lucetilogs | I'd like to help you doctor, yeah I really, really would

Current Mood: stressed

Entry tags:

I'd like to help you doctor, yeah I really, really would

Who:

consultmybooks and the

folkloristic (from their

erythrophilia )
What: Giles has a date with Grell to get some answers
When: Around sunset on July 9th
Where: Building 7 all the way to the Southern Lake - possibly the clinic afterwards. Hell with it - probably the clinic afterwards.
Summary: Giles is sick of not knowing. He's sick of forgetting. Grell can help him with these frustrations - for a price. Just what that price is, and how far Giles will go, and just how much longer his luck will hold...well, that remains to be seen. Helios, for his part, would just like his friends to stop getting themselves maimed and killed, and is on hand to bail Giles out yet again before his flatmate can wrack up another death penalty.
Rating: R for violence

Thanks to his walk with Xion, Giles knew just how long it would take for him to reach the Southern Lake. He knew when he would need to leave to be there by sunset, as promised.

What he did not know was what he would be facing. He knew that he shouldn't be terribly surprised that there hadn't been any word from Grell on exactly what sort of favor he would have to do in exchange for the privilege of getting mortally wounded, but it was still a sobering realization to realize that he would be going in to this entirely blind...

...if he went at all.

The thought had crossed his mind more than once when he realized that there would be no word from the Death God. What if he didn't go? He could just...stay in. Have yet another safe, quiet night.

Never know.

No.

He had to know. If he knew, he could get on with his life. And besides...if his entire life was due to play before his eyes today, what would he see? Would he see the three years of memories he'd lost by dying? Would he know just what Buffy wanted him to know so much? And what if he didn't go? Grell would be waiting. If he didn't go, and he upset her...the barrier around Building 7 would only protect him as long as it took for her to catch Helios out and about. And that was just...not an option. On any level.

Whatever the deal was, she couldn't make him hurt anyone. She had promised that. She had also promised to let him go into this with open eyes, but...he had to believe that her first promise would hold, at least. He had to believe that this could be kept between them.

And so, it was a few hours before sunset on a perfectly ordinary day that saw Giles, a pack with some food slung over his shoulder, preparing to leave the safety that was room twenty two. He looked back over his shoulder as he opened the door, trying to keep his anxiety over how much potential this had to go wrong off of his face as he addressed his flatmate.

"Well...I'm off. Wish me luck. Keep an eye out."

Giles waited until he was well into the forest, although still a good distance from the lake, before he opened his journal and addressed an unhackable message to the one he was going to meet.

"You've been very quiet since we last spoke. Don't tell me you've forgotten about me?"

...whatever the reply he received, if any, Giles continued on towards the southern lake as the sun sank lower.

((ooc: None of us are at our speediest, so it should go without saying. But I'll say it anyway. Backtags? So much love.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Forgotten? Hardly. Simply....thinking.

Understandable, I suppose.

I've been doing much the same.

To be quite honest, dear, you've little to offer me now that I could want.

My favor in return? Might come at a later date.

Ooh, but rest assured, no harm shall come to your merry band of...whatever they are. A lady must uphold her promises after all.

[The journal turns to video for a few seconds. Giles turns in a slow circle, letting Grell see that he's on the path in the forest.]

I'm on my way, aren't I?

A deal is a deal. If you actually mean to keep your promises, I suppose you're holding your end up as well as I can expect, .

Then I shall be on my way as well.

[She gets up from her new couch at the house and smiles.]

Be there soon, love.

[As in momentarily. The advantage of being a death god is being able to travel great distances extremely quickly. She'll arrive at the lake before he does and will be resting in the trees until he's arrived.]

I'll be there...later. And do not call me "love".

[It's still a while to the lake. But the sun is high enough in the sky, enough that it will only just be sinking over the tree tops when Giles makes his way out of the woods and onto the shore of the southern lake.

He doesn't seem to notice Grell as he takes a spot by the bank.]

She had been waiting. It wasn't so much of a bother, however, to wait. She was a god and when one was associated with Death, waiting was simply part of the game. Still, she had been waiting and so when she heard someone approaching from the underbrush, Grell perked up her ears and turned her head to watch her newest prey's slow progression from the woods to the bank of the lake.

What a surprise it was that he of all people should come to her for assistance. The destination of his soul was something that she would think he was rather assured about, but apparently not all good men were as good as they appeared at first glance. His associations with Buffy had simply pushed him into the goody-two-shoes camp for Grell, but perhaps she was wrong.

Ooh, I do hope I'm wrong.

"Good evening, love. How kind of you to join me," she called, sliding off the tree branch to land gracefully beneath it.

To his credit, Giles showed very little sign of surprise when Grell announced her presence. A quick start of surprise, but nothing that showed on his face when he spun on his heel to face her. He'd been in the process of rummaging in his pack.

A polite nod, as the pack was zipped up. "Good evening, madam. I hope I haven't kept you long - it's amazing how long it cana take to get around and about when one has to walk everywhere. I keep meaning to have Helios teach me how to teleport."

