Buffy Fic - Maybe tomorrow 2/5
They stayed in the pub past last orders and then took a cab to an apartment the council kept in Mayfair, calling briefly at an overpriced off-licence on the way for slightly drunken snacks and bottles of red wine.
The décor of the place was rich, overwhelmingly so, deep hues of red and umber, dark woods and a smattering of shade loving plants. It wasn’t him. He set several of the wine bottles in a rack above one of the kitchen benches.
“Average Australian fare but it’ll do, I’m oftimes guilty of depleting the reserves,”
“Nice for a bolthole,” Willow commented as she look around, “big fans of the Morocco vibe I see.”
“We seem to be drawing more charitable investment now that less one-sided results and tangible forces for good are in play,” he explained as he opened a bottle and fetched glasses from a cupboard.
“Nice to know we’re not so alone anymore,” she rubbed at her neck with one hand as he handed her a glass.
“So why are things fine?” Giles enquired as she sank onto a couch and tucked her feet up, he coming to sit in an armchair opposite her.
“I knew you weren’t going to let that drop,” she smiled at him. “Lotsa reasons I guess, work gets in the way,”
“Hiding behind your work is very often a smokescreen for more deepseeded issues,” he raised his glass at her.
“I think my relationships can make her uneasy or unhappy, moreso even than my past. It’s just a raw spot of jealousy we come around to from time to time, nothing I haven’t dealt with before now. It’s just Buffy and Xander and you, you all have…are a part of me that she wasn’t there for, and I think she’ll always feel a little left out of that,” she explained, brow furrowed.
“Well few could rival the bond you have with Buffy or Xander, even fewer would want to have experienced the history you’ve been through. I suppose it should be taken as a good thing that she wishes to be closer to you,” he mused over the positives.
“You’re right, I know, it’s just how she feels sometimes - she seems to have this odd irrational fear that somehow my love for both of them is symbolic of this great rift in my sexuality,”
“Sounds more ominous than the hellmouth, forgive me for saying so but I thought your predilections were firmly fixed upon those of the female persuasion,” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Then what was Oz?” She answered with a thoughtful expression. He often forgot how much each of them had dealt with, come to terms with, defined in their own ways - bereft of the support of anything resembling normality.
“A werewolf last I checked,” he responded dryly. She looked like she would have laughed but instead opted for a weighty sigh,
“I always had to be one thing or the other, clearly defined, black and white, right and wrong, good girl, bad girl, square shut in, apocalyptic, world-destroying witch, straight, gay. Y’know there are a lot more grey areas in life than I’m comfortable with - bananas outside of scheduled lunchtimes,” she waved her wine glass about as she reeled off the list.
“I know the feeling, except perhaps the banana portion,” he empathised, scratching the side of his jaw.
“I hoped you might,” she nodded. There was some weight to the remark.
“Meaning what exactly?” He asked carefully.
“Did you and Ethan…ever…?” she paused and he glanced idly at the fingernails on one hand. Buffy had asked him the same question before now, he’d lied to her when she was younger, unsure of how she would react, a wrong he’d righted in more recent years. Willow of all people indeed had the right to know.
“Yes…as it happens…” he paused, old memories flickering back at him, she seemed relieved and smiled kindly and a little foggily at him. “More wine I think,” he remarked absently, looking down through the scarlet ebb in the base of his glass and swirling the motes of sediment.
“Was it serious?” She asked him as he got up to fetch the bottle.
“The age we were, the person I was, I’m not sure if I really took anything seriously. The whole thing was so terribly cavalier, more wrapped up in our machinations against one another,” He explained as he opened another bottle, “But it was fun too, free and liberating - but at a cost, people come to distrust you, are ever wary of you, they’re never comfortable with things they can’t readily categorise or pigeonhole,” he did his best to clarify as he poured another healthy glass.
“One thing or another,” Willow nodded, repeating her own words.
“Indeed, I think it speaks more of their own fears and allaying those for them seems to be part of the bargain.” The many reasons he and Olivia hadn’t worked out sprung quickly to mind.
“I get tired of doing that sometimes - justifying thoughts…feelings…”
“You feel backed into a corner?” He put to her delicately as he came to sit back down.
“At times, other times things are perfect…voraciously perfect even…there are just times when I get tired and I miss what things used to be like, which is insane - on many levels, but I liked our unruly band of teenagers,” She sighed somewhat wistfully.
“As did I,” he nodded quietly, “as did I.”
Section 3.