Fic: "Fade to Black", Buffy/Giles, chapter 8/10, STRONG ANGST! UNHAPPY ENDING!
Buffy had her elbows on the table and her hands clasped beside her head, shielding herself, as she sunk as far back as possible in the cracked and stained red leather seat of the booth. She was torn between trying to think about it, and trying not to.
“Buffy?” the familiar voice asked uncertainly, startling the Slayer as she looked up to find Xander looking down at her, trying to ascertain whether or not he’d made a correct identification in the poorly lit smoke-filled bar.
“Xander,” she said flatly, having trouble making the mental effort to debate whether or not to tell him to leave her alone.
He made the decision for her by sliding in the opposite side of the booth. “Hey, mind if I sit here?”
“You could have at least pretended to care what my answer was going to be by asking before you sat down,” she pointed out.
“True,” he twitched a smile at her. “So what’s up, Buff? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s good to see you get out of the hospital for a bit, but I didn’t really expect to see you here.”
“Well, that’s me. Full of surprises,” she commented, clearly ignoring his question.
“Buff? There’s got to be a reason you’re here. This isn’t a place you come for no reason; too damn smoky and grimy for that, not to mention the awful music.” As if to prove his point, some dreadful country western song began to play loudly in the background.
The Slayer fought down her irritation as she reached over to play with the sugar packets and little containers of creamer. “Just…thinking about things.”
“And well on your way already,” he said, indicating the empty glass lined up beside the napkins and the second in front of her.
On cue, a barmaid noticed the presence of her new customer came to ask for drink orders, flirting with Xander when it became clear she recognized him. He smiled back, but ignored her advances as he ordered a Chimay Red and told her to bring Buffy another one of whatever she was drinking.
Buffy raised an eyebrow.
“What? Don’t look at me to stop you from getting soused. Considering how I’ve spent my own last few months, that’d be a little hypocritical. The demon scum who said ‘you can’t find comfort at the bottom of a bottle’ never needed to.” Then he glanced away. “Just don’t expect it to last.”
“Whatever…and thanks.”
“The only rule is that since I’m paying and all, you have to tell me what’s bothering you.”
“I didn’t ask you to pay.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure poor Karen’s already put it on my tab.”
“She likes you.”
“Yeah,” he shrugged and grinned at her. “It’s the eye patch, I think. Makes me look dangerous. That and the brooding; Angel really had something there. Together they’re a lethal combination.”
“And you’re breaking her heart by sitting with me.”
He waved off her concerns about ruining his chances. “Don’t worry about it. I’m…not ready yet, anyway. So how about it?”
“What if I don’t want to talk about it?” she eyed him warily.
Xander shrugged and gave her a lopsided grin. “I’m patient, and I’m going to sit here until you’re incredibly drunk…and I know from experience that you’re a very talkative drunk. Like Willow on caffeine, only a lot less hyper.”
Buffy snorted and raised her glass to finish it off. “Great plan,” she said as the liquid burned her throat and made her eyes water slightly.
“Is that scotch?”
“Yeah,” she replied, challenging him as she stared straight into his eye. Wisely he didn’t push her farther. “So you come here often?”
He nodded. “Yeah. They leave you alone, and if you have too much they’ll call a cab. Plus it’s gloomy, and that helps a lot when you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”
Buffy looked at him quizzically, surprised that he was being so frank after months of dodging the various questions that had been thrown at him. Then she realized it was quite possibly because he was seeing the potential for some of his own pain to be reflected in her situation; besides, she realized, what happened with Giles would affect them all. “Except doesn’t feeling sorry for yourself usually work better when you’re by yourself?” she asked pointedly, still uncertain whether his company was welcome or not.
“Maybe. Except talking can help too.”
“You’re one to say that; who’d you ever talk to? We all tried, but you just seemed to blow us all off,” Buffy said, suddenly angry that he was setting a double standard for her.
He looked at the table for a long minute, tracing a scratch in its surface with a finger. “Giles. We had some long conversations; they helped a lot.”
“And then…”
“Yeah.”
