Title: Revealing Pictures (1/16)
Series: Giles/Ethan Series (Story 1/Part 1)
Author: Adrienne S.
Pairing: Giles/Ethan
Rating: FRAO for adult themes, m/m sex, language and references to rape
Spoilers: Takes place ten days before "Helpless". For purposes of this story, "Earshot" has already happened. Spoilers up to "Helpless", especially "Hallowe'en", "Dark Age", and "Earshot"
Disclaimer: None of these characters or situations belong to me and no copyright infringement is intended.
Note: This is the third story in a series, illustrating the relationship between Giles and Ethan over the years.
"I can't believe it," Buffy said blankly, as she lifted the heavy cover off a crate and dropped it on the floor. "I can't believe that I got outsmarted by Giles."
"Nah. Can't see how that could ever happen, considering that Giles is a total genius and you're a ..." Xander began, stopping abruptly as Willow smacked him. "Ow. ...not."
"Okay, so he's a mental Cadillac and I'm running on a hamster wheel, but still," Buffy griped. "I thought I was better than that at seeing when grown-ups are setting me up."
"Please remember that youth and cute shoes are no match for age and treachery." Joyce smiled.
"You conspired with Giles? Mother, you are a sneaky, conniving, underhanded old woman."
"Yes, I am, aren't I?" Joyce said smugly.
"I wanna be just like you when I get too old to wear cute shoes."
"Just unpack the crates, Buffy."
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Buffy and the rest of the gang were at the gallery, helping unpack for an upcoming exhibition. Joyce didn't normally ask Buffy for help, but the pictures shipped from England had been delayed at Customs, due to the rather adult nature of their content, so she had very little time to unpack and hang the works before the opening.
Despite Buffy's loud grumbling, they were all enjoying themselves. Xander was enthusiastic about helping; as soon as he heard that the exhibit was rather risque, he was right there. The fact that Cordelia was working for the gallery was a huge bonus. He didn't like to admit it, even to himself, but he liked having her near.
Cordelia had approached Joyce for a job earlier in the year. Cordelia claimed that she didn't need a job, but she wanted to make contacts with the arts community. Joyce wasn't sure if she was telling the truth about the money part, but she found Cordelia to be a very good employee. Cordelia had taste, was surprisingly knowledgeable about modern art, and a fine hostess for openings. Somehow, her artless tactlessness, combined with her stunning looks, charmed cranky artists and art patrons out of the doldrums.
Willow was just happy to be with her friends. Her taste in art did not run to the sorts of things Joyce put in her gallery, but she liked being part of the chaotic, behind the scenes atmosphere. She and Oz agreed that it was a nice way to spend the afternoon.
"So. When do we get to see the naughty pictures?" Xander asked, looking around the room. The pictures, still wrapped, were carefully propped against the walls, and he and Buffy had hauled the crates to the storage area.
"Not so fast, Xander. Once we make sure that all the smaller pictures are here, then we can unwrap them," Joyce said, waving a clipboard.
Willow nodded and called out the numbers as Joyce checked her printout.
"Okay, they all seem to be here." Joyce ticked off the final one. "Cordelia, are the brochures here yet?"
"Not yet." Cordelia was leaning against the wall, looking out the window. "They were supposed to deliver them an hour ago." With that, she pulled out her cell phone and started to berate the printing company.
"So what's so risque about these pictures, anyway, Mom?" Buffy took a sip of soda.
"Some of the drawings are nudes," Joyce said absently, carefully peeling off the tape on one of the smaller pieces. Unwrapping the bubble wrap, she lifted out a simply framed pencil sketch. "Oh, my."
"What?" Buffy went and leaned over her shoulder. The picture in her mother's hands was a finely drawn sketch of a young man asleep on a bed, his nude body hidden only marginally by a corner of sheet.
"Wow." Buffy looked at the picture with interest. The sketch contained a wealth of detail. The room was untidy and cluttered, with clothes in heaps on the floor, books flung casually on and around the bed, a mug on the side table with the cheap, broken shaded lamp. The covers of the bed looked stirred and she felt somehow that the bed hadn't been made in a month.
The young man had one arm curled around his head and the other covering his eyes, so she couldn't see his face, but the rest of his body was on full view.
The picture was simple enough, but the detail gave an immediacy to the work and breathed life into it. The glimpse of window, with rain streaming down, gave Buffy the impression that, if she tried hard enough, she could hear the rain.
"It's really good," Willow said, from Joyce's other side. "Can we open the rest?"
Joyce put the picture down carefully and went to the next one. It was another picture of the same man, this time standing just outside a pub, attempting to light a cigarette in the rain. The cupped hands around the cigarette again obscured his face, but the rest of the picture was as finely detailed as the first.
