FIC: Watchers' Diaries parts 1-3 (Giles/Wesley) PG-13

[cheetahanabel.livejournal.com]

This fic came about as answer to "What would have happened if Wes and Giles were able to reach an understanding in season three?"  I'm sorry there aren't more parts ready now, but real life and my computer are currently conspiring against me (the first is too fast and the second is too slow).  I'll try to post another couple parts tonight.  Full disclaimer is listed under part one.  This is unbeta'd.  If anyone would like to give it a beta, just let me know. 

Part One – There’s a Boat Dat’s Leavin’ Soon For New York

 

Tuesday, February 9, 1999, 10:21 am UTC

Somewhere between Heathrow and JFK

 

 

The Council of Watchers dictates records of Slayers must be kept by those that watch them in the form of Watchers’ Diaries, but certain details of life are not meant to be shared with the general public, which is why I have started this personal diary.  Where my Watcher’s Diary will mention specific details such as beasts slain, manuscripts recovered and training statistics of each of my Slayers, this personal journal will detail my feelings and some of my more personal experiences.

 

Currently I am rather apprehensive and the ten-hour flight I am on is doing nothing to ease my nerves.  Today I make the flight from Heathrow to JFK.  I shall spend the night in New York, and tomorrow I make the final bit of my journey.  Despite the fact that I dislike flying, the actual cause of my unrest stems from another concern entirely.  I am worried that in this as in everything else in life I will end a failure.  The Council has placed not one but two Slayers under my untried supervision.  To be perfectly frank I have absolutely no clue how to deal with two Slayers.

 

In actuality I was given very little information about either young lady.  Mr. Travers mentioned that Miss Summers passed the Cruciamentum with very little difficulty.  It is common knowledge that a couple years back Miss Summers momentarily died, and despite being quickly revived Miss Young was called.  After being killed by Drusilla, a vampire of the house Aurelius, Miss Young passed the calling on to Miss Lahane.  Very little is known of Miss Lahane besides the rather interesting fact that her first Watcher was killed in battle.  It seems that at this point in time she tracked down her fellow Slayer Miss Summers and Miss Summers’ Watcher, Mr. Giles.

 

I did manage to garner slightly more information on Mr. Giles.  In England he certainly did well for himself, passing his Watcher’s Training with flying colors, especially known for his skills in the field of Magicks. Apparently he was on sabbatical for the next two years, after which he returned to the Council Headquarters and began his mandatory two years of fieldwork, choosing to work for the British Museum of Art.  During his time at the museum, which eventually grew into fifteen years, he wrote a great many dissertations, which were highly lauded by the head members of Council.  One anomaly in this period of his life is the sudden lack of anything magickal in any of his research.  For the first five years all papers dealt entirely with translations of lost languages.  The call to take over Watching Miss Summers brought an end to his esteemed career at the British Museum of Arts; it seems there was much disappointment at his choice to leave with such little notice, and despite the fifteen years spent in hard work for the museum they would not consider taking him back or giving anything approaching a glowing recommendation.  Not much is known of his time in the stated until this recent failure at the Cruciamentum.

 

Here, perhaps, is my greatest worry:  would I have behaved any differently than Mr. Giles?  I realize that if my slayer were to turn eighteen tomorrow I would be able to act as required, but after being her Watcher for two years would I really be able to maintain the emotional distance necessary to act in such an unfeeling—nay cruel—manner?  At this point I very simply cannot answer this question, which worries me beyond the telling.  At the very least I realize that I will not be able to completely condemn Mr. Giles.

 

My head has begun to hurt and so I shall stop writing (and hopefully thinking) for the time being.

 

Author's Note:  I really just wanted to skip this part and go straight to the next Wes entry while writing this, but as I wrote it, I realized just how important this part is.  It tells you where I think Giles' head is at.  (This is the point where I decided to use both POVs; before writing this I was just going to use Wesley's POV.)
 
