summer_of_giles | FIC: Pivotal Moments in a Shifting Universe (G/X) NC-17

It's my day to post! One of the things I loved about Giles was how his many layers and complexities were only slowly revealed over the course of the show. In this, I've tried to show a little of the conflict between the public and private Giles.

Title: Pivotal Moments in a Shifting Universe (1/2)
Author: orchidluv
Pairings: G/X, mentions of past G/others, both het and slash
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: sexual imagery
Disclaimer: Joss and Mutant Enemy own everything. I own nothing.
Timeline: Seasons 1-7 and post-Chosen
Summary: 8 moments in Giles' life. One for each season, and one post-Chosen.

Pivotal Moments a Shifting Universe

Season 1 - post-The Pack

Giles patted Xander’s shoulder awkwardly and watched the boy slouch off down the school walkway. He shook his head and smiled at his own foolishness as the shambling figure retreated. Xander was back in his normal clothes: the shirt a hideous blue and black polyester, the pants two sizes too big; the boy even more uncomfortable in his own skin than usual after his behavior over the past few days.

It seemed only fair to agree that he wouldn’t tell Buffy and Willow that Xander remembered every moment of his possession by the hyena spirit. Giles was certainly going to do his level best to practice his own form of amnesia about the events.

He’d been utterly dismissive when Buffy had come to him, insisting that something was wrong with Xander. He’d brushed her off, saying that Xander was simply acting like a teenage boy, unwilling to admit or even acknowledge his own reaction to Xander as the boy had walked across the school courtyard earlier, much less dwell on the subject of Xander’s new persona.

Seeing Xander like that: predatory, dark and dangerous, had been like meeting Ethan Rayne for the first time all over again. Not in looks, of course, but in attitude. Ethan had been all swagger and cool insolence, his every move and gesture proclaiming his arrogant self-confidence. One look from Ethan across a pub and Giles had followed him straight into hell, intoxicated by the power that radiated from the other man. Ethan had been the quintessential bad-boy and Giles had been a fool. A wanna-be rebel, he’d instantly recognized the real thing in Ethan, who’d been everything his younger self thought he wanted to be. Ethan had been the embodiment of what Giles had been seeking when he left Oxford, determined to reject his destiny as a Watcher. And during those reckless, irresponsible months in London, Ethan had lived up to every dark promise Giles had felt at that first meeting, and then some.

Until now, Xander had been nothing more than an unnecessary distraction for his Slayer, something Buffy inexplicably refused to give up. The boy had been merely a symptom of the difficulty he was having with a Slayer who didn’t conform to expectations, who was a willful teenager and not a well-trained killing machine like Slayers were supposed to be. Willow had proved useful with her computer skills and obvious intelligence, but Xander was more hindrance than help, despite his eagerness and his bumbling attempts to be useful.

But that glimpse across the courtyard of a Xander who moved with grace and power, whose watchful dark eyes were those of a sovereign surveying newly conquered territory, had riveted him in place and Giles had stared unabashedly, hungrily watching the boy. Xander’s every move and gesture held raw sexual allure and Giles hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away, until the sensation of his prick swelling in his trousers had returned him to sanity and sent him scuttling for the safety of the library and the librarians’ equivalent of a cold shower - cross-indexing.

He had been absolutely appalled to realize he’d gotten an erection just from watching the boy cross the school courtyard. Not only was he old enough to know better, he was old enough to be arrested. Lusting after a 16-year old boy was utterly beyond the pale. And to do it at the school where he was in a position of authority endangered his job, his reputation, and his freedom. But most of all, it endangered his carefully crafted persona: the perfect Watcher, who observed but never interacted. Bad enough that Buffy was making it so difficult to stay in his pre-determined role, he absolutely would not countenance Xander having that effect on him.

Like Xander, Giles had every intention of forgetting that brief moment of hyena-induced insanity.

Xander was a likeable boy, if utterly incomprehensible with his pop-culture references and steady stream of low-brow jokes. But Giles was here as Watcher to the Slayer. He simply would not permit himself to be distracted from his role, or allow a teenage boy to remind him of events from his own past that were better left buried. Recalling his embarrassing physical reaction, Giles resolved to distance himself from Xander in the future. Far better to push the boy away than to risk another incident like yesterday’s, he told himself firmly.