Karen interrupted them by bringing their drinks. She was about to engage Xander in more banter when she realized there was some pretty serious conversation going on at the table and took that as her cue to leave them.
Xander decided not to press further, and steered their discussion into more pleasant topic areas, mentioning his favorable opinion of Elyssa and asking Buffy how she felt about Dawn’s performance in the new school. Buffy in turn found herself embarrassed to admit she hadn’t even bothered to ask for several days.
“But it’s better than Sunnydale; at least here she can learn something other than how not to get dead. There’re vampires, but the Hellmouth here doesn’t seem to be the center of the daily Apocalypse at least, and we’ve got a lot more help.”
Xander nodded. “I miss the old town though. Still kinda hard to believe it found its way into a giant crater.”
“Yeah, I guess in between the bad memories, there were a few good ones too, huh?”
“Definitely. Remember the time when…”
Together they reminisced about some of the more humorous adventures they’d shared from high school onward. Finally, Anya came into the conversation, and Xander became more serious.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“No. It’s alright. Talking helps, remember?”
“Yeah, but it’s still pretty painful for you.”
He nodded. “It is. I miss her a lot, and I’ve got a lot of regrets. Do you know why I broke it off with her? Because I was afraid of what would happen in the future, that I wouldn’t be good enough for her, and she wouldn’t be happy. So I destroyed both our lives for a future she wouldn’t have had anyway…of course, maybe if things were different she wouldn’t have had to die at all.”
“Xander…”
“No, I know. I just wasn’t sure at the time, so I hurt her. It took a while to pull myself back together, and it hurt to see her…” he trailed off, remembering how she’d gone back to being a vengeance demon, how he’d witnessed her seeking solace in the arms of-he shut that thought off, not even wanting to remember it.
“And then…then I knew, but it was too late. I thought she’d never trust me again; even when we had a final fling or two during that thing with the First, I knew I couldn’t ask her to take me back, not after everything. But you know what? I wish I had, because leaving her at the altar? Dumbest, idiot thing I ever did…and, as you know, I’ve been pretty high up there on the acting like a dumb idiot scale, so that’s saying something.
“It hurt so bad when she died; my world almost collapsed. She didn’t deserve to, y’know. No one ever does, but she didn’t deserve to…not when she was still discovering how to be human again, and doing a good job of it too. She was right that she didn’t need me, but I think I might have needed her. You know what hurt worse though? Not knowing if she knew how proud I was of her, how much I cared about her even at the end…I never actually told her.”
There was a long pause, and Buffy struggled for something to say. When the words came, she had no idea where they’d come from. “Giles is in love with me,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
“He told you?” Xander asked as he studied her intently, instantly following her as she switched topics and raising his glass to nurse his beer.
Buffy found herself getting angry at herself as she slammed down the rest of what was in her glass once more and signaled for another. “He didn’t really mean to, but yeah. Wait; did you know about this?” she asked, as she processed how calm his response had been.
“No, but it doesn’t surprise me a whole lot, Buff. After all, I was guilty of having the Slayer-shaped lovesickness myself there for a few years.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think this is just some teen crush, Xan. I’m pretty sure he means it.”
“I know, and that’s my point. Everyone loves you, Buffy, but Giles…he devotes his life to you. You’ve never seen him when you aren’t around-like that summer you ran away, or after Glory, when you were…”
“Dead?”
“Yeah. But anyway, bad things. And…and I think maybe that’s why he left when he did; he couldn’t stand to see you like that. It was selfish, but I get it.”
“I guess depresso-Buffy wasn’t exactly fun for anyone to be around.”
“Not really, but, well…” Xander didn’t want to bring up the cause of it all, and Buffy understood, preferring not to delve too far into that topic herself.
“It’s just that…I’m not ready for him to love me. Not like that; not yet.” The Slayer found herself telling him the details of her last trip into her Watcher’s mind, including how it had ended with her running out on him. The alcohol made her weepy, but she fought against it, holding the tears in and willing herself to be strong.
