Title: Smoke and Mirrors 14/15
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.

For a long time, they stayed in each other's arms on the bed, Giles waiting for Ethan to regain some of his composure now that the rest of the birthday celebrants had gone. Torn wrapping paper was strewn around them, all but one of the presents amongst it. Ethan was still staring into the looking glass world that contained images of them both.

When Ethan finally lowered the mirror, Giles hugged him and turned him enough to drop a kiss on his lips. Ethan's immediate and passionate yielding to the kiss -- arms snaking around Giles' neck, body twisting between Giles' legs -- quickly proved very distracting, and Ethan's frequent breaks for breath failed to mar the passion.

It was difficult to stop, but there were things that Giles wanted to do before he could let himself become truly distracted. Still, he allowed the kiss to continue for quite a while before forcing himself to pull back. "I'm taking this to mean that you like your gifts?" he asked with a teasing smile.

"Never had a birthday like it," Ethan muttered, looking down. "You always made them good before. But this..." His breathing was definitely laboured, and it was hard for Giles to work out how much was emotion and how much was sick lungs. Ethan looked up. "Bugger it, Ripper, I've got a family suddenly. How did that happen?"

"Slayers will do that to you," Giles said, smiling as the memory of how he'd had a similar realisation about Buffy and Dawn, Willow and Xander, back in Sunnydale.

Ethan rubbed hard at his face. "And your gifts... oh, my dear. The Scalectrix would have been enough, but this mirror..." He picked it up again and looked at the back, where a larger fox and badger were gambolling together. Shaking fingers traced the badger.

Trying to keep the atmosphere light, Giles teased, "I couldn't find one with foxes and fyarls."

Ethan shot him a mildly resentful look. "Am I ever going to be forgiven for that?"

So much for lightening the mood. Giles reached for his lover's hand. "I'm not holding a grudge, love. It's just..." He sighed and tried to explain, hearing the plaintiveness creeping into his voice, but unable to stop it. "I don't understand *why*."

"No good reason," Ethan mumbled. He tried to take his hand away.

Giles refused to let go. "Tell me a bad reason then," he persisted, not willing to let it drop now that it had been brought it up. The fyarl incident had hurt him in a way none of Ethan's other antics had managed, and although he didn't dwell on the past, he knew he wouldn't be able to totally put it behind him without understanding the reasons for it.

Ethan's look was pained and sulky. He slumped in Giles' arms. "Can't I just say I'm sorry? I am. And not just because of what happened to me as a result. I'm really sorry, Rupert."

Sighing, Giles brushed a hand against his lover's cheek. "It was... I could feel bits of myself slipping away. I almost killed Buffy -- and you. Either would have destroyed me, even if I'd regained myself."

"Revenge."

"Revenge?" Giles echoed.

Ethan nodded, his eyes shut.

Giles rolled that around in his mind. "And the night before? Was that part of the revenge too?" It didn't matter, he told himself, what the answer was. Not now. He and Ethan had moved beyond the past. But still, he found he had to ask.

Ethan's eyes remained tightly shut. "The time we spent at the bar was when I spiked your drink. The... sex? No, that wasn't part of it. I wasn't expecting that at all, and I left your bed intending to reverse the spell before it kicked in."

Before Giles could question that, Ethan had opened his eyes and was talking rapidly, pausing to drag in air every few words.

"Rupert, my whole life -- until now -- there's never been anyone I've cared about but you. You *know* that. When we were together, I felt like a sodding god. I could look at you and see I was a god. When you went, all I had was Chaos, and it was never enough. Whatever I did, wherever I went, the focus of my obsession remained you. So I kept coming back, to be smacked about and despised. I'd had enough, over twenty years of it, and I wanted my freedom..."

He looked up at Giles. "Or so I thought. Then of course you take me drunkenly to bed, and even the slightest chance that there could be an 'us' again makes me drop all my nasty little plans."

Giles softly caressed Ethan's cheek again. "Part of us knew we belonged together, even during the worst of it. I don't know what would have happened, but I had honestly intended to see what we could negotiate the next morning." He sighed. "I guess it just wasn't the right time."

"I read your diary."

Giles blinked. "What?"

"That's why I didn't reverse the spell."

"Because you read my diary," Giles said slowly, trying to think what he had written that could have had that effect on Ethan. His lover tried again to take his hand back, and again, Giles didn't let go. "What did I write that made you... lose hope?"