The matter settled in his mind, Giles ignored the twinge of regret and headed for the library, his thoughts resolutely concentrated on the next step in his Slayer’s training schedule.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Season 2 - post-The Dark Ages

Giles stared into the glass, turning the tumbler in his hand as if it the amber liquid inside held the secrets to the universe.

Which he knew bloody well it didn’t.

He’d poured himself the drink well over an hour ago, but still hadn’t tasted it. He knew he should simply pour it down the drain, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that either. Not only because it was an expensive single-malt, but because the oblivion it offered was so tempting.

Jenny wasn’t speaking to him. He’d tried again today and she had given him a blistering look, though her words had been polite enough, reminding him that she needed time.

It had been two weeks since he’d brought Eyghon into her life, nearly getting her killed and exposing her to his dark past, and it was beginning to look more and more like she wasn’t going to be able to accept the darkness that wound through his soul.

Seeing Ethan again…. Twice now in barely a month, after more than twenty years of trying to forget him, years spent immersing himself in the Council and its ways. Re-creating himself, forcing himself back into the Watcher mold, until it no longer felt like a straight-jacket. Years spent hiding from everyone behind manners and tweed and a cloak of respectability. Twenty years’ work undone in a single moment. Destroyed by the sound of a once-familiar, gravelly-voiced greeting: “Hello, Ripper.”

Ethan wasn’t the only one who called him Ripper, but he was the only one whose use of the name still sent a shiver down his spine and made his cock twitch.

Pavlov’s fucking dog, he thought savagely, defiantly downing the scotch in a single gulp, feeling it burn its way down to his stomach, while still leaving him feeling colder than he had before. Still reacting predictably to the sound of Ethan’s voice even after twenty years.

His past had come back to haunt him. Literally, in the form of dead friends and animated corpses. Figuratively, in the unwanted reminders of events he had spent twenty years trying to forget. What had Ethan called him? “Sniveling, tweed-clad guardian of the Slayer?” Ethan was right - it really was quite a little act he had going here. He’d hidden his true nature from everyone around him, Buffy most of all, Jenny certainly. They all saw him as the dull, bumbling librarian. Old. A man incapable of asking a woman he was attracted to out on a date.

His jaw tightened. He couldn’t function if they learned the whole truth; not as Watcher, nor as the surrogate father-figure they all saw him as. Buffy had admitted that the fleeting glimpse of the Ripper that she’d seen in his apartment had frightened her. She’d never accept that, in many ways that was who he still was: a man capable of beating an old friend to death to get the answers he needed, who’d practiced sex-magic and demon-summoning for thrills, and who sometimes thought he’d go mad if he didn’t claw his way out of this false persona he’d so carefully crafted, and show them all who he truly was. The man who’d wanted to fuck Ethan almost as badly as he’d wanted to beat him into unconsciousness.

None of them would understand. They didn’t have that kind of ruthlessness in them. Buffy and the others were still so young; Jenny, for all her techno-pagan talk, was essentially an innocent dabbler, barely aware of the existence of the darkness that he’d once bathed so willingly in.

Giles found he was pouring himself another glass and raised it in a mocking toast to the mess he’d made of his life. That they’d all made of their lives. Philip, Deidre, Thomas, and Randall - all dead now. Ethan and Ripper were the only two left of their sordid little band of hedonists.

He leaned his head back against the chair and, for the first time in years, willingly allowed himself to picture them in his head:

Deidre with her waist-length red hair and generous breasts, the only woman in their little club, a tireless and inventive lover, as wild and reckless as any of them. Philip’s bushy beard creating sensations Giles still vividly remembered today when he teasingly dragged the bristly mass across the dripping head of Ripper’s prick. Thomas’ stocky frame twisting beneath him, his strong hands leaving bruises on Ripper’s hips that had lasted for days. Randall, the prankster, who’s booming laugh sometimes still echoed in Giles’ dreams, waking him from sleep by tumbling him off the stained mattress onto the floor of their garbage-strewn flat. Ethan, the charismatic chaos worshipper whose mercurial temper and flashes of outright cruelty had, if not created Ripper, then certainly nurtured the fledgling seeds of him into full growth. Ripper had been obsessed with Ethan, the man who’d introduced his still naive self to the ecstatic pleasures to be found in chaos and in living solely for the moment.

