The Guy Thing--Part 5
Part 5: Catalyst
Giles, grateful that the shop was relatively quiet of a Thursday evening, sat reading through a copy of 'Chronicles of a Slayer Fortold' which he had found among the books that the previous proprietor of the magic shop had left in the storeroom. He was reading it more out of academic interest, since the author seemed unable to distinguish between reality and certain, ahem, fantasy elements of the whole slayer mythos. He imagined that at some point the author had occasion to listen to a vampire who was enjoying having a go at him. Giles was rather enjoying both the stilted Victorian prose, and the delicious feeling of superiority he got from finding the next howling error in the text.
Giles looked up from the tome as Buffy came out of the work-out room and wiped her face with the towel hanging around her neck, and grabbed the water bottle off the counter, taking a healthy swallow. She grinned over at Anya, who was assiduously adjusting the prices on the tags of the most popular items in the store. Adjusting them upwards.
Giles had asked her if she thought that prices were infintely elastic. Anya smiled and shrugged, and had told him that if people wanted the things they would give more money for them. "I like it when they give me more money". Giles glared at her, and she quickly revised her statement, "You, they give *you* more money, and then you have more money to give me."
Buffy and Giles exchanged grins. Life was simple in the Anyaverse: Get money from Giles, and orgasms from Xander.
Buffy, having caught her breath, asked, "Xander still at work?"
Anya shook her head, "No, he's out doing guy stuff."
"By himself?"
Anya thought a moment, "I don't think you can do guy stuff by yourself, I think you need guys plural to do guy stuff."
"Who with, then?"
"Riley."
"What kind of guy stuff?" Buffy asked as she sat on the stool across from where Anya was working. Comparing boyfriends was usually a safe topic with Anya, although she was often the mistress of too much information. But that could be amusing, and provided ammunition for Xander-taunting, should the need arise, which it usually did.
Anya shrugged. "It seems to involve lots of bad food, bottled beverages, and watching guys in funny clothes playing on television."
"Playing?"
Anya nodded, "You know, playing games like basketball and football and monopoly. Wait, not monopoly. But poker *is* involved somehow, but I'm not quite sure how."
"Riley and Xander are hanging out a lot these days…"
Anya nodded and looked at Buffy. "Xander explained it to me. It has to do with doing things you can’t do with your girlfriend."
Buffy nodded. v
Giles suddenly looked up at the two, and uttered a slient "Oh, dear."
He looked at the two girls, trying to decide whether to say anything. He sighed. It's not as though he *knew* anything. Just suspected. Quite a bit actually. He closed the book and went over to his desk, and taking a key from his waistcoat pocket, opened the bottom drawer of his desk, and pulled out a volume that he had carefully hidden from prying eyes. Particularly, a certain red-head witch with prying eyes.
He sat down, and opened the fat leather-covered volume. "Sur les Etres Catalytiques et son Influence sur ses Proches" (Geneva, 1623), usually simply known as 'The Catalysts".
Ah, life on the hellmouth. Mystical convergence and all that. He hadn't looked at this book for more than two years. He had thought that Cordelia and then Anya might have obviated this particular problem… Fine, not exactly a problem. It wasn't as though the lad really couldn't do anything supernatural, exactly. It *was* a power. But not to change anyone, just to bring certain … elements to the surface in the people he came close to.
Giles thought about Willow. How he had known what was going to happen, ever since that time when she had been found with him in that factory, locked in a forbidden embrace. Not that it was a bad thing, just inevitable. She had loved him in her own way, but more importantly, she had, ahem, gotten close to him. And Giles was grateful that at least Tara was a good sort, even if Giles didn't altogether approve of her family background. But the two seemed happy enough together. It seemed to have ended well. As young Mr Finn liked to say, altogether too often, 'No harm, no foul'.
Giles leaned back, and sighed. Better that Xander not know. It was a power, but not a power that one necessarily wanted. To have that kind of influence on people. To bring out those kinds of repressed feelings. And sometimes feelings were better left repressed. Such as what Giles suspected were certain sadistic tendencies on the lad's father's part.
The moment that Giles had first given Xander an avuncular pat on the shoulder, he had felt it. Those feelings that he hadn’t felt, well, since the Beatles were still an intact band, and he was called 'Ripper'.
Giles sighed again. No one went through British boarding school without the usual sorts of crushes one developed on upper form boys. More hero worship than anything else. And, well, there was that drug- and magick- influenced period in University with … better not think about that too much.