Ethan stared at Giles for several long moments, obviously upset. "It was the whole thing really. Once I'd read it, I knew you'd never give up the Watcher life, and that it would always come first. I saw how ashamed of your past you were, but how desperately lonely... I wouldn't have been a god this time, just a dirty little secret to be ashamed of. It made me... I couldn't..." He paused, clearly trying to master strong emotions. "Oh bugger it, Rupert. *Please* can I stop talking now?"

Giles pulled Ethan into a tight embrace. "I love you," he said, because he wanted no doubt on that fact. "That's always been a constant, even when I wished it otherwise."

There was no reply from Ethan beyond his breath, which came in little sob-like gasps against Giles' shoulder. Giles felt his lover's fingers curl and uncurl against his chest.

He turned Ethan's words over in his mind, the phrase 'dirty little secret' resonating. Ethan had never really spoken much about his childhood, but Giles had gleaned enough from the little he knew to understand some of the things that would always be triggers. The hurt that Ethan would have felt at reaching such a conclusion -- even if it had been erroneous -- would have definitely been one of those triggers.

Knowing that Ethan had acted out of deep hurt as much or more so than abject cruelty, Giles could now understand why it had happened. With that understanding came the ability to let go of it. Not that he'd been hanging onto past grievances -- how could they matter in the face of what they had now? -- but there had been that twinge of bewildered hurt whenever the subject came up that Giles hadn't been able to shake. Now he had.

Giles nuzzled Ethan's ear. "I forgive you," he murmured, realising suddenly that the lack of understanding had also kept him from actually saying those words.

A thin, desperate noise came from Ethan then, and he turned more fully against Giles, wrapping his arms around and clinging. Giles felt a tiny surge of Ethan's magic tentatively touching him, as if looking for permission or reciprocation. Maybe both.

He let his own magic touch Ethan in turn, reaching out and entwining with Ethan's power, in a way that had already become familiar and was fast becoming necessary. His lover's touch became more confident in response, and for a while they just sat like that, Ethan's laboured breathing easing somewhat as he calmed down.

Finally, Ethan said in quiet acceptance. "I deserved it all."

Giles shook his head in denial, his magic instinctively wrapping around Ethan in as tight an embrace as their physical one. "No."

The other man looked up, and he was smiling. "It's okay, Rupert. Really, it is. It makes it a lot easier to know that I did. I tried to... rid myself of you, and I paid a heavy price... but I was rewarded too, afterwards. And looking at it that way, the price was a mere pittance. I'd pay considerably steeper for this, for what we have now."

There wasn't much Giles could say to that, not without having to then stammer out all kinds of clarifications. So he settled for saying, "I'm sorry for my part in that."

Ethan's smile seemed to shine. "I love you. I love what we have. I love my birthday. None of this would be possible without what came before. Believe me, I'm a pattern mage now, and I can see it. It's almost beautiful."

"Pattern or not, I still could have at least found a better time to have this conversation than on your birthday," Giles said ruefully, giving in on the big issues.

"Maybe. Or maybe it was another gift." Ethan kissed Giles with a gentle sweetness, then turned back around in his arms, chuckling softly as he collected together his treasure haul.

It was dawning on Giles that whatever upset Ethan had been feeling earlier, he truly was over it. Consequently, he pushed his own concern away and went back to concentrating on watching his lover enjoy his birthday.

"So do you like them?" Giles asked, referring to the gifts.

"I love all of them, and I'm highly amused by the preponderance of toys and porn. The mirror is my favourite though." He picked it up again, tracing the carvings. "So you're the Mr Badger to my Mr Fox. Can I assume Megan has been talking?"

"The subject came up when we were discussing gift ideas," Giles acknowledged. "Which reminds me -- turning me into a fyarl was an ironic statement?"

Ethan twitched slightly. "Something about thoughtless destruction seemed an appropriate punishment at the time. I need to have words with that girl."

"She thought you would have already talked to me about it." Giles reached out and ran a finger over the entwined animals on the mirror. "It was a rather fortuitous conversation; Megan was the one who first spotted the mirror. I doubt she would have thought to point it out to me if we hadn't been talking about foxes and badgers earlier."

"Help me put everything safely on the side?" Ethan asked, his tone suggesting humour. "I don't want to damage anything when we begin the wild and noisy sex we're just about to start having."

Giles chuckled as he helped move all of Ethan's gifts to one of the bedside tables. "A man with confidence," he teased.

"Well, I'm confident I can provide the 'noisy' if nothing else. My lungs are a symphony in themselves after a bit of exercise." Ethan seemed to find that fact a lot more amusing than Giles did.