He’d loved them all, or thought he had during those nights of mindless passion. Months of reckless stunts and unbelievable pleasures, such as he’d never dreamed existed nor come close to experiencing since, followed by disaster and death, tearing them apart so thoroughly that none of them had ever spoken to each other since.

Now there was only Ethan and himself left to remember those days. Ethan, who had provoked Ripper out of hiding with a few well-chosen barbs. It had taken him less than five minutes to prove to Rupert that the Ripper was alive and well and aching to be free of his prison of tweed and respectability.

God, what a fool he’d been to think the Ripper was dead. That crawling back to the Council and burying himself in the library would be enough to kill the thing inside him, leaving only staid, reliable Rupert.

He got up to pour himself another glass and crossed the room to stare out the window with unseeing eyes. When the dreams of Eyghon had returned, haunting his sleep with old terrors and equally old longings, he’d assumed it was an aberration. Almost to be expected after Halloween and seeing Ethan again after all these years. So sure that the genii surfacing in his dreams could be wrestled back into the bottle with nothing more than will. He wasn’t that man anymore, the one trying so desperately to fit himself back into the Council mold after being taken back in on sufferance. The one who’d thought that, so long as no one knew, he could indulge himself as he pleased with his shameful memories alone in his flat at night.

Well, he was too old these days to lie in bed, jerking off to old fantasies.

The dreams were an aberration, he’d told himself. Nothing more than a flashback that could be easily dismissed, the evidence of their effect on him erased as simply as throwing the stained sheets in the washing machine.

The dreams had woken something in him, though, and it hadn’t subsided with Eyghon’s death. Lying sleepless in his bed at night, his thoughts kept returning to the euphoria of those long-ago nights in London, when they’d experienced highs beyond those of any mere drug. When they’d known the power of a god, and there was nothing they couldn’t do, nothing they wouldn’t try.

His body was aching to know again the pleasures they’d explored while under the influence of the extraordinary high that summoning Eyghon had brought. When there were no boundaries between them and they felt the others’ pleasure as keenly as they did their own, every nerve ending thrumming with sensation as they’d lost themselves in fucking each other for hours on end.

Worse, his fantasies were turning in unacceptable directions. The dark-haired youth in his dreams these past few nights hadn’t been Ethan or Thomas, and Giles had woken to soiled sheets and self-disgust that knew no bounds. Xander was no jaded, sexually experienced libertine like the six of them had been. He was a young, inexperienced, heterosexual schoolboy and Giles had no business fantasizing about using him for his own pleasure.

Damn Ethan to hell for doing this to him, he thought wearily, and took another long swallow of whiskey as a chaser.

He truly liked Jenny, could possibly grow to love her one day - if Eyghon hadn’t destroyed what had barely started between them. But he wasn’t giving up. He was going to give Jenny the time she’d asked for and put his sordid past behind him where it belonged. Let Jenny see that the Ripper was dead and Rupert was the man she’d thought he was before Eyghon and Ethan had opened her eyes to unpleasant truths. Aberrant thoughts of dark-eyed youths could go hang themselves, he wasn’t going to indulge himself with them any longer. He would be faithful to Jenny, in thought as well as actions, and regain control over his subconscious mind.

Decision reaffirmed, Giles settled himself back into his favorite chair and resolutely picked up the book he’d left on the table when his churning thoughts had made reading impossible. Sipping his drink slowly, he called on years of discipline, forcing himself to concentrate on the words on the page.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Season 3 - post-Band Candy

The whiskey was calling to him from across the room with a siren’s allure and it was all Giles could do to ignore it. He’d visited enough old addictions this night to know better than to give in to that particular temptation.

The memory of sex magic was alive in him tonight, his nerve-endings vibrating with the familiar high like the magic was still flowing through his body, singing in his veins as if the spell had only just left his lips, and not an echo of ecstasy experienced more than two decades ago.