“That’s harsh,” Xander said neutrally, though his tone was surprisingly non-judgmental.
“Yeah, and that’s why I feel like crap. It wasn’t fair; I wasn’t fair.”
He sighed, looking down at his hands against the scarred varnish of the table. “You’re both my friends, Buffy, and I want you both to be happy, though considering the current situation, that might be cliché. I guess the important question is how do you feel about him?”
Buffy bit her lip and let the harsh music of the bar fill their silence as she considered. “I’m afraid,” she whispered, her eyes widening at her words as they rang true in her ears.
“Why? Because you’re afraid of getting hurt? Of hurting him? Afraid of screwing it up?”
She nodded. “And because it’ll hurt so much when…if I lose him.” Then she laughed at herself, ending it with a tiny hiccup. “God, that’s selfish, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t. Well maybe a little, but it’s smart too. Unfortunately, I don’t think it works like that, Buff. It’s either something you feel or it isn’t, but if you do…then you need to admit it to yourself, because trust me when I say it’ll hurt a lot worse if you wait until after he’s gone to realize it.” Xander let his speech get slower as he sought out his words carefully, trying to fully express his thoughts. “And Buff? You need to tell him. Either way, he needs to know. If you don’t love him that way, it’s okay; this is Giles. He’ll understand, but at least then he’ll know for sure, and you can tell him exactly how you do feel instead. Remember what I said about Anya and my biggest regret about the whole thing? I meant it.”
“Anya…does it get better?”
He winced reminding himself again. “Yeah. I mean I forget to remember how much it hurts now a little more often, but it still hurts. It doesn’t go away.”
Buffy reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry Xander. I know I’ve said it before, but I miss her too.”
“Thanks,” he said, and meant it. “So Buffy…how is he doing?”
“Worse. It’s getting bad…” Buffy said, shivering as she recalled some of the scenes she’d walked into. “He tries to hide it from me, I think, but…”
Xander noticed she was starting to slur her words, but knew he might as well keep her talking now that she was opening up. “We’ll keep looking and trying.”
She bit her lip. “Yeah, but what if we don’t find an answer?”
He didn’t have any words to give her to that.
“He’s in hell Xander, and if we don’t find him a way out, he’ll be there forever. Do you know what he told me? He told me that if he had the choice, he’d want me to kill him first, to end this…and I was willing to. I even asked Willow about it, but unfortunately, that won’t free him either. This…this THING that’s holding him captive…it’s evil. Like it feeds off his pain. Do you know what it must have taken for him to admit that he wants to die? To ask me to do that for him?”
This time as Xander looked at her, he was truly shocked, and found himself almost wanting to ask exactly how bad it was. Willow had told him Buffy was upset by some of what she’d seen, but knew that Buffy wasn’t telling her everything. It seemed she was right. “God, Buffy…”
“Yeah. And…and I think I’m the only thing keeping him sane, anchoring him.”
Xander reached out and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, and she hiccupped again.
“And I just ran out on him. God! I was Bad Buffy. How could I have done that?”
Xander started to speak, but she cut him off. “I need to go see him,” she commented, standing up unsteadily as she slid out of the booth, then looked at the table uncertainly, as if trying to judge why it was still moving. Glancing back up, she swayed again. “Why are there two Xanders?”
Xander stood up as well and threw some money on the table. “Buffy, you’re drunk.”
“Right, drunk,” she giggled, then turned serious and determined. “But I need to go see Giles.”
“Not like this. No way are you going anywhere like this, much less into his mind. Willow’s not here, but something tells me it’s not safe for either of you. And besides, I don’t think you want him to see you like this.”
“Who?”
The alcohol was hitting hard and fast as her Slayer metabolism went to work and began to process it.
“Giles.”
She giggled again. “Oh yeah. I need to go see him and tell him I love him.” She turned, and he caught her wrist. In response she reached out and reflexively punched him hard in the chest with her other hand. Then she giggled again as he stumbled backward from the force of her strength. “Oopsie.” She wavered slightly on her feet.