"A symphony I could do without," he remarked, running a hand lightly over Ethan's chest and letting his magic flow through his fingers. It wasn't healing per se, but it did seem to provide some relief for his lover.

Ethan stilled under the touch and leant against Giles. "Kat brewed me up some Chartreuse as well. It seems to help."

"Good." He shifted so that he could kiss Ethan, leisurely losing himself in the action.

Ethan clearly did not want to take his time over things. Giles felt his lover's hands moving over him, the touch just firm enough to be felt through his clothes. The caress of magic was stronger, however, calling to Giles, arousing and energising him.

Giles responded in kind with his magic, letting it mingle and blend with his lover's as he rolled over onto his back, pulling Ethan with him until his lover was lying stretched out on top of him. Ethan squirmed about, his tongue darting in and out of Giles' mouth and his hands inside Giles' clothing. Then, unexpectedly, Ethan stopped moving.

"Have you taken up smoking again, Rupert?"

"No, of course not," he replied, wondering where the non sequitur had come from. "Why?"

Smirking a little, Ethan slowly rubbed his trapped half-erection against Giles', at least that was what Giles thought the other man was doing. Ethan then wriggled around and made a beeline for Giles' trousers.

"Wha--" Giles began, laughing as Ethan groped him in an effort to get into his pockets. "Ah," he said, suddenly realising what his lover was going for. He held still and let Ethan fish out the small box he'd had in his left front pocket. "Do you think you can handle one more gift?"

"Another present?" Ethan's eyes were gleaming, and his smile was huge. "Oh, I think I can cope." He looked down at the small box with its red ribbon. "Can I open it?"

Giles nodded, holding his breath as Ethan did so.

The red ribbon fell to the bed, and Ethan lifted the lid carefully off. Then he simply stopped moving, his gaze locked to the box's contents. "Oh..."

"I know it's rather trite and traditional," Giles said, as he watched Ethan stare at the two plain gold bands the box contained. "And we've always been anything but traditional..."

Ethan looked up abruptly. His lips seemed to be trying for a very complicated expression, but there was both gentle humour and love in his voice when he said, "I do."

Giles was surprised at how much impact those two words had; after all, they were already committed in every way that mattered. This was just a formality. That didn't explain why his heart jumped and all ability to speak fled his mind with those two little words.

Ethan surged up the bed and kissed Giles deeply, sitting himself in Giles' lap. When the kiss broke, he placed the box in Giles' hand and said, "I don't know whose is whose, and I want us to put each other's on... or do you want to wait, dearheart? Should we have a ritual? Do you want a ritual? I'm sure the coven would do us a nice... I might perhaps be babbling."

Giles laughed and kissed him, not having heard quite this level of enthusiasm from his lover in, well, ever really. "I think we already had our ritual, back by the fallen stone," he said, reaching out and catching one of Ethan's hands with his free one and linking their fingers together. "But if you want something more public--"

"No," Ethan said, between eager little kisses. "I just want to wear your ring."

"That is the whole idea behind getting those," Giles said, letting go of Ethan's hand to pick out the ring he'd purchased for his lover.

Something seemed to catch Ethan's eye, and he grabbed Giles' hand, lifting it and twisting slightly, so that he could get a better look at the ring. "There's writing?"

Giles let Ethan manoeuvre his hand as needed to read what he'd had engraved on the inside. "Love, magic, destiny," he murmured quietly as Ethan stilled. "I thought it summed us up rather well."

Ethan's hand tenderly cupped the side of Giles' face. "You always could take my breath away with your grand gestures. But this... I don't know why I'm not asphyxiating on the spot." He grinned and held his left hand, palm down, towards Giles. "Did you measure my finger while I slept?"

"Maybe I just made a lucky guess," Giles teased, as he slid the ring onto Ethan's hand.

As Giles let go, Ethan met his eyes and said solemnly, as if it were a sacred oath, "Yours."

Giles leaned in and kissed him, long and lingeringly. "Mine," he murmured against Ethan's lips. Ethan's eyes were closed, and he shuddered slightly at Giles' single word. He was panting quietly and occasionally laughing, and there was a smile of joy curving his kissing lips.

But eventually, Ethan drew back enough to take the other ring from the box, holding it between thumb and forefinger. "You've made a rod for your own back, you know," he commented.

"Have I?" Giles asked, smiling at his lover and quite unable to stop.

"Yes," Ethan grinned back. "How will you ever manage to better this birthday next year? Hand please, my dear."

