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naoa-ao3 · 9 months

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My Generation

The years had not been bad. Oh, there had been hard ships but nothing they hadn't been able to handle.

For Giles, he didn't regret any of them. He had a family and an interesting life. A long one in fact but as always, the past never truly went away.

He had forgotten to check his letter box that morning and it didn't occur to him to do so until late that evening. When he did, there wasn't much. An add, a notice from the Slayers. They wanted his advice. He set that aside. Another add. And then. . . a personal letter. He turned it over curiously. He seldom received letters any more. The kids. . . well they weren't really kids anymore, but they never sent letters. They texted and called or simply dropped by unannounced.

Amused he set the others aside and opened the letter. A lost art, he thought. Structuring a letter, penmanship, addressing. No one kept address books any more. This one had a name he didn't recognize on the return address.

Sitting down he slit it open and unfolded it.

"Dear Rupert,

I assumed you wouldn't open this unless I used a pseudonym and rather than take the risk I chose to go ahead and do so. So here I give you the big reveal, this letter comes from your dear old friend Ethan.

Now before you put it down I assure you it's in no way cursed. Well, perhaps for the postman. His night should be very interesting but for you it's safe. I need you safe old friend because I need to speak with you. Nothing serious, just two old friends and a drink. The address is real enough and you should be able to find me. I'm sure you've already decided to throw this away and not come but I assure you I'll be on my best behavior and I ask this now as humbly as I know how to. I want to see you. No tricks, no chaos, no lies or silly pranks. I will behave. I'm too old for a row anyway and from what I hear your back couldn't take it. But jokes aside I will be good if only you'll come. I'm old now my friend and I'm doing what old men do best, calling upon their remaining friends to relive the glory days. Do me a favour and give me this one night. I don't plan to bother you again. If you're willing, meet me at a pub called the Green Goat. It's in the town I'm staying at. It should be easy to find. I'll be there the night of the 22nd. Please come old friend.

P.S.

If you come I will lift the curse on the postman."

Giles rubbed his eyes. the letter had been rather touching up until the postage stamp. No tricks. Well, leave it to Ethan to give that his own meaning. He reread the letter and considered the idea. Perhaps Ethan had changed in his old age. The idea was preposterous. Old age be damned, people only changed because they wanted to and no part of him believed Ethan had ever wanted to change. He read it again. For all of Ethan's niceties he wasn't really being given a choice. He would go. He wondered if he would have gone if the postman hadn't been involved but no answer came to him. Perhaps, perhaps not. It didn't really mater. He would go. Checking the letter, he made a mental count, the 22nd was in four days. He hoped whatever was happening to the postman wasn't so bad.

And so, on the 22nd Giles found himself outside of the Green Goat looking up at the sign. Not an authentic. Made to look it yes, but a 20th century creation. He glanced in the windows but did not see Ethan. A figure in the back might have been him but he was sitting with his back to the window. Giles griped his cane and sighed. Feeling there was nothing for it he stepped in.

The decor was quaint, warm even. He found it appropriate and not too cramped. Scanning the faces, an old man caught his eyes and he realized he had been searching for a much younger face. After looking for a moment he realized that this was indeed Ethan. A grey haired old man with wicked, laughing eyes. The eyes gave him away.

He sat down opposite and cleared his throat. "Lift the curse, Ethan."

Ethan laughed. "Hello to you too, Ripper."

"The postman. . ."

"Already done. I had a spell alert me when you stepped into town."

Feeling more comfortable Giles sat back. "What do you want Ethan?"

Ethan twitched slightly, seemingly annoyed by his directness. Giles figured he'd probably wanted to make a dramatic entrance. "Just calling up an old friend. I don't think that's so wrong."

"Black mailing your old friends isn't quite the same thing."

"I didn't trust you'd come."

Giles nodded, that was fair. Well, not fair to the postman but assuming he would have come was. "And why are you calling me?"

Ethan laughed and motioned for a waitress. "A pitcher dear, and two glasses. The beer here's rather good."

"You're not answering the question."

Ethan paused a moment, irritated again by Giles's directness. "You never had any tolerance for theatrics. It was always one of your more boring traits. Very well. . . I had a whole dialogue worked out you know, but there you go again ruining things for me-"

"Ethan!"

Another look of annoyance. "Very well. . . I've got cancer." Giles's eyes widened. He had not been expecting something so. . . well. . . mundane. "Pancreatic."

"Pan. . ." Really, he had no idea what to say. Problems with demons, a pact with the devil. . . anything but this. "Ethan. . ."

"Oh, don't look at me like that. I don't need pity and you're dying too, just a little slower."

"R-really I- I don't know what to say. . ."

Ethan waved a hand dramatically. "Pft. I didn't call you here to discuss that. Terribly boring really."

"Ethan, have you tried treatments?"

