There was sunlight somewhere in near vicinity and it seemed to be doing its
best to creep under her eyelids. Buffy was strenuously trying to convince
herself that she really wasn't awake just yet, based on the conviction that
she was dreaming. But her head did feel like it was cushioned on something
soft. The something soft stirred under her and Buffy woke up just that
little bit more. She still refused to open her eyes, though. Tentatively,
she felt around her. The something soft turned out to be male, judging by
the body part trapped under her far-flung thigh. And at that point sanity
returned.
"Oh shit," she squealed, jumping up and grabbing the first piece of clothing that came to hand. It turned out to be Ethan's shirt but that was okay; at least it was big enough to cover her properly.
"My dear, you're scandalizing the ducks," Ethan murmured in amusement, peeping up at her from under his lashes. The man didn't seem in the least bit concerned about lying absolutely buck-naked in a public place. Buffy hastily averted her eyes.
"What the fuck happened here?" she snarled.
Ethan sighed and propped himself up on his elbows, body arranging itself with the inherent grace of the truly sensuous. But the man himself was more preoccupied with raising his eyebrows and looking amused, "I thought that was the fairly obvious part."
"I didn't mean that," Buffy gulped, "How did you- *why* did you- did you put some kind of spell on me?"
"Of course not, you silly goose," Ethan snapped, sitting up with very real anger flashing in his eyes, "What the bloody hell do you take me for, some kind of sexual predator?"
"That's exactly what I take you for," Buffy shouted back as she flung his shirt back in his face and began to get dressed, "For Pete's sake, put some clothes on, Rayne! And if you mention this to anyone, I'll kill you."
"Save it, Slayer. It's getting old!" Ethan took his time, the frozen glitter of ice in his dark eyes warning even the Slayer not to push him too far. And Buffy was mature enough to remember that he might be no match for her physically but that he had ample resources in the delicate tips of his fingers and the lash of his tongue.
They both stomped back to the car in silence, Ethan cursing as he realized the paint had been scratched. "Fucking hell," he snarled, fingers flickering gently over the gash, "Get in!"
Buffy accordingly got in with her own brand of haughty grace and sat stiff- backed in her seat with her arms folded across her chest while he pulled away and swerved around back to London. "I don't ever want to see you again," she stated softly, "And don't even think of telling Giles or anyone else what happened last night, okay?"
"Now why ever would I be proud of bedding you?" Ethan asked silkily, eyes fixed on the road, "After all, it's hardly an arduous task."
"If you weren't driving, I'd slap you for that!"
"If you raise your hand to me, you'd soon know never to try that on a Chaos mage!"
"You're just some two-bit sorcerer who knows a few good magic tricks! Giles said so!"
"Giles being the person you trust most at this point of time? I thought you said he was currently engaged in tearing off his masks. Can't really trust a man who has lived a lie for the last twenty-five years, now can you?"
"Shut up, Ethan!"
"Hold your tongue, Slayer!"
Buffy held her peace for a while, shaking inside at the thought that she really was alone in this. Giles would most likely just tell her it was all her fault- again!- and that she should just deal and forget it. Willow and Xander wouldn't actually get past the "Ewww! How could you?" stage and Dawn would likely take out a contract on Rayne. She was now boiling to death in what the English so quaintly called 'An Indian Summer' and she was all alone. Which sent her thoughts in another direction, one that involved *seeing* things she'd never thought to see in another person's eyes.
"Thank you," she muttered.
The car swerved suddenly as Ethan turned to look at her with a dropped jaw. "Pardon me?" She muttered something inaudible and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Slayer, much as I appreciate your appreciation, what exactly are you thanking me for?"
"I don't think you meant 'That' to happen," Buffy told the window on her side, "And- and that place was beautiful."
"Yes, well, it is one of my favorite spots," Ethan said dryly, "I frequently use it for my rituals. The water, you know, and abundant nature; they provide a stronger framework for casting spells involving the four elements."
And there was one question she wanted to ask and she didn't really know how to ask it. "Did the masks come off?" she asked nervously, "I seem to remember telling you that it's been too long for me and I *so* don't want to know that you have the lever thing on me."
"Lever thing?" Ethan frowned in perplexity and then smiled, "Leverage, you mean? No, I don't believe I do. You happen to know what a man my age looks like without his protective armor of clothing; that should be enough to afford you a few cheap shots at my expense."