Giles held out his left hand, still smiling. "Depending on how we calculate it, it could also be our first anniversary."

"Good god, I'm a married man," Ethan giggled, but he sobered and took a deep breath before pushing the ring slowly home on Giles' finger.

Giles caught his breath, staring down at the gold band. "So am I," he murmured, surprised at just how affecting wearing one piece of jewellery could be. Looking back up, he found himself caught in Ethan's dark eyes and could picture himself falling into them and never hitting the bottom.

"Yours," he said, echoing Ethan's earlier vow.

"Oh," Ethan breathed. "Mine."

It was, Giles thought as that single word washed over him, the first time that he had been so claimed. By anyone.

***

He and his lover were facing each other, holding hands. Looking down, he could see that they stood in a pair of linked circles, which had been chalked onto the floorboards of the stage.

"Love, magic, destiny..." the other man breathed. And then was gone, much to the amazement of the audience.

Panicking slightly, he looked around the stage, and saw his lover between the curtains in the wings, beckoning him to come forward.

He dashed from the stage, the audience catcalling and throwing things, and pushed through the curtains and through the crowds of performers beyond, each of them waiting their fifteen minutes. His lover was just ahead of him, too far away to touch, but he never quite lost sight of the other man.

He found himself in a room of costumes, racks and racks of them, both serious and carnival. And as he shoved his way through them, garish masks grinned grotesquely down at him for the shelves above. His lover was getting further ahead, and he was afraid that he was going to lose him, and therefore lose his way.

Finally, he tugged the last pair of costumes aside to reveal a backstage corridor, the door with the star on it just closing. He ran to the door, opened it and tripped inside, hoping to see his lover, but the room was empty of occupants.

He sat down at the dressing table and looked at his features in the mirror as he smeared greasepaint from the pots across his cheeks and brow. "Where are you?" he moaned. "I can't see you."

"Where I always am," he said to himself. "Pull back the curtain."

So he stood and pulled back the curtain from the changing area. There was a full-length mirror on a stand made of mahogany, and he looked into it and saw his lover, beckoning.

He stepped forward and reached out to touch the surface of the mirror; it rippled under his fingers like water. His lover was still visible on the other side, just out of reach. Pushing against the mirror, he made his way through the glass, watching first his hand, then his arm, disappear through it.

While his face passed through, his vision rippled and wavered and his hearing became muffled. He shook his head to try and clear it, and that was when he realised that he was under water.

The mirror behind him had disappeared, and there was a current pulling at him, sending him tumbling with it, giving him no chance to get his bearings or his footing.

The waters were dark and swirling, dragging him deeper. Without knowing how he knew, he was aware of a malevolent sentience in the depths, formless and endlessly in flux, a kraken perhaps, or a maelstrom creature. It was hungry for him, and he was helpless against it.

And he cried out for his lover to come save him, but the water ate his words, and he sank down further. In a desperate attempt to save himself, he took out his heart and cast it down into the ravenous depths below...

Smashed against rocks in river rapids, he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, before he was pulled back under. He knew with a sense of certainty that this was it; he was going to die. But at least the maelstrom beast would not have him. And he knew no fear, only sadness, because he was alone.

Then a hand was in his, pulling him upwards. He broke the surface, and directly above him was his lover, laughing and joyous. He rose up into his lover's arms, laughing also.

Bodies entwined, they fell to the shore, still laughing as they rolled together over the sand, finally coming to a rest up against a great fallen tree. He and his lover looked up; they were in a clearing in the middle of a dark forest. The trees around the perimeter were twisted and gnarled, branches groaning as they moved in the wind, wooden talons reaching out to try and grab at anything within reach. In around the trunks seeped and rolled a low-lying fog, and tendrils of smoke snaked out malevolently along the edges of the clearing.

But the spot they lay together in was bright with sunlight; the ground was covered with thick green grass, as soft as any mattress. It was a spot that was full of light and warmth in spite of the cold blackness encroaching on it.

His lover used a twig to draw a circle around himself, and so he did the same, the circles interlinking and glowing gold. A finger of smoke reached out and touched the circles. It was instantly burnt away, acting as fuse and touch paper, carrying a conflagration of red-gold flame into the dark forest.

It burnt away like broken film in a projector.

Deep in the calm heart of a storm, a fox and a badger stood on a cliff-top together, looking down at the angry ocean below.

***

Giles opened his eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling, waiting the few seconds it took for memory to catch up.

Even before it did, he was aware of who was lying next to him, pressed up against his side. As the events of the past day filtered back into his brain, Giles rolled over to look at his lover.

