(no subject)

[consultmybooks]

No, I don't care how much you can "infer" from recent events. There is by no means enough information to play me from my, um, my younger days. Especially the days before the coven. And, quite frankly, I hope it stays that way. It's bad enough being dragged from place to place as I am now. I assure you, I would have handled it badly back then.

Besides...it's a time in my life you have no business having your hands on, and that is that.

And I wish you would stop waiting to see if I'm going to be brought back. Even if I am, it will all go catastrophically wrong somehow. Such things always do, especially considering just who is spearheading the insanity and just how he's going about it. The fact that Willow is on board, um, d-doesn't actually reassure me in the slightest.

Comments

[pensiveface]

[ RUDE! Okay, so not really. His plan to resurrect you is insane. There is no other word for it. But he's trying to make amends, and right now he isn't thinking about the consequences or the possibility that his plan will probably go horribly wrong. ]

Um, do you mean before you were dragged off to the Watcher's academy, whilst you were a Watcher in training, or shortly after you left the Watcher's Council after they forced you and a few others to fight a vampire that...wasn't actually a vampire at all?

[consultmybooks]

[Giles looks utterly unapologetic at his rudeness, if it can be called that. He's not interested in Angel making amends. He's interested in Angel suffering. The vampire has taken so much from him over the years, not just his life, that he could never make amends to Giles.

It was different with Buffy. Giles will never, never deny that the world needs Buffy, and is better for having her in it. But if they'd been dealing with a world without magic, at the time...he might have.

And the knowledge that Angel is collecting his memories like bottle caps - becoming Giles, in a way, when Giles can't be there for the ones he loves anymore - is just one more slap in the face.]

...the third one, is what seems to most have her attention. Afterwards, I mean. My, um, my feelings on the entire general period remain the same, however. For what it's worth.

[pensiveface]

[ It's incredibly difficult for him to stand in front of Giles and look him in the eye, and it's even harder to talk to him. Even if he does manage to do the impossible he will never forgive himself for what he did to Giles. How can he?

As he listens to what Giles has to say, Angel manages to keep a calm, unwavering exterior but on the inside he's shaking and wondering about just how long exactly can he continue to force himself to look Giles in the eye ]

Can't you talk her out of it? I mean, surely she wouldn't want you to suffer all over again, right?

[ Folding his arms across his chest his eyes briefly focus on the ground beneath his feet.

He really shouldn't be attempting to talk to Giles at all. He should be begging for the forgiveness that he doesn't deserve, but needs. ]

[consultmybooks]

...you must be new at this.

[He almost, almost pities the vampire for this display of what he sees as genuine naivety. Not want him to suffer all over again? Angel really doesn't realize that that's the point? That that's always the point?]

The, um, the suffering would be part of the appeal. That's part of why she enjoys making use of the point of my death, actually, and the thought that you might succeed.

[Because if even Buffy couldn't hold up against the trauma and the wrongness of a resurrection, Giles genuinely doesn't have much faith in his own ability to cope. What's dead should stay dead. No matter how much he might want to be back in the world, be alive, see everyone again...it wouldn't work, and it shouldn't be done, and he knows that.]

That and, um, well...whenever I get sent somewhere, I understandably don't want to go home.

[Or he does, but...he knows there's no point. He knows what always happens, when he leaves another world.]

[pensiveface]

I suppose I am.

[ Unfolding his arms, Angel's head snaps. When he looks at Giles his expression grows serious. ]

I will bring you back. I promise. The world needs you. It can't be repaired without you.

[ He isn't going to give up his insane quest. When he's set his mind on something he won't give up until he's done whatever it is he's set out to do.

A part of him knows that being wrapped up in himself, obsessing over something or someone isn't a good thing, but he just can't seem to help it.

He's a complicated guy with a craptastic life, okay? ]

That must be difficult for you.

[ Shuffling uncomfortably on the spot, Angel draws in an unnecessary breath before offering the former Watcher a sympathetic look. ]

But when I resurrect you then you'll have a home to return to. And you'll be able to see Faith and-- [ Buffy. he can't bring himself to say her name. It would be too painful for him. Besides, there's a 99.9% chance that Giles will know the name he wanted to say but couldn't. ]

[dieneidio]

I heard you were a lot of fun in your younger days! Mind you, that is not actually how it was described so much as my generous interpretation of the information at hand.

[ enfys this is none of your bussssinessssss but your typist is too lazy to log into ethan's account. ]

[consultmybooks]

Whatever information you have at hand is either incomplete, or your "generous" interpretation defies all logic.

[Or you have a typist's view of what is "fun". Even before finding Eyghon, Giles was not "fun". His classmates, all but Colette, had all been more than happy to tell him so. Repeatedly.

Enfys, you are, quite simply, strange.]