A look of amusement. "Really Rupert, how well do you know me? I'm not going to spend my last days in a hospital on the half chance that one of their blasted treatments will cure me. I've always hated hospitals and I'm not a young man. I've only got maybe ten years left. Without the cancer that is. Why waste them?"

"There would have been a chance. . ."

"A chance. I didn't feel particularly inclined to try on a chance."

Giles looked down at his hands. "How long?"

"Do I have left? A couple months. The doctors said six. That was two ago. I know I'm dying. I can feel it."

"Ethan. . ."

"But again, I didn't call you to have you pity me."

"I don't pity you, I feel sorry for you. It's not the same thing."

"Well don't. We haven't even seen each other in almost thirty years. As I recall you handed me off to the Hitler Youth rather easily the last time I saw you."

Giles felt his jaw tighten. "You had turned me into a demon."

"All in good fun."

"My Slayer nearly killed me."

But Ethan had moved his beer to the side and had leaned across the table, smiling. "We did have our fun though, didn't we Ripper?"

Giles met his eyes but couldn't muster the energy to be as cold as he had wanted. "I don't know if I'd say your trying to kill me was especially fun."

"Oh please, remember the costumes? You can't tell me you didn't enjoy beating me that night."

Giles looked away. "Ethan. . ."

"The old Ripper came out that night. But then he never really went away, did he? You enjoyed hurting me."

"I was young. You've clung to the mistakes of my youth for decades."

"The mistakes. . . I saw you at your most free. Wild, uncaring, cruel to the world. No refinement but you had a chaos in you I've never been able to rival. A hatred."

"There's no one even left to remember it." Giles said quietly.

"No, there's not. Only you and me and we're, alone aren't we? No families, no children. No real friends."

Giles looked at him coldly. "I have a family. I have children. I have three. A daughter who became the strongest woman I have ever known, a girl who is one of the most powerful witches in the world and a boy who never quite realized just how brilliant he actually was. I had three wonderful children and they're my family. You could have had that Ethan."

For a moment, Ethan looked sad and the old face before him was twisted. "Come on Giles. . . it wasn't for me."

"Then what was? Your chaos gods? Where are they now?"

Rather than anger, amusement flickered in Ethan's eyes. "They don't grant mercy. They don't have compassion and I never expected such from them. I'm not a fool, I knew what I was getting in to. You felt their power once."

"That was years ago."

"Yes, a time gone by I suppose. We're old men now, no matter how much we hate it."

"I've never hated growing old."

"Oh please. I know you Ripper. The Watchers wanted to be old. They wanted to be old as boys but you. . . you weren't like the rest of them. You had fire in you. Anger. They could never understand that, the pompous stuffed shirts. You were alive."

"I was young."

"Yes and you had fun, didn't you? Didn't we?"

"Ethan I was so young. . ." He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Don't be like them old friend. Don't be boring. It's the worst thing a person can be. I'm dying and I've got more life in me than they ever had."

"Ethan, you hurt people."

"Yes, and you did too."

"I stopped. I was a child rebelling! I'm an old man now, why are you bringing this up? Why are you so fixated on who I was fifty years ago?!" "Because I know who you really are and if I die knowing you lived the rest of your life denying who you are then it was all pointless."

"Pointles. . .?"

"So much wasted. You spent so long pretending. Being one of them when you never really were. "

"I don't know what you think I was. I grew up. I stopped being selfish."

"Yes you put on a suit and patches on your elbows and you stopped being exciting. My blood used to rush when you'd come over. All attitude and anger. Your eyes would glint with it. It was wonderful. It was intoxicating. I never knew what you would do. I used to say to people, let's go find Ripper, he'll make this night exciting."

"I was a child. People grow up."

"But they don't need to lie to themselves. You could change the way you dressed and the magic you preformed, you could speak all posh and make your father happy but I knew the truth and I saw it when I visited you in Sunnydale. You hadn't really changed. The anger was still there."

"Ethan you're dying, I don't want to talk about this."

"Then what do you want to talk about? My illness? My health? Because I don't."

"I don't know what you want from me."

Ethan paused. "It's lonely dying. The children never visit."

Giles raised his eyebrows in pity. "Mine do, Ethan."

"Yes, yours do." He snorted. "You didn't do badly did you? That girl, that Slayer. . . I knew you loved her. I could tell. In the way only a father could."

"I do love her. She's grown into a more wonderful woman than I could have ever hoped. I doubt even half of that's because of me."

"Probably not." Ethan laughed. Giles let it slide as the man's own bad humor. "I liked playing with you Ripper. We had our fun."

Giles looked down and sighed. "We did." He looked up and saw a spark in Ethan's eyes. It meant nothing, he was simply giving an old man what he wanted. He could admit it to Ethan if not to himself. "Perhaps it's best it all dies with us. All of our friends are dead."

