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summer_of_giles2006-06-22 08:16 am
tweedisgood.livejournal.com) wrote in summer_of_giles2006-06-22 08:16 am
Entry tags:
'Rendered' (genfic)
Happy Birthday to me! As befits getting older and more reflective, or more contrary depending how you look at it, an angsty offering inspired by the wonderful ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
headrush100's h/c ficathon prompts, cross-posted by agreement with her and katekat1010
'Rendered'
Post-'Chosen' genfic, nods to 'Get it Done'
Author: Ruth
Rating FRC, some mild language
Warning: Not much c in the h/c
Beta thanks tomad_with_july
[Prompts: painting, details, sleep, remedy, hope, pain.]
He could have held it, if not particularly comfortably, in his lap: a flaking slab of blue-grey slate perhaps two feet across by one deep. The group of spirit-figures rendered in the ochre and red earths of Africa seemed to shift and beckon as he studied them. For a breath, he was pulled in, complicit in the conspiracy of age and experience against youth and strength, male against female, anointed with the authority of fear. Then he looked up sharply.
“Relax, Giles.” The aftertaste of youth still hung about his companion’s lazy grin, but his pose was wary, adult. “It’s a copy.”
Rupert Giles let out the small, indulgent sigh he knew was expected of him. “One would have hoped all our research sessions might have borne some fruit in the way of respect for original sources, Xander.”
Xander spread a hand in the direction of the rock painting. “’Course, it was so high up, to get the original to the village potter for the copying we had to dynamite it off the cliff face…kidding.” Giles had twitched reflexively with renewed alarm. “It was low down, beneath an overhang. A freak flood had washed away the soil and exposed it. Soon as I saw it, I figured it was what you were looking for, and the local folk tales fit. Funny thing was, no actual Slayers in that whole country: thousands of square miles. What are the odds, huh?”
He was waiting for Giles to reply: to thank him, perhaps, or offer a dry statistic. After a long minute, he coughed awkwardly, hunched his shoulders and shuffled on the threadbare Wilton carpet. “I’m…sorry, y’know. Not what you were hoping for, I guess.”
Giles eyes narrowed as he looked at Xander over the rims of his spectacles. He’d gone back to them recently after an extended flirtation with contact lenses; found it too much contact for comfort. The young people seemed to think he was an open book these days; that because they were officially grownups and his colleagues, they were entitled to prod and probe and assume they knew what made him tick. It was bloody irritating, and they got it wrong nine times out of ten; Buffy, nearer perfect ten. They had achieved mutuality in that at least.
“Indeed? Why is it, then, that you thought I wanted to see this?”
“To prove something. To tell her she was wrong. That it was some fake, mislead vision she had last year and not the truth.”
“Truth. What is truth? Someone said that once,” Giles essayed mildly. Xander’s brow puckered briefly as he tried to dredge up the right memory.
“Yeah, yeah, I know this. Someone famous and deep: someone big with the classic philosophy and making of the good points. ...Who was that again?”
“Pontius Pilate.” Giles allowed his expression to suggest that it was rather apposite in the circumstances. Xander tried to protest, to say that he knew Giles had always done his best, that how could he have known…. Really, it was terribly unfair to appear to make him choose between loyalties. Unfair, and petty, and unworthy, but sod it, why *not* give him a taste now and then of how impossible it all was, if he wanted to be any kind of Watcher?
That is, assuming there would be any such thing, any more. Rather the point at issue.
“So, um, you gonna talk to Buffy about this?”
“To what purpose? To ask her to absolve me, admit the collective guilt of all those centuries of institutional slavery and oppression; admit that what I was taught was my ‘sacred calling’ is a base lie, founded and perpetuated by men hungry only for safety and power? And what do you think she would say to that?”
“You aren’t the Council. Buffy knows that; she always did.”
Giles rubbed one eye wearily. Sleep didn’t come easily when one’s mind insisted on replaying not only every error – there would have been plenty to work on right there – but every triumph as well, sucking the satisfaction away and leaving him sour-mouthed and restless, getting up to brush his teeth so hard they bled. That one spot of real, non-metaphysical pain at least kept him grounded. Xander, bless his stalwart ignorance, honestly thought he was beating himself up over what Buffy thought; that a word from her could work the same medicine for every soul that it did in his.
Xander had too much a tendency to create idols for his own good.
Giles, on the other hand, found himself very short on belief these days.
“I don’t doubt that Buffy will maintain the same respect for me, and the job I performed, that she always did.” There. Neutral enough, with the added benefit of double-edged truth. She was a girl – a woman now – of fixed views on certain matters, of regrettably mutable ones on others. Affections of some kinds could override distasteful, even horrific realisations and possibilities. Affections of other kinds, though genuine enough (she hadn’t lied when she said once, awkwardly, that she loved him, he was certain of that) apparently weren’t even up to the job of reconciling past and present. Perhaps a Slayer must remain an existential creature at base. It had been the Watchers, for all their backstairs string-pulling and deception, who dealt in absolutes. They knew why they were there. They…
“…Knew this already.”
