Fic: Right Of Claim 18/19
Wordcount: 3,313
Chapter 17 - Fears (Truths)
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours first
Let’s compare scars I’ll tell you who’s is worse”
-Rise Against - Swing Life Away
It was well past midnight, and the half of the population that helped to keep the impression that Sunnydale was a normal little town, and not at all interesting were curled up in bed. If it weren’t for that heat, which was something that he still hadn’t gotten used to in the near three months that he’d been there then he could have almost imagined that he was back in England.
Ethan’s silent step beside him helped to cement that illusion, too. This was the first time that he had spent any real time with it over the last while, too. After all, he hardly counted a few hours of snatched sleep next to it, here and there, and occasionally waking up a few hours before it rested as spending time. He supposed that he ought to be grateful that it was, for the most part, leaving the show to him to run, but there was a part of him that resented that, too.
Ethan had once said that the day Rupert stopped questioning would be one hell of a day, and these days Rupert felt that same on the matter of if he ever sorted out his feelings where the ancient was concerned.
Or even if he simply began to, because it certainly wasn’t as simple as black and white, as clear cut as simple, straight hatred, even though he’d often wished that such a thing was a feeling that he had been able to maintain.
Three months, and this town was still throwing up surprise after surprise out of the woodworks, too. It was almost as though he were living in the midst of a competition to see what would come out king or queen of the Hellmouth. And so far the Slayer had bested every challenge that had been thrown her way.
He was prouder of her by the day; too, in spite of his reluctance about forming a bond with her, something that he’d known for an age couldn’t be prevented.
There was no disaster scheduled for tonight, no threat to be wary again, other than what natural came hand in hand with being on a Hellmouth in the middle of the night. He was wearing a white tee-shirt, and a pair of faded, favourite blue jeans, had his favourite jacked swung over his shoulder, although he doubted that he would have any need for it tonight, and the usual pair of steel-capped boots.
Raising a lazy hand, he scratched at the old mark on his arm, and flicked his gaze sideways, towards his corporal shadow.
“So, how would you say you’re finding things?”
Again he stole another glance at it, and frowned slightly, although it was more an expression of thought that it was anything else, “It… well, it’s certainly not what I expected.”
“You seem to be enjoying yourself, though. More than you have been for a while.”
The fact that it was still keeping an eye on him, on his moods and what-not, came as more than a little bit of a surprise. He’d figured that it was too wrapped up in it own word, in whatever it was doing on those long, late nights to have actually noticed.
“You noticed.”
He kept his voice even, completely free of any accusation. This was, after all, meant to be nothing more than company and a conversation.
“Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“Honestly? Since coming to this bloody town, at least three quarters of the time I’m not sure what it is that I’m meant to be thinking. And I’m positive that I know less now than ever, of what’s going through that twisted bloody mind of yours. I’m not sure, even after everything that I’m still not just stumbling through the shadows, whistling at the bleedin’ dark.”
“You could be doing worse.”
Its tone was low, and he took the words as an encouragement.
“I’m still not sure that I’m the right person for this, you know. But even if I’m not, then I wouldn’t trade it in. You… I think you’re starting to rub off on me, because I feel extremely selfish at times.”
The indulgence was obvious in its expression, as it stopped walking and looked at him. It still seemed strange, to have these rare moments of peace, where he couldn’t muster the anger or desire, or conviction to want to kill it any more. He supposed that any Psychologist worth their salt would have dubbed it Stockholm, but did it really matter what title it was given, when even in those moments that he had the illusion of freedom he would never achieve the reality of it?
All that he could do, really, was go with it, and hope that there was still a part of him left in tact, come the end of this final joke that The Idiots In Charge seemed determined to make him suffer through. After all, what use was a soul, and in particular a bound one, if there wasn’t going to be enough left of -him- around the edges to support it?
And speaking of living out jokes, there was another one. He wished he knew which one of those thrice-damned fools had seen fit to set up Buffy’s attraction to the local vampire mope-king. After she had recovered from her shock, she had set out to show it that she didn’t care what it may have done in the past, and that all that mattered was the fact that it was battling for its own redemption these days.
It would have been highly amusing, if not for the stark reminder of his own situation that it forced into his thoughts at strange hours. He had wondered, on occasion, whether if Ethan had started things out a different way he mightn’t have been able to scrape up some bundle of rational feeling for it. And it seemed that the Slayer and her aficionado were determined to wave the answer under his nose. After all, if someone like what she was seemed to be able to see past the fact that Angelus was a vampire then anything stood a chance, didn’t it.
Buffy looked exhausted, although he supposed if shouldn’t have been a surprise that battling living nightmares really took it out of a person. He knew how he felt, having seen several of his own worst brought to life. After that one, for the first time he had allowed himself to walk out of the job, and had taken the girl with him. For once he didn’t care about how it might have looked; after everything that they had been through today, if anyone complained then they could go hang as far as he was concerned.