His hands gripped the back of the chair with white-knuckled intensity and he bowed his head over them, struggling for control. God, on nights like this he almost wished he’d never given it up. Never left that selfish, hedonistic world behind for responsibilities and lonely nights with nothing more than his left hand and the memory of nights spent out of his mind on drugs and magic and fucking haunting him with pleasures he would never know again.

Giles shook himself convulsively and forced himself to go through the familiar motions of making tea, filling the kettle and turning on the burner, his movements precise and measured, resolutely ignoring the temptation to simply take down a tumbler and pour himself a full measure of oblivion.

He’d turned his back on that world for good reason and it was long past time he stopped indulging himself in fond remembrances.

Not that Ethan Rayne was making it easy. His third visit to Sunnydale and this time he’d managed both town-wide mayhem and publicly humiliating Giles. He smiled grimly at the thought: Ethan was undoubtedly proud of himself for tonight’s work.

The kettle began to whistle and he lifted it off the burner, carefully pouring the boiling water over the tea leaves and leaving them to steep. He’d almost managed to put it behind him - the memories and emotions stirred by Eyghon and Ethan last year. He’d buried himself in his duties as Watcher, concentrating on Buffy’s Slayer training and working with Willow on magic. He knew it was unfair that he was leaving Xander out. The boy could use any training and attention Giles could spare from his official duties but he hadn’t dared waver from his decision to keep a deliberate distance from the boy. The nightmare of Angelus’ return and the agony of losing Jenny had finished the job and Ethan had been relegated to the past, where he belonged.

Or so he’d thought, until tonight.

Returning alone to his apartment after Lurconis had been defeated, leaving the others to return the squalling infants to the hospital, Giles had had a moment of sheer relief, grateful that he hadn’t encountered Xander during his magic-fueled return to irresponsible youth. Bad enough that he and Joyce….

A wave of embarrassment swept over him. He had absolutely no idea of what he would say to the woman the next time they met. But at least she was an adult and they had been equally affected by the candy bars. All too easily, he could picture worse things that could have happened under the influence of that spell.

If Xander had been in his apartment that evening, Giles knew exactly what would have happened. With self-control and restraint non-existent, he would have acted on his illicit attraction to the boy, undoubtedly to Xander’s horror and disgust. Between Buffy, Cordelia, and Xander’s recent behavior around Willow; it was obvious the boy was completely heterosexual.

But Xander’s response to any expression of interest on his part remained secondary. God knows there would be sufficient problems to deal with just from Buffy catching Joyce and himself kissing. If Buffy learned the full extent of his indiscretions with her mother, she would be upset and undoubtedly revolted by the thought of two “old” people behaving like randy teenagers. But if she were ever to discover that her Watcher was attracted to one of her two best friends… Giles closed his eyes wearily at the thought. Their whole relationship would crumble and the fallout would not only destroy his job and his career, it would put Buffy’s life in danger. No Slayer fought their best when emotionally off-balance. It was one of the reasons that Slayers traditionally were taught to sever all ties to family and friends.

Once more cursing Ethan, Giles took down a teacup and filled it, refusing to give in to the temptation to add a shot of whiskey. He carried the tea into the living room and sat down heavily on the couch. Sipping the hot liquid, he waited for it to have its usual calming effect.

The worst part of the whole sordid business was that he couldn’t even begin to convince himself that he was in love with Xander or any such sentimental clap-trap. His feelings for Xander were misplaced lust, nothing more. A completely inappropriate desire to relive the excesses of his youth. The irresistible lure of knowing how little it would take to seduce the boy. Unused to any kindness or attention from adults, Xander responded to anything but outright contempt with puppy-like eagerness and Giles hated the fact that he knew exactly what it would take to manipulate the boy, how his upbringing and insecurities could be used to mold him into what Giles wanted.

And he wanted it. No matter how much he despise himself for it, he couldn’t hide that fact from himself.

He could only hope that he could continue to hide his inappropriate desires from the children.

Xander deserved better. The boy had a number of good qualities, but he was still a child and Giles absolutely refused to let himself take advantage of the boy. It was bad enough that he was allowing Xander to fight alongside Buffy without any training, but he didn’t trust himself to undertake that task. There had been too many night fantasies over the past two years to believe that he wouldn’t abuse the close contact training required. All he could do was continue on as before: keeping a careful distance between himself and Xander until this damned inconvenient physical attraction went away.