Ethan's eyes were open, and he was wheezing slightly. "Hello dearheart," he smiled. He coughed a little and reached under his pillow, his hand emerging with what Giles knew was Kat's herbal concoction. "Have you been dreaming too?"

Images flitted through Giles' mind. "My subconscious was hitting the symbolism a bit hard," he remarked.

"Mine too," Ethan agreed a little hoarsely. He sat up sufficiently to gulp down several mouthfuls of the potions, shaking his head and grinning as if it were particularly strong whisky, before replacing the flask under his pillow. When he spoke again, his voice sounded a lot smoother and the wheezing seemed to have gone. "I blame Lucy's cake. It was probably full of psychoactive herbs. Seriously, my dear, I wouldn't put it past her if she thought it was for 'our own good'."

"Perhaps," Giles replied, as he pulled Ethan over to lie on top of him. "But she fed it to the girls as well."

"Good point," Ethan acknowledged. He wiggled a little to get comfortable. "Well, we did have a very intense day. Lots of dream fodder." He kissed Giles softly. "So what dream windmills did you tilt at?"

Giles quirked his mouth up into a half-smile, relishing the squirming his lover was doing. "Tilted at? The actual tilting would have been at a forest."

Ethan's eyes narrowed. "This forest... it wouldn't have had a more than passing resemblance to Mirkwood, would it?"

"That would be an apt description," Giles replied slowly.

Ethan blinked at him. "Interesting," he said slowly. "Anything else happen in yours? Stuff with mirrors, for instance?"

"Practically a re-enactment of through the looking glass."

Taking a deep breath, Ethan held it before releasing it in a thoughtful sigh. "Rupert, have we been walking in each other's dreams?"

Giles traced his lover's features as he thought about that, about how close they'd grown since really sharing magic, and how that would continue. "It's possible," he finally said. "Dreams and magic can be closely linked, and we know we've been walking in each other's magic."

Ethan slowly swayed his hips from side to side, rubbing himself against Giles in a way that seemed sexual, obviously, but as much about affection as anything else. "I like it," he announced quietly. "And I like *this*." He held up his hand with the ring upon it.

"So do I," Giles said, holding his left hand up to intertwine with Ethan's, their matched rings glinting in the moonlight through the window. "I like it quite a lot."

"Husband," Ethan mused, apparently trying out the word. "Is that what we are? Man and husband?" He giggled.

"Unless you want to be the wife?" Giles teased with a smile.

Ethan's eyebrow lifted. "Now Rupert, do you *really* want to introduce me to people as your wife?"

Giles' mouth twitched as he tried to hold in laughter. "Can you imagine Francesca's reaction if I did?"

"Hmm." Ethan gave the impression of seriously considering it. "I could buy a nice crimpoline frock and grow my hair long enough for curlers, and we could throw dinner parties so that I could have nervous breakdowns about the asparagus."

"I was rather fancying putting you in that Morticia dress actually."

Ethan's smirk was good humoured. "Careful what you wish for, my dear. It might come and bite you on the arse." He paused, as if his own words had given him an idea, and then began to wriggle down Giles' body, taking the sheets with him.

"Going somewhere?" Giles asked, watching his lover, amused.

"Nowhere that need concern you. You just lay back and get some sleep." Having squirmed down far enough to do so, Ethan slid to one side and pushed at Giles' hips, moving him sufficiently to get his teeth against a buttock and start to nibble.

"So that's what you meant by careful what I wish for," Giles said, in between chuckles.

"Did you wish for this?" Ethan asked, and pushed harder at Giles' hip, trying to get him to turn over.

Giles complied, settling himself on his stomach and wrapping his arms around his pillow, turning his head to one side. "I wished for you," he replied. "And since you're currently biting me on the arse, it seems your warning was apt."

Ethan chuckled and parted Giles' legs, moving to lie between them. "Your arse is very biteable," he insisted, and demonstrated by doing so again.

"I'm starting to think you didn't get enough dinner." Giles glanced back over his shoulder, meeting his lover's eyes, his cock hardening at the lust he saw there.

"You'd prefer something other than teeth perhaps." Ethan licked long, all the way up one buttock to the small of Giles' back.

A shiver went up Giles' spine at that touch. "Well, that's not bad," he offered.

Ethan planted a trail of soft kisses down the other cheek. Then he moved his hands over both buttocks, cupping and squeezing, separating them gently. "Say please," he purred.

Giles groaned and buried his head in the pillows. "Please," he said obediently.

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