He was careful not to startle her this time as he put an arm across her shoulders for support. “Buffy? Come on…let’s get you home,” Xander commented.
“Thansss Xan,” she slurred, and then, slumped against him, passed out cold.
Chapter 9
“Buffy?” the familiar voice asked uncertainly, startling the Slayer as she looked up to find Xander looking down at her, trying to ascertain whether or not he’d made a correct identification in the poorly lit smoke-filled bar.
“Xander,” she said flatly, having trouble making the mental effort to debate whether or not to tell him to leave her alone.
He made the decision for her by sliding in the opposite side of the booth. “Hey, mind if I sit here?”
“You could have at least pretended to care what my answer was going to be by asking before you sat down,” she pointed out.
“True,” he twitched a smile at her. “So what’s up, Buff? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s good to see you get out of the hospital for a bit, but I didn’t really expect to see you here.”
“Well, that’s me. Full of surprises,” she commented, clearly ignoring his question.
“Buff? There’s got to be a reason you’re here. This isn’t a place you come for no reason; too damn smoky and grimy for that, not to mention the awful music.” As if to prove his point, some dreadful country western song began to play loudly in the background.
The Slayer fought down her irritation as she reached over to play with the sugar packets and little containers of creamer. “Just…thinking about things.”
“And well on your way already,” he said, indicating the empty glass lined up beside the napkins and the second in front of her.
On cue, a barmaid noticed the presence of her new customer came to ask for drink orders, flirting with Xander when it became clear she recognized him. He smiled back, but ignored her advances as he ordered a Chimay Red and told her to bring Buffy another one of whatever she was drinking.
Buffy raised an eyebrow.
“What? Don’t look at me to stop you from getting soused. Considering how I’ve spent my own last few months, that’d be a little hypocritical. The demon scum who said ‘you can’t find comfort at the bottom of a bottle’ never needed to.” Then he glanced away. “Just don’t expect it to last.”
“Whatever…and thanks.”
“The only rule is that since I’m paying and all, you have to tell me what’s bothering you.”
“I didn’t ask you to pay.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure poor Karen’s already put it on my tab.”
“She likes you.”
“Yeah,” he shrugged and grinned at her. “It’s the eye patch, I think. Makes me look dangerous. That and the brooding; Angel really had something there. Together they’re a lethal combination.”
“And you’re breaking her heart by sitting with me.”
He waved off her concerns about ruining his chances. “Don’t worry about it. I’m…not ready yet, anyway. So how about it?”
“What if I don’t want to talk about it?” she eyed him warily.
Xander shrugged and gave her a lopsided grin. “I’m patient, and I’m going to sit here until you’re incredibly drunk…and I know from experience that you’re a very talkative drunk. Like Willow on caffeine, only a lot less hyper.”
Buffy snorted and raised her glass to finish it off. “Great plan,” she said as the liquid burned her throat and made her eyes water slightly.
“Is that scotch?”
“Yeah,” she replied, challenging him as she stared straight into his eye. Wisely he didn’t push her farther. “So you come here often?”
He nodded. “Yeah. They leave you alone, and if you have too much they’ll call a cab. Plus it’s gloomy, and that helps a lot when you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”
Buffy looked at him quizzically, surprised that he was being so frank after months of dodging the various questions that had been thrown at him. Then she realized it was quite possibly because he was seeing the potential for some of his own pain to be reflected in her situation; besides, she realized, what happened with Giles would affect them all. “Except doesn’t feeling sorry for yourself usually work better when you’re by yourself?” she asked pointedly, still uncertain whether his company was welcome or not.
“Maybe. Except talking can help too.”
“You’re one to say that; who’d you ever talk to? We all tried, but you just seemed to blow us all off,” Buffy said, suddenly angry that he was setting a double standard for her.
He looked at the table for a long minute, tracing a scratch in its surface with a finger. “Giles. We had some long conversations; they helped a lot.”
“And then…”
“Yeah.”
Karen interrupted them by bringing their drinks. She was about to engage Xander in more banter when she realized there was some pretty serious conversation going on at the table and took that as her cue to leave them.