That and pray that Ethan was done with his bloody annoying drop-by’s.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Season 4 - The Harsh Light of Day

“Is everything alright?” Giles asked with studied casualness as Xander came back into the apartment, thankfully alone. He had not permitted himself to eavesdrop on Xander and Anya’s conversation out in the courtyard. “What did she want?”

Xander shook his head. “I’m not really sure.” He looked genuinely confused. “Did you ever have one of those conversations where you have no idea of what the other person was talking about?”

“Frequently,” Giles said dryly. He hesitated, not sure if he had the right to ask any more questions, especially when Xander didn’t seem inclined to talk about it. As Xander picked up a small stack of books and began shelving them, Giles took it as a signal that Xander didn’t want to discuss it any further.

Having Anya burst in on them had been a shock. Not just because she’d entered without knocking - no one seemed to find it necessary to knock on his door - but because of his own reaction to seeing her. Giles hadn’t understood the flash of intense hostility that had been his instantaneous reaction to Anya entering his apartment demanding to speak to Xander. The feeling had only increased as she’d practically dragged the bewildered Xander outside and it had been surprisingly difficult not to physically intervene.

He hadn’t been aware of disliking Anya. In fact, she had proved extremely useful just before graduation, providing them with their first helpful information about the Mayor’s ascension. Willow’s doppelganger aside, the details they’d learned of her past and the wish she’d granted for Cordelia had been safely abstract. By the time they learned of it, the Vengeance Demon Anyanka was no more and the alternate reality she’d created had been erased. He certainly hadn’t blamed her for fleeing town before graduation - really it was the only sensible course of action to take, and Anya must have been terrified: trapped in a newly human body, stripped of the powers she had relied on for a millennium and facing mortal death.

So why the fierce resentment at her sudden reappearance and continued interest in Xander?

He couldn’t possibly be jealous. Not over a boy he’d barely ever looked at twice in that fashion and whom he had long since recognized that any feelings he had towards were utterly inappropriate, and mere remnants of his own sordid past. Something he never intended to act on.

The idea was ridiculous. He hadn’t felt even had a twinge of resentment over Anya being Xander’s date at the prom last spring - although it was possible that that was due to Xander’s obvious discomfort and the fact that he spent nearly the entire night trying not to be alone with Anya, Giles couldn’t help remembering.

He didn’t know why his mind chose this particular moment to recall his own words to Wesley on Prom Night: “For God’s sake, man, she’s 18. Have at it and stop fluttering about.” He suspected there had been a cutting remark about Wesley’s maturity in that speech as well. But Wesley pursuing Cordelia Chase was one thing and there was a world of difference between Wesley Wyndam-Pryce and himself, Giles reminded himself sternly. Wesley was barely 10 years older than the children, if that, while Giles himself was more than 20 years older than Xander. However poor a job he’d made of it, he was also somewhat in the position of being a father-figure to Xander, which Wesley had certainly never been to Cordelia. For Wesley and Cordelia to have some sort of fling was a far different proposition than for Giles to seduce a heterosexual boy who thought of him, if not as a father, then certainly as a mentor.

And yet… Seeing Xander on prom night had been a revelation. The boy had been stunning: his light for once not hidden under a bushel. The tuxedo had shown off his long, slender frame, and the dark color had flattered him in a way his usual colorfully awfully wardrobe did not. Like that glimpse of the hyena-possessed Xander back in sophomore year, prom night had shown Xander’s potential. And that night, Xander had looked that good without the predatory darkness. At the Prom, Xander had been happy and lighthearted and mouth-wateringly gorgeous. It had been a relief to have the boy return to his normal baggy, ill-fitting clothing after that night. For the remainder of the school year, Giles had worked hard to repress the memory of how good Xander had looked in that borrowed tuxedo.

When Xander had appeared on his doorstep last week, after his summer away, Prom Night had been far from Giles’ mind. Hearing Xander’s tale of the fiasco that had been his summer, and learning of his financial woes, Giles had offered to pay him to build bookcases and reorganize his books. Certainly the job needed to be done, but he’d sighed inwardly as he made the offer, not relishing the prospect of poorly built bookcases and several uninterrupted days alone with Xander.