Buffy, if anything, had pushed him further out of the realm of goody two shoes than he'd ever wanted to be since his rebellious adolescent days. But he had learned a trick or two from her. The way to keep up a brave face in the face of certain destruction, for example, or the way to behave in the most flippant of fashions before beings like Grell, if necessary.

...he hoped it wouldn't be necessary. That sort of tactic worked best when there wasn't a certain chance of a chainsaw to the chest.

"It must be such a burden to be mortal," Grell quipped in return, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she stepped forward. Giles was doing well in maintaining his cool. Surprisingly well considering what was inevitably in store for him. He had come out here to die, after all. Well, to almost die to be exact. Another broken rule to add to Grell's long list of broken rules, but one that she didn't exactly mind.

It was the only way she could experience her old life. The life she missed so terribly here where death didn't matter and there were no souls or records to collect. Certainly she didn't miss the endless paperwork and the constant vigilance over mortal lives, but the joy of the hunt? The anticipation at what would be seen? The excitement as the blood spilled from the dead man's (or woman's) body, flowing like a red carpet to invite the specter of death within? That is what she missed. The permanency of it all. The beautiful finality! What good was life if there was no death to mark it with a sense of urgency?

"So, shall we start, or do you wish to banter a bit more? I do so like a bit of banter."

"It has its upsides." Giles pulled the pocketwatch out of his pocket and opened it, making a play of checking the time. "I was just about to say that it must be such a burden being a god.

...I think I can spare you a bit of banter, if you want." With a nod, he closed the watch with a soft "click" of finality and replaced it. "I can also spare you a turkey sandwich, if you want. The walk's a bit long and I didn't want to go into critical blood loss on an empty stomach."

It was something he'd come to find had changed since coming back. Dying a second time had been like getting knocked unconscious from the second shoe. Sure, you were unconscious and you woke up with a headache but, and this was the important thing, you woke up safe and secure in the knowledge that there were no more shoes. Giles had died painful and bloody and he'd died quick and quiet. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing more that could surprise him. He'd told more people about his death back home than he'd ever thought he would have it in him to tell. It hadn't mattered quite so much, anymore, and he'd been gratified to see that most of them had responded with the same idea in mind.

And he'd asked for this. He'd wanted this. Whatever happened...he'd know. That was something he'd been hoping for since day one.

[HOW DID I MISS THIS NOTIF????]

Upsides of being human? Grell wondered about that and highly doubted there was anything other than the brevity of their lives inspiring them to better things. Grell had a near eternity to live, so she simply couldn't understand their rush. It was beautiful in its own way, but~? Not in the way that Grell would ever want to live.

She waved a hand when Giles offered her food and shook her head with a smile. "Taking meals out of order is murder on a girl's waistline."

Instead, she walked over to where he was, taking her time to stride confidently and slowly until she came up even with him. Unlike the others she'd attacked over the past few weeks, Giles was different. He was here of his own volition. He was....a guest. A customer, in so many words. She could treat him differently and not worry about her own reputation taking a nasty hit. Standing beside him, Grell looked out over the lake and sighed. "Whatever put this idea in your head, I haven't the foggiest, but I shan't be refusing if you have your heart set on it, love. Just know, it isn't going to be pretty."

[LJ is a bitch, that's why.]

"Suit yourself."

And Giles takes a bite out of the sandwich, chewing thoughtfully. He tensed slightly as Grell drew up next to him - how could he not? Between Buffy and Jack, Grell had become something of a boogieman for their little group. A Big Bad for a trio that had left Sunnydale a long time ago.

Standing by the lake with her was...odd, to say the least. But, like his first proper conversation with Nu by the bridge on the day of his return, things were different under different circumstances. He still tensed slightly as he felt her draw up next to her, going absolutely still for a second or two. But, with a faint shake, Giles shoved the anxieties aside, even looking briefly over at her. The light of the slowly sinking sun set a brief glare over his glasses.

Those anxieties didn't mean anything at this hour and this place.

"I have my heart set on it. I suppose you'll see why in a few minutes.

I appreciate the warnings, and I understand that it's going to involve quite a lot of blood and probably a great deal of pain. Under those circumstances, my unfortunate death two weeks ago could probably be called a trial run.

But Helios is waiting. I won't be dying again tonight. If nothing else, that would just be...terribly silly, and I don't think anyone would ever be able to take me seriously again. Three times is certainly not the charm."

He finishes off his speech by finishing off the sandwich.

He was tense and Grell could sense it. As any predator could sense fear in their prey, she could feel it in hers. Or maybe it was just that Giles wasn't spectacularly good at hiding his emotions when things ran tight like this. He was here to have a near death experience and she was the one to dole it out. That didn't exactly make for the best of relationships.