Word Count: 493

Part Two – But Not For Me

 

2/9/99

 

Today I have received word that my replacement is on his way. I sit here with a glass of scotch and wonder why. Over and over I think of all of the things I could have done differently. If I hadn’t acted to save Buffy…no I cannot even begin to fool myself here. There is no way I could have acted any differently, but in all honesty I wish I had never begun the Cruciamentum in the first place. Now I have lost not only one of my jobs, but far worse the trust of my slayer.

 

God I am such a fool.

 

No, I could not have acted differently at the Cruciamentum, but I could have led a different life prior to that. If my misspent youth had not occurred, hadn’t been on my conscience, Quentin Travers would have no power over me. If I hadn’t been such a rebel there is a good chance I might have been given more credence when voicing my worries.

 

Ah, how foolish we are at a young age, thinking we are invincible and troubled with nothing but passion and pleasure. I can see it in the eyes of the young people around me, but none so strongly I suspect as Faith. She reminds me so strongly of both myself in Ripper phase and Ethan in those days that sometimes I am shocked at her inability to perform magick. Perhaps that is why I dislike her so much. I am afraid no one likes to be reminded of those parts of themselves they are ashamed of, and seeing them present in someone else is almost too much to bear.

 

God we are a hypocritical species.

 

I find myself becoming more and more macabre. What if the watcher sent over is one of the half-dozen or so not only better at their job than me but also better able to communicate with my young charges? What if by next week I am no longer able to write those words, ‘my young charges,’ with any sincerity? Buffy and Faith may be taken in by a young man or woman with common interests, one who still remembers how to have fun. As for Willow and Xander…well I am actually worried that their talents will no longer be appreciated. Buffy could so easily become self-sufficient. She has done it before after all and with near disastrous results. But I believe the scenario I worry about the most is the very real possibility that Buffy will become like Faith, a single-minded killing machine. That thought alone causes shivers of fear to creep up and down my spine.

 

For the first time in my life I have found myself praying—not for myself mind, but for everyone else. This could go so horribly wrong in so many ways. Tomorrow will reveal just how bad it will become. Is it wrong to wish for an apocalypse?

This was the first scene I thought of while coming up with this fic.  I thought, "Where did Wes stay the whole time he was in Sunny D?  What did he use for transportation?"  And from that came this lovely.

Word count:  1297

Part Three – I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin

 

Wednesday, February 10, 1999, 11:03 pm PST

Sunnydale High School Library

 

 

I am in despair, nay misery; I am the most pitiable person extant. I arrived in Sunnydale this morning and was forced to walk to my accommodations with both of my suitcases; there is no taxi service in town nor a bus other than the Greyhound. (As of yet I do not have an American driver’s license, so I cannot drive myself.) Upon arriving at the lodgings booked by the Council I was barely able to suppress a shudder of disgust.   This flophouse called the 'Downtown Apartments' looked like it contained more resident roaches than actual tenants. I decided immediately there was no way I would even be stopping there, instead walking right past towards the high school Miss Summers attends (and I would come to find Mr. Giles works at).

 

Upon arriving I made my way to the Dean’s Office to enquire after where I might find Miss Summers. The insufferable man, Mr. Snyder, refused to allow me in to see her, and was actually about to throw me out to the curb when he was interrupted in his rant against punk kids by a fellow country-man of mine. “Excuse me Mr. Snyder, but this is a colleague of mine. Mr—“ he looked at me pointedly and I quickly filled in the blank with an, “I am Wesley Wyndam-Pryce.” I quickly glanced at my fellow British-man seeing a gentleman in his early forties with a bookish look about him. His appearance put me instantly at ease. The two of us made a quick escape, Mr. Snyder glaring at us all the while with a muttered ‘punk’ or two and a mumbled ‘foreigners’ for good measure.

 

I, of course, immediately thanked my benefactor, which he for his part seemed to ignore. Eventually we arrived at the library. I suddenly realized I did not know the name of my companion. When asked, he smiled enigmatically and replied, “Can you not guess?” Then of course I put two and two together and—with no little shock—realized I was having a conversation with Mr. Giles. He leaned against the counter and told me that my deductive abilities were apparently intact. I finally overcame my amazement and offered my hand for a shake. His grip was so firm that after the handshake was through I surreptitiously checked my hand for bruising and broken bones.

