Everything Changes

“Sorry to barge in. We have a slight apocalypse.” —Giles, Bring On The Night

Dispatching the Bringer by turning its own blade around and ramming it deep into its guts made Rupert Giles feel sick.

Not from remorse or pity. Whatever this creature had been before The First, it was beyond human now, without compassion or any of the other feelings or emotions that Giles equated with humanity. The dead girl in the alley was testament to that.

And not because he was squeamish, either. Giles had, in the course of his life, dispatched all number of beasts, demons, vampires and even hell gods (okay, so there had only been one of those so far, but still…) and been faced with all manner of blood, spoor, muck and ooze doing so. He’d always managed to hold down his supper.

It wasn’t either of those things. It wasn’t the senseless death he was facing now, he thought, as he dropped the Bringer’s lifeless body down next to the dead girl, that was making him regret that extra Jaffa cake at tea. And it wasn’t even the fact that this particular girl that the Coven had tracked was Welsh, and so now he was not just dealing with another gruesome murder, but he was dealing with it in Cardiff, Wales, of all places. (Never mind the rugby, their national flower was an onion for heaven’s sake!).

No, not even national pride could do him in.

What had made Giles push the Bringer away from himself as soon as it was no longer a threat, and turn away in disgust was his own dark joy in the act.

“Giles at sixteen? Less Together Guy, more Bad- Magic- Hates-The-World-Ticking-Time-Bomb Guy.” —Buffy, Band Candy

Rupert Giles had changed many times over the course of his years on earth. He’d been a quiet child, a repressed student, a drop out, a latent bisexual, a wild and rebellious teenager, a studious Watcher, a brilliant warlock and a wise mentor. Most of the time, all these things rested easily against one another within him, building blocks set precisely to create the man he had become, and he was content with that. But there were times when the darker parts of him, the things he didn’t talk about, the acts he tried to forget; these aspects of him came to the forefront, and when that happened….

It felt like he was made of Jenga, and a clumsy drunk was pulling at the blocks.

He tried to tell himself that he was just happy to have avenged this latest dead Potential Slayer. He suggested to himself that he was just feeling the endorphin high from escaping his own potential (not capitalized in his mind) death. He reckoned anyone would be pleased with how easily he had dispatched of his enemy.

And then he called bullshit on himself.

“Bollocks,” he muttered aloud, leaning over to confirm that the Bringer was in fact dead. He realized that he was still holding the curved short sword the Bringer had tried to use against him, now dripping to the hilt with gore, and hot nausea and cold delight warred within him again as he wiped the blade on the Bringer’s robe. He felt a headache coming on, and not just his usual concussion based—Slayer induced—Rehab for witches—type headache. This one tasted like iron on his tongue and flickered behind his eyes like a bonfire. A headache that wanted to be magick. He brushed a suddenly trembling hand over his brow and turned to the girl.

Her throat had been slit with ruthless efficiency, he noted grimly, so no chance for survival. He suspected she had probably died before she understood what had happened. She looked to be young for a Potential, thirteen, maybe, and despite his misgivings, this time he let the darkness come forward a little, and he wished he could kill the Bringer again, maybe kill a whole lot of them, maybe slower this time. He wished for it, and at the same time wished it didn’t appeal so much.

Apparently he hadn’t spent enough time in Sunnydale with Anya to remember what wishing could do.

Dark shapes detached themselves from the alley walls and became lethal and Bringer-like. Four of them, moving forward, but not too close. Circling just out of reach of his blade.

“Shit,” he whispered. Despite their apparent blindness, the Bringers had no problem hemming him in, keeping him within their circle. He startled at a sound from further down the alley and saw two more of the creatures coming towards him. As his attention was diverted, one of the Bringers lunged forward with its own blade and he barely managed to deflect it. Behind him another Bringer swung and Giles spun around just in time to turn the slashing attack into nothing more than a rip through the sleeve of his jumper. He turned again, nearly stumbling over the dead Bringer at his feet and the two new Bringers joined the circle.

Giles thought he might be in trouble now.

For one moment his fear was so sharp and exquisite that he nearly pissed his pants. And then the drunk Jenga player in his head stacked a dark brick on the top of his mental tower and mortal fear gave way to something sweet and vengeful. He stepped towards one of the Bringers, but instead of attempting to cut the creature, he grabbed it by the arm and pulled it into the circle with him, ignored the jab of pain as the creature’s sword nicked his chest, and then he was spinning the Bringer, slicing it’s throat open with so much force he nearly decapitated it, and falling with it, only to jump to his feet a moment later with a sword in each hand.