Buffy giggled for an instant and then sobered up, remembering that she was angry and didn't want anything to do with him. Ethan shook his head imperceptibly as he felt the change in attitude at his side. He might definitely not have meant to shag Buffy Summers in the moonlight, but there it was- some of the most intriguing things in his life happened by accidents and circumstance.
"Turn left here," she finally instructed him, "I- I need to get to the Council."
Ethan said nothing but took a shortcut. Obviously he was well aware of where the offices were; he'd made it his business to know where to steer clear of. Pulling up at the old office block that now housed the slowly reemerging Watcher's Council, he wondered whether he shouldn't pay a little visit to his old friend Rupert. But no, no more repaying of debts on that old score. Ripper would emerge, would duly threaten to kick his sorry arse, would probably proceed to do so and then have him thrown out if not thrown into Council holding cells.
"Goodbye, my dear," he called silkily after her, "Don't forget to give my love to Ripper, won't you?" With one last smirk he was gone, vanishing in a purr of engine. Buffy watched as the car disappeared around the corner and shook her head thoughtfully for a moment before deciding to call a cab to take her home.
"And how is Ethan?" a voice spoke up.
"Aargh!" she screamed, whirling around and decking the person.
Giles managed to duck, though not very gracefully, before taking a hasty step back.
"God, Giles! Don't creep up on me like that; I could have taken your head off," Buffy scolded irritably. But the slight smile on his face told her as plain as words, he would enjoy calling her on that. "What do you want?"
"I was looking out the window when I saw you so I came down," he explained, "Though I have to say I was shocked to find Ethan Rayne in the car with you."
"We met at that bar of yours last night," Buffy said, pulling her jacket jerkily around herself.
Giles looked confused and suddenly very much like his old self. "You met last night and he's driving you around London the next morning? I had no idea you two knew each other so well! And why is there grass in your hair?"
"There is?" she gasped. Her eyes widened and her fingers frantically scrabbled through her mussed-up hair to rid it of all signs of unhappy nighttime activity. Not that that's what it had felt like, especially when he'd done that thing with his thumbs- no! Not thinking that!
Giles finally had to stop her from simply tearing her hair out. A few well- placed tweaks and he meekly held out all of the three blades to her. What he was not prepared for was Buffy bursting into tears and throwing herself onto his chest. "Eh?" he commented in far from his typical erudition.
"It's all going shit-faced," she sobbed.
A well-groomed couple out for an early morning stroll looked interestedly at the little scene being played out, though the woman gave a sniff that said more than words how such shocking displays of feeling were only to be expected from older men in leather jackets and earrings and young dyed blonde girls with rumpled clothes.
"Ah, I see," Giles remarked dryly, "Perhaps you have better come upstairs and tell me exactly what the problem is and why you feel it's, um, shit- faced, did you say? Well, then! Come along."
The school-teacherish manner he had deliberately adopted seemed to bring somewhat of a smile to her face. He'd suspected as much the last time he'd let himself express his opinion without the usual stammer and stutter everyone had come to expect from him. But the fact that Buffy wasn't very sure of him was something he'd lived with for over two years now- since that lamentable day he'd turned Spike over to Wood; though he suspected it was closer to four after that terrible ordeal with coming back from the dead. His problem was that he'd also grown up since then.
"Giles, if you're taking me upstairs to talk then maybe you should turn the volume on your voice box up," Buffy sniffled. "You're strangely quiet," she elaborated for good measure.
"Yes, I do apologize," Giles smiled back, "Sit down. Would you like me to get you something to drink?"
"I'm not in the mood for tea, thanks, Giles," Buffy said tearily.
"You usually never are," he reminded her dryly, "I was thinking more along the lines of a soda. Or something stronger, if you'd prefer it."
She looked up at him then, her expression arrested in that simple way she had when she forgot to finish what she was doing but simply ignored it to look at the intrusion. Giles sighed and settled in for what would be an abstract discussion- most likely involving some form of argument or resentment- and a degeneration into some mundane, messy, unintelligible analogy that he'd finally agree with simply to make peace. What she finally said threw him off-balance:
"Don't you drink tea any more?"