But the evidence didn't just come from his own experience, he had seen it in the way that Oz had looked at Xander sometimes during meetings. The laconic lycanthrope staring at Xander from across the table and swallowing hard, and then working very hard at focussing on Willow.
And that footballer, what was his name? The one who had come to the library and tried to check out Kraft-Ebbinghaus's 'Psychopathia Sexualis'. Giles had done the lad a favour, and substituted a more modern book on the subject without wink or nod or comment. And surrepticiously slipped a card with the hastily scribbled number of the university gay hot-line into the volume as he checked it out to him. The lad had taken the book, looked at the librarian in an embarrassed and somewhat befuddled manner, and mumbled a question about whether Giles knew Xander, knowing full well that Xander and the librarian were seen talking around the school on a regular basis.
Giles knew the question the lad wanted to ask. And knew he couldn't answer it. Giles had made sure he didn't know the answer. It had taken all of his resolve to maintain a distance from Xander these years. He had worked hard at not finding out if Xander were available. Holding always the greatest fear and the greatest hope that one day Xander would broach the subject with him: knowing he oughtn't even consider it, but knowing he would refuse the lad nothing if confronted. Luckily, that had never happened. Or unluckily (Stop that, Rupert, stop that right now.)
He had brushed off … Larry … yes that was the lad's name, Larry's question. The lad had nodded, glowing red with embarassment, and Giles had watched him walk out, stuffing the book, 'Coming Out Right', into his backpack. And quite the lad, that one. Giles had always wanted to know exactly what was the nature of his and Xander's 'close proximity' that the Catalyst process required. He had decided that discretion was the better part of valour in that case.
Giles sometimes wondered if Xander's mouth-to-mouth resucitation of Buffy might have had somethig to do with the slayer's rather, not to put too fine a point on it, perverse attraction to a vampire. Generations of Vampire Slayers had lived for, well, slaying vampires, and suddenly, he had a slayer on his hands who not only wanted not to slay a vampire, but actually wanted to … A fine line between love and hate, indeed.
No, Xander definitely didn't need to know that. The poor lad would never forgive himself if it had been his catalytic power that had been the ultimate cause of Buffy, ahem, getting together with Angel, and all that had happened afterwards.
To Jenny… Never mind that! Done's done. Giles took off his glasses and held his eyes for a short moment. Then, once again in control, permitted himself a quick sad smile, jaw nonetheless clenched, and then sighed as he replaced his glasses.
Cordelia. Giles stiffled a chuckle. His pet theory had always been that Xander had brought out Cordy's deeply repressed sense of simple decency.
And Kendra. Giles smiled sympathetically at that memory. All sexual feelings successfully repressed by old-school watcher training for her entire post-pubescent life. Poor thing. Merely meeting Xander had been enough for all those feelings to come pouring out. Probably for the first time in her life, young Kendra became tongue-tied and unsure of herself. She maintained herself admirably, Giles thought, even if her accent did wander all over the Carribean whenever she spoke to Xander.
And Angel. Ah well. Poor repressed vampiric Angel. Those soulful (well, when he HAD a soul, that is) eyes flinching at every verbal jab Xander threw at him.
And Anya. Giles had to grin. Giles suspected that Xander's catalytic effect on her had to do with bringing to the surface over a thousand years of deeply repressed heterosexuality. And if the stories he overheard from the gang were to be believed, a thousand years of repression when unleashed can take quite a bit to sate.
Ah, and now Xander was getting close to Riley. From Giles limited experience with the military, he suspected that if Riley had anything to repress -- and most everyone did -- it would be fairly severely repressed. Which meant that if, or rather when, it surfaced under the catalyst's influence, it could be rather … explosive. He looked across the store at Buffy, sitting on the stool by the counter. Giles hoped she could deal with that, should it come. A distracted slayer was not an efficient slayer. But Buffy had been through worse.
And Xander. The catalyst had no effect on himself of course. Should Xander know, the lad would simply withdraw even further, worried about the effect he would have on whomever he managed to get close to. And Xander had enough problems getting close to people as it was. Better leave bad enough alone. But be around to help pick up the pieces. Keep an eye on the situation. A close eye. Do what he had been trained to do: Watch.
Giles quietly closed the book, and shoved it back in the drawer, locking it up again, and then returned the key to his pocket. He sighed. The lads would just have to work it out for themselves.
Part 6
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