He had asked Xander and Willow to join them as well, and take a well-earned few hours out and while the boy looked as thought he had been set to take them up on the offer Willow had said something to him that he hadn’t overheard, and they had both politely declined.
So, here they were, back at that old café that they always seemed to wind up in after a particularly harrowing fight, or an overly long day. More often than not, it was their entire team of four that found themselves clustered around the table, but he’d also spent time with all of them as individuals, too. They had all proved themselves to be invaluable to the cause, and he had come to appreciate both of them just as much as he did Buffy.
Staring at a marshmallow that was struggling to keep afloat in a sea of creamy froth she had her hands wrapper around her cup, as though to warm them, when even now it was still ridiculously warm. He’d never though that he would miss grey clouds in the afternoon, fog in the morning, and the sound of cool rain pouring down onto the windowpane, or the feel of it on his skin.
But there it was; he did. And even though it really was far too early in the day to start drinking, he had his customary glass of beer in from of him, quarter gone. Damn and blast it, but he felt like he deserved a drink after what the day had thrown at him. It had shown him fears that he had tried to deny the existence of, as well as some that he’d known were there all along.
He took another sip of him drink, and only just stopped himself from jumping when she chased the half-vanished marshmallow around her cup leaving trails of pink through the white foam, and spoke to him.
“What was the worst of it for you?”
Letting out a slow sigh, he drained his cup to half-way, and massaged at the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. That was one question that he really didn’t want to answer, for fear of where it may lead to, but he was fairly certain that he trusted her well enough these days. And that she knew him well enough not to turn on him, if it came to that.
“Losing you was probably first and foremost amongst them, I’d say. And when I saw you like that, as one of them, it rather put a fear of… future possibilities into me.”
He had looked at that hunger in her eyes, and seen his own future laid out. Not to say that he didn’t see the same thing every time that Ethan morphed in from of him, but somehow, seeing his Slayer like that had felt a lot more immediate, and unavoidable.
And yes, there it came. He could tell by that look in her eye, that one which he had come to recognize, which came just before a question.
“But… I know that it would be rough on you, not to mention rough on me, but you’d survive it. There’s got to be people back in London that would… help you out or something, wouldn’t there?”
Even discussing the possibility of her own death, she wasn’t flinching. He wondered, briefly, what it would be like to have that kind of self-assurance.
He owed her the truth, didn’t he, really? He’d told her that things were a story for another day, and it felt like another day here, albeit a little sooner than when he’d presumed it would be.
Pushing the chair back from the table a little he raised the marked arm, and rested it on the table, gaze not drifting from the spot under his shirt where he knew it was. The only question was of where to start. After all, he didn’t want to bore her with some long, rambling story.
“Yes, I would. But it wouldn’t be for long. I’d have maybe a few weeks at the outside, if I were lucky. Or maybe that’s if I were unlucky; since I’m honestly not sure which one of the two options would be worse.”
“What are you talking about? Giles, you’re getting me worried here.”
“You remember how I mentioned a few weeks ago, that I had a particular interest in marked vampires?”
“Yes?” he heard the question in the word.
He unbuttoned the cuff of his sleeve, and took another mouthful of Dutch courage, before rolling it back to his elbow, to show her the black tattoo that was nestled there, the symbol that had been a part of his life since he had been a boy. Leaning over, she stared properly at the sign that he’d made sure she had only ever caught a few, fleeting glimpses of.
“This is why. It’s a Keeper’s Mark, something that was… that was used by elder vampires to separate their kin, acolytes, or servants out from the rest of the flock, so to speak. Where it was placed on the body symbolised status, and it varied from Master to Master. Fell out of practise some six or seven hundred years ago, now, although it was only ever really the true elders that used it in the first place.”
“So, you got that ink to remind you of what you’re fighting against?” her tone sounded almost hopeful, like she wanted him to agree.
“If only it were that simple, dear girl. I’m sure I’ve mentioned my flight from home to you, briefly too.”
“You might have,” she said, with a clear go on gesture.
“Well, to cut a long story short I managed to fall, as it were, into a rather sticky situation. I almost got myself killed, and it was only though the intervention of a vampire, for entirely its own reasons that I’m not. But the price was a rather high one, to say the least. This thing is the mark of an equal.”
He took another mouthful of his drink, gave her a few moments to say anything, and then started talking again.
“It… it wasn’t… isn’t a situation that I’ll ever break out of. The reason that I’ll have a few weeks is because it decided to let destiny take its own path, and turn me once you’re… once you’re out of the picture,” he laughed, bitterly, “so you see, as well as losing you, it’s also loosing my own life that I fear. I’m afraid I’m a fundamentally selfish creature, at heart. And seeing you as one of them today, well that really drove it home.”