Giles blinked at sad gray eyes in puzzlement. "I do, Buffy. B- but it's hardly effective for me to offer it to you when I know you don't really like it. And since you seemed, well, upset, I- I- I *thought* you might appreciate something to calm you down."
She nodded silently and looked at her hands. There was a scratch on the back of the right one, a scratch she knew very well all things considered. On her back on the grass, the feeling of completion as he'd thrust into her and Ethan's hand had slid into hers, fingers twining and clasping and grinding down into the earth and she had suddenly wanted more. Her hands twisted so that his fingers pinned her wrists down and in the process he had scratched her hard enough to draw blood.
"Do you want to tell me why you burst into tears?" Giles asked gently, seeing emotions and hunger and regret in a disturbing array across her face.
"Giles, maybe I need to not be here any more," Buffy said quietly, looking up. Giles twitched. Buffy sighed and explained herself.
"I know that you wanted me to help you with the Watcher's Council. But you don't need me here! You have Willow and Xander and Faith and Wood and a heap of other people all around you who can do a much better job than I can. You even have Dawn and that first batch of Watchers-in-Training coming down here soon. Frankly, Giles, I don't want to be here. I like England and I like working with you but I feel like I'm heading nowhere. And don't argue with me because I forbid you to argue with me on anything I'm saying here whatsoever." She glared fiercely at him and Giles shut his mouth accordingly. "I'm staying here for a bit, as in I'm staying in London; but I won't be working here any more. More than that, I want you to promise me that you won't try and talk to me while I'm doing this."
"**What?**"
"Giles, listen!"
"No, Buffy, *you* listen," Giles snapped, angry for nothing that he could really put a name to, "You can't expect me to sit here and just let you walk away without so much as an explanation. And no, before you start spouting more rubbish, I'm not talking about the job. The Council can go to hell for all I care! I'm talking about your friends and family and I'd prefer to know why you feel like abandoning us."
"Because you told me why you were running out on me when I was suicidal in Sunnydale?" Buffy snarled, "Typical, Giles! This is just so typical! You're like this giant hypocrite who can't see the nose on his face for the tree in someone else's eye!"
"And Ethan Rayne doesn't do that, I take it?" Giles asked blandly, green eyes darkening to the color of wet moss.
"You see, this is what I'm talking about," she gasped, pointing to him, "You just don't get it any more. It's like everything you say is so damned different and it's scaring me to think that I'm trying to second-guess you every time I open my mouth!"
The Watcher stared at her in shock. He knew she'd been having trouble accepting who and what he was, but this was worse than he'd thought. Having to second-guess him indeed! "Then perhaps you do need that break from us all if we've let ourselves become strange to you. Buffy, most of your problems come from an inability to see change until you're forced to confront it. And then you have to be dragged kicking and screaming to adapt to it. God knows it's painful, but only because none of us- Willow, Xander, Dawn or myself- want to see you have to go through that. Perhaps if you think about letting go a little."
"No letting go," Buffy refuted instantly, "It's got nothing to do with letting go. And hasn't anyone stopped to realize that every time something changes, I'm usually the one cleaning up the mess?"
Giles tightened his jaw for minute and then softened again. "We all clean up the mess, Buffy. Everything that's happened to you affects us too; it- it may be in a different way but that doesn't make it any less intense. And you forget you don't have to be the one cleaning up the mess this time."
Buffy seriously considered just arguing her point with him but it was obvious he didn't want to see things from her perspective. And she couldn't blame him; she'd pushed him away just as much as he'd changed on her. They all had and now she was the one left feeling like an outsider again. Briefly she cringed as she wondered whether it was her fate to feel like that and fall head first into the arms of the first obviously wrong guy who came her way while her head was messed up. If anything, last night tended to remind her of her doomed affair with Spike. And that she didn't want!
"I have to go home now," she muttered, "You take care of yourself. Tell Wills to email me with any major news, or you could write me. But yeah, I know, you're busy and stuff so no big deal; just- just let me know if there's something I can do, right? I- I'll see you around, Giles."
And she'd left, just like that. She'd walked out the door of the Council Headquarters and gone home, shutting her own front door behind her very gently so as not to disturb whatever semblance of peace seemed to lurk in the muggy stillness of her rooms. But she wasn't surprised when she couldn't sleep in the heat of another night and went out for a walk and a look at the moon. And she was still less surprised to find Ethan pull up next to her in his sporty little car and push the door open in a silent invitation, cool air breezing out towards her. And she was certainly not surprised when she got in with a small smile and let her mask slip just that little bit.
