Title: A Different Kind of Monster
Author: Mel
Rating: FRC-ish
Teaser: Giles encounters a different sort of enemy
Notes: I will admit to being inspired by a drabble
written by Rayne, but I promise that no stealing of
ideas was done or should be inferred. This is the
first of four, perhaps one or two more, short fics in
the storyline. They're unbeta'd, so critque or
comments on improvement are welcome.
Feedback: sgt_buck_frobisher@yahoo.com
Archive: Yes if permission is asked.
Disclaimer: Giles belongs to Joss. I only borrowed him
and will return him unharmed when I’m done.
Monsters were a part of almost every aspect of Rupert Giles’ life. As a child, he had trained and studied and learned what it was felt he needed to know about them in order to prepare him for what he was told was his destiny. As a man, he spent much of his time fighting them side by side with his slayer and the rest of his friends. The battles had nearly cost him his life several times, but always he’d somehow managed to survive. Some battles had been won only by teamwork, others by his own will and determination alone.
But the blurred gray spot on the X-ray and the biopsy results showing what was inside his lung was a different type of monster altogether. It was an unseen microscopic killer that destroyed and ravaged and killed from the inside, would waste his body to nothing and leave it devastated, would eventually kill him. It couldn’t be killed with a sword or banished with a spell. No slayer or team of demon hunters could destroy this enemy. Surgery was not an option, the disease was too advanced. Chemotherapy and radiation might work, though he knew what the side effects would be. The very thing that might cure him would very likely bring him near death itself before it helped.
Of course there were magicks; he could talk to Willow. But in his mind, he did not think that even she could stop it. Slow it down, perhaps, maybe prolong his life. But magick wasn’t a cure-all. It didn’t mix well with medicine and he knew that he could never live with a body or worse, a mind, inadvertently damaged by a spell gone wrong. He would consider the chemical treatment, and knew that those who cared for him would be there to offer what emotional support. But at its essence, this battle was one that he faced alone, his survival dependent on how strong he was, how well he could fight it off.
With a steeled determination and a strong will to live, accompanied by a great deal of trepidation, Giles mentally made a vow to fight this monster as long as he still had the strength.