She looked at him with an expression that he couldn’t even being to begin to decipher.
He drained the rest of his drink, hating the uncomfortable silence that was hovering between them. He found himself hoping desperately that telling her hadn’t been some huge mistake, and that it wasn’t simple another expression of his own selfishness, the need to share his burden with another person.
He’d never realised that silence could be quite this quiet, especially when it was occupied by another.
And then, finally she broke it, testing the water with a tentative comment.
“This means that you have no right what-so-ever to say anything to me about Angel, now.”
Biting back the urge to say that it wasn’t nearly the same thing, because Ethan had never had a soul to risk loosing in the first place, he gave her a weak smile, the best that he could muster. A comment like that would have been worse than anything else that he could have said.
“Yes, you would see that as the home team’s advantage, wouldn’t you? Just… just remember what I told you. Watch yourself around it, Buffy; a curse is a curse for a reason.”
He watched as she turned something else over in her head.
“I guess that would be how you recognized what he was, then? And what that smell comment was about, too.”
“I did say that it was old magic. I just didn’t… specify.”
“Yeah, sure thing, Giles. And of course you’d let me get away with that, too.”
“Have I ever taken what you say at face value?” he kept that smile forced into place on his face, did what he could to keep the conversation light.
“No, but one day I just know you’ll slip up.”
“And that’s they day you can start to call me old.”
“How,” she raised a hand, and stared just past his eyes, focusing on a spot on the wall behind him, “how old where you when you bolted?”
Now there was an area that he didn’t want to go into, “Young enough to think I knew everything, old enough to think that the world spun around me, and that everything that happened was a personal affront. Does it really matter, as far as the specifics go?”
“Guess not,” her frown deepened, “and here I thought I’d had it hard. That, thought, what with you being what you are on top of that,” she looked genuinely upset for him, which was rather a novel thing in his experience, “that can’t have been far shy of a living Hell, I’d say.”
The waiter brought over another drink for him, and it didn’t take him long to drain this one as well, as he tried to figure out where to go from there.
“Like I told you before, life is what it is. And we deal with it the best we can. I don’t feel sorry for myself, Buffy. I’ll give you that I once did, but it’s been too long since, to stay cooped up in a bubble of misery. I… I affect things where I can, and I certainly get my own kick out of lowering the population of things that go ‘bump’ in the night, but… given time and the human condition, I fear we can adjust to any circumstance. The last thing that I want is your sympathies, Buffy. I... if I didn’t think that you deserved to know, then believe you me, I wouldn’t be telling you.”
“Fine then. No sympathy from me, none what so ever.”
He appreciated the tone of voice, but he could see the lie in her expression. Still, if she could pretend for his sake, then he could pretend to pretend that she believed her own words. That was how this whole game worked, after all. Tell yourself the lie time and again, and hope that the cold light of day didn’t dawn to scatter it to nothing more than dust in the wind.
“Good. I’ll hold you to that, too. If I ever see so much as one sideways glance, then I’ll have you dusting every single one of the books in the library, and then re-shelving the lot of them.”
She finished off the last of her now cold mocha, and gave a mock shudder, “Oh, please, no. Anything but that, it’s cruel and unusual punishment. I’m sure that things like that were outlawed some time back in some year that I can’t remember the digits of.”
“Possibly, but I wouldn’t tell.”
Heading over to the counter, he paid as usual, and then headed back out to the car with her. As much fun as it would have been to ride the bike in the rain this morning, he hadn’t fancied the idea of spending the day dripping on the ground. Now, of course, the bloody sun had come back out to bake the leather seats, and make it possible to fry an egg on the top of the bonnet.
She watched, as he shook himself, and rolled up his other sleeve, and then followed up by undoing the first couple of buttons of his top, anything to try and catch a non-existent breeze.
“You okay?”
He glanced back at her, almost as though he’d forgotten that she was there for a few seconds.
“It’s this infernal, bloody, damned heat. I’ve hated it since the day that I got into town. I’m sure that if I’m ever pressed I’ll deny it, but I can honestly say that I miss the rain. England, now that was proper weather. Always appropriately atmospheric.”
“Yeah, but since this is meant to be the mouth of Hell, you could also say that’s it’s… what was it… appropriately atmospheric, that we’re living in what feels like a toaster oven.”
“Smartarse,” he growled letting a touch of the old accent drift into it, ad he unlocked the doors and swung into the car. As she lowered herself into the seat beside him, he looked at here, waiting until she lifted her head and met his gaze.
“So, are we alright? You’re not going to run, screaming from me?”
“Yeah, we’re cool,” a half-smile played over the corner of her mouth, “actually, I’m waiting here for you to give me the warning about staking your,” her smile vanished, and she heisted over the word, “about staking him, anyway. And… thanks for trusting me.”
“Thank-you for giving me the chance to.”