Title: Smoke and Mirrors 8/15
Author: Magpie and Wolfling
Email: magpie@moracle.co.uk and wolfling@sympatico.ca
Show: Buffy
Rating: NC-17
Category: angst, hurt/comfort
Warnings: spoilers up to the end of Chosen
Pairings: Giles/Ethan
Series: Of Old Mystics, sequel to Masks
Summary: Sometimes it's difficult to tell what is illusion and what is reality

Author Notes: Many thanks to Mad Poetess and Wesleysgirl for betaing :) This is the sequel to Masks, the second story in the Of Old Mystics series. Masks can be found at http://www.myarseisnotpansy.co.uk/piedm/masks/masks0.html.

"I don't want to hear another word from either of you. It was irresponsible and selfish, and you should be..." Ethan trailed off as he realised quite how much like a harried mother hen he was sounding. "And your most capital crime is, of course, making such monstrous clichés spill from my mouth."

"Relax," Kat told him, wincing as Rupert dabbed at the gash on her leg. "It's just a scratch -- Ow!"

"Scratches generally don't bleed like that," Rupert said mildly.

The two Slayers had, for some reason far from obvious to Ethan, decided that a spot of early morning rock-climbing was just the thing to build up an appetite for breakfast.

"The cliffs here are hardly Everest," Ethan pointed out. "So I won't accept an excuse of 'because it was there' when I ask *why*?"

Megan, whose ripped up arm Ethan was currently bandaging with ill grace, grimaced. "Miss Harkness told us there were smugglers' caves down there."

"And this made them irresistible?" Giles asked, in his driest of tones.

"Looked like fun," Kat shrugged. "We'll be healed before the day's over, Giles. There's no need for all this fuss."

"We'll take equipment with us next time," Megan promised, not meeting Ethan's glare as he stepped back from her. He didn't say anything; he let his expression talk eloquently for him.

"I realise that this perhaps isn't your ideal vacation spot," Giles began, looking seriously at both girls, "and that you're bored--"

"We like it here!" Megan interjected, and then looked down, embarrassed. Ethan sighed and walked back to her, putting his hand on her shoulder.

It was a glorious understatement to say that he was bad at this. It wasn't just his all too vivid fear of losing those he now cared about; it was knowing how to be a responsible adult. Two months at playing untrained Watcher were not enough to teach him how to discipline unruly youngsters, and the forty years wielding Chaos were certainly no help; discipline and Chaos not generally being on good speaking terms.

Ethan gave Rupert a rather helpless look. The last couple of days had been difficult for both of them, as they'd wrestled with the magic-related tasks set by their respective coven mentors. Sleep, even curled tightly against one another, was becoming increasingly difficult. Ethan was sure Rupert felt no more like dealing with the foolhardy Slayers than he did, but at least his lover had the necessary skills.

Rupert sighed, taking off his glasses and rubbing tiredly at the bridge of his nose. "While I am gratified to hear that you do like it here, I fully realise that we haven't had as much time for you as we normally do. You have our apologies for that. But it doesn't excuse you going out and doing something so inherently dangerous." He looked directly at Kat. "Yes, you will heal, but that doesn't negate the risk you were taking -- or the fact that you could've broken your necks. And, Slayer or not, that would have been the end of you."

Ethan cringed at his lover's last words, his hand reflexively tightening on Megan's shoulder, and she looked up at him miserably, saying, "I'm sorry."

"*We're* sorry," Kat corrected. "Really, we'll be more careful. And anyway, we have to be good today. Miss Harkness' sister is taking us along with her sons to Woolacombe for the afternoon. And Miss Harkness says she'll turn us into hares if we're bad."

"And you think I wouldn't?" Ethan asked, a little off-put by this news. "These *sons*...?"

"Know better than to get into any trouble," Rupert finished. He gave the two Slayers his most stern look. "I trust that you are going to prove that you do as well."

"Yes sir," Kat said with false meekness, humour glinting in her eyes. Megan thumped her in the arm, and fierce looks were exchanged.

"You don't need to worry about us," Megan said, with a far more genuine sincerity. Her gaze moved between the two men, but it was Ethan she focused on when she promised, "I'll make sure."

He found that embarrassing doting smile back on his face.

"Um, can we go now?" Kat asked. "Miss Harkness said we could help her in the stables if we had time."

"Go on," Rupert said. He watched them scamper out then collapsed on the sofa, letting his head fall back against the cushions. "That, I didn't need."

Ethan started to sit down beside him, but then straightened suddenly as he felt an intrusion that was fast becoming commonplace in his mind. "Sod it!"