"Oh shit," she squealed, jumping up and grabbing the first piece of clothing that came to hand. It turned out to be Ethan's shirt but that was okay; at least it was big enough to cover her properly.
"My dear, you're scandalizing the ducks," Ethan murmured in amusement, peeping up at her from under his lashes. The man didn't seem in the least bit concerned about lying absolutely buck-naked in a public place. Buffy hastily averted her eyes.
"What the fuck happened here?" she snarled.
Ethan sighed and propped himself up on his elbows, body arranging itself with the inherent grace of the truly sensuous. But the man himself was more preoccupied with raising his eyebrows and looking amused, "I thought that was the fairly obvious part."
"I didn't mean that," Buffy gulped, "How did you- *why* did you- did you put some kind of spell on me?"
"Of course not, you silly goose," Ethan snapped, sitting up with very real anger flashing in his eyes, "What the bloody hell do you take me for, some kind of sexual predator?"
"That's exactly what I take you for," Buffy shouted back as she flung his shirt back in his face and began to get dressed, "For Pete's sake, put some clothes on, Rayne! And if you mention this to anyone, I'll kill you."
"Save it, Slayer. It's getting old!" Ethan took his time, the frozen glitter of ice in his dark eyes warning even the Slayer not to push him too far. And Buffy was mature enough to remember that he might be no match for her physically but that he had ample resources in the delicate tips of his fingers and the lash of his tongue.
They both stomped back to the car in silence, Ethan cursing as he realized the paint had been scratched. "Fucking hell," he snarled, fingers flickering gently over the gash, "Get in!"
Buffy accordingly got in with her own brand of haughty grace and sat stiff- backed in her seat with her arms folded across her chest while he pulled away and swerved around back to London. "I don't ever want to see you again," she stated softly, "And don't even think of telling Giles or anyone else what happened last night, okay?"
"Now why ever would I be proud of bedding you?" Ethan asked silkily, eyes fixed on the road, "After all, it's hardly an arduous task."
"If you weren't driving, I'd slap you for that!"
"If you raise your hand to me, you'd soon know never to try that on a Chaos mage!"
"You're just some two-bit sorcerer who knows a few good magic tricks! Giles said so!"
"Giles being the person you trust most at this point of time? I thought you said he was currently engaged in tearing off his masks. Can't really trust a man who has lived a lie for the last twenty-five years, now can you?"
"Shut up, Ethan!"
"Hold your tongue, Slayer!"
Buffy held her peace for a while, shaking inside at the thought that she really was alone in this. Giles would most likely just tell her it was all her fault- again!- and that she should just deal and forget it. Willow and Xander wouldn't actually get past the "Ewww! How could you?" stage and Dawn would likely take out a contract on Rayne. She was now boiling to death in what the English so quaintly called 'An Indian Summer' and she was all alone. Which sent her thoughts in another direction, one that involved *seeing* things she'd never thought to see in another person's eyes.
"Thank you," she muttered.
The car swerved suddenly as Ethan turned to look at her with a dropped jaw. "Pardon me?" She muttered something inaudible and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Slayer, much as I appreciate your appreciation, what exactly are you thanking me for?"
"I don't think you meant 'That' to happen," Buffy told the window on her side, "And- and that place was beautiful."
"Yes, well, it is one of my favorite spots," Ethan said dryly, "I frequently use it for my rituals. The water, you know, and abundant nature; they provide a stronger framework for casting spells involving the four elements."
And there was one question she wanted to ask and she didn't really know how to ask it. "Did the masks come off?" she asked nervously, "I seem to remember telling you that it's been too long for me and I *so* don't want to know that you have the lever thing on me."
"Lever thing?" Ethan frowned in perplexity and then smiled, "Leverage, you mean? No, I don't believe I do. You happen to know what a man my age looks like without his protective armor of clothing; that should be enough to afford you a few cheap shots at my expense."
