Disclaimer: All the characters and all the best lines belong to Joss Whedon and to J.M Barrie. I just borrowed them to have some fun, not to make money.
-The Dark and Sinister Man=
All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way that Rupert Giles knew was this. One day when he was ten years old he was playing in a garden, and his father put an end to the wonderful game in order to address his son on the most serious of topics. Henceforth, Giles knew that he must put away childish things, grow up, and pursue a life of destiny, not choice. Ten was the beginning of the end.
Giles became one of those deep ones who know a great deal about the ancient and the arcane. He was a reserved man with a brilliant mind and a dazzling smile. His mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; his smile only rarely corresponded with similar warmth in his eyes to form an expression of genuine pleasure.
Tonight, however, he is smiling and talking and laughing in a way that he has not for some time. He is also extremely drunk and sitting opposite a man who is in exactly the same condition. The other man is hard to place in Giles’ life. This thin, saturnine fellow is a staple of Giles’ thoughts and memories. Both good ones that are as nice as kittens and the bad, which by day are not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before sleep still become very nearly real.
Let us pretend to sit here and rest our elbows amongst the many empty glasses and watch them as they drink and toast.
‘To magic!’
‘Floreat Etonia,’ proposed Ethan.
This was met with little enthusiasm.
‘No,’ said Giles. ‘Not that.’
‘Still harbouring a grudge against your alma mater after all this time?’ Ethan raised an eyebrow in mocking enquiry. ‘How consistent.’
‘There’s no grudge, I-I loved it,’ corrected Giles with the unblinking sincerity granted to us in moments of either high emotion or high intoxication. ‘School, home. Do you, do you remember the simplicity? And now…’s all an unholy mess.’
Ethan had no simplicity to recall, his formative years had lacked entirely the privilege, prosperity and security that his companion had taken for granted. He would have run away on the day that he was born and become a true Lost Boy, if only such things were real.
‘Well, Ripper, tailcoats and wall games will only get you so far.’
Giles nodded solemnly. ’Know what the irony about that place is?’
‘Fascinate me.’
‘Centuries of tradition, alumni of matchless reputation and achievement, a-and the only one anyone gives a toss about was expelled, and, is fictional.’
Ethan may not have had the benefit of an exclusive education, but he could recognize an iconic film character when one was being described to him.
‘To James Bond.’
‘James Bond,’ echoed Giles. Shot downed he focussed on the past. ’Used to…to want to be him. Not original I know, most chaps did,’ he shrugged. ‘Perhaps they still do, wouldn’t know. Don’t seem to have a clue w-what anyone thinks these days.’
‘Your schoolboy dream was a career in espionage?’ prompted Ethan, keen to keep the conversation light-hearted. He’d much prefer to listen to a cheerful drunk than one weighed down by melancholy.
‘I am a multi-lingual killer who stayed silent throughout hours of physical torture,’ replied Giles in a cold, dispassionate tone that made Ethan want to run. ‘No doubt there’s an age limit, apart from that I’d say that even today I am more than qualified.’
He stood up. ‘Back in a minute. Get another round in.’
Ethan watched Giles’ surprisingly smooth progress and wondered just what had happened to him. Why was this big, strong bastard under the misapprehension that he was a useless old man? Who’d managed to convince someone in possession of such a fierce intellect that they were a fool? Were the slings and arrows of Watcherhood really so difficult to endure?
‘Oh, Ripper,’ muttered Ethan aloud as he took a contemplative pull at his beer. ‘What shall we do about you?’
The answer was obvious. What Ripper needed was for someone to care about him, value him, put their arms around him and all that other tedious bollocks that this disciple of Chaos had long decided he would live without. Ethan couldn’t provide that, nor was he even remotely inclined to do so; what he could provide was distraction.
Ethan pulled a tiny bottle from his pocket. He’d had his own plans, but all that James Bond business was too good to waste. He unscrewed the cap and tapped a single drop of thick, verdant liquid - that smelt of summer evenings - into Giles’ drink. Five minutes worth. Enough to see a spark of life.
Ethan hesitated before adding another drop. A few hours. Plenty of time to hit the town and wreak a little havoc.
Another drop rained down. A few days. Ripper probably needed a holiday.
Ethan went to seal the spell with a few final words, when he paused. James Bond wasn’t the only famous, fictional Old Etonian he could name, and the other one was arguably more interesting. Smiling to himself Ethan considered the violent, swaggering, doomed villain, who’d been an essential childhood monster for nearly a hundred years now. Why not? After all it seemed that the pressures of being good were exacting a terrible toll on the once wayward Ripper.
Giles returned to his seat, got comfortable, then effortlessly drained his glass.
‘I dread to think how I’m going to feel tomorrow.’
Ethan stared at him appraisingly, then grinned.
‘Rather different, I should imagine.’
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