Rupert gave him a sympathetic look. "Being summoned?"

Ethan nodded and rubbed his face. "I like Ian, really I do. But well..." He looked down. "I've only willingly acknowledged one man my master before now. I'm far from used to doing what I'm told... although that's rubbish, of course. He hasn't given me an order yet; that's not his 'way'."

"But you still find yourself doing whatever he suggests," Rupert said, with a wry smile.

Ethan looked at his lover and felt a surge of something strong but undefinable at the idea of having to leave Rupert again today. Something that made him feel sad and uneasy. "Ah well, maybe I'll actually be allowed to do a cantrip today, you never know." Ethan's tone was dry, but there was an edge to it. He walked to the side of the sofa and bent to kiss Rupert softly. "Take care, dearheart. Don't let her push you into anything you're not ready for."

Rupert reached up, sliding a hand to the nape of Ethan's neck and pulling him in for another, deeper kiss. "The same goes for you, love. Don't let him wear you out too much."

Allowing the unease to slip temporarily away under Rupert's touch, Ethan smiled. "That's your job, m'dear. Never fear."

***

Ethan slipped through the trees, following unerringly the sense of 'Ian' that had been placed in his head. It was another sunny day, and the forest floor was a dappled light show from the shadow-casting leaves moving in the breeze. Ethan supposed he should be enjoying the natural chaos of the resultant patterns, but he was more concerned about his lungs currently.

They were wheezing again.

Rupert had tried to ask Lucy for the help of the coven healers, but she'd refused, saying something mysterious and annoying about karmic appropriateness, which had made Rupert rather miffed to say the least. Ethan had calmed and reassured his lover, claiming to be fine, but he really wasn't. And he suspected Rupert knew that.

When Ethan found Ian, sitting with his back to a broad beech and chewing on a liquorice stick, it was with a sense of relief. Ethan slumped down beside his mentor, trying to relax and take deep breaths.

"Problem?" Ian asked, after a moment of silence broken only by Ethan's wheezing as he slowly recovered from the exertion.

"You could say that."

"How long had you been surviving on Chaos?"

"Since I was a child," Ethan laughed without humour. "But you don't mean that, do you? For nearly four years, I was..." He paused, wondering if there was any point is talking about this. Ian being what he was, he probably already knew the pertinent facts of Ethan's imprisonment. Ethan returned to the question asked. "Two months. There's damage, and it's starting to show."

Ian grunted. "Just because you were covering it up didn't mean it wasn't there. If you hadn't stopped, it would've eventually killed you despite the power you were using."

"You have to die of something," Ethan shrugged. "I've been using that particular spell since I was a teenager. I'm habituated to it, you might say." He thought about that while he took a breath. "It's possible that the reason I was quite so ill while I was... away... wasn't just to do with how I was being treated."

"Quite possible," Ian agreed. He glanced sideways at Ethan. "It's going to get worse before it gets better."

"Goody," Ethan replied dryly. "And I can expect no help with this, I take it?"

"Not until the Chaos energies are completely out of your system," Ian told him seriously. "That's the price that must be paid. "

"I see. Perhaps we could start meeting closer to the house?" Ethan grinned flippantly at Ian. He refused to allow himself to think about the full meaning of what he'd just been told, at least not yet. His lungs weren't catching anymore, but he knew they'd start again on the long walk back. The idea that he might be returning to the condition he'd been in while the Initiative held him captive... no, he most certainly didn't want to consider it.

"Nothing's going to be asked of you that's beyond your capability." Which was about as much of an answer as Ian ever gave.

"Yes, well, I love meaningless new age rhetoric as much as the next invalid, but shall we get to work?" It was possible Ethan was feeling a little pissed off.

He noticed wood ants carrying pieces of leaf and bark in front of them and automatically began a small warding spell. But he stopped himself before the magic moratorium was broken. Then he noticed the ants were actually avoiding the small area the men were sitting in, and he chuckled a little. At least Ian seemed not to want to add a painful ant bite to Ethan's ills.

Ian noticed his attention. "You think you could turn them away?"

"Of course."

The older man gestured, and Ethan felt the small ripple that announced Ian dismissing his spell. "Show me."

"I'm allowed to use my magic again?" Ethan asked, confused. And a little alarmed too, as the ants, of which there seemed an increasing number, were rapidly getting closer. He didn't like ant bites.

"That's the point of this whole association, isn't it?" Ian asked. "To get you using *your* magic instead of Chaos'?"

