Title: "There's a certain dramatic irony attached to all this. A synchronicity that borders on predestination, one might say."
Author:
mustbethursday3 Rating/Warnings: PG13 (swearing)
Word Count: 1792ish
Characters/Pairings: Elena, Gwaine, Gwen, Morgana.
Prompt(s): Three people Gwaine loved for
merlin_multis's
14 Days of Love (it's horrendously late)
Summary: 'Quae nocent, saepe docent' (What hurts, often instructs)
Author's notes: If I had my way I'd probably never post this - it feels unfinished, even if I have rewritten parts over and over...but guilt is an overwhelming force. I struggled to write anything - because making Gwaine love one person is hard enough, so I settled for going a little cracky, a little pointless and taking a really vague interpretation of the word 'love'. Coz there's all kinds right?
I made Gwaine a
Watcher, but he's only 18 in the first part (so a Watcher-in-training?)... and he gets older...*cringes* it's really sad that this is the result of me crossing two brilliant shows (Buffy & Merlin). But whatever...read it if you want.
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I
'
He thinks sometimes, that she’s not so brave…it’s just she’s surrounded by cowards.'
When she finally turns back to him, her fringe clings, sweaty, to her forehead and she lets out a puff of breath and touches his arm. Her finger's don't linger long, it's a placating gesture, but he feels it through his thick coat; it's the closest she's been in too long. He wants to kiss her, but he fights it.
Her mouth curls up into a fond smile when he mets her gaze, "You're going to run now," she instructs. "I have to take care of this..." she pauses to pull her ponytail tighter, "and then we can talk," she says, like it's a particularly horrific thought - and this from a girl who's just snapped a spine over her bent knee.
It's good advice and normally he'd take it without a second thought, but she starts off before he can mutter anything; accepts that he'll do as she wants. And she runs back towards the fight -- not away; in the ten years he's known her (though can anyone truly claim such a thing?) she's never run away -- her limp fades, gets absorbed into her movements as she gathers speed, until she's a blur that disappears into the waiting shadows.
And he takes off after her.
His sneakers bounce on the pavement as he follows her between the buildings, into the alley; behind the darkened, broken windows he can hear the things that inhabit them scuttling around. It raises goosebumps on the back of his neck, but he doesn't turn back. He thinks sometimes, that she's not so brave...it's just she's surrounded by cowards - and he's sick of being one of them.
Glass shatters above him, from what he doesn't know, he just raises an arm to keep it from cutting his face. From under his jacket he pulls out his crossbow - he'd laughed when his father had insisted on all those lessons, all those hours of practice, but now it feels solid, though it shakes in his hand. He's not ashamed to admit to himself that he's fucking scared. Someone like him isn't supposed -- to get their hands dirty -- to get this close. He scans the dark for a sign of her, his heart pounding loudly in his ears.
He's not sure what he'll do when he finds her (she'll probably kick his arse for not leaving), dragging her back or yelling at her will accomplish nothing... but she's acting reckless and it's more terrifying to him than anything that could be lurking in the shadows. She's changed; in the years he's been cooped up in the Academy she's suffered and fought; she's been called and he gets that -- he does -- but she's hardened into something -- someone -- he doesn't recognize. There's an emptiness to her gaze when once there had been life.
She's becoming more like the things she's sent to hunt.
A sharp, piercing scream breaks through the cool air, shattering the illusion of calm, then cuts off abruptly. He runs faster, takes shallower breaths; he makes his legs fucking move. There's a sick feeling in his gut -- has been since he ran into her a month ago on a hunt -- and it's rarely steered him wrong. It's what makes him so good at what he does, well - will do...
Oh, God no
He stops when he spots the figure lying prone on the ground, her dark hair covers her face, but he knows. His training kicks in and he moves closer -- wary of the dark around him -- and hunkers down to presses anxious fingers to her neck searchingly...
II
'She’s just too young to know better, he tries to tell himself.'
His first charge is young, barely sixteen, and he feels so much older than that when he finally recovers her in a takeaway shop halfway across town from where she was supposed to meet him. Teenagers, can't live with them...can't leave them to fend for themselves.
“Up,” he says, hearing his father in his tone to his great disgust. “Now.” You're going to be the death of me.
“I’m in the middle of a conversation,” she returns primly taking another bite of food. She extends an arm across the table to her companion, “This is Earl, he was an actual Earl if you can believe that,” she adds delightedly.
‘Earl’ grins, toothily for his benefit.
“She ran into a little trouble and I helped her out.”
Right, out of the goodness in your heart, Gwaine thinks darkly, as he nods and looks back to the girl.
She’s just too young to know better, he tries to tell himself. Then shakes his head, even a child knows not to let a monster take them out for dinner.
“We’re leaving,” he motions her for to get up, ignoring the unsavory character as it switches its gaze to him; probably imagining what he’d taste like. The Counsel would have his arse in a sling if they knew she was on a first name basis with this creature. “Get in the car.”
She gives him a surly look over the milkshake she’s sipping, and pops the straw from her mouth with an audible sound. “Why should I? I’m very much capable of looking after myself now - I don’t need you.”
You don't know how much I wish that were true.
“Yes,” he agrees, sarcasm radiating off him as he leans into the booth to get into her face; forcing her eyes from the creature across from her. “The number of people I’ve had to stop from killing you this week - really drive that point home. Elena. Car. Now.”
Her brows crease, “They were hardly people,” she says, seeming to lose sight of the point. Then her mouth forms a soft ‘oh’ shape and she hurriedly looks back to her companion, “No offense.”
“None taken,” he offers graciously, the grin he’s been wearing the whole time, widens. Gwaine resists the urge to reach under his coat for his crossbow; skewering this thing in full view of half a dozen people would cause problems.