The street was dirty and the paint on the pub's door was peeling in spots. The young man was dressed street tough, in leather jacket and tight, faded jeans.
"They're all of a guy?" Xander asked, disgust in his voice.
"I'm not sure if all of them are," Joyce answered. "This is a series of Rayne's earlier works and he tends to use the same model for a series of pictures."
"Rain?" Buffy asked sharply. "Rain, as in stuff that falls from the sky?"
"Rayne, as in the artist's name," Joyce replied, then paused. "I wonder..." She got up quickly and went to take a look at some of the papers on her clipboard.
"Rayne? As in Ethan Rayne?" Buffy followed her. "The guy with the candy? And the Halloween costume shop? The guy with the... the..." She choked back the rest before she mentioned the demon Eyghon.
"I'm not sure." Joyce frowned, flipping through the pages. "I'm not even sure if Rayne is a first or last name. He doesn't go by anything else."
"What else does it say?" Buffy demanded.
"Rayne is an internationally recognised artist. English, mid forties. There isn't much personal information on him in the press kit."
"Not even a picture of what he looks like?"
"No." Joyce looked through the papers again. "He never attends the exhibits of his work, not even the vernissage."
"The verni-who?" Xander put in.
"The opening," Joyce answered, absently. "Buffy, I know you don't like the man very much and I admit I'm not keen on Ethan Rayne myself, but there must be lots of people with that name. It's coincidence, nothing more."
Buffy exchanged glances with Willow. Neither of them believed in coincidence on the Hellmouth.
Joyce continued to unwrap the pictures, with everybody watching her. Everyone, that is, except Cordelia and Xander. The brochures had finally arrived and she was checking them for errors. Xander, loudly disappointed that the promised rude pictures were of a guy, decided that sniping at Cordy was more fun. Since their breakup, both of them found that they missed their daily battles and, almost without realising it, they had gone back to their bickering.
Buffy and Willow kept exchanging glances, mildly uneasy. Joyce was placidly unwrapping and propping up pictures that showed far more of the young man than they were entirely comfortable with. Willow kept looking at Oz, to see his reaction. Oz, sitting on the floor with his back to one wall, simply watched. Every now and then, he'd glance at Willow and give her one of his sweet, inscrutable little smiles.
Buffy had to admire her mother. Mom was being very cool about letting her seventeen year old daughter and her friends see these pictures.
"Oh, dear." Joyce looked at the last of the sketches and blushed faintly. A tiny smile lurked around the corners of her mouth. Too bad the young man was so young and that he was only a sketch. This picture was a blow to the gut.
The young man, lying on an old sofa surrounded with beer bottles and overfull ashtrays, was propped up on one elbow, and the smoky invitation in those finely drawn eyes leapt out of the picture. He was almost angelic in that debauched pose and surrounding. The picture just screamed sex and seduction.
"Mom?" Buffy tried to look over her shoulder, and Joyce immediately pulled it to her chest. "Mom?"
Slowly, Joyce let her daughter see the picture. Buffy gave an odd strangled noise, which brought Willow over. Willow's eyes grew huge.
"My God," Willow whispered. "These are Ethan's work."
"How do you know?" Buffy asked, unable to take her eyes from the scene.
"Look." Willow pointed a shaking finger to the exposed arm of the young man.
"What?"
"The tattoo."
Buffy tore her gaze from other parts of the figure's body and looked. She gave another strangled noise.
"Buffy?" Joyce glanced over her shoulder.
"The model," she stammered. "It's Giles."
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It was hard to believe that the tweed clad man was the same person as the laughing, insolent young man in the pictures. Buffy wondered if she had made a mistake, but the tattoo - the Mark of Eyghon - was very clear in more than one of the pictures.
Yet, Giles was calmly examining each one with clinical disinterest. He had said nothing after Buffy had met him at the door, babbling about the exhibit.
Finally, Giles stopped, pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and polished his glasses. Putting his glasses back on, he looked at Joyce.
"And the paintings?" he asked, in a tone that Buffy had never heard before. Joyce pointed. Four large canvases, still wrapped in paper, were propped on the wall. Joyce had decided to wait until the youngsters were gone before unwrapping those; she had seen reproductions of them and they were definitely not appropriate for young eyes.
Giles strode to one of them and tore off the paper with an abrupt gesture. Buffy shuddered at the sound of ripping paper, harsh in the silence of the gallery. Giles kept moving until all the paintings were revealed.
Buffy was white with shock. The four paintings were near life sized and exquisitely detailed, each showing an aspect of the man she now realised she barely knew.
The first one showed Giles, half dressed, sitting crosslegged in a magical circle, surrounded by books and magical paraphernalia, reading. John Lennon glasses perched on his nose, the figure was thrumming with magical energy. In the haze of incense smoke, a vague, haunting figure of a demon - Eyghon - hovered over his left shoulder. She could almost smell that incense, and the mustiness of old books. The faint blue lines of magic nearly leapt out of the canvas.