"Well, the sordid dealings of two old men are meant to be forgotten. Give it two generations and we'll be only a blip in history. Hardly worth mentioning if anyone remembers at all."

"I would have thought that would have bothered you."

Ethan shrugged and Giles realized just how old he looked. Somehow, he was still seeing the boy he had first known. He wondered if Ethan felt the same. "I always try not to be predictable."

"An annoying habit."

"You once found it not so."

"Yes, and I was young and stupid."

Ethan smiled slightly. "You don't give me much, Ripper but I'll take the bones I can get."

"That's all your getting. Let it die Ethan. Let the past die. All of your tricks and all of my mistakes. No one needs to remember them."

"We're on death's door, Rupert and you're still ashamed."

"Our friends died."

"Yes, and I've made peace with that."

"It's not about making peace. You continued to use black magic."

"I worship chaos. I always have."

"Ethan, why did you call me here? To tell me you're dying? To bring up the past? It's pointless. I'm not who I was when I was sixteen and neither are you. Just die with dignity."

Ethan scowled. "Die with dignity? There's no dignity in death. I mean I'm sure there will be for you but I don't want it."

"Then I can't help you."

Ethan nodded, looking almost serene and for a moment they sat drinking in silence. "What do you think they see when they look at us?" Ethan asked after a while, gesturing towards the younger people in the pub.

Giles was startled and he looked around to see if anyone was watching. "I-I don't. . ."

Ethan laughed. "Calm down, I'm not asking if they see a pair of old queens. What do the young people think when they see two old men drinking together? I know what I thought when I was their age. Useless old pensioners, forever whining that the world had gone and changed on them. I thought it was pointless, their sticking around. It was my time to be young. The world had passed to me. I wonder what these people see when they look at us. The girls think the old are cute and the boys think 'that'll never be me'. They don't think about who we were. If we're still those people. We're relics to them. They don't think about the lives we've lived or the horrible things we've done. Just sweet old men, waiting to die."

"How very gloomy. never really gave them much thought, so long as they weren't telling me what to do." Giles allowed a small smile.

"Your hatred for being told what to do was always magnificent I doubt the young people today have that fire."

"Yes well. . . the world's passed to them. It isn't ours anymore."

"I don't particularly feel inclined to let it go. . ." Ethan huffed.

"I don't think we get a choice."

"I hate being old. My back hurts, my fingers don't work as well as they used to. I'm always cold. What have you got the cane for?"

"My knees aren't what they used to be."

"Horrid. Do you remember the song? Roger Daltrey, Hope I die before I get old? What was it called? The Who sang it?"

"My Generation." Giles smiled faintly.

"Do you think any of these people know that song?"

Giles glanced around. "Perhaps one or two."

"You were always good with a guitar. I'm not saying you were Clapton but you were quite good."

"I was rather proud of it." Another moment passed and Giles sighed. "It's getting late Ethan and I've got a long drive back. My eye sight isn't as good and driving in the dark makes me nervous. I think we should say good night on a positive note."

Ethan made a slight face but nodded. "I suppose."

Neither one of them made a move to get up and they finished their last drinks in silence before Giles finally tore himself out of the moment. "I suppose this wasn't such a bad meeting. I haven't turned into a demon yet."

"Give it time."

He glanced at Ethan sharply but Ethan raised both hands. "Just a little joke. I promised to behave and as much as it disgusts me I have." The laughter in his eyes died as Giles stood to leave. Ethan grabbed his wrist suddenly, eyes looking panicked. "Visit me before the end. Please Rupert. I'm only human and I'm alone."

Giles gave him a considering look before nodding. "Alright. Until then, Ethan." He left his old friend sitting there, he wouldn't visit. He knew that. Ethan probably knew that but he had said he would and sometimes that was all people needed to hear. He hoped it was enough but he didn't think he could bare to see the man again. Too much between them, too much past, too much anger. He couldn't do it.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He tried not to think about it as the months passed but when four had come and gone and then a fifth he began to make peace with it. Ethan was dead and he was the last of his old friends left. Well, it was as it should be.

Around a year later however he found himself in London and as he was catching a cab back to his flat he stopped. Across the street, amidst the crowd. . . it couldn't have been. . . but he was sure it was. It was Ethan and the man caught his eye and smiled wickedly, waving. Giles felt his jaw drop as the face twisted into a grotesque parody of its former self. A vampire's smile.

Ethan was a vampire. Had he been in the Green Goat? He doubted it. As the figure across the street disappeared he shut his mouth. Of course, Ethan had always been a coward and. . . well it was unexpected. He shook his head, stomach feeling sick.

"You getting' in or not?" The cabbie snapped, pulling him from his trance.

He coughed slightly and climbed in. Ethan had evaded death.

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