At least she had enough sense to go somewhere public.
"Elena."
Elena beams once more at her companion, before dropping it as she meets his eyes. Gwaine stares at her unblinkingly.
With a huff, she slides out from the booth, pushes past him and stalks towards the door. Imparting one last thing over her shoulder, “If you had any sense of self preservation you’d stop throwing the rescuing thing in my face every five seconds.” Then she's gone through the swinging door.
This leaves the ‘two’ men to eye each other wearily.
You should go,” the creature nods after a moment. Its eyes drop to Gwaine’s pocket, “She just took your car keys.”
III
She’s outlived her father, two watchers and who knows how many innocent bystanders…
"What is it?" he turns on the spot, after she sighs for the third time in a row. "What's with the moping?"
They're in the attic; his private library scattered around them as they research; the battle, to keep his things from her hands, lost. It's a relief really, as she's almost as good with translations as he is; her last Watcher had been very boisterous about Latin and she's slips it into conversation to trip him up.
She keeps her eyes down, but he sees her posture change, "You use us like weapons," she replies gently. Not good. Before he can speak she continues, smoothly, "These pages," she touches an inked demon on the page beneath her fingertips; her head tilted to one side as she can hear something he can't, "speak of lives lost, not lived; and chances missed, and scars gathered and fear - all mixed up under the nice pretty bow of destiny. It's supposed to be inspiring, great, a gift, but you never ask us if we want to fight for you." She looks at him then, not looking for answers, just being honest. "And it sucks."
He's closer to thirty, than twenty and feeling it more every day, and he hates to admit it but he's mellowing; if nothing else these last ten years have taught him patience. But it's those same years that urge him to take the few long strides to her side, kneeling down next to her chair. She's completely right, as usual. Behind him he hears the rain start again.
“Explain to me how it is not your fight too?” he settles his hand over hers, stilling her movements to trace the creature with her finger. “They’re killing us, Gwen, trying to rid the world of humanity.” His eyes fall to the faded print beneath her arm, “And what is the Slayer if not the most human of all?”
“We're not treated like humans,” she says earnestly avoiding looking directly at him. “Our lives are spent as soldiers; Aut vincere aut mori.” Either conquer or die.
“But-”
“For each generation there will be one, chosen to keep the dark at bay - I was told that, and I believed that…but it is a lie,” she says pulling her hand out from under his. “How many girls have died, this past decade, already? How many more after me in the next year?”
None, he wants to say. But she'd never believe him and he doesn’t lie to her; just the thought of trying to conceal the truth only makes the answer more obvious; she’ll be lucky to see out the year. They both know it.
She’s outlived her father, two watchers and who knows how many innocent bystanders in five years, but there is no pride in being lucky, or quicker than the people you have lost.
“None of the Counsel thought you’d last this long. But you proved them wrong,” he blurts out.
Dark eyes slip from the pages to meet his; however her expression doesn’t change, or soften in the way he expects. “Gwaine, on the first day of the job, a Slayer is afforded one promise - that she couldn’t break even if she wanted - and that is a swift removable from the world that bites at her heels and snaps at her neck.”
This isn’t you, he says in his mind, then aloud, “Serva me, servabo te - remember? You owe me.”
Her lips part into a fond smile; she had whispered the same thing to him the first time they’d met, anxious to escape any more reassignment sessions with the Counsel, her hands pushing him deeper between the bookcases of the archive. She’d covered his mouth to stop him from crying out.
Her tone had made it more like a threat at the time. But now it's a favor repaid multiple times on both their parts.
“And what am I supposed to be saving you from this time?”
“Boredom.”
She smiles wider. “Death may be a certainty, but it is not all that crosses my mind; Spero melior,” she adds, pushing out the chair next to her and looking at him expectantly. “Hadn’t we better keep working - Salus populi suprema lex, and they’re not going to rescue themselves from a flesh melting monster.”
He snorts, standing to round the table and collapse down next to her; he scoots his chair closer to the table edge and picks up an open diary - written by a Watcher from the late 1700s.
“I …forgot again, didn’t I?” he asks softly, as realization dawns as to why she's been quiet all week.
“It doesn’t matter,” Gwen breathes, reaching out to turn a page; her father’s been gone long enough for them to cross this day off before.
“You just emo’d out on me,” Gwaine returns and her leg bumps his; they’re too close for her to get a proper kick in. “For a moment there I was considering hiding all the sharp objects in the house.”
He doesn’t look at her, not even when he hears the smile in her voice as she ignores him.
“You know, reading these, I can’t help but wonder if the Watcher’s watch the Slayers, Sed quis custodiet-”
“-ipsos custodes?” he finishes for her. “I too have pondered that. Someone is really is missing out on reading my life story - it would make a great TV series.”
"In your dreams."
He lets silence fall again, and then puts down the diary in his hands.
“Gwen?” he says, getting her attention.
“What?”
He stares straight ahead and eyes her sidelong. “Will you fight for us?”
He turns his head quickly and catches her smile before she has time to hide it behind her book. “I’ll have to think about it.”
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Latin Translations:
+ Aut vincere aut mori - Either conquer or die.
+ Serva me, servabo te - Save me and I will save you.
+ Spero melior - I hope for better things.
+ Salus populi suprema lex - The safety of the people is the supreme law.
+ Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Who watches the watchmen?
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Can I just disclaimer this with a - I HATE IT. Not all of it, but generally I'm sure it sucks and I don't actually want anyone reading it...except the only thing worse than posting this, is not posting it and having to write 3 people Gwaine loved again - it almost killed me the first time...so here we are.
I'm going to go hide now.