Kivrin

Grief

Willow was angry when he refused to hand over his diary or even to read aloud accounts of the days she and Xander wished to relive. They found comfort in memory, in recitation, and so he steeled himself to listen, but it was like drinking lye.

To him it was as if, in falling, she tore backwards through their lives, warping what was not destroyed, leaving shadows and ominous silences in scenes that had been full of sunshine. He was half-certain that in the ivory pages, as in his memory, he would find every instance of her name burnt out.

Title: The Archivist
Characters: Buffy/Giles
Rating: PG-13

He is still, always, the record-keeper, all their apocalypses mapped on his skin. In darkness the whorls and ridges of his scars are like Braille under her fingertips: a star at his temple, five small sunken ovals around a too-smooth circle on his chest, a long, thick, twisted snake along his left side. Stripes on his back, odd uneven lines on his fingers, countless lumps beneath his hair. Gwendolen Post, she whispers, Willow, the Knights. When her hand covers his, he grips it hard and kisses her harder,stilling her lips before she can continue: Angel, Angel, Angel.

Not All Regrets

He remembers that summer fondly, even now. Remembers fags on grey days, pints of shandy on hot ones. Rough-housing on park benches, Deirdre squealing and all of them laughing until they nearly pissed themselves. Remembers sucking Ethan off on a bus' upper deck in the not-dark-enough of night, to the noisy, confused distress of a middle-aged woman on her way home from the theater. Remembers that it wasn't only witching hours and demons, not just blood on his hands and guilt roiling his guts. He was young, he loved, and if he was also reckless, he cannot wholly regret it.

Calling

It was raining and there was a fire in the study the day Rupert turned ten and a half, the day after which nothing was the same.

He sat in the polished leather chair by the hearth, like one of Father's visitors from London, the ones Mum fussed about feeding, who always finished the fancy biscuits, leaving no leftovers for Rupert's tea. The leather stuck to the backs of his knees. Mum stood behind Father's chair, her lips pressed too thin to see. She looked sad; Father looked only at the heavy book on his knee.

"Once into every generation..."

Sick

The new squat's a shithole, with no heat and hardly any electricity and not enough space, but no one has the energy to move out or find something better. The phlegmy cold they've been passing around all month has gone to Ripper's chest. His lack of appetite makes him popular; his cough and his inclination to hog the blankets don't. He spends a day curled on the mattress, drifting in feverish half-dreams of the infirmary in college, his warm bedroom at home, hot Lemsip, Vicks. At night, he dreams of his mother, and wakes unsure whether he's coughing or sobbing.


Sicker

"Oi, Rip!" Someone kicks the mattress, breaking Ripper's feverish doze and starting him coughing again.

"Sod off," he rasps.

"Your fucking plague doesn't mean the rest of us don't need to get off." Philip grabs the blanket away. "Just do the circle. You'll feel better," he adds. "Been too long, yeah?"

Ripper swats him away and sits up to grab the blanket back. They're almost ready: Ethan's drawing the runes, and Dee's already sleeping in the center. He aches everywhere, he's sweaty and shivering, and he can't tell what's flu and what's Eyghon, and that makes him feel sicker still.

Words in the Dark


"I m-made... oh, but I... guess you didn't want the first cup either."

"Thank you."

"Um, don't you want to come in where it's...?"

"We're in Southern California, Tara, I very much doubt I'll contract pneumonia sitting out here."

"C-come in where it's cool?"

"No. Thank you."

"Um."

"I'm sorry. I'm being... and you shouldn't be fussing over me. Dawn needs... and you, your hand, and... How are you?"

"My hand's okay. I wish Willow'd come home. I, I should be asking you."

"You've been..."

"It's over now."

"Yes. Yes, it's all over now. Everything."

"Mr. Giles?"

"Don't. Just... Please."

Challenge # 34: "the new"

Gifts

After the burial, the children keep giving him presents. Xander brings him pens and boxes of tea. Willow gives him the local paper folded open to the 'rentals available,' and goes shopping with Buffy to buy him a new coverlet. And Buffy herself tries to replace his traditional office mug with an impractical interlocking tea cup and tea pot decorated with leperous-looking sunflowers.


They want him to have new things, as if drinking from a cup Jenny never touched will give him a heart equally untouched by her life and her death. He thanks them, and hopes they never learn.

Lucre


There are records, of course. Not the ones he wants, not prophecies, commentaries, correspondence with Watchers in the field, but payroll lists and retirement plans, real estate holdings and insurance policies. The librarians and archives staff died in the explosion, but there's a solicitor, a dry little man who seems to have reflected spreadsheets in his eyes even when he looks away from the computer to tell Giles, "The investments are very well diversified."

Strange, to hear Ethan in his mind after so many years, but on seeing the total, he thinks, not "Good Lord," but "Ripper, you're fucking loaded!"

Close Your Eyes And I'll Keep You Safe

"...ffy?"

"Yeah, Giles."

"...cathla?"

"All shish-kabobby," she said dully. Saying that was more work than just 'dead,' but 'shish-kabobby' sometimes earned a twitch of the lips or a breathy syllable of laughter. This time it was the laugh, then a grimace as he slid under again.

The back part of her brain kept barfing up pictures: Mom's face, Cordy's bandages, doctors frowning about Willow, gloved hands zipping Xander into a bag. Giles slept, only hurting, only worried about the world ending, not dreaming it could be maimed. She held his hand, dreading the moment when he'd ask a different question.

Darling, I Am Growing Old

"An." Xander knocked again at the bathroom door. "Sweetie, please."

"No!" Anya wasn't sobbing, but she still sounded tearful. "You will find me unattractive."

Dawn snorted. Xander glared. "I won't," he told Anya. "Promise."

She sniffled. "One man who said that ended..."

"AN!" Xander took a breath. "Well, he didn't mean it. I do. Come out."

"No."

"Customers may not buy if they can't use the washroom," Giles remarked from the register.

The door flew open and Anya emerged, smoothing her dress. Xander looked her over. "What am I supposed to hate?"

"This!" She pointed. "I have a gray hair!"