"Oh," Ethan replied glumly. "I see." He stood up. "You know, I really don't see what's so wrong with bricks and mortar, Ian."

Ian didn't move save to raise the liquorice stick back to his mouth. "Nothing, if you're building a house. We're talking about magic though."

Ethan grimaced and tried to ignore his awareness of the ants sufficiently to close his eyes and reach out with his senses in the way that Ian had spent the last couple of days teaching him to do. There were random patterns in everything natural, and it was these patterns that Ian's wild magic drew its power from. Ethan had used them himself, many times, in his own darker rituals. But he had twisted and perverted the natural forms, making a slave of nature rather than a friend.

Now he had to somehow work with the grain rather than impose an unnatural shape upon it. Frankly, for all Ian's guidance so far, Ethan had no idea how to start.

It didn't help that the call of the Chaos inside him was doing its damnedest to lure him onto the rocks.

"You can do this, Ethan," Ian said softly, encouragingly. "Find the place where you can nudge the pattern. Work with the randomness that's already there."

Ethan tried, he really did.

His problem wasn't a lack of awareness of the patterns. He very quickly became alert to the invisible trails of the ant traffic and the shapes that they made across the forest floor. Ethan's difficulty lay in understanding how to persuade, rather than force, the patterns to move. He'd reach out with power, only to then realise that he was doing what he always did -- pinpointing weak spots and tearing them apart, or tugging on nodes, forcing them to move where they didn't want to go. He knew force was wrong here, but he was failing to grasp something essential about how Ian wanted him to do this...

Eventually, covered with a clammy layer of sweat, he asked raggedly, "Show me?"

Ian regarded him for a long moment then silently reached out his hand to Ethan. When Ethan took it, the older man, with a single deft nudge, changed the pattern, directing the ants away from where they stood.

Nothing was broken or even damaged. The patterns were all still sound. "How did you do that?" Ethan asked weakly.

"There's a randomness to every pattern. Different ways the pattern could be, depending on random factors. Change one of those factors, you change the pattern."

The words sounded good, but seemed meaningless in practice to Ethan. "How can you see the... possibilities. I don't... I can't."

"They're there," Ian assured him. "If you can find the places to rip the pattern apart, you can find the places to change its path. It just takes practice and experience."

Ethan wiped the sweat from around his mouth with a shaking hand. "But it's so easy to rip it. I can see exactly where. I could just reach out, draw on my power..." Unconsciously, his hand was raising, power surging to his fingertips...

"Ethan!" Ian snapped, censure and disapproval strong in his voice. It was enough to startle Ethan before he could do anything. In a quieter voice, Ian told him, "I think we're done for the day."

Ethan felt shame and reacted to it with quickly repressed anger then studied insouciance. "Changing your mind, Ian? Maybe I'm not meant for your kind of magic after all. Maybe I was always meant for Chaos." The words felt good, and Ethan let himself listen further to the wild lorelei voice inside him that was singing 'come to me'. He wanted his power back.

"Do you truly believe you were always meant to commit slow suicide?" Ian asked bluntly. "Because that's what giving yourself to Chaos is doing."

"Keeps me thin," Ethan said flippantly, smirking.

"Oh, that it will do. I'm sure Rupert, Megan and Kat will enjoy watching you turn into a living skeleton."

Ethan's smirk twisted up into a grimace, and he looked down. The smug old bastard didn't play fair. Sighing heavily, Ethan looked up again. "Right. Same time tomorrow then," he announced breezily.

Ian gave him an understanding look. "I know it's difficult, but you can do this, Ethan. With time and work--"

"Do you ever stop wanting it?" Ethan interrupted, suddenly needing to know. "Does the craving go away? Or is my presence, my magic, driving you mad under that wiser-than-thou façade?"

"The pull is always there," Ian responded, expression serious. "But it gets easier with time to resist. The longer you go without it, the easier it is to continue denying it. And it's nothing compared to what I have now."

Other than the ever-present cry of 'I can't do this', Ethan had no answer to that, so he nodded glumly at the other man, and started walking back the way he had come.

***

"So what hoops have you set up for me to jump through today?" Giles asked, as he followed Lucy up the stairs to the first floor.

"I thought we'd try a guided visualisation," Lucy replied with equanimity. "To help you with some of those blocks that are proving a little stubborn." She led him down the corridor and opened a small door to reveal a narrow staircase going up again.

Giles tried to convince himself that that didn't sound ominous as he followed her up into a part of the house he'd never seen before. It was, for want of a better phrase, an artist's loft. The attic space had been floored and furnished. Bright sunlight poured through large skylight-style windows in the roof, hitting a network of hung prisms on the way and splitting into dappled rainbows across the beige carpet and soft white floor cushions.