“So, the Council knew, and held out on you? I mean, it makes sense: Woods’ big bag o’ trick-or-treat skipped a few generations; you shoulda had it and didn’t. If you’d known all this back then, you’d have…you could… ” Xander faltered in the midst of sugar-coating himself a sense of relief.
Spun candy. Sweet and comforting and made for sharing. Made the teeth ache.
“They knew; but I knew too, deep down. It explains so much,” creation myth or no creation myth. The warnings to them all in training not to become too attached; the other Watcher Diaries that never read like his own no matter how careful his phrasing; the magnet pull of evil and darkness that seduced her even as she fought both with preternatural strength; the sinning against and the sins done unto.
Xander ploughed on doggedly. “Giles, this…it’s ancient history, so poof! Put it behind you; new start, new power, new Slayers, new Watchers if you like. Why does it matter how it all began?”
“‘Those who do not understand the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them’.”
“Lemme guess. Not Pontius Pilate.”
Giles smiled genuinely, if not broadly. “No. Actually, I’m unsure that all repetition of error can necessarily be avoided. Yet it matters – to understand; especially for those of us with currently more past than future.”
“Giles, don’t…”
“It’s a fact; why deny it? Just as this history, or prehistory, is fact. Seeing this painting, knowing its age, its provenance; that it’s free of the taint of the First Evil playing with the shades of the dead – yes, I did wonder- it helps.”
“Even if it means that all that stuff you said, that Buffy said, about the Shadow Men and the Watchers and chaining girls up in caves, that it’s all true?”
“Even then.” Giles stared at the slab a little longer, tilting it slightly so that it caught the rays of the setting sun sliding in through his office window. He stopped in mid-movement and peered over his glasses at the edges of the image.
“This is an exact copy, you say?”
“Uh-huh. Every stroke.”
“Interesting. In which case, something else the Council…something else I already knew. Come and look.”
It wasn’t exactly as Buffy had described it, but near enough to that shadow play of the first Slayer as to leave little doubt. But as Xander traced his fingers over the images of the circling shamans framing the captive girl, as Giles had done before him, there was one extra, faint detail that made him start, catch Giles’ eye and begin to understand.
The Watchers, too, were in chains.
END
headrush100's h/c ficathon prompts, cross-posted by agreement with her and katekat1010'Rendered'
Post-'Chosen' genfic, nods to 'Get it Done'
Author: Ruth
Rating FRC, some mild language
Warning: Not much c in the h/c
Beta thanks to
mad_with_july[Prompts: painting, details, sleep, remedy, hope, pain.]
He could have held it, if not particularly comfortably, in his lap: a flaking slab of blue-grey slate perhaps two feet across by one deep. The group of spirit-figures rendered in the ochre and red earths of Africa seemed to shift and beckon as he studied them. For a breath, he was pulled in, complicit in the conspiracy of age and experience against youth and strength, male against female, anointed with the authority of fear. Then he looked up sharply.
“Relax, Giles.” The aftertaste of youth still hung about his companion’s lazy grin, but his pose was wary, adult. “It’s a copy.”
Rupert Giles let out the small, indulgent sigh he knew was expected of him. “One would have hoped all our research sessions might have borne some fruit in the way of respect for original sources, Xander.”
Xander spread a hand in the direction of the rock painting. “’Course, it was so high up, to get the original to the village potter for the copying we had to dynamite it off the cliff face…kidding.” Giles had twitched reflexively with renewed alarm. “It was low down, beneath an overhang. A freak flood had washed away the soil and exposed it. Soon as I saw it, I figured it was what you were looking for, and the local folk tales fit. Funny thing was, no actual Slayers in that whole country: thousands of square miles. What are the odds, huh?”
He was waiting for Giles to reply: to thank him, perhaps, or offer a dry statistic. After a long minute, he coughed awkwardly, hunched his shoulders and shuffled on the threadbare Wilton carpet. “I’m…sorry, y’know. Not what you were hoping for, I guess.”
Giles eyes narrowed as he looked at Xander over the rims of his spectacles. He’d gone back to them recently after an extended flirtation with contact lenses; found it too much contact for comfort. The young people seemed to think he was an open book these days; that because they were officially grownups and his colleagues, they were entitled to prod and probe and assume they knew what made him tick. It was bloody irritating, and they got it wrong nine times out of ten; Buffy, nearer perfect ten. They had achieved mutuality in that at least.
“Indeed? Why is it, then, that you thought I wanted to see this?”
“To prove something. To tell her she was wrong. That it was some fake, mislead vision she had last year and not the truth.”
“Truth. What is truth? Someone said that once,” Giles essayed mildly. Xander’s brow puckered briefly as he tried to dredge up the right memory.