 

The day only progressed downhill from there. Mr. Giles spent the next two hours grilling me about my past. (I will mention here that he is not nearly as comforting when asking about any former criminal activity. While questioning me he reminded me rather of a tiger pacing his cage, content not to act as long as all of the answers were right, but ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble.) Eventually he seemed satisfied with my answers and becoming complacent proceeded to ignore me entirely. Luckily at that point several boxes of materials for my slayers arrived, and I was able to spend a short time happily enough in unpacking. I attempted to involve the former watcher in conversation several times only to be rebuffed by a one-word answer. 

 

After twenty minutes or so a rather unassuming young lady with red hair and a shy smile entered the library. For this girl Mr. Giles broke into his first full smile of the day with a welcoming “Willow.” I found it to be a rather odd endearment, but nonetheless made my way over to the young lady, who I thought to be one of my new charges. “Hello, I’m Wesley Wyndam-Pryce,” I said shaking her hand.

 

“Uh, hi,” she replied with a brilliant smile. “I’m Willow…Willow Rosenburg I mean.” At this point I realized she was not one of my Slayers. “So Wesley are you…um I mean is there a ‘Watcher’ somewhere in your title? Hey that’d be sort of cool: Watcher Wesley…” I let the rest of her words wash over me, in my shock turning to Mr. Giles with an, I am sure, incredulous expression on my face.

 

Mr. Giles interrupted Willow’s babble session with alacrity, placing both hands on her shoulders and saying, “Willow, could you please have Buffy come to the library as soon as she is able? You’d best be off yourself if you want to arrive to class on time.” He quickly ushered her out the door, but even so I am certain she was able to hear the first words of my diatribe. I berated him in the most violent terms for his obvious neglect. It is beyond foolishness to allow a common person on the street to find out who and what we are. Through my entire speech he leaned against the desk, staring at the ground with a steadily more flushed face.

 

As soon as I had finished he looked up from the spot he had been staring at on the floor, saying, “Are you quite finished?” I was finally able to see his expression and it was furious. “What right have you to judge me; to judge any of my opinions on any matter?” The tiger had escaped the cage and it was on the attack. “You young pup, you’re still wet behind the ears.” I was pinned against the wall with claws raised to my throat. “Do you really think you could begin to know what’s best for her?” And on the death stroke he paused, my move.

 

I felt quite startled and even a bit scared, but still carried on, this time in persuasive tones, “You do realize that laymen knowing about us cannot be safe for anyone involved, not for Miss Summers or Miss Lahane or Miss Rosenburg?”

 

Suddenly the fire seemed to go out of him. The tiger was back in its cage. Giles looked down at his hands and sighed. It was a world-weary sigh that seemed to say, “I give in; you’ve won. Take your spoils and leave.”

 

Feeling rather magnanimous, I spent the rest of the afternoon attempting to engage him in conversation, but he would no more than grunt in response. Eventually Miss Summers and Miss Lahane joined us. It was dismal. Miss Summers, or rather Buffy, ignored me with more ill will than Giles had. Miss Lahane, Faith, had such poor manners she would not stay to introduce herself to me. What a fool I was to worry about caring for two Slayers when instead I ought to have worried about dealing with two teenaged girls. They will be a handful in the worst sense of the word.

 

Eventually I remembered my housing problem and asked Giles for the name of a respectable lodging within walking distance of the school. He laughed rather mirthlessly and said, “You are not in London anymore Wesley. There is no place you would be willing to stay within seven miles. You’re welcome to stay here if you’d like. There are practice mats in the corner to sleep on and a perfectly serviceable shower in the boy’s locker-room. Mind you don’t startle Marta though. She comes in to clean the library on Tuesdays and Thursdays at about one in the morning. If she turns the lights on to catch you sleeping she may very well call the policia.”

And so here I sit at midnight with all the lights on fully dressed in the library with no possibility of falling asleep anytime soon. At least it is a fair enough time to call home. Ah, joy, I’m off for more belittlement. It’s always such a joy to hear how disappointed my father is in me. I am sure he will not fail to deliver the scathing speech of the century.