There was a small wiccan altar off to one side, and an arrangement of pleasingly shaped boulders in the centre. Lucy gestured to the cushions. "Make yourself comfortable. It is important that you can reach and maintain a good state of relaxation, so bear that in mind."

She walked over to the altar and busied herself with a charcoal brick and some powdered incense.

Giles obediently made his way over to the cushions and sat down, shifting around until he found a position that he could stay in for a while. Guided meditations were something that he'd continued to have experience of, even without his magic, although he was more often the guide than the guided. Still, it was a tool that he'd employed more than once in his duties as Buffy's Watcher, and as such, the prospect didn't cause the same anxiety that many of Lucy's other exercises had.

A rich and strangely evocative smell started to fill the room from the incense. It was familiar somehow. Perhaps it was one that Anya had liked to burn in the Magic Box. There was a click, then gentle new age music -- of the inane, characterless type that Giles had always despised -- filtered through the room.

Lucy settled herself cross-legged nearby to Giles. "Would you like me to talk you through relaxation, or are you capable of doing that for yourself?"

"I believe I remember the basics," Giles said dryly, closing his eyes and going through the familiar process, until he had managed a light trance.

In this relaxed state, the music seemed less inane and more an aid to gently drifting. When Lucy started to speak, she spoke quietly, her voice modulated to fit with the tones of the music, so that it wasn't an unpleasant jolt. "You are climbing a gentle hill. It's a pleasant day, and you want to see the view from the top..."

Her words seemed to paint a picture, create a reality, and in his mind, Giles found himself where her voice had placed him, just cresting the top of a hill. Looking around, he saw a fine panorama of rolling hills and grassy dales.

"...there's a cairn at the top -- a pile of carefully built up rocks. And underneath, you can hear the faint sound of water trickling..."

Giles saw the cairn, a bunch of grey stones, weathered and eroded into an even closer fit than they'd probably had when they had first been put together. The sound of moving water echoed in his hearing.

"... it's a hot, sunny day, and you invested a lot of energy into the climb. You're very thirsty..."

He wiped the sweat from his face and looked up at the sky and the sun beaming brightly down upon him. His mouth was dry, and the sound of water was only making him thirstier.

"...walking around the cairn, you discover there's a rock you can roll away, revealing a short drop into a cavern below..."

There had to be a way to get at that water he could hear. Giles examined the cairn, moving around it to check all sides. On the opposite side from where he'd arrived, he discovered one of the larger stones at the bottom was loose. Managing to shove it aside, he revealed an opening into a subterranean cave.

"... you can hear the water trickling below. You must have found the source of a stream. Cool, crystal clear spring water awaits you below..."

The sound of the water that had so lured him was coming from the cave; it made Giles' mouth feel even more parched. There was obviously a stream below, and it wasn't that far a drop. It only took a moment's thought to reach the decision to lower himself into the cave.

"...the water tastes sweet and pure on your tongue, and soon your thirst is quenched. It is only then that you realise there is no way back up to the cairn..."

He knelt and drank long and deep, relishing the feel of the cool clear water sliding down his throat. When he was finished, he stood and looked at the opening he had dropped through, realising that it was beyond the distance he would be able to jump.

"...but the cavern itself is quite large, and the water is clearly flowing somewhere..."

Well, there was nothing for it, he was going to have to find another way out. Giles looked around; the place was large, but with no other obvious exits. His gaze drifted back to the stream; it was going somewhere, and it would provide a good way of tracking his progress. He only hoped he didn't run out of cave.

With one last glance at the hole above him, Giles started walking, following the spring.

"...away from the hole in the cavern ceiling, darkness soon surrounds you, and you have to feel your way carefully. But the darkness is comforting and womb-like. You feel safe. And the stream is growing as more trickles of water join it..."

As Giles left the original cavern behind him, the light dwindled down to nothing, leaving him in darkness so complete it was almost a physical thing. Surprisingly though, it wasn't distressing in any way, feeling like being wrapped in a warm blanket.

Still, he couldn't help but wish he had a torch with him.

"...as you delve ever further into the caves, following the swelling brook, your eyes begin to adjust, and you realise it isn't so dark after all. The water itself seems to hold a natural luminescence that you can see by, so long as you stay close to its edge..."

At first he thought he was imagining it, but gradually it became clear that the stream was giving off a dim light, which would be unnoticeable in anything but this total darkness. But dim as it was, it was enough to let him see his footing, and as long as he lingered close to the banks he could make good speed.