With a sigh of amusement and a shrug, Grell lifted her hands and shook her head again. If this was what he wanted, she would grant him it. It would give her a second chance to see if she had the power to collect Records here and at least confirm her suspicions about this place. Death was necessary. It was absolute. This place was unnatural to keep it from happening and that meant the more anomalies caused, the more likely it was that this world would come under scrutiny.

"If you insist."

But that meant there was a reason. A reason that Grell did not know and she did hate having secrets kept from her. Some secrets, after all, could not be pulled from a Record especially if they were not revealed to her. "But I do wonder why you're so set on this. Healing or not, I could miss and take off your head. Not much a healer, Helios or no, can do if I should have a little slip like that."

The look on Giles' face briefly suggested that he could see the mental image, and found it...well, unpleasant. He grimaced wryly, then shook his head.

"Then I suggest you don't slip." He hadn't told Buffy he was coming here tonight, but that didn't mean she couldn't find out if something went wrong. "He's not even a terribly good healer, not compared to some. But he's had practice hurrying out in the middle of the night to stop me bleeding to death, and he can keep a secret."

Giles took off his glasses and started cleaning them, if only to give his hands something to do.

"...would satisfying your curiosity make you less likely to slip, then?"

"Perhaps finding a better second would have been smart then," she said, shrugging her shoulders. If he wanted to put his trust into Helios even if the man wasn't a trained healer, so be it. As long as Giles didn't die tonight, Grell would have no issues with Goody-Two-Shoes Buffy and her merry band of misfits. "Ah well, so long as you don't end your life again here, I suppose we shall be just.... Fine."

Or bleeding to death. One or the other. It was rather strange to say one would be fine after having a near death experience after all. Grell sighed and threaded her fingers through her hair, brushing it back over her shoulder. Her hand stopped midway, however, when Giles cleaned his glasses and offered to tell her.

"....Indeed it would. Sating my curiosity does so help my focus."

"There is no better second that would have actually allowed me to come out here tonight without interfering. Be glad that I trusted Helios with this. He doesn't like it - I don't expect him to - but you're right. So long as I can crawl away tonight, and pay your favor, we'll be...just fine."

There's a pause of several seconds at her reply to his offer. It wasn't that Giles wasn't expecting to have to reveal his reasons. It was only fair - on some logical level, he knew that Grell was risking as much by being here as he was.

He just...hadn't spent quite enough time sorting out what he was going to say. He wondered if spending all day would have been enough time, and knew that it wouldn't.

So he simply sighed tiredly and took the plunge. At the very least, anything that reduced the possibilities of him being decapitated was worth trying.

"I've died back home. That was what brought me back here this second time - my death."

Any banter about his earlier quips regarding Helios were lost at his admission. He was dead back home. Another dead one walking where he shouldn't be, another irregular that shouldn't be allowed to live. Not only had Giles died at home and here, but Grell was supposed to let him live tonight as well. He was an anomaly that should not exist and yet Grell was supposed to let him go.

The death god clicked her tongue against her teeth in distaste and turned her face away.

If this were home, she would simply kill him and leave. He wasn't supposed to be alive anyway so where was the harm in destroying him? Sure, she wasn't supposed to kill humans, but could anyone blame her here? So many people were running about on lives that did not belong to them. It was upsetting the balance of the world. It had to be.

"...So you've died and were removed here instead of going through to the other side, is that it?"

"Precisely."

Her change in attitude doesn't go unnoticed, although Giles' tone of voice does not change as he continues speaking. Just his hands move - putting his glasses back on his face and going to his pockets. One pocket has the gold pocketwatch, a lucky charm if ever there was one. The other goes to get a hold on the journal. Just in case. Giles doesn't let more than a second or two go by before he continues on.

"And I've had to live nearly every second of every day living with the fact that I could literally lose the life I've been given here at any second. I'd reached the point of almost being able to do so when I got in the way of that thing and Robert.

It was, as you might imagine, a bit of a wake up call.

...and I realized that night that I couldn't go back to living that way. Not, not without knowing." He shakes his head as though to clear it. "I can't know how much longer I have here. No one can. But I thought that if I could at least know what to expect when I'm finally sent away...I thought that might help.

I remembered what you'd told me after Helios died. It seemed the most reliable course of action."

Not safest. Not sanest. Not most rational. Just the most reliable.

Mortals.... Grell sighed, shaking her head. She wasn't a crystal ball despite her powers. She could review a Record and determine the likely path of their soul, but... Was it certain? No. Was it even the final say? No. Was it worth it to pretend in order to get a free swipe at anyone who was desperate enough to try? Oh, most certainly yes.

She hid a smirk and turned it into a carefully arrange visage of amusement as she came about to face Giles. She could tell him these things, discourage him from his wayward path, but there was no fun in that. No entertainment. She wasn't exactly lacking in entertainment after nearly killing Horatio in their duel and going after that blond beast who rampaged across the village, but a bit more was never unwanted. She wasn't going to turn him away at this late hour.