The second was highly disturbing. It was captured violence; rage poured off the young man in waves. The swollen mouth and blood on the knuckles did not contradict the unholy joy in the eyes of the painted figure. There was no one else in the picture, but the pool of blood at the booted feet and the cornucopia of weapons - most of which looked hauntingly familiar - spoke volumes. The sword she had seen Giles wield more than once was strapped to his back, the hilt visible over his shoulder, and his bloodied hands held the crossbow that she had held not two days before. The bolt had been shot, and the triumph in Giles' expression made her shudder.
The third one soothed her against her will. Giles was playing the guitar. His eyes were closed and the way the painted hands caressed the instrument spoke much about his love for music. The rehearsal space was littered with sheet music, microphones, recording equipment and, somehow, dreams. It took a few moments before Buffy realised that the studio setting also contained a great many less innocent items, like the burning joint in the ashtray, the half full bottles of whisky and some suspicious white powder on the top of a speaker and around Giles' nostrils.
The last one gave the reason why the exhibit had been held up at customs. It was unabashedly erotic. Giles was half sitting, legs sprawled to expose his half-erect penis, wet with semen. One hand was toying with a nipple, the other resting on his upper thigh. Littered around him were opened condom packets and sex toys. They - and he - looked well used, and ready for more. His lips were swollen as if he had been kissed within an inch of his life and there were marks all over his body. His eyes looked out of the canvas as if seeking the next worshipper of his flesh.
Buffy had thought the sketch of Giles at twenty something was inviting, but this painting... She blushed even as she felt herself twitch with arousal.
She bit her lip and looked away. At Giles, wondering about the dichotomy of the man she knew and the man in the painting. Ethan Rayne was a magician, and not just with rituals.
Giles stared a long time at the last painting, his expression growing more and more pinched. When he spoke, everyone in the room jumped.
"I'm going to kill him." The tone was reasonable, rational, calm and it scared the hell out of Buffy. She had heard that implacable, measured tone far to often to mistake it for anything than what it was. A statement of irrefutable fact.
"That... might not be a good idea," Joyce replied, striving unsuccessfully for a light tone. "It would increase the publicity for the exhibit." Giles appeared to think about that for a moment.
"When is Ethan arriving?"
"His agent didn't say anything about him being here. I mean, Rayne doesn't..."
"He'll be here." Giles cut across her words, confident. "I know Ethan. He won't miss this for the world."
"So..." Xander wasn't quite sure what was going on. "You mean, these pictures... They really are... you?"
"Yes." Giles' voice could not be any more clipped.
"You posed naked?"
"Not as such, no." The look Giles gave him would have scorched paint. "Joyce, if you would be so kind as to let me know where Ethan is staying when he arrives, I would be grateful."
Joyce gave a short nod and Giles left, without looking at any of the others.
"Wow, is he pissed," Cordelia commented, watching the older man leave.
"Thank you, Cordelia, for once again stating the patently obvious," Xander replied. "Man, I can't believe that is Giles. I'm gonna be in therapy for the rest of my life."
"Sex, drugs, and rock and roll," Oz said softly, in a bemused tone. "There's more to Giles than meets the eye."
"I'll say." Xander looked at the last painting warily. "Rayne had to be exaggerating. I mean, is Giles really that...uh..."
Buffy could have very comfortably lived without catching her mother's soft sigh.
"Oh, yeah..."
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Giles did not give a good goddam what bloody time it was in England. He did not give a good goddam how angry Ethan's agent was at being roused out of bed at four AM. In the anger contest, he was winning hands down.
Having gotten absolutely nowhere with Ethan's agent, he called his lawyer. That exhibition had to be stopped. There was no way in hell - or on the Hellmouth - that he was going to allow Ethan to humiliate him with those pictures. Not again. The last time those pictures surfaced, they had nearly destroyed his life. He was not going to let Ethan do that to him again.
Having done all that he could, Giles sat down heavily in his desk chair. Once again, Ethan had managed to get to him. After years of trying to shut Ethan out of his life, Ethan kept popping back with an alarming knack of making him lose his temper, each time more provocative than the last.
He had tried hard to forget about the existence of the paintings. The sketches, annoying though they were, weren't so bad. None of the sketches were easily identifiable, unless one knew about the tattoo. The paintings, on the other hand...
He hadn't changed that much. Blessed or cursed with very distinctive bone structure, especially on his face, it wasn't hard to figure out who had posed for those paintings. He was older now; his hair was shorter, his face thinner, his body thicker and scarred, but he really hadn't changed much at all. During his stint at the British Museum, he had been recognised by quite a number of people from his Ripper days.