Xander decided not to press further, and steered their discussion into more pleasant topic areas, mentioning his favorable opinion of Elyssa and asking Buffy how she felt about Dawn’s performance in the new school. Buffy in turn found herself embarrassed to admit she hadn’t even bothered to ask for several days.
“But it’s better than Sunnydale; at least here she can learn something other than how not to get dead. There’re vampires, but the Hellmouth here doesn’t seem to be the center of the daily Apocalypse at least, and we’ve got a lot more help.”
Xander nodded. “I miss the old town though. Still kinda hard to believe it found its way into a giant crater.”
“Yeah, I guess in between the bad memories, there were a few good ones too, huh?”
“Definitely. Remember the time when…”
Together they reminisced about some of the more humorous adventures they’d shared from high school onward. Finally, Anya came into the conversation, and Xander became more serious.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“No. It’s alright. Talking helps, remember?”
“Yeah, but it’s still pretty painful for you.”
He nodded. “It is. I miss her a lot, and I’ve got a lot of regrets. Do you know why I broke it off with her? Because I was afraid of what would happen in the future, that I wouldn’t be good enough for her, and she wouldn’t be happy. So I destroyed both our lives for a future she wouldn’t have had anyway…of course, maybe if things were different she wouldn’t have had to die at all.”
“Xander…”
“No, I know. I just wasn’t sure at the time, so I hurt her. It took a while to pull myself back together, and it hurt to see her…” he trailed off, remembering how she’d gone back to being a vengeance demon, how he’d witnessed her seeking solace in the arms of-he shut that thought off, not even wanting to remember it.
“And then…then I knew, but it was too late. I thought she’d never trust me again; even when we had a final fling or two during that thing with the First, I knew I couldn’t ask her to take me back, not after everything. But you know what? I wish I had, because leaving her at the altar? Dumbest, idiot thing I ever did…and, as you know, I’ve been pretty high up there on the acting like a dumb idiot scale, so that’s saying something.
“It hurt so bad when she died; my world almost collapsed. She didn’t deserve to, y’know. No one ever does, but she didn’t deserve to…not when she was still discovering how to be human again, and doing a good job of it too. She was right that she didn’t need me, but I think I might have needed her. You know what hurt worse though? Not knowing if she knew how proud I was of her, how much I cared about her even at the end…I never actually told her.”
There was a long pause, and Buffy struggled for something to say. When the words came, she had no idea where they’d come from. “Giles is in love with me,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
“He told you?” Xander asked as he studied her intently, instantly following her as she switched topics and raising his glass to nurse his beer.
Buffy found herself getting angry at herself as she slammed down the rest of what was in her glass once more and signaled for another. “He didn’t really mean to, but yeah. Wait; did you know about this?” she asked, as she processed how calm his response had been.
“No, but it doesn’t surprise me a whole lot, Buff. After all, I was guilty of having the Slayer-shaped lovesickness myself there for a few years.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think this is just some teen crush, Xan. I’m pretty sure he means it.”
“I know, and that’s my point. Everyone loves you, Buffy, but Giles…he devotes his life to you. You’ve never seen him when you aren’t around-like that summer you ran away, or after Glory, when you were…”
“Dead?”
“Yeah. But anyway, bad things. And…and I think maybe that’s why he left when he did; he couldn’t stand to see you like that. It was selfish, but I get it.”
“I guess depresso-Buffy wasn’t exactly fun for anyone to be around.”
“Not really, but, well…” Xander didn’t want to bring up the cause of it all, and Buffy understood, preferring not to delve too far into that topic herself.
“It’s just that…I’m not ready for him to love me. Not like that; not yet.” The Slayer found herself telling him the details of her last trip into her Watcher’s mind, including how it had ended with her running out on him. The alcohol made her weepy, but she fought against it, holding the tears in and willing herself to be strong.
“That’s harsh,” Xander said neutrally, though his tone was surprisingly non-judgmental.
“Yeah, and that’s why I feel like crap. It wasn’t fair; I wasn’t fair.”