"Fair warning, as you aren't dying, I shall only see what you view as important. The flash before your eyes, as they say." Grell flicked her wrist and the chainsaw appeared. "I shan't be seeing all of it unless I was to collect and I don't think you would be wanting that, hm?"

"I would hate to waste your time with anything I didn't consider important."

The moments he had been thinking the most about, the ones that, in his mind, had cemented his opinion of himself as a terrible person despite the frequent reassurances of the people in this village that he wasn't...those were what he wanted Grell to see. Randall. Ben. Willow. Spike. Genevieve. If there were any turning points in the state of his soul? He knew what they were all too well.

Giles shrugged, the casual gesture only partially forced.

"I'm over fifty - I should think that a full summation of my life would quickly lose your attention under the best of circumstances. And, to be frank, there are parts of it that I don't want your opinion on."

"Most human lives quickly lose my attention," Grell said, hefting the chainsaw up to lie across her shoulders. Most of them tended to be the same. Birth, schooling, work, marriage, death - some variation in between, but hardly anything of note. It was only impressive men or women like Sebastian who ever really caught Grell's attention. So few and far between...

The death god smiled wide at Giles' cheekiness and tapped a finger idly against the handle of her scythe. "And here I thought it was just my opinion you were looking for."

No matter. She gestured to her chest with a smirk. "Should you end your life here, Giles, I can tell you what I see for your future, but after that? It is a gamble. Should you return, you would be at the mercy of whomever is assigned to your case. Should you die here and I am not the one to collect? Again, the same. I would have you sign a waver, but there isn't such a thing." The smile widened. "It's ever so much fun to break the rules a bit."

Giles spends most of Grell's speech observing the chainsaw. It's a thoughtful, critical examination - when all is said and done, Giles really hasn't ever had much cause to use a chainsaw in the past or have one be used on him. It's an interesting looking machine. He looks almost startled when he realizes that Grell has finished talking, and looks back at her as though she's just caught him in the middle of reading.

And it takes a second or two for his mind to play back the words. Once he has, however, Giles' jaw sets and he nods just once.

"Roll the dice."

Grell notices Giles' distraction and smiles. It is no wonder that he would be enraptured by the device which would soon end his life. Or almost end it. Mostly end it. She had chosen a chainsaw for a reason. Others went for things like trimmers, but she went for impact, for dramatics, for the unforgettable experience of a rotating blade eating its way through flesh and blood. How could she settle for anything less now? It's simply reassuring when she sees Giles taken by the sight of her scythe and her smile widens when he speaks again.

"Ready then, are we?"

Giles digs his heels into the dirt. It might look for a second as though he's getting ready to run, but it's quite the opposite. The former Watcher is visibly stopping himself from making a break for it, presenting a target instead.

If his voice shakes a bit, he ignores it and expects Grell to do the same.

"Ready."

The fear in him is palpable and ever so exciting. He's facing down his own possible death and yet he stands his ground. Grell finds that admirable in a way. This is a selfish thing he is doing; extremely selfish and yet here the death god is, indulging him. She marvels at how far she herself has fallen and pulls the chainsaw down off her shoulders in one fluid movement, drawing an arc through the air with the shining blade.

"Then let's see what you have to hide."

Grell raises the blade, bringing it to its apex above her head before the engine starts with a jump and a hearty roar. The sound of it is reassuring to her, but likely fearsome to anyone else. She smiles and pauses for effect - always the actress, always aware of the audience - then takes one step toward Giles, dropping the chainsaw's blade and its ripping, rending teeth diagonally across his chest.

Just like last time, just like when he died at the hands and blades of the Kusanagi Unit, there's a second...less than a second...that passes between the sound of Giles' clothes and flesh being rent and torn by the teeth of the chainsaw and the point where it actually sinks in that he's bleeding profusely and dying.

When it does, when the pain of it fully penetrates Giles' mind, a strangled, suffocating, stunned cry leaves him, the cry of one who is in so much pain that there is no sound for it. He raises both arms - already shaking - to his chest, to try and stem the blood that's already welling up freely from the wound even as blood begins to drip from his mouth.

The images, the scenes and sounds and memories, are already beginning to flash and play right on cue, before Giles has even hit the ground. It's not a graceful fall, it's the fall of someone who's been beaten to within an inch of their life and has taken far too much hurt to worry about petty things like standing. And he's so stunned to realize that this really is happening that it almost slips his mind to inch his journal open in his pocket enough to take the last step to send the pre-set filtered voice recording to Helios.

Edited 2011-07-23 13:28 (UTC)

There it is... A kill blow. The blood flying from the spinning teeth, splashes across the ground, flies into the air, paints the evening sky and her clothes in its beautiful color. It's her color. The color red, the beautiful gem-like tone that cannot be matched by anything else in the world. A few drops her her face and she smiles, watching as the rest melt away into film.

It's always reassuring to know that one's powers aren't completely gone. Giles' near death has done much to bolster her own self-esteem as she steps back, the lines of film rolling from him and from the blood fresh on her scythe's edge.