“Come on you bastards!” he yelled. If they had taken him up on his offer, he probably couldn’t have kept them all off of him long enough to escape, but his sudden actions, or more likely something in his demeanor, threw them for a moment, and they didn’t all leap into the fray, choosing instead to continue circling.

The Bringers directly in front of Giles startled before he heard the sound of running feet himself. The dodgy street light and cloud scudded moonlight gave him only a glimpse of a large figure in a swirl of coat and a thump of boots before one of the Bringers disappeared, swept up, apparently, and then reappeared connecting with the brick wall of the nearest building with a crack of breaking bones.

“What the hell--?”

A man joined him within the circle of Bringers.

“To hell with what's right, I'm ready to back you up. Let's find the evil a-and fight it together”. 
—Giles, The Freshman

The man was tall, maybe an inch or two taller than Giles, and seemed almost larger than life, dressed in period military clothing including a grey wool greatcoat with Captain’s stripes on the shoulders. He gave Giles a smile and asked, “Come here often?”

“What?”

“Not really my kind of crowd,” the man continued, even as they both kept their eyes on the Bringers, who seemed to be recovering from their shock and were now regrouping to move in. “And if you knew me, you’d know that’s saying something. But, hey, I’m always up for meeting new people.” He started to hold out his hand.

“Look out!” Giles saw the Bringer leap from behind the man and he knew he was in no position to intercept. He was already mourning the man’s untimely demise when said man turned, coat sweeping around in a way that suggested much practice to achieve that effect, and slammed a fist into the Bringer’s face with a cartilage-breaking snap. The Bringer fell over and the man scooped up its weapon.

“Well, that was easier than a weevil,” the man commented, but Giles had no time to react to that strange comment as he turned to face his own attacker, both knives at the ready. He met the Bringer’s lunge with one of his own, burying both blades into either side of the Bringer’s chest to the hilt. As he tore the daggers free he shuddered at a feeling of static electricity racing up his spine and he turned his head just enough to realize the man was now at his back, facing away from him.

“Tell me I’m on the right side here,” the man’s words were spoken close to his left ear.

Each of them faced one of the final two Bringers.

“They killed her,” Giles said, and he felt another of those electric shocks when the man turned his head to see the young girl’s body lying just a few feet away.

“All I need to know. Thanks.” And with a shout that was more theatrical than warlike, the man threw himself at the Bringer in front of him. In seconds both he and the creature had lost their weapons and were rolling around on the ground, wrestling like a dogfight in a snake pit.

Giles opened himself up to that cold glee again, told his moaning stomach to sod off and parried every thrust of the Bringer’s sword, trying to force the creature into a corner or against the wall, knowing that he needed to end this quickly, not just so he could get back to London and his life there, back to the Coven and Robson and his girl, back to trying to prevent this latest apocalypse…. he had to end it before he started liking it too much. He had to end it before he got so distracted by…. that…. he….

The Bringer was determined, but unskilled. It took nothing to kill a defenseless teenage girl. Giles was going to win the fight and he knew it. He slashed left, confident the blade would find its home in the Bringer’s neck. Too confident, as it turned out, and the Bringer ducked and lashed out, and only a sudden twist and three scuttling steps back kept Giles’ intestines firmly encased in his body. But now he was the one up against the wall with no scenery but impending death by Bringer. Rough brick dug into his back and he held out his blades, knowing this was where he would take his last stand. Confidence and fear, order and chaos, danger and safety—there were battles taking place inside him, distracting him—his headache intensified…

A huge snapping sound, and suddenly the Bringer was still facing him, save for its head, which was now turned completely around and staring with dead eyes into the face of the other man.

The man shoved the dead Bringer away and moved closer to Giles. He placed large hands on Giles’ arms and both knives fell from Giles’ suddenly nerveless fingers.

“You okay?” asked the man, stepping boldly into Giles’ personal bubble.

