Fic: Someone (Or, The Watcher's Night Off Continues), (Giles/Joyce), G
Title: Someone (Or, The Watcher's Night Off Continues)
Characters: Giles/Joyce (BtVS)
Setting: Season 4
Length: ~1330
Rated: G
Author's Note: Can be read as a standalone, or as Part 3 of a trio of Musical Giles shorts. The other two stories are:
- Part 1: "Lust at First Sight" (Giles, OC; Length: 572, PG).
- Part 2: "The Watcher's Night Off" (Giles; Length: 340, G).
Written for Summer of Giles. Unbeta'd since I wrote it this morning in a fit of panic. RL, yo.
Feedback: Yes, yes, YES!!! Won't you please be so kind? :)
No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
No one knows what it's like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies
- From “Behind Blue Eyes” (complete lyrics)
Someone (Or, The Watcher's Night Off Continues)
Gathering up his guitar and sheet music, Giles bowed graciously and murmured thank-you’s amidst a thunderous applause, a little dumbfounded at the warm reception. Someone wolf-whistled and another shouted, “Encore!” and he felt his face grow hot from self-consciousness. Never in a thousand years would he have anticipated this out-pour of support for his little endeavour. To a man five thousand miles away from home, this singing-songwriting was supposed to be a form of self-healing, a pastime stubbornly carved out as his own, separate and distinct from his duty and obligation.
Duty and obligation. Words he lived by. To which he’d vowed his devotion; no regrets. Words that by and large, constituted his life, leaving scant room for anything else. How nice it was to steal a moment of ordinary pleasure, on this-he glanced back at the plastic banner hung askew-“Open Mic Night” at the Espresso Pump.
No one knew what it was like to live his life-he’d been sworn to secrecy, and it simply wasn’t in his nature to overshare. If only someone did.
The crowd shifted, unsettled with boredom and anticipation as Giles snapped his guitar case shut and shuffled his sheet music into a neat pile, while the next participant set up on stage: a slender young man strapped with a saxophone and with hair long enough to obscure his eyes. Amidst all the hustle, a still figure across the room out of the corner of his eye caught his attention: Joyce, half perched on a bar-stool, with her chin slightly tilted upward as if to balance her good opinion of him, and her hands comfortably clasped in her lap.
She met his surprised eyes with a wistful smile, and stood up.
In a minute she would be before him. He fidgeted with the sheet music and considered his opening. Somehow, How are you? seemed a poor choice after pouring out one’s heart in public. Come here often? Good Lord, he still had standards! He would not sink so low as to resort to a common pickup line.
“That was beautiful.” Joyce’s voice, full of…something, echoed in his ears as a pair of low, black pumps, stepped into his line of vision.
“Thank you, Joyce,” he replied automatically. Feeling rather exposed, he looked up without looking. An explanation bubbled up and escaped his lips before he could stop himself. “Truth be told, I hadn’t anticipated being recognized. This place tends to be overrun with college students. Not exactly my scene.”
She laughed, far from the jingle of silver bells that accompanied the amusement of the 20-somethings, but a more natural crescendo that recalled a childhood memory of early morning runs through the forest. Wind rippled through the canopy like a spirit unseen, and the leaves would whisper and hum and croon, readily giving up their secrets.
His heart fluttered like a leaf at the sound of her laughter. Could he give up his secrets...to her? She’d understand, wouldn’t she? Of sacred missions and sacrifices? Of a life constructed to support something else, someone else?
“Does there exist a scene that belongs to us?” Joyce spread her arms as if to fully embrace the question. “Where’s Sunnydale been hiding people from our generation? Or has the herd of survivors of the Hellmouth been thinned too much by the time people reach middle age? Based on what tales of patrol I’ve heard from Buffy-no doubt highly selected and redacted to be judged fit for a mother’s ear-even the vampires select only the young to turn into their own kind.”
She’d silently mouthed the word vampires, and he had to force himself to look away from those expressive lips, and pry his mind from the way her teeth made a sharp indentation on her lower lip on the v sound. Was her lipstick freshly applied? And for him?
And what had she been saying? She was right, of course. The Hellmouth attracted the young, the naive, and the reckless. Relocation among people of a certain age seemed to occur only in the direction of wised up survivors escaping Sunnydale with an impressive speed as to leave vampires in the dust.
In the background, the saxophone player on stage began bellowing out a desperate tune, full of angsty rage and unfulfilled desire. Giles gestured to Joyce to follow him to the side of the stage to continue their conversation in private, and she did.
The swan song forced him to lean in close to whisper to Joyce, which he immediately regretted, the scent of her perfume-an intoxicating, heady mix of May rose and jasmine-scattering his thoughts. “An excellent observation. I’m afraid I’ve no answers to give-”
“I have hours, only lonely-I know.” Joyce quoted from his song, and the realization struck him that the flutter he’d felt in his heart had been the wings of Hope poised to take flight. All he needed now was one small step of courage, a leap of faith. Would he dare to disturb the universe, sans the dubious influence of band candy?
So why was his back stiffening, his mouth already making excuses?
“I suppose, at my age, given my sworn duty, it’s understandable to forego certain…lifestyle options.” Namely, someone to hold close, to call his own, a little family to surround oneself as one grew old… He stopped himself. There was no need to inventory what he wouldn’t have. Best to save all the emoting for his song-writing.
“Tell me...” She leaned forward, her warm, open hand finding purchase on his chest, right on top of his racing heart, and in that moment he thought he couldn’t possibly withhold anything from her, if only he could breathe again.
“Tell me why you say such things to fool yourself, when just a moment ago you’d admitted to a room full of strangers to still having dreams?” With her face tilted up toward his, he drank in the sight of her brown eyes glittering like honeyed tea. And if he should drown-oh, but it would be such a sweet way to go.
He’d amassed so many lies over the years, and told each one to himself first. “Force of habit, possibly,” he muttered.
Not enough of a reason. Not nearly good enough. The mission had drained so much of him. Had he anything left to give? That thought proved unbearable, and so he took her mouth instead, with a devastating gentleness that belied his passion.
Making out behind the curtain of a make-shift stage at the local cafe’s Open Mic Night? Turned out, it was exactly what was missing from his life, what he needed to rekindle his passion for life.
When they finally, reluctantly broke away from the kiss for want of air, they both fell victim to a fit of giggles. The air between them felt hot and energized, the end of that kiss promising so many more, yet to come.
Out of nowhere, Buffy’s dating advice from years ago popped into his head. Yes! He did have a thing and Joyce most certainly had a thing and maybe together they could have a thing! He’d have to remember to thank that dear girl. He grabbed Joyce’s hand to bring to his lips for an exaggerated kiss.
“Joyce! Do you like Mexican?” Unable to contain his excitement, he shouted over a lingering, comically torturous note from the saxophone.
“Mexican? Wha- Uhm, are you talking dinner?” She laughed a full-body laugh, her shoulders quaking, her eyes crinkling, and her curls caressing her forehead in an intimacy that left him envious.
“For a start. I simply find myself ravenous.” He cocked one brow and embedded just a hint of Ripper into the last word, and found immense satisfaction in the way she blushed.
“Oh, I’m game!” she said with matching enthusiasm.
“Well, then, come on then!” He slung the guitar case over one shoulder, and held out his hand. A genuine smile broke out on his face as she twined their fingers together. “The night is still young.”
(The end, or, knowing me, TBC?) ;)
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End notes: The clip of Giles singing "Behind Blue Eyes", in episode "Where the Wild Things Are", can be seen on YouTube here.