"The Cinematic Record... How I've missed this," she says, grinning, as she watches his life play before her eyes.

Studying and books. Emptiness, hopelessness. Running away all over again. Ethan Rayne, the Cult of Eyghon, the Mark of Eyghon standing out stark and black on Giles' arm. Candles, old books, incantations, the faces of his friends as they let the Sleepwalker into their bodies. Randall's face, twisted and demonic, right before Giles shoots him dead.

Giles is older, and standing outside in the courtyard of an apartment complex in the sunshine. Giles is sweating and sitting down, having just come back from a jog. Buffy is sitting nearby, asking for his advice in dealing with a problematic college roommate who will later turn out to be a demon.

Waking up as a Fyarl Demon. Racing through town like a maniac trying to find a cure. Finding Ethan, beating up Ethan, fighting Buffy and being stabbed by Buffy with a pewter letter opener. The spell is undone, the two of them talk, there's a new understanding.

A fight in Giles' apartment, the Scoobies tearing into one another and ripping up old wounds. Giles leaves halfway through to go upstairs and pass out drunk on his bed.

Giles, Willow, and Xander sitting huddled together in a darkened closet while a war rages outside around them. A spell is being cast and once it's finished, their eyes flash yellow and their bodies become motionless as their selves join with Buffy's to defeat this year's Big Bad.

The apartment is packed. Willow is trying to convince him not to leave. Buffy arrives after a great deal of time passes. He tells her to say what she has to say first. She begs him to be her Watcher again and, touched and gratified, Giles agrees. The training resumes. Everything is all right.

Giles paces around a store that looks like it's just been ransacked by the most inconsiderate muggers in existence. He muses that there's probably quite the profit to be turned here. Anya signs on to help after the first day nearly gives Giles a heart attack.

Hospital visits. Buffy and Dawn looking tired and worried and old beyond their years. A phone call, Giles racing to the house on Revello Drive. Buffy's mother is motionless and cold in the living room, Buffy's voice stops Giles in his tracks - "we're not supposed to move the body!"

He holds her while she cries. There are more hospital visits. There's a funeral. He stands steady for all of them. Giles and Buffy take a trip to the desert, Giles spends the night tending to the fire as Buffy wanders into the dark and wanders out again the next morning looking truly somber.

The Scoobies are walking through the desert. Giles is bleeding. They lay him to rest on the store counter in an abandoned grocery store. Buffy begs him not to die, he tries to tell her not to worry. He tries to tell her he’ll be all right even as consciousness leaves him.

Giles and Buffy are arguing for the life of her sister - Giles has no hope that she can be saved and doesn't want Buffy to risk her life trying. Buffy tells him that it's his life that will be in danger if he sees him near her sister.

Under a tower, Giles walks slowly up to a boy that Buffy has left beaten and bruised. He says the only apology he'll ever give for his actions before kneeling down to choke the life out of Ben with absolutely no expression besides one of deepseated concentration.

Buffy leaps from the tower and dies. There's a funeral, and several talks with a robot that looks like her in the training room. In between, there’s Giles’ first visit to Luceti, where highlights appear from everything from the Infiltration to the Total Recall experiment.

Giles leaves, and the last of the Scoobies give him the best sendoff they can. Later, he returns, and the first thing he sees when he walks through the door of his shop is the Slayer. He embraces the girl who might as well be family and never wants to let her go.

Singing and dancing - “what can’t we face if we’re together?” "wish I could stay", "let it burn", "give me something to sing about", "where do we go from here?". Giles leaves, hoping that cutting the ties will help his Slayer to stand on her own two feet. Buffy begs him not to go, but he does.

Willow, hair and eyes black as sin, falls back from the force of his spell. "I'd like to test that theory." "Uh oh, Daddy's home, I'm in real trouble now." Giles and Buffy talk in the training room and laugh, and apologize, and forgive one another. Giles and Willow fight, and she beats him to within an inch of his life, and leaves him to die. Anya stays with him as the Magic Box collapses around them.

Giles shows up at Buffy's door with three Potentials. More arrive soon after, travels to all corners that occasionally end in failure with the sight of a dead girl left like trash in a pool of her own blood.

Arguments. Advice. Attempts to guide his Slayer on the path of war. Betrayal, as he leads her to a graveyard to draw her away from an attempt on Spike's life. But she figures it out and leaves, despite his calls for her to stop. Later, she slams the door in his face with an expression of deepest cold - "I think you've taught me enough."

Giles stands with the Scoobies as they stand against Buffy. She tries to argue her case. They refuse to listen, and she's ejected from her house in disgrace.

"I think it's bloody brilliant." "Do you mean that?" "If you want my opinion." "I really do."

Giles fights against the army of Turok-Han and escapes with the rest of their army as Sunnydale collapses around them. Together, they stand in the desert and Dawn asks the question that they're all thinking "What are we going to do now?"

