Lessons in Patience
Nov. 2nd, 2021 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerMain Points:
Buffy/Babylon 5 AU (same as The Ushari): Agents of Chaos AU
Chapter Summary: Xander tries to deal.
Word Count: 625
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Xander is not in the best headspace rn.
Giles is nowhere to be found during the night. Xander registers that as suspicious, because Willow had confirmed he feels, just a bit, like chaos magic, the same thing that had Buffy believing the whole thing last night was the work of rogue Technomages and he has to believe Giles knows how to hide even if there’s no Circle, here, to hide from. He’s giving the man the benefit of the doubt, because if there was another—Ethan, probably—involved with the same type of magic, then Giles is probably just hiding from him, even if he had managed to kick the guy out of town. But the anger simmers. Distracted by the fact that, exhausted or not, they’re still casting spells to figure out what this is and how to reverse it.
He knows exactly why, of course. Of course he does. Worse, he knows that he’s the one that inflicted all of this on the others, much less himself. Turrns