If the exhibit went on, everyone in Sunnydale would make assumptions - assumptions that were definitely not appropriate to his current position as a high school librarian.
Ethan had to be stopped, by whatever means necessary. That's all there was to it. Ethan would not stop his campaign to get under his skin, and he couldn't put up with it anymore. Ethan had to die.
Giles sat back and sighed, trying to tell himself that he did not feel an acute stab of pain through the heart at the thought of a world without Ethan in it.
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"He did what?" Buffy took the letter from Joyce's trembling hands and scanned it. The legalese baffled her.
"He's applied for a court order to stop the show," Joyce said flatly. "Buffy, I can't afford to have this exhibit shut down. I just can't..."
"I'll talk to Giles," Buffy said hastily, trying to soothe her. "I mean, he was really mad about them, but he'll calm down. Really, he will."
"Buffy, the show opens in two days." Joyce frowned. "Even if the court order gets refused, it's still going to take time. And the show has to be in Phoenix in two weeks."
"I'll fix it, Mom." Buffy hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. Giles was stubborn and, frankly, she could see his point. She wouldn't like to see paintings of herself in those poses by anyone. Then again, she would never have posed for them in the first place.
She felt a little dizzy, still majorly wigged out by the pictures. She knew a little bit about his background, but she never expected this. She could deal, sort of, with Giles having once been young and wild, but she still couldn't wrap her mind around her tweedy Watcher as desirable. And, God help her, in those pictures, he was. In Ethan Rayne's eyes, he was.
Buffy sat down quickly, shocked by her own thoughts. Had he and Ethan...?
She'd always seen Giles as somewhat asexual. Okay, he and Miss Calendar had indulged in major smoochies, right in the library. And her mom... No, she wasn't going there. That was Hellmouthy weirdness, and magic.
Okay, so Giles wasn't dead below the waist. That was a more than faintly disturbing thought, but the thought that Ethan knew that was worse. Then again, it was probably experimentation. Guys did that, didn't they? Experimented? And Giles had experimented with black magic, so...
"Buffy?" Joyce was looked at her with a concerned frown. "I don't mean to push, but you were going to talk to Mr Giles...?"
"Mom, do you think that Giles and Ethan ever... y'know...?" Buffy asked in a hesitant voice.
"Buffy, I have no idea," Joyce said gently, seeing her daughter's distress. "Look, Buffy, I know it's hard for you to grasp, but Mr Giles did have a life before he became your Watcher. Those pictures are pretty explicit, but artists have been drawing nudes for centuries without there being any relationship between artist and model."
"Yeah." Buffy nodded. She realised that her mother had not looked at the pictures the same way she had; that her mother saw them as art, not as a narrative of Giles' youth.
Then again, Mom was probably right. From what she knew of Ethan Rayne, he had an uncanny ability to anger Giles and he loved playing games. He probably needed a model and then drew Giles in the most embarrassing and provocative way possible, just to irritate him.
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"Giles, I know you don't want those pictures shown and I am cool with that. I understand." Buffy tried to ignore the angry glare, and gamely continued on. "But Mom needs this show. If it gets closed, she's out a lot of money. And... and she'll be the laughingstock of the art world. She'll lose the gallery and she'll have to get a job at the burger joint to pay the bills. She won't be able to pay the mortgage. She'll have to sell the house and she'll be out on the streets. I'll be out on the streets, sleeping in a cardboard box. And you know how dangerous it is in Sunnydale after dark."
"I daresay you'll survive," Giles said dryly. "You are the Slayer, after all. I doubt your mother's financial situation is quite that dire."
"No. But it's not fair that you're doing this. This is Mom's first major show of paintings. Everything else has been native art thingies."
"How much?"
"What?"
"How much does your mother stand to lose?"
"Dunno. A couple of thousand?"
"Fine. If this isn't enough, tell her that I'll make up the difference." Giles took something out of his desk drawer and scribbled for a moment.
Buffy took the cheque he handed her and looked at it, her eyes going wide.
"Fifteen thousand dollars?"
"I know what Ethan's work is worth. That would buy four or five of the smaller pieces. It isn't nearly enough for the paintings, but those aren't for sale."
"How do you know?"
"I've tried to buy them before. Ethan won't sell."
"Can you afford this?"
"Just take it."
"Giles, you're serious about this, aren't you?" Buffy said quietly. "You really don't want those pictures shown, do you?"
"Again you amaze me with your perception."
"Okay, Giles. What's the deal? It's not like the pictures haven't shown all over Europe. So why wig out now?"
"I - to use your appalling vernacular - wigged out the first time they showed in Brugge. And the time they sat at the Bankside Gallery for nearly a year. This is yet another round of a very long fight I've had to keep those wretched canvases out of the public eye."