shame and the fear that were twisting at his stomach made it so that eye contact with anyone was almost painful, and Missouri would catch him out in a second if he tried to stall by cleaning his glasses. “Missouri, if she has come back…I w-won’t be able to help.” He shook his head, suddenly unable to raise his voice above a choked whisper. “I can’t.”
“You can. If those kids need you to, I know you can.”
Giles shook his head again. “She’ll kill me.”
For the first time in years, Missouri Moseley looked surprised. But then look of surprise melted into a disbelieving grimace - she rested her chin in her hand and stared fixedly at him. “All right. This I’ve got to hear.”
“You, you don’t know what is was like, that last night. We, we’ve never argued l-like that. The things I said…she hated me, Missouri. And now, if she really has come back, if she’s the one doing this…you know what spirits are like, they, they act on emotion, they hurt the things that hurt them and if I feel her there I’ll be absolutely useless and…”
Something in his mind went absolutely blank as he spoke. Giles tried to take off his glasses and and pick that damn loose thread off of his jacket and keep a hold of his mug, all at the same time, all the little stalling techniques he depended on in situations like this commanding his hands all at once in a vain attempt to escape the horror, and in the end all that happened was that his glasses landed in his lap and his mug shattered on the floor.
The piercing sound of breaking ceramic echoed around the sitting room for one long second. Giles stared helplessly at the mess at his feet, shocked and suddenly numb, but Missouri was already on her feet, hurrying over to him with brush and dustpan in hand.
“Missouri…I, I’m…”
“Don’t!” Her voice was sharp, now, so sharp that Giles flinched even as he hurriedly closed his mouth. She straightened up and prodded him in the chest, commanding and powerful and in control. “Rupert Giles, I swear to God, if the next words out of your mouth are some kind of apology, then I will smack you so hard that you’ll actually see clearer! Don’t you dare. Don’t.”
They stared at one another, Missouri practically vibrating with righteous anger. Eventually, with an irritated little grumble, Missouri knelt down again and began to clean up the mess. Keeping her eyes fixed firmly on her task, she carefully swept up the fragments , straightening up again only after she’d picked the floor clean. She hurried off into the kitchen; Giles heard her dumping the remnants of the mug into the trash can.
Giles made to get up from his chair, to go and help, but Missouri was back in the room with a bundle of paper towels by the time he’d taken a step to join her. She actually looked startled to see Giles standing, so much so that when he reached out to take the paper towels, she didn’t protest further.
The tea soaked into the towels almost eagerly, like blood seeping from a wound, staining everything it touched. Giles could feel Missouri watching him as he carefully sopped up the mess.
“It’s just a mug, Rupert.” And now her voice was gentle and kind as she settled down beside him. “It’s okay.”
“No. It isn’t.”
She laughed, sounding shaken and sad. “Buy me a new one, then. That’s easy enough, isn’t it?”
Giles sat back, staring at the sodden, soaked mess of towels in his hands. “That won’t fix anything.
This time, when she laid a hand on his shoulder, Missouri gently urged Giles to turn and face her. He did, without resistance, worrying the paper in both hands. Her hands, when they covered his, were callused and rough and warm.
“I forgive you,” she said. “It’s all right.”
Before Giles could protest further, Missouri had leaned forward, closing the distance between them, and placed a soft kiss against his lips. Even after she pulled away, she rested her forehead against his, running a hand through his hair, soothing and close and safe. It wasn’t a romantic gesture, although they had loved one another once upon a time. When he hugged her to him and she returned the embrace, it was comfort and affection and forgiveness and absolution.
He kept his eyes closed, taking in the sound of her breath and the feel of her hands. When the Watcher risked opening his eyes, the first thing he saw was the yellow wallpaper. With the bright, hot sunlight shining in through the windows, with the way his world blurred without his glasses, the color melted and shifted until it reminded him of nothing less than…
Missouri kissed him again, gentle and understanding, but said nothing when Giles finally started to sob. He didn't have to speak, and neither did she. She'd always been good at filling in the blanks.