[dieneidio]

[ slayers tend to be, each in their own special way; a slayer who'd nearly become a Watcher, once, probably has a leg up in the 'what the fuck is wrong with you' department. the way she sees it. ]

It's pretty good logic, given the facts what I had to hand at the time, and the fact I was about twelve. 'Whatever bloke makes that prick in the suit yell so hard into the phone is probably a rockstar'.

[consultmybooks]

...you'll have to be a bit more specific, I'm afraid. For one, I have no idea when you were last twelve and, um, for another, I tend to make a great many people yell into the phone.

[dieneidio]

Something like '97, probably! Round abouts. Something something rewarding bad behaviour something Council argh something. What a cockhobbit.

[ Enfys. ]

[technojanna]

There's being sensible, Rupert, and then there's just being a pessimist.

[consultmybooks]

[...wow. And here Giles was just thinking about the other girl who he let get away. With "get away" in this case being equivalent to "be brutally murdered".

His expression softens just a bit from the mingled anger and misery that seem so often to weigh on him these days.]

I'm afraid you'll have to enlighten me on, um, just what exactly I'm being so pessimistic about. As it stands, I can only see it as anticipating the worst to come. Not unlike what my life used to consist of normally.

[Back when he had a life.]

[technojanna]

[Her smile is sad, but her voice is firm.] The worst is always possible. That doesn't mean it always happens.

Your life wasn't all bad. [It's a gentle reminder, not an admonishment.] And there was always hope.

[consultmybooks]

Always? No. [But with rather alarming frequency, all the same. And, when it had, it had always taken him far too long to recover. Better to brace himself for the worst and have it not happen, than to be caught unprepared and useless again.] I suppose not. There were, um, certainly good times.

And...well, um, compared to most Watchers, I suppose my life wasn't all that bad. [But after a while, it had seemed as though the good was always just a prelude to the worst. The perfect example of that is standing in front of him now.] At the least, um, I outlived them all, in the end. Certainly surpassed the average lifespan for a Watcher in the field by a good margin.

[technojanna]

You're a little bit extraordinary, that way. [Her voice is lightly fond, but she's utterly serious.]

See, that's exactly why this could work. Everyone involved - they're not your average players.

[noshrimp]

I would like to learn more about your morally ambiguous past. It only seems fair, considering how much I've told you about my vengeance days.

[consultmybooks]

[Oh, Anya...]

A great deal of what I know of your, um, vengeance demon days were recorded in a book, or revealed by you of what I can only assume was your own volition.

My past, for all that it was...yes, a rather morally ambiguous time... [In Giles' mind, that's a polite phrasing for Anya.] ...wasn't half the scale of yours'. [And, needless to say, Giles and Anya tend to be on opposite sides of the sharing spectrum.] Not a matter of public record, as it were.

[noshrimp]

[It's only polite because it implicates herself as well.]

I have secrets that never made it to print, Giles. I wasn't a maim-and-tell demon. Besides, I'm sure at least someone with too much time on their hands wrote something about your magical hooliganism.

[consultmybooks]

If anyone is still alive to have done so, I suppose they might have. Um, stranger things have happened.

[He would be very, very surprised if this were the case, however. Old age and monsters together can conspire to rack up quite a body count.

...and then, because morbid curiosity is a thing for Watchers:] Do you? [Anya? Have secrets about her vengeance days that she hadn't shared with the world? It's probably bad of him to be surprised, but Giles is surprised.]

[noshrimp]

Secrets? Yes. Well, most of them aren't really secrets. Xander and Halfrek know most of them, as does D'Hoffryn I imagine. If you had asked about them, I would have likely told you.

[She thinks about some secret to tell him; of course, there's the whole issue with Cordelia's wish, but she doesn't feel like elaborating on that quite yet.]

Oh! Did I ever mention how I was partially responsible for the Russian revolution?

[idolstolemylook]

Dunno, Rupert. Have a feeling I'd have liked you better, back then.

[consultmybooks]

Spike, there is literally no point in my life where the feeling would have been mutual.

[Even when he'd parted company with the Watcher's Council, he'd known vampires to be evil. Not quite as evil as a Lorophage demon, perhaps, but still dangerous and still worthy of a good dusting.]

[idolstolemylook]

[Eyeroll]

After all we've been through, Giles?

[consultmybooks]

Am I grateful to you for sacrificing your life to close the Hellmouth and later spiriting us away from imminent death in a spaceship run by overlarge cockroaches? Yes. Very honorable and heroic, all things considered.

[Does he think you're more genuinely heroic than Angel? Yes.]

That does not mean I'm going to enjoy your company, Spike.

[idolstolemylook]

Cock--

No, actually, don't want to spoil the surprise. But ah well. Suppose one can't have everything in this life.