He sighed, looking down at his hands against the scarred varnish of the table. “You’re both my friends, Buffy, and I want you both to be happy, though considering the current situation, that might be cliché. I guess the important question is how do you feel about him?”
Buffy bit her lip and let the harsh music of the bar fill their silence as she considered. “I’m afraid,” she whispered, her eyes widening at her words as they rang true in her ears.
“Why? Because you’re afraid of getting hurt? Of hurting him? Afraid of screwing it up?”
She nodded. “And because it’ll hurt so much when…if I lose him.” Then she laughed at herself, ending it with a tiny hiccup. “God, that’s selfish, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t. Well maybe a little, but it’s smart too. Unfortunately, I don’t think it works like that, Buff. It’s either something you feel or it isn’t, but if you do…then you need to admit it to yourself, because trust me when I say it’ll hurt a lot worse if you wait until after he’s gone to realize it.” Xander let his speech get slower as he sought out his words carefully, trying to fully express his thoughts. “And Buff? You need to tell him. Either way, he needs to know. If you don’t love him that way, it’s okay; this is Giles. He’ll understand, but at least then he’ll know for sure, and you can tell him exactly how you do feel instead. Remember what I said about Anya and my biggest regret about the whole thing? I meant it.”
“Anya…does it get better?”
He winced reminding himself again. “Yeah. I mean I forget to remember how much it hurts now a little more often, but it still hurts. It doesn’t go away.”
Buffy reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry Xander. I know I’ve said it before, but I miss her too.”
“Thanks,” he said, and meant it. “So Buffy…how is he doing?”
“Worse. It’s getting bad…” Buffy said, shivering as she recalled some of the scenes she’d walked into. “He tries to hide it from me, I think, but…”
Xander noticed she was starting to slur her words, but knew he might as well keep her talking now that she was opening up. “We’ll keep looking and trying.”
She bit her lip. “Yeah, but what if we don’t find an answer?”
He didn’t have any words to give her to that.
“He’s in hell Xander, and if we don’t find him a way out, he’ll be there forever. Do you know what he told me? He told me that if he had the choice, he’d want me to kill him first, to end this…and I was willing to. I even asked Willow about it, but unfortunately, that won’t free him either. This…this THING that’s holding him captive…it’s evil. Like it feeds off his pain. Do you know what it must have taken for him to admit that he wants to die? To ask me to do that for him?”
This time as Xander looked at her, he was truly shocked, and found himself almost wanting to ask exactly how bad it was. Willow had told him Buffy was upset by some of what she’d seen, but knew that Buffy wasn’t telling her everything. It seemed she was right. “God, Buffy…”
“Yeah. And…and I think I’m the only thing keeping him sane, anchoring him.”
Xander reached out and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, and she hiccupped again.
“And I just ran out on him. God! I was Bad Buffy. How could I have done that?”
Xander started to speak, but she cut him off. “I need to go see him,” she commented, standing up unsteadily as she slid out of the booth, then looked at the table uncertainly, as if trying to judge why it was still moving. Glancing back up, she swayed again. “Why are there two Xanders?”
Xander stood up as well and threw some money on the table. “Buffy, you’re drunk.”
“Right, drunk,” she giggled, then turned serious and determined. “But I need to go see Giles.”
“Not like this. No way are you going anywhere like this, much less into his mind. Willow’s not here, but something tells me it’s not safe for either of you. And besides, I don’t think you want him to see you like this.”
“Who?”
The alcohol was hitting hard and fast as her Slayer metabolism went to work and began to process it.
“Giles.”
She giggled again. “Oh yeah. I need to go see him and tell him I love him.” She turned, and he caught her wrist. In response she reached out and reflexively punched him hard in the chest with her other hand. Then she giggled again as he stumbled backward from the force of her strength. “Oopsie.” She wavered slightly on her feet.
He was careful not to startle her this time as he put an arm across her shoulders for support. “Buffy? Come on…let’s get you home,” Xander commented.
“Thansss Xan,” she slurred, and then, slumped against him, passed out cold.
Chapter 9