“I fell in with the worst crowd that would have me. We practiced magicks. Small stuff for pleasure or gain. And Ethan and I discovered something... bigger.”
—Giles, The Dark Age

Giles stared at the stranger, whose eyes were dark and sparkling in the chancy half-light of the street lamp at the end of the alley. The man was so close Giles could feel his warm breath on his face, and he gusted out a few panting breaths of his own. Neither man spoke for a long moment and Giles couldn’t look away, couldn’t move his arms. The brick wall at his back was cold and the man’s hands on his biceps were hot, too hot, feeling like they were scorching him through the material of his jumper. He could feel blood trickling down his body from the earlier cut on his chest, and he gulped air to fight off the sick feeling that was back with a vengeance.

He didn’t see the last Bringer, the one the man had punched out, stir groggily and then start to scuttle away into the darkness, he didn’t notice when the man turned his attention away from him. But he did groan as one hand ripped away from his arm, almost as if his skin was being torn away with it. His eyes widened and he gasped as the man dipped his hand to his hip, pulled out a small almost antique looking gun and fired off a shot that was deafening in the night. The Bringer dropped like an unstrung puppet.

The man holstered the gun as smoothly as he’d drawn it, turned and grinned cheekily at Giles, and every dark, joyous, angry, fierce, hedonistic, secret magick part of him leapt forward as the Jenga tower collapsed and he crushed the other man’s mouth with his own.

“C) All systems tend towards chaos.”
—Giles, Band Candy

Giles had a fleeting thought of Ethan as his lips found their willing target and he tumbled into the kiss. The man smelled of Chaos. No, he reeked of it. He tasted like thunder and lightning. He felt like iron, like brass, like lava. Giles spun them so the man was now up against the wall. Giles grabbed fistfuls of hair with hands still sticky from Bringer blood, and then he deepened the kiss, mapping out the interior of the man’s mouth with his tongue. Lips and teeth clashed and there was licking and sucking and biting. And then the man’s tongue was shouting ‘Marco!’ down Giles’ throat and Giles answered with ‘Polo!’ but in fact it wasn’t ‘Polo’ at all but was a full body rub instead and he felt the other man’s cock jump in response.

There were no words—the man seemed incapable of them, Giles didn’t need them. He was wallowing in hunger and danger and bravado and fear and delight and an almost overwhelming need to destroy, to change, to tear, to transmogrify. There was no dignity, there was no plan, there was no order. Just the need to feel—he could feel! He could feel Chaos energy building up in the spaces where his orderly blocks had stood. He was on the brink of tumbling into something so dangerous it had nearly destroyed him as a youth and then again as a man, and he was thrilled.

He felt the man’s hands leave his shoulders and suddenly they were at his hips, stroking softly but insistently, and there was magick in the air, magick with the stench of blood and cum and death.

Giles fled.

He raced down the alley, not looking back, not daring to. He found his car more by luck than by design, and once he was behind the wheel, he locked the doors and sat shuddering and slamming his fists down on his thighs for several minutes.

The drive home took a lifetime. The flat in London he’d been sharing with Robson and his Potential seemed a million miles away, not just over the Severn Bridge. He drove with his mind on autopilot, and paused at the rest stops along the M4 only long enough to fill the car with petrol at one of them and fill himself with a tea from Costa at another. He felt his mind warring over turning the car around and racing back to Cardiff and risking a ticket speeding back to his flat for the longest hottest shower of his life. Glancing in the rear view mirror at non-existent traffic, he thought he saw a Bringer in the back seat. And staring at his hands while drinking his tea at the rest stop, he was sure he could see the Chaos magick still sparking off him and burning in him. He couldn’t shut his mind off, much as he wanted to, but worse than that, his body seemed insistent on reminding him of what could have happened in that alley, not just with the stranger but with the magicks too, and it was only as he finally passed through Andover and could see the lights of London glowing brightly in the distance that his stubborn hard-on started to abate. Thoughts of Buffy, The First, Willow, the Coven, Miss Harkness, dead girls in Turkey and Cardiff—all of them kept giving way to the stranger in the long coat and the taste of him.

When at long last he had parked the car on his street and was walking through the garden to the door, he found a reserve of inner calm, one that allowed him to reset the tumbled blocks within himself. He fumbled his keys in the lock and let himself be grateful to be alive and in one piece. As tumblers clicked he even managed to come up with a little justification and a game plan. He decided that whatever had happened in Cardiff would stay in Cardiff, even if he was going to end the evening with a ‘what if…?’ wank after his shower. He dared a small smile and opened the door.

Giles entered the room, looking around. He immediately saw the young woman lying dead on the floor and called out in shock: “Oh, dear God! Robson, are you here? Robson!”

Fin