Buffy giggled for an instant and then sobered up, remembering that she was angry and didn't want anything to do with him. Ethan shook his head imperceptibly as he felt the change in attitude at his side. He might definitely not have meant to shag Buffy Summers in the moonlight, but there it was- some of the most intriguing things in his life happened by accidents and circumstance.
"Turn left here," she finally instructed him, "I- I need to get to the Council."
Ethan said nothing but took a shortcut. Obviously he was well aware of where the offices were; he'd made it his business to know where to steer clear of. Pulling up at the old office block that now housed the slowly reemerging Watcher's Council, he wondered whether he shouldn't pay a little visit to his old friend Rupert. But no, no more repaying of debts on that old score. Ripper would emerge, would duly threaten to kick his sorry arse, would probably proceed to do so and then have him thrown out if not thrown into Council holding cells.
"Goodbye, my dear," he called silkily after her, "Don't forget to give my love to Ripper, won't you?" With one last smirk he was gone, vanishing in a purr of engine. Buffy watched as the car disappeared around the corner and shook her head thoughtfully for a moment before deciding to call a cab to take her home.
"And how is Ethan?" a voice spoke up.
"Aargh!" she screamed, whirling around and decking the person.
Giles managed to duck, though not very gracefully, before taking a hasty step back.
"God, Giles! Don't creep up on me like that; I could have taken your head off," Buffy scolded irritably. But the slight smile on his face told her as plain as words, he would enjoy calling her on that. "What do you want?"
"I was looking out the window when I saw you so I came down," he explained, "Though I have to say I was shocked to find Ethan Rayne in the car with you."
"We met at that bar of yours last night," Buffy said, pulling her jacket jerkily around herself.
Giles looked confused and suddenly very much like his old self. "You met last night and he's driving you around London the next morning? I had no idea you two knew each other so well! And why is there grass in your hair?"
"There is?" she gasped. Her eyes widened and her fingers frantically scrabbled through her mussed-up hair to rid it of all signs of unhappy nighttime activity. Not that that's what it had felt like, especially when he'd done that thing with his thumbs- no! Not thinking that!
Giles finally had to stop her from simply tearing her hair out. A few well- placed tweaks and he meekly held out all of the three blades to her. What he was not prepared for was Buffy bursting into tears and throwing herself onto his chest. "Eh?" he commented in far from his typical erudition.
"It's all going shit-faced," she sobbed.
A well-groomed couple out for an early morning stroll looked interestedly at the little scene being played out, though the woman gave a sniff that said more than words how such shocking displays of feeling were only to be expected from older men in leather jackets and earrings and young dyed blonde girls with rumpled clothes.
"Ah, I see," Giles remarked dryly, "Perhaps you have better come upstairs and tell me exactly what the problem is and why you feel it's, um, shit- faced, did you say? Well, then! Come along."
The school-teacherish manner he had deliberately adopted seemed to bring somewhat of a smile to her face. He'd suspected as much the last time he'd let himself express his opinion without the usual stammer and stutter everyone had come to expect from him. But the fact that Buffy wasn't very sure of him was something he'd lived with for over two years now- since that lamentable day he'd turned Spike over to Wood; though he suspected it was closer to four after that terrible ordeal with coming back from the dead. His problem was that he'd also grown up since then.
"Giles, if you're taking me upstairs to talk then maybe you should turn the volume on your voice box up," Buffy sniffled. "You're strangely quiet," she elaborated for good measure.
"Yes, I do apologize," Giles smiled back, "Sit down. Would you like me to get you something to drink?"
"I'm not in the mood for tea, thanks, Giles," Buffy said tearily.
"You usually never are," he reminded her dryly, "I was thinking more along the lines of a soda. Or something stronger, if you'd prefer it."
She looked up at him then, her expression arrested in that simple way she had when she forgot to finish what she was doing but simply ignored it to look at the intrusion. Giles sighed and settled in for what would be an abstract discussion- most likely involving some form of argument or resentment- and a degeneration into some mundane, messy, unintelligible analogy that he'd finally agree with simply to make peace. What she finally said threw him off-balance:
"Don't you drink tea any more?"
Giles blinked at sad gray eyes in puzzlement. "I do, Buffy. B- but it's hardly effective for me to offer it to you when I know you don't really like it. And since you seemed, well, upset, I- I- I *thought* you might appreciate something to calm you down."
