[location: a sidewalk cafe] hours of happiness more or less

[inquitvigiliant]

It's early evening, and a pair of men are sitting close together at a small table outside a little cafe. It looks like tea or coffee now, although there are the remnants of something that might have been a light supper or possibly dessert. Giles is dressed somewhat uncharacteristically in an old leather jacket that looks like it could have been

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[fuckyouripper]

On Ethan's side of the table it's coffee and nerves, and he's been off and on a little abstract through their conversation- pulling himself back towards the current moment the best that he can, but every now and again that alarmed, distant look in his eyes dominates and he has to ask Giles to repeat whatever he just said.

(Giles has always been better at lying to people for their own good. It's funny, in a way, except it's not, really.)

He's there now, though, sipping from his mug and making a face in agreement. "I know, love. But you have to think, you and I have something to go back to. What about Tara? This place is seductive that way."

[inquitvigiliant]

Giles has noticed, in a back-of-his-mind sort of way, that Ethan seems to have something important on his mind, but he hasn't put it together enough to call him on it just yet.

And Ethan's always been too good at distracting him by alternately being sympathetic and verbally smacking him upside the head, depending on which he needs worse at the moment.

"No, you're about that. Sometime like Tara...I suppose this is a sort of blessing, isn't it? Time to live a bit more than she'll...she'll have the chance to do..." Giles' voice peters off and he frowns down into his tea.

[fuckyouripper]

"She knows what's going to happen," Ethan explains, his fingers laced together around his mug. "I don't know if I'd be so gracious about it if it were me."

He wouldn't. At all.

"It's easy to get attached. I think you're right, I just- well, I'm as bad as anyone else. Trying to start a shop with her."

[inquitvigiliant]

"I- Good heavens. I had no idea." He really hadn't, Giles has been assuming Tara's in the dark about her future. They need to sit down for a talk, and soon. "It's good that you are, for both of you, I think."

He smiles a little, glancing up at the other man. "I worry less when you've something to occupy yourself with."

[fuckyouripper]

The answering smile that Ethan gives in return is a touch brittle. "I hope you're still feeling as optimistic about it when I tell you we're considering putting in a tattooist's upstairs," he says, mildly. ...magic shop, magic tattoos, yes. He'd always saved that for a last resort of 'we're really, really broke, our issues no longer matter', but the fact is that even with the Eyghon associations, he's proud of that work.

(And maybe if he brings this up, Giles will assume that this is the worrying thing on his mind and not push.)

[inquitvigiliant]

"Y-you wouldn't-!" No, of course he wouldn't, not for that purpose. He's just pulling Giles' chain.

Giles thinks, anyway.

"Very amusing, love. At least it'll be a job. Curating my own library isn't exactly a paying gig." And the way things seem to be heading lately... "Have you noticed how odd and unsettled everyone's been acting? I thought perhaps there'd been a spell of some kind, but it's not...it isn't that, is it? There's something going on."

This time his look is more pointed, as if he suspects Ethan not only knows what he's talking about, but also knows why. Chalk it up to the fact that if there's magic afoot, Giles generally expects Ethan to be either aware or in the middle of it.

[fuckyouripper]

...nope, busted. He smiles thinly - of course he wouldn't, nothing more out of the ordinary than protective sigils and the like, but he was hoping it'd be more distracting than that. Damn.

"Well, if there is, nobody's talking to me about it." Which is almost true.

[inquitvigiliant]

"That's- part of what bothers me." He hasn't said much, but Giles has noticed the way some of their old friends have been acting toward Ethan. Dawn's accusation is still ringing in his ears, and he still kind of wants to shake her for it. Despite the recent horrors he knows she's suffered.

He reaches for Ethan's hand, pulling at his wrist until he releases his hold on the mug. "We'll figure it out. I'll have another talk with Buffy, hopefully one more...constructive than the last. We don't come from the same point in time, perhaps something's happened between our time and hers..."

[fuckyouripper]

Ethan's gaze drops to his coffee, but he lets go and laces his fingers with Giles's all the same. He'd been quite vocal - at lesat between the two of them - about what Dawn had said, but he's been curiously quiet on the subject since a day or so ago.

(Oh, I only half-raised the miserable brat, it'd be silly to expect anything like respect-)

"Maybe we should leave it alone," he says, abruptly. "For a while."

[inquitvigiliant]

And that's partly what's been eating at Giles' subconscious. It's just not like Ethan to leave something alone if he's unhappy about it. Especially if it concerns Dawn -- they were always much closer than Giles and Dawn ever were, he must be taking it hard. No, Giles knows he's taking it hard.

"Why?" Now he's suspicious, and worried, and that's a combination usually reserved for Buffy.

[fuckyouripper]

One thing that Ethan has never been good at is 'leave it be'. He's terrible at 'leave it be'. He picks and prods at the wounds that still hurt, he drags everything out into the open- there's a reason his worst cruelty lies in being baldly honest. Right now, though, he's determinedly not looking at Giles.

He doesn't have an answer. He wishes he did, he knows he should have thought this far ahead, but he doesn't have an answer.

"A lot's happened recently," he says, placatory, "maybe we all just need a bit of- space."

(That's not it.)

[inquitvigiliant]

"Not really." Ethan is not usually the one counseling for patience and space, and it's disconcerting. "I mean- yes, what with Angelus and that bloody house thing, but it's nothing more than we're used to. Quite a lot less, when you really think about it. How many weeks now, and not a single near-apocalypse?"

No, there is definitely something going on, and Giles means to get to the bottom of it. "What are you trying to hide, Ethan?"

[fuckyouripper]

"I'm not trying to hide anything," he snaps, pulling his hand away and picking his mug up again- which is, of course, the most obvious indication that he absolutely is trying to hide something.

The problem is he isn't sure what it is, either. Except that he doesn't want to deal with the weight of maybes hanging over his head- over Giles.

[inquitvigiliant]

If there's one thing Giles really hates, it's Ethan keeping secrets from him. He knows it means trouble, although after all these years he trusts that trouble not to be deliberate on Ethan's part. Or at least, if deliberate, then not directed toward him.

Doesn't mean he reacts any better, though.

"You bloody well are! Don't tell me lies, we've known each other too long for that now." Snappishness is not usually the best method to use with Ethan, but Giles isn't thinking entirely rationally at the moment.

[fuckyouripper]

This isn't real, he wants to shout- I'm not real, our life isn't real, I'm someone our family hates, I don't even know why but I'm terrified I could guess if I let myself-

"I don't want to talk about it," he says, sharply. "Please, Rupert- you know I love you, you know I trust you. Just trust me, and let me take care of this myself. Please." He doesn't think for a second that Giles is going to let it go, but he's not going to give in easily, either.

(There's something urgent about how he says he loves him.)

[inquitvigiliant]

For a moment Giles is silent, worry (and a little fear) etching lines in his face. It isn't just not knowing, it's the very fact that Ethan doesn't want him to know.

There's no greater harbinger of bad tidings.

"Of course I know, Ethan, and you know I love you as well. But why- why does it have to be you alone? We've always faced things together, everything...the demons, the Council..." The desire to give Ethan the privacy he's asking for wars with his need to protect the people he loves. "You know I won't force you. But I can't- I can't just forget about it. Especially not now."