RATING: R
CHARACTER: Giles
SUMMARY: Giles makes a fresh start.
IMPROV: #26--Darkness
SPOILERS: Through Season 5.
DISCLAIMER: The characters and universe included in this story belong to
Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox, Sandollar, and Kuzui. No
infringement intended.
NOTES: I don't know where this came from. It just...happened. Blame Ethan.
Bad, bad, Ethan, always causing trouble for us all!
Mask
By LindaMarie
-----
"The man of shadows thinks in clay
Dreamed trapped thoughts of suffocation day..."
--"Mask," Bauhaus
Some days Giles isn't quite himself. "The beast is much closer to the
surface in those like us," Ethan once told him, one hand sliding sinuously
between his shoulderblades. "Pain is a drug, Ripper. One we can't live
without." The concealed razor flicked out between two fingers and snicked
down part of his spine. "With it, we grow strong, you and I. Without, we
fade to nothing."
Some nights Giles dreams of his youth, those years defined by hallucinogenic
haze and fear in the air so strong you could taste it. Some nights he dreams
of that single sweet moment when Ben's breathing stopped beneath his hand.
Often he wakes up with his pulse beating fast, too worked up to get back to
sleep for hours.
Sometimes Giles can feel the beast stirring underneath his skin, the
predatory instinct welling up. He can remember what it was like to trace the
fresh scars on Ethan's abdomen with his tongue, and know that *he* had made
them. That they were *his*, and so was the body on which they were carved.
He conjures these memories all too easily, it seems, living in them for
increasingly waking moments. Some days he drowns in his past, feeling the
blade in his hands and the metallic sigh as it slides through thin skin. He
remembers the prick of the needle, the hum of the tattoo machine, the ache
of rope tied too tightly.
Giles lives in a state of contemplation, seated in familiar rooms on worn
chairs. She has been gone three months now, and her friends' lives continue.
Giles' house is comforting if he keeps the lights off and the phone
unplugged. He feels old in his human frame, rusty and creaking when he moves
too fast. Giles pretends not to notice as he lets his head rest on the
soothing, cool floor.
The furniture has been cleared. His arms stretch out to his sides, legs
pulled out straight below in a crucifix pose. The sounds of Ben's death
throes echo in his mind as he closes his eyes. This is as good a place to
dream as any.
Giles can remember eating the heart of the sacrifice, in imitation of
ancient tribes. The blood dripping down his chin would remind him of his own
mortality, make his hunger more fierce. Nondescript lust and urge, making
the knife slash again into cold viscera, making the sound of Ethan's
incantations fade into the background. Soft drums pounding with his pulse,
he felt alive, young, strong.
Some days Giles wakes up afraid of himself. Today is not one of those days.
He lifts himself off of the tile, feeling stiff muscles protest. Leaning
heavily on the table, briefly, he licks his lips and tastes the memory of
copper. He shivers at the sensation.
"Today," he says to the dusty shelves around him, "is an end to mourning."
Within an hour the curtains are open, and bright sun shines through. He
showers, shaves, and stands nude in front of the open closet. His hand
reaches reluctantly for dim tweed, but pulls quickly back. "No, not yet." He
selects instead soft dark cotton and nondescript denim.
Sometimes he has thought about returning to her house, running a hand over
her bare wall or trying to catch her scent. He always decided against it,
but today he is in his car and on the way.
The house is soon to be sold. The other, the one he knows and yet not, will
go to live with her father when the summer ends. She answers the door on the
fourth knock, cheeks flushed as if she, too, has only recently awakened. Her
body is young, but there is something ancient and terrible in her eyes.
Nothing has changed, yet he views her with new perspective.
"I wondered when you'd come over...do you want...anything?" she asks slowly
as he enters the foyer and climbs the stairs.
"I'd like something of hers. Come up, and I'll show you."
When he hears her breath behind him, he turns swiftly and shoves her hard
into the wall. She falls, more from shock than weakness, and one of his
knees is in her solar plexus and his hand gripping her chin. Their eyes
meet, and he hears Ethan's voice in his head like an old Victrola recording:
"They ate the heart, you see, because it contained the soul. In doing so,
one absorbed all their pain, their pleasure, their life. By eating the
hearts of their kin, they were extending their souls' existence."
His hand slides up to muffle her mouth and nose as her eyes just stare on
with mute...understanding?
Her body shudders and is still. Giles leans down and takes a single nip of
one earlobe, just a quick bittersweet taste, then mutters the memorized
spell, making a sign with one hand. The body beneath him sifts to fine sand.
He rises to his feet, and leaves out the back way.
Today Giles returns home to a dreamless sleep. Tomorrow he will visit the
cemetary for the first time since her death. He will wear tweed.
FIN
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