She nodded silently and looked at her hands. There was a scratch on the back of the right one, a scratch she knew very well all things considered. On her back on the grass, the feeling of completion as he'd thrust into her and Ethan's hand had slid into hers, fingers twining and clasping and grinding down into the earth and she had suddenly wanted more. Her hands twisted so that his fingers pinned her wrists down and in the process he had scratched her hard enough to draw blood.
"Do you want to tell me why you burst into tears?" Giles asked gently, seeing emotions and hunger and regret in a disturbing array across her face.
"Giles, maybe I need to not be here any more," Buffy said quietly, looking up. Giles twitched. Buffy sighed and explained herself.
"I know that you wanted me to help you with the Watcher's Council. But you don't need me here! You have Willow and Xander and Faith and Wood and a heap of other people all around you who can do a much better job than I can. You even have Dawn and that first batch of Watchers-in-Training coming down here soon. Frankly, Giles, I don't want to be here. I like England and I like working with you but I feel like I'm heading nowhere. And don't argue with me because I forbid you to argue with me on anything I'm saying here whatsoever." She glared fiercely at him and Giles shut his mouth accordingly. "I'm staying here for a bit, as in I'm staying in London; but I won't be working here any more. More than that, I want you to promise me that you won't try and talk to me while I'm doing this."
"**What?**"
"Giles, listen!"
"No, Buffy, *you* listen," Giles snapped, angry for nothing that he could really put a name to, "You can't expect me to sit here and just let you walk away without so much as an explanation. And no, before you start spouting more rubbish, I'm not talking about the job. The Council can go to hell for all I care! I'm talking about your friends and family and I'd prefer to know why you feel like abandoning us."
"Because you told me why you were running out on me when I was suicidal in Sunnydale?" Buffy snarled, "Typical, Giles! This is just so typical! You're like this giant hypocrite who can't see the nose on his face for the tree in someone else's eye!"
"And Ethan Rayne doesn't do that, I take it?" Giles asked blandly, green eyes darkening to the color of wet moss.
"You see, this is what I'm talking about," she gasped, pointing to him, "You just don't get it any more. It's like everything you say is so damned different and it's scaring me to think that I'm trying to second-guess you every time I open my mouth!"
The Watcher stared at her in shock. He knew she'd been having trouble accepting who and what he was, but this was worse than he'd thought. Having to second-guess him indeed! "Then perhaps you do need that break from us all if we've let ourselves become strange to you. Buffy, most of your problems come from an inability to see change until you're forced to confront it. And then you have to be dragged kicking and screaming to adapt to it. God knows it's painful, but only because none of us- Willow, Xander, Dawn or myself- want to see you have to go through that. Perhaps if you think about letting go a little."
"No letting go," Buffy refuted instantly, "It's got nothing to do with letting go. And hasn't anyone stopped to realize that every time something changes, I'm usually the one cleaning up the mess?"
Giles tightened his jaw for minute and then softened again. "We all clean up the mess, Buffy. Everything that's happened to you affects us too; it- it may be in a different way but that doesn't make it any less intense. And you forget you don't have to be the one cleaning up the mess this time."
Buffy seriously considered just arguing her point with him but it was obvious he didn't want to see things from her perspective. And she couldn't blame him; she'd pushed him away just as much as he'd changed on her. They all had and now she was the one left feeling like an outsider again. Briefly she cringed as she wondered whether it was her fate to feel like that and fall head first into the arms of the first obviously wrong guy who came her way while her head was messed up. If anything, last night tended to remind her of her doomed affair with Spike. And that she didn't want!
"I have to go home now," she muttered, "You take care of yourself. Tell Wills to email me with any major news, or you could write me. But yeah, I know, you're busy and stuff so no big deal; just- just let me know if there's something I can do, right? I- I'll see you around, Giles."
And she'd left, just like that. She'd walked out the door of the Council Headquarters and gone home, shutting her own front door behind her very gently so as not to disturb whatever semblance of peace seemed to lurk in the muggy stillness of her rooms. But she wasn't surprised when she couldn't sleep in the heat of another night and went out for a walk and a look at the moon. And she was still less surprised to find Ethan pull up next to her in his sporty little car and push the door open in a silent invitation, cool air breezing out towards her. And she was certainly not surprised when she got in with a small smile and let her mask slip just that little bit.