"... the brook becomes a river, and as the river broadens and deepens, the light increases, and with it a sense of excitement..."

As he walked the water's flow grew, becoming a more than respectably sized river. The light grew in time with the water, and Giles was beginning to have the feeling that he was heading towards something... something amazing.

"...the flow of the river is faster now. You bend and dip your hand into it and feel the clean cold flow pulling on you. The feeling of excitement increases..."

Giles kept close to the water as he continued forward, feeling drawn now. The water called to him and he knelt, dipping his hand in, letting it swirl around his fingers. It was cold and the feel of that seemed to seep into his skin, climbing up his arm and spreading through his body, carrying with it a growing sense of unease.

"... suddenly you realise that the way ahead holds no safe path beside the river, and to go further, you will need to enter the fast flow and move with it. The idea feels right to you, pleasing..."

Ahead of him, the path he'd been following disappeared, the water was the only way forward. It called to him, trying to entice him to enter it, to travel with it. But...

At the same time that he was being called forward, something in Giles was telling him to stay where he was, to back up even. As much as the water called to him, there was an equal force telling him it was dangerous.

He hovered on the river's edge, caught between the two conflicting feelings, paralysed into indecision.

"...it's time to get into the river now, Rupert. Step into the flow..."

He couldn't go forward, but he had to. There was no way back. His heart pounding with anxiety, Giles moved his foot, beginning to step into the waters...

Something grabbed his ankle, pulling him in and under. He couldn't get free, couldn't breathe, couldn't see what had him beyond something large, black and malicious. Something that would destroy him if he didn't get free of the water and stay far, far away from it.

"... Rupert? Rupert, what's happening?" The voice sighed heavily. "Rising to the surface now, and you're out of the water. You're on dry land, outside the caves now. Returning to normal consciousness now. On the count of five then you'll open your eyes. One... two... three, four, five. Open your eyes, Rupert."

Ending a meditation suddenly -- especially one as deep as this -- was never pleasant, but in this case it was more pleasant than the alternative. His awareness fully back in the loft, Giles shuddered and pressed a shaking hand to his eyes. He could still feel a ghostly echo of the grip the thing had had on him.

Giles could hear Lucy moving around the room, turning off the music and snuffing out the incense. Even without looking at her, Giles could tell she wasn't pleased, so her terse tone of voice wasn't a surprise when she said, "Well, that was very far from successful."

"Unless the goal was to make me dizzy and nauseous, I would most heartily agree." He shifted, leaning back against the wall, taking deep, even breaths and waiting for the room to stop spinning.

He heard her moving again, then a glass was pressed into his hand. "You are fighting this process every step of the way, Rupert. You need to decide once and for all if you really want my help because I'm not prepared to drag you kicking and screaming through this."

"Is that a promise?" Giles asked dryly.

She sighed again. "I suggest you take the rest of the day to decide what you really want out of this. You have to want to change, and currently, I really don't believe that you do."

Beginning to feel a bit peevish, Giles asked, "I'm here, aren't I? I've done whatever you've asked me to, haven't I?"

"No, Rupert, you haven't." She was standing in front of him now, with her hands on her hips. "You have steadfastly failed to do what I have asked you to because you won't let go. You're like a child afraid to have the stabilisers removed from his first bike."

He didn't deny the fear. "I can't change my feelings just on your say so. It doesn't work that way."

"On my say so? No, of course not. Only you can change your feelings, but you have to want to. And frankly, Rupert, I think you're happy to stay just the way that you are. I think you're only here to hold Ethan's hand, and if it wasn't for your lover, you'd simply not have come."

For Giles, who was exhausted from lack of sleep and trying to overcome the instincts and fears of a lifetime, and who was still more rattled than he'd admit from the failed meditation, that was the proverbial last straw. "You're right," he said in short, clipped tones, pulling himself to his feet. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Ethan. That doesn't mean that I haven't honestly been trying. But fine, if you consider it a waste of our time--"

"Rupert." Lucy's voice was dagger sharp, stopping him in his tracks. She looked at him in that increasingly annoying way, cold blue eyes seeming to see into the heart of him... although judging by her prior accusations Giles had to assume she was confused by what she saw. Finally, she said, "Take the rest of the day to consider what you really want. We'll talk later. This has been quite enough for now."

He was quite clearly being dismissed.

Which was just fine with him. He didn't want to deal with this anymore today. Without another word, he started down the stairs.

NEXT