Giles stands on a balcony and watches maybe a hundred girls fighting one another in the courtyard below. He calls a halt to tell the girls what they're doing wrong. They aren't fighting as one, and they aren't looking out for one another. Buffy steps up and floors three of the best without half trying.

Giles approaches Faith for the plot on Lady Genevieve, asking Faith to help him take the life of this new rogue Slayer. Faith agrees. The plan soon goes wrong on far too many levels, even though it ends with Genevieve dead thanks to nothing more than an accident. Giles stabs Roland in the shoulder with some garden shears - the false Watcher turns and sneers "well, if it isn't the kennel master." Giles and Faith work together to get his spellbook away, and Giles uses it to rip him apart.

A phone call to Buffy results in nothing more than angry silence and hanging up.

Giles and Faith arrive in Hanselstadt. What they find there shakes their world. Giles pulls Faith and the Slayer accompanying them from the grip of the demon feeding on their regret. Another man comes in with a gun, threatening to kill them all. The demon takes him, and Giles stands and watches as the man who turned the word "Watcher" into something disgusting dies before he and Faith set the building alight. Vampires march on the town, Giles and Faith lead the villagers with one piece of advice - "aim for the heart."

Giles and Faith arrive back at the castle in Scotland in the middle of a war. Willow appears in a flash of fire, smiling smugly over the demon she’s skinned.

A submarine takes them to a temple in a verdant green mountainside. Giles and Buffy hug, and apologize. There’s a new understanding.

War arrives, in the form of men in uniform and planes and tanks and all sorts of weapons of war that tear the ground apart. Giles and Buffy meet in a small storage room, staring down at two assault rifles - ”I thought you might like one” “A Slayer doesn’t use guns” “You’re not a Slayer anymore.”

The war goes on. Dead girls and dead men litter the battlefield. Eventually their side loses and they’re rounded up and marched off in the snow. All but Giles, Andrew, and Faith – Giles wakes up alone in a room with the two of them still very much unconscious. When Twilight finally comes in to confront them, Giles is too terrified to move. Faith attacks and is knocked aside like she’s nothing. Giles holds her as she bleeds as Andrew steps up to try and defend them. He’s spared further injury when a blur flies through the wall and flies Twilight out the other side of it with the force of a meteor.

The world is collapsing around them. Giles attempts to explain why, and his friends look horrified.

Giles and Faith sit together in the rattling hull of a submarine. Giles promises Faith that, when this is over, things will return to normal. They’ll keep searching for rogue Slayers. He won’t leave her.

Giles and Buffy, together in a tunnel deep under the Earth. She’s scared. He isn’t. “We’re not patrolling in cemetaries, and you aren’t that girl anymore.” It’s not her power that he trusts to save them. With a reassuring smile, Giles turns to go. “I’ll see you when it’s over.”

Giles makes a deal with demons. It’s the simplest one he ever will – they help him win, or everyone dies. He leads the army against the otherworldly invaders.

Giles has the Slayer’s Scythe in his hand and he’s racing towards a chamber filled with an evil red light. Buffy and Twilight are fighting. But there’s a lull in the chaos, and Giles takes his chance, trying to hurry inside to deliver the Scythe to Buffy. What he doesn’t expect is for Twilight to place both hands on the side of his head and break his neck.

The rest is Giles’ return to Luceti.

There are moments of warmth and peace, where Giles reunites with Helios after his death or Giles and Link go hunting in the Item Shop for a guitar or he tells Seto and Grune the story of Tanabata.

There are fights, mostly with Buffy, where they tear into one another without mercy because only family is allowed to make you hurt that much.

There are moments of second chances and new understandings, where Buffy apologizes for keeping secrets or promises that things will be better from here on out. Giles apologizes for keeping secrets and hopes that things will be better. He offers her the chance to hear about her future. She never takes it.

There are moments of loss, where Giles and Buffy sit together in the House 7 kitchen to commiserate over the loss of Willow or Jack Sparrow.

His death at the hands of the Kusanagi Unit is painted in tones of old blood. Giles begs Knuckles to get Robert away with his last breath and tries to reassure a sobbing Helios that it's okay, that this wasn't his fault, that he'll be back.

There are friends who help Giles and love him, who see him as a kind person because that is what Luceti allows him to be. Many of their faces flicker and flash over the record.

The draft arrives. Giles and Haruhi talk over the journals. He's giving her advice on the best kind of gun to bring into battle. Giles is sitting in the waiting room, a record playing beside the bed. Helios pokes his head in.

And there are moments where they’re proven to be very wrong – Giles, eyes black as Willow’s once were, cuts a path of blood and ruin through a rain forest that’s drowning in a monsoon. He only stops when Paprika argues hard enough - ”Helios wouldn’t want you to do this!”