Comments

thanks

[cheetahanabel.livejournal.com]

sorry, my computer's being a real piece of crap (keys are sticking and it' moving at the pace of a snail). had to post what i had on hand at the library with little time left before close. sometimes rl sucks. anyhow didn't get a chance to look over my own fic even, but could y'all maybe give a little slack to a first time public poster.

Re: thanks

[cheetahanabel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, again, my computer is dead, and I worked both jobs yesterday. I had to post what I had without getting a chance to edit. Sorry it's not better quality.

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

That's sort of harsh, don't you think? I think these stories have potential and the way for fandom to get new writers is not to tell them what they're doing wrong without also telling them what they're doing right. It's an absolutely basic rule of concrit.

Okay. So I think the writing here in and of itself is good. Your sentences flow nicely and you don't have many grammar errors (a couple errors in comma usage, but those are easily fixed). I like your tiger metaphor for Giles - I got a really good image from it - and the way you wove some of the more subtle implications of canon into their first meeting (like that Willow seems to have met Wes before Buffy does). You avoided unnecessary rehashings of canon, which is a common mistake with rewritings like this, and that's really good, too.

I think you've chosen a difficult form of storytelling here. Diary entries are hard because, first of all, a lot of people have issues with first person in fanfiction and will be turned off before they get past the first line, and also because your POV has to be watertight and your voices have to be perfect. It's hard to make two characters sound different; Giles usually sounds different from the Scoobies because he's British and older and therefore uses different words and metaphors and phrases than the younger characters do, but making him sound different from Wes is harder, because he's also British and older. On a more concrete level, I noticed at least one jarring slip in POV in Part 4:

Wesley suddenly straightened, and he found his voice saying . . .

This is actually in Wes's POV, although the section is in Giles's. This is what I mean by needing a watertight POV with first person - Giles can't know that Wes "found his voice" saying something, because that has to take place in Wes's head.

I do agree with sniggs about the Author's Notes in the text itself. That's really what headers are for. Once your reader is in the story, you want them to be able to stay there.

Figuring out the unwritten rules for posting fanfiction on LJ can be tough, but please don't be discouraged. The Giles corner of the Buffy community is very small and we're always happy to get new writers. If you'd like me to beta, drop me an email at sahiya @ gmail . com. I'm currently in the middle of writing my MA thesis and trying to get my own SoG day story squared away, so I can't promise I'll be very fast about it, but I think these have a lot of potential.

Thank you

[cheetahanabel.livejournal.com]

Thanks sweets. I was going to post something Xander POV (which is a helluva lot easier for a babbling American) but dead computer equals post what's on hand.

Re: Thank you

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Xander POV is easier for Americans (though I'm an American and I find Giles really easy for some reason). Anyway, don't let stuff get to you, and the beta reading offer stands.

[katekat]

Ok, I so didn't expect Wes to be sleeping on the mats, but that's so perfect! I think you've done a wonderful job asking some great questions about both watcher's mindsets as Wesley was arriving on the scene - and then answering those questions in a great way! I can't wait to read the next part (which I'm going to right now)

[biodamped]

*waves* Ok, i'm incredibly behind on SG fics (my semester resumes next week, woe) so i have just read the first entry from Wes and bookmarked the rest to read afterwards. Having said that, i like what i've read so far! Giles/Wesley isn't one of my usual reads, but i think this shows some great promise, and i like the format you're exploring. I don't think i've seen any multi-part diary fic since my days at the Shoebox Project in HP fandom. Can't wait til i have time to finish this (and i just saw Pt 4 is up, so i'll bookmark that too!)

I saw a bit of a kerfuffle up there (i'm guessing anyway, from the screened posts?) and your note on being able to manage Xander's voice more easily. I have the opposite problem: being stuck on an island at the bottom of the world with only English relatives i can cope with writing Giles' voice and that's about all ;) If you ever want someone to Brit-pick for you, i'm happy to do so. I beta-read for a few people on my flist, and am generally around at least once a week or so, even during the busiest times of semester. All you need to do is drop me a comment.