“Yeah, yeah, I know this. Someone famous and deep: someone big with the classic philosophy and making of the good points. ...Who was that again?”
“Pontius Pilate.” Giles allowed his expression to suggest that it was rather apposite in the circumstances. Xander tried to protest, to say that he knew Giles had always done his best, that how could he have known…. Really, it was terribly unfair to appear to make him choose between loyalties. Unfair, and petty, and unworthy, but sod it, why *not* give him a taste now and then of how impossible it all was, if he wanted to be any kind of Watcher?
That is, assuming there would be any such thing, any more. Rather the point at issue.
“So, um, you gonna talk to Buffy about this?”
“To what purpose? To ask her to absolve me, admit the collective guilt of all those centuries of institutional slavery and oppression; admit that what I was taught was my ‘sacred calling’ is a base lie, founded and perpetuated by men hungry only for safety and power? And what do you think she would say to that?”
“You aren’t the Council. Buffy knows that; she always did.”
Giles rubbed one eye wearily. Sleep didn’t come easily when one’s mind insisted on replaying not only every error – there would have been plenty to work on right there – but every triumph as well, sucking the satisfaction away and leaving him sour-mouthed and restless, getting up to brush his teeth so hard they bled. That one spot of real, non-metaphysical pain at least kept him grounded. Xander, bless his stalwart ignorance, honestly thought he was beating himself up over what Buffy thought; that a word from her could work the same medicine for every soul that it did in his.
Xander had too much a tendency to create idols for his own good.
Giles, on the other hand, found himself very short on belief these days.
“I don’t doubt that Buffy will maintain the same respect for me, and the job I performed, that she always did.” There. Neutral enough, with the added benefit of double-edged truth. She was a girl – a woman now – of fixed views on certain matters, of regrettably mutable ones on others. Affections of some kinds could override distasteful, even horrific realisations and possibilities. Affections of other kinds, though genuine enough (she hadn’t lied when she said once, awkwardly, that she loved him, he was certain of that) apparently weren’t even up to the job of reconciling past and present. Perhaps a Slayer must remain an existential creature at base. It had been the Watchers, for all their backstairs string-pulling and deception, who dealt in absolutes. They knew why they were there. They…
“…Knew this already.”
“So, the Council knew, and held out on you? I mean, it makes sense: Woods’ big bag o’ trick-or-treat skipped a few generations; you shoulda had it and didn’t. If you’d known all this back then, you’d have…you could… ” Xander faltered in the midst of sugar-coating himself a sense of relief.
Spun candy. Sweet and comforting and made for sharing. Made the teeth ache.
“They knew; but I knew too, deep down. It explains so much,” creation myth or no creation myth. The warnings to them all in training not to become too attached; the other Watcher Diaries that never read like his own no matter how careful his phrasing; the magnet pull of evil and darkness that seduced her even as she fought both with preternatural strength; the sinning against and the sins done unto.
Xander ploughed on doggedly. “Giles, this…it’s ancient history, so poof! Put it behind you; new start, new power, new Slayers, new Watchers if you like. Why does it matter how it all began?”
“‘Those who do not understand the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them’.”
“Lemme guess. Not Pontius Pilate.”
Giles smiled genuinely, if not broadly. “No. Actually, I’m unsure that all repetition of error can necessarily be avoided. Yet it matters – to understand; especially for those of us with currently more past than future.”
“Giles, don’t…”
“It’s a fact; why deny it? Just as this history, or prehistory, is fact. Seeing this painting, knowing its age, its provenance; that it’s free of the taint of the First Evil playing with the shades of the dead – yes, I did wonder- it helps.”
“Even if it means that all that stuff you said, that Buffy said, about the Shadow Men and the Watchers and chaining girls up in caves, that it’s all true?”
“Even then.” Giles stared at the slab a little longer, tilting it slightly so that it caught the rays of the setting sun sliding in through his office window. He stopped in mid-movement and peered over his glasses at the edges of the image.
“This is an exact copy, you say?”
“Uh-huh. Every stroke.”
“Interesting. In which case, something else the Council…something else I already knew. Come and look.”
It wasn’t exactly as Buffy had described it, but near enough to that shadow play of the first Slayer as to leave little doubt. But as Xander traced his fingers over the images of the circling shamans framing the captive girl, as Giles had done before him, there was one extra, faint detail that made him start, catch Giles’ eye and begin to understand.
The Watchers, too, were in chains.
END
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sad but very realistic,
nice touch at the end too
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Giles, on the other hand, found himself very short on belief these days.
Poor Giles. Lovely job. Subtle, painful, and powerful, and some gorgeous imagery to boot. Thank you for this!
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Thank you for the thoughtful and detailed feedback; it's always encouraging to get.
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Your writing is beautiful and and this was a pleasure to read.
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