beer_good_foamy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beer_good_foamy) wrote2019-07-14 09:50 pm
beer_good_foamy) wrote2019-07-14 09:50 pm
Entry tags:
Ficlet: Give My Love To London (BtVS)
OK, so here's the first instalment of my ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
buffyversebingo card, checking off the box "Tradition".
Title: Give My Love To London
Author: Beer Good (beer_good_foamy)
Fandom: Buffy, pre-series
Pairing: Giles/Ethan
Rating: PG13
Word count: ~600
Summary: The morning after Giles drops out of Watcher school and joins Ethan in London, he thinks about what he's escaping.
"Not my circus, not my monkey."
- Polish proverb
Give My Love To London
Ethan stirs as Rupert untangles himself from the sheets and rummages through the clothes and junk on the floor for some cigarettes. The flat is cold and damp and he really doesn't want to leave the warmth of the bed, especially with a hangover that's just starting to put on a party in his head. Ah, there they are. He lights one, takes a drag, then passes it to Ethan who's just sitting up and sneaking an arm around his waist.
"When did you last clean this place, anyway?" he asks as he leans back into Ethan's skinny body for some warmth. Not that there's much to clean in the tiny loft. A mattress, a bookshelf (Ethan's into mythology; not magic, not yet) and a small table with one chair and an electric kettle. Giles is still not sure he's ever seen Ethan actually eat. After he met Giles at the train station yesterday they went on a bender to celebrate his new Londonerdom, through increasingly small, dark and dingy places, meeting up with increasingly disreputable friends of Ethan's, but he doesn't remember food featuring at all.
"After last night, I could have sworn you liked it dirty." Ethan laughs and takes a drag, then coughs. "God, I'm as hungover as you look. Mind if we skip breakfast? We can stop by a pub when we go pick up your bags."
"Fine by me." Right, they'd left his bags at Paddington. He'd been trying to remember if he'd dragged them out on the town and lost them. Not that there was a lot in there he'd need now, he supposed. At some point he'd probably need to get a flat of his own, but right now this felt good. He couldn't get further from Oxford than this.
"Unless..." Ethan is being very casual. "I mean, if you're sure you - "
"Oh, for fuck's sake." Giles turns and kisses him. "If you had any idea how sick I am of Oxford. I swear, it's still the fourteenth century up there, and I'm never setting foot there again if I can help it. Last night was..." He grinned. "Do you know how long I've had this hanging over me? My whole damn life I've been told I have to go to Oxford and study - uh, history."
"Like your father before you, and his father before him, all the way back to William the Conqueror...", Ethan sing-songs.
"My grandmother, actually."
"Bet she was a proper old lady, eh? Tea and scones and - "
"She died when I was five. I hardly remember her." Giles lights another cigarette and thinks back. "I didn't even get to go to the funeral, I had to stay home with a babysitter..." He hasn't thought about that in years. He remembers the girl being sad, and he remembers he never saw her again.
He remembers that he wanted her to play with him and she just wanted him to sit still so she could "watch the windows", which felt like a really boring game. Then she'd sent him to bed very early.
He doesn't remember her name, but he realises for the first time who she was.
He wonders if she'd wanted to be at her Watcher's funeral, and what it says about how his grandmother died that she had to watch her grandson instead.
He wonders how close he came to dying that night. How long she lived after.
Then he shrugs, stubs out the cigarette in a beer can and pulls on his pants. Not his problem anymore. "Fuck it. Pub. Then bags. I think I've got some books in there you might like."
buffyversebingo card, checking off the box "Tradition". Title: Give My Love To London
Author: Beer Good (
beer_good_foamy)Fandom: Buffy, pre-series
Pairing: Giles/Ethan
Rating: PG13
Word count: ~600
Summary: The morning after Giles drops out of Watcher school and joins Ethan in London, he thinks about what he's escaping.
"Not my circus, not my monkey."
- Polish proverb
Give My Love To London
Ethan stirs as Rupert untangles himself from the sheets and rummages through the clothes and junk on the floor for some cigarettes. The flat is cold and damp and he really doesn't want to leave the warmth of the bed, especially with a hangover that's just starting to put on a party in his head. Ah, there they are. He lights one, takes a drag, then passes it to Ethan who's just sitting up and sneaking an arm around his waist.
"When did you last clean this place, anyway?" he asks as he leans back into Ethan's skinny body for some warmth. Not that there's much to clean in the tiny loft. A mattress, a bookshelf (Ethan's into mythology; not magic, not yet) and a small table with one chair and an electric kettle. Giles is still not sure he's ever seen Ethan actually eat. After he met Giles at the train station yesterday they went on a bender to celebrate his new Londonerdom, through increasingly small, dark and dingy places, meeting up with increasingly disreputable friends of Ethan's, but he doesn't remember food featuring at all.
"After last night, I could have sworn you liked it dirty." Ethan laughs and takes a drag, then coughs. "God, I'm as hungover as you look. Mind if we skip breakfast? We can stop by a pub when we go pick up your bags."
"Fine by me." Right, they'd left his bags at Paddington. He'd been trying to remember if he'd dragged them out on the town and lost them. Not that there was a lot in there he'd need now, he supposed. At some point he'd probably need to get a flat of his own, but right now this felt good. He couldn't get further from Oxford than this.
"Unless..." Ethan is being very casual. "I mean, if you're sure you - "
"Oh, for fuck's sake." Giles turns and kisses him. "If you had any idea how sick I am of Oxford. I swear, it's still the fourteenth century up there, and I'm never setting foot there again if I can help it. Last night was..." He grinned. "Do you know how long I've had this hanging over me? My whole damn life I've been told I have to go to Oxford and study - uh, history."
"Like your father before you, and his father before him, all the way back to William the Conqueror...", Ethan sing-songs.
"My grandmother, actually."
"Bet she was a proper old lady, eh? Tea and scones and - "
"She died when I was five. I hardly remember her." Giles lights another cigarette and thinks back. "I didn't even get to go to the funeral, I had to stay home with a babysitter..." He hasn't thought about that in years. He remembers the girl being sad, and he remembers he never saw her again.
He remembers that he wanted her to play with him and she just wanted him to sit still so she could "watch the windows", which felt like a really boring game. Then she'd sent him to bed very early.
He doesn't remember her name, but he realises for the first time who she was.
He wonders if she'd wanted to be at her Watcher's funeral, and what it says about how his grandmother died that she had to watch her grandson instead.
He wonders how close he came to dying that night. How long she lived after.
Then he shrugs, stubs out the cigarette in a beer can and pulls on his pants. Not his problem anymore. "Fuck it. Pub. Then bags. I think I've got some books in there you might like."
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Omelas is such a good short story, I wouldn't presume to compare this. But yeah, having that bit of guilt gnawing away at the back of his head would probably explain both the sex & drugs & rock'n'roll and the tweed suits.