But the last few days had not been the chore he’d expected. It turned out that Xander was skilled at building things, and he’d been surprised to find himself enjoying the boy’s company. So much so that he’d begun to wonder - idly, of course - if Xander was quite so resolutely heterosexual after his summer away. The Fabulous Ladies Nightclub - just where did one put the emphasis in that name?

Giles found himself pondering that question again as his hands automatically sorted the books that had been so hastily shoved into boxes before Graduation. Wondering if the male employees Xander had casually mentioned had been kitchen workers or dancers, and whether Xander had ever indulged his curiosity by watching the show.

It was nothing more than idle speculation, of course. He was no longer Buffy’s Watcher officially, or even unofficially really, but he would never jeopardize his relationship with her by - Giles found himself grimacing at the word - dating one of her friends. Given Buffy’s open revulsion last week at finding him with an age-appropriate peer like Olivia, he could only imagine her reaction to his expressing an interest in Xander.

Which undoubtedly meant that Xander would react the same way. Giles was too old and very much the wrong sex for Xander to be interested in him. Nothing had changed in that regard. And if Giles had indulged himself once or twice by picturing Xander as a stripper, well that was no one’s business but his own.

He slammed a book onto the shelf with a bit too much force, causing Xander to glance over at him in surprise. He had to stop thinking about this. The whole notion of a relationship with Xander was impossible. An aberration. Just because he’d felt a trifle lonely, a bit useless over the summer, was no reason to consider starting a relationship with someone so completely inappropriate.

Granted, Xander was a bit quieter after his summer away. A trifle less inclined to make inappropriate jokes. Or perhaps…, Giles frowned, perhaps this slightly more serious side to the boy was only when Xander and he had been alone. Xander still made jokes but mostly when he was feeling insecure. Thinking back over their conversations, he realized that Xander tended to be at his most exasperating immediately after saying something important. Almost as if he were trying to distract the listener from what he’d just said.

Over the course of several days, Xander had let slip several important things: his worries about whether his friends would forget him - the only one among them who hadn’t gone to college. His lack of job skills. His uncertain future. Then would come the self-deprecating jokes about living in his parents’ basement, and needing to find work anywhere that would take him - fast food joint, phone sex operator, vampire bait. The self-deprecating humor that Giles had so often in the past found both annoying and inappropriately timed was obviously a defense mechanism. It seemed so clear now that he wondered why he’d never realized it before.

Perhaps it was because he had a tendency to tune Xander out, not understanding his references and uncomfortable with his occasional physical reaction to the boy. He’d never spent any significant amount of time with Xander that didn’t involve a crisis, and had actively tried to avoid being alone with him for any length of time. Now he was learning that, when Xander was comfortable and sure of himself, he was someone whose company Giles enjoyed. With Giles no longer demanding that Xander do research that would have taxed a trained Watcher, Xander didn’t feel the need to blather on nervously to cover for his own perceived inadequacies. It was troubling for Giles to realize just how much he’d pushed the children during the school year, and he winced as he recalled more than one occasion when he’d snapped at Xander, telling him to work or leave, knowing the boy wouldn’t leave when Buffy was in trouble, no matter how tired and stressed and in-over-his-head he felt.

Giles sighed. Xander needed to find his feet in the scary new world of young adulthood. Unlike Buffy, Willow and Oz, Xander didn’t have several years of college classes to help ease the transition to independence. The last thing he needed was an aging Lothario expressing an interest in him when he was struggling with so many other issues.

He would enjoy these few days working with Xander, Giles told himself. There was no harm in getting to know the young man a bit better, find out what Xander was like now that he’d graduated and spent a summer on his own. No harm at all, given that he had no intention of acting on any attraction he might possibly be feeling. Xander would never know and undoubtedly familiarity would do its work and physical attraction would fade, leaving only an appropriate affection for a much younger friend.

TBC
Second Part will be posted later today.

FIC: Pivotal Moments in a Shifting Universe (G/X) NC-17

no subject

no subject