When Helios gets that message it sends a chill down his spine. He knows what's happening and he knows he has to get there soon. Otherwise it might be too late and his best friend will be dying in his arms again. Just the thought makes him shudder almost lose focus as he goes out of the apartment, quietly so as to not wake Frederic, and down to the back of the building. He'll draw a teleportation circle. It's done faster than he's ever done it before and he hopes to the gods that he hasn't messed it up, because his mind and heart are racing. He watches himself draw the circle without even thinking. The symbols mean nothing since he can't read them but he knows them in his mind and he knows how they go from doing it for so long. His mind is on automatic drive and he steps inside the circle praying that he's there on time.

Grell and Giles might see a bright flash of light a few feet away. Helios, staggering, will blink and shake off the dangerous sway that comes sometimes from the spell. His green eyes widen as he rushes over.

"Giles!" God not again. All that blood, and the figure, Grell, just standing there looking far too content with the whole thing. This was the being who had done this the voice in his mind says. Helios would be more wary if it weren't for Giles bleeding to death on the ground.

So this was the record of a man who had chosen the path of darkness in order to reach the light? Grell watched as the film ran past her, the reels spinning and curling through the air like they were alive. After such a long time doing her job, it was easy to control them, to lead them into the scythe, letting the now silent blade drink them up as she watched. Scenes, faces, events, regrets, joy, sorrow, all of these and more opened before her like a book and Grell smirked as she witnessed the summation of a man's life. It was interesting, certainly. Very interesting. But in the end...? It was just like any other man who had set out to save the world and failed.

The tragedy was amusing, tugging at her heart in the smallest of ways, but it was a mortal life ending. A man who should not be alive. An irregular who needed to be cleaned up. For a moment, Grell forgot her promise and clicked the chainsaw back on, a smile rising to her face. Another one to be sent to the wolves that decided the ultimate fates of all people. She would end him here and feel the joy of a job well done; her first in months (or was it a year?).

Before she could drop the chainsaw on Giles' neck, however, a bright flash of light caught her by surprise. She turned and someone was there - running toward them, calling the soon-to-be dead man's name...

"Ah..." Right. The past catches up to the present, spills over into the harsh reality of her life here and Grell lowers the chainsaw. The smile disappears and Grell frowns, unwilling to hide her disappointment and frustration at being interrupted. Likely invisible to the new intruder's eyes, the film reels are still spinning about her. Giles isn't dead yet, but he would be soon - he should be. "Helios, I presume?"

The noise of the chainsaw's rotating blade dies out and Grell steps in between Giles and Helios, narrowing her eyes at him. He's handsome and the frown disappears, replaced with a thin smirk. It's a ghastly sight when paired with the blood on her face and her clothes. "Aren't you pretty."

"Helios..."

Bleeding and dying, Giles nevertheless forces himself, with an almighty effort, to look away from the spinning reels of his life and look up at the figure of his best friend, racing towards them. And for one wild moment, he's not sure whether to laugh or sob. He's sure that both would be equally painful at this point, because simply existing is painful right now.

Then Giles wonders dazedly if Helios is too early. The reels of film haven't stopped spinning yet. They aren't finished. It's not until Grell steps in front of his best friend that Giles remembers the caveat to this little encounter - they only finish with his death. And if he and Grell were still alone on the shores of the lake, Giles might have bowed to the inevitable and taken a third death. But now that Helios was here?

He wouldn't put him through that. Not again. He couldn't.

"I'm alive..." He wouldn't say that he was all right. They both knew that was entirely false. But he could at least try to make sure that Helios heard his voice. "I'm alive..."

The moment of his death had already passed before his eyes. That would have to do. If Grell couldn't come up with an answer with everything she'd seen so far, then she probably never could.

Painfully, trying not to whimper loud enough for magician or death god to hear, Giles begins working to push himself back up into a sitting position. A soft growl sounds in his throat- it might just be the blood pooling in his lungs, it might not. The former Watcher reaches out to grab the hem of Grell's coat.

"L-Leave...leave him alone."

It is truly pitiably of him to be threatening Grell, now of all times, and Giles is well aware of how hopeless he must look. And even this renewed effort at speaking causes a fit of hacking coughs to seize Giles, coughs that leave more blood dotting the grass. But he doesn't like her tone of voice as she regards Helios, and the desire not to have his best friend dying in his arms again is entirely mutual.

"Y-Yes. That, that's me." Like walking into the spider's web. Now she had a face to go with his name. He'd be like a walking target for whenever she wanted to take those barriers down. But the notion is pushed back into his mind. It wasn't important right now, what was, was getting to Giles before he died of blood loss. Helios flinched taking a small tentative step backwards from Grell at those words. Not good. Is all his mind could come up with. He would have replied with something modest but it dies in his throat. The whole scene laid out before him was ghastly. His face paled as he watched Giles' futile effort to stop the death god. Those coughs only making him stir more in worry in front of both death god and best friend. He tried to show nothing, but it was all in his green eyes the worry the frightfulness.

"S-Stop! Please stop moving Giles." It was barely above a whisper and his voice betrayed his anxiety, his fear too.

There were ways to stop them. Ways to even control them in his world. It was black, black magic. Beyond the scope of what would ever be legal. But you could never outrun them, out cheat them in the end. Death. Helios swallowed thickly, "I-I need to heal him."

Helios tried sounding resolute or at least that he meant business. But it was rather shaky to be honest. He wasn't very good at sounding threatening anyway, it's a rather poor display to be honest. This definitely was not going to be his best dealings with a supernatural being, to be sure, but when your best friend lay dying on the ground one tended to get a little sloppy.

It's cute in a way. The bonds of brotherhood that lead to desperation, a last burst of heroism from a dying man, the bravery of men knowing they face something more powerful than themselves; these things are unmistakable in these two. Grell can see the intangible ties that bind them as clearly as she can see the reels of film starting to waver around her - if not as literally. The death god smiles, flashing pearly white, fearsomely sharp teeth. Teeth like knives it's been said. Sharp as her tongue sometimes.

The tug on her coat causes her to look down and Grell's smile turns to Giles as she stabs the chainsaw into the soft earth at her feet. Leaning over, she plucks his fingers from her coat hem and kneels, hugging her knees to her chest with one arm. Her other hand goes to tip his chin back with the tips of her fingers as she speaks both to him and to Helios.

"One day, Giles, you will die for real. All the unnatural magic in this world or any other will not be able to hold you together. And on that day? I shall come for you, love. So don't worry. I shall give you the most beautiful death in the world to send you to your eternal rest. You've been a terrible man in your life, a demon in your own right." Her smile never falters as she pulls away and stands, pulling the chainsaw effortlessly out of the ground to swing it up and rest it across her shoulders. "But. All for the greater good, hm? Some pathways to heroism are just more soaked in blood than others." Grell turns her green-eyed gaze to Helios, knowing that at night her eyes light up unnaturally. Rather than turn the chainsaw on him, however, Grell steps aside, motioning to the dying man with all the flourish of a trained actress. "And now it is your turn upon this glorious stage, Helios."

Giles can't help but flinch when the chainsaw is driven into the earth, there to rest for now. But otherwise? He doesn't protest Grell shaking off his hold or tilting his head back so his damaged eyes could meet her green eyes that seemed almost to be glowing in the light of dusk.

Just this once, for the first time in his surviving memory, Rupert Giles knew that he was helpless and was accepting it. It wasn't an admission of weakness, beyond the fact that he and Grell both knew very well that she was more powerful. It was simply a choice not to fight anymore, provided that she kept well back from Helios. But, then again, Grell would have seen already that Giles' friends were the caveat in a lot of agreements. Even if she hadn't seen everything, she would have seen enough, about him and his nearest and dearest. Maybe the full horror of that would sink in eventually. Maybe it wouldn't. The fact remained that she knew more about Giles than anyone still living, and that included the man who was waiting on tenterhooks just a few feet away for the opening to save Giles' life.

So, remarkably quiet and still for a man who'd just been slashed open by a Grim Reaper's tool, Giles lay still and stared up at Grell and listened, even though her voice sounded as though it was coming through about a foot of water by now. There was no real emotion in his eyes at first - "terrible man" and "demon" were words he'd come to this lake expecting to hear. The first moment of emotion, of actual shock and unguarded vulnerability, came with her last words.

"Some pathways to heroism are just more soaked in blood than others."

Ever since killing Ben that night at the tower, Giles had never allowed himself to consider that he might be a hero, a champion. He was the monster, the reaper who cleared the way for real champions and kept the blood off of their hands. He was not a hero. And maybe it was nothing more than Grell's normal flair for poetics and dramatics, but...

...it was more than he'd hoped for, more than he'd ever dared allow himself to hope for. It was hope that heaven might be a possibility, and hell not an inevitability. It was hope that he wasn't doomed to be parted from his friends forever when death finally came for him.

But he would not be Rupert Giles if he left it there, no matter how beguiling this new glow of hope was. So when he realized that Grell was getting back to her feet, Giles summoned what little breath he had left for one last effort

"H-Heaven..? I-Is it...i-is it possible?"

Not a demand. Every line in Giles' body and tone was hopefully putting forth the impression that this was simply a request for clarification. Nothing more than a lost student asking a teacher to explain a problem they hadn't prepared for. Blood loss was making him slow and clumsy, and he knew it.

Whether Grell chose to indulge that was her business, as evidenced by the fact that Giles followed up his question with a weak, breathless "thank you" before turning his attention to Helios. He kept one hand pressed over his chest, calling on what he could of Nala's power. It wouldn't help, but it also wouldn't hurt.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'd like to help you doctor, yeah I really, really would

[Voice | Unhackable]

Re: [Voice | Unhackable]

Re: [Voice | Unhackable]

Re: [Voice | Unhackable]

[Voice | Unhackable]

Re: [Voice | Unhackable] -> [Action]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

...yeah, okay, figure 1/4

I really did try to edit this down, I just suck at editing 2/4

S-Seriously, I am sorry about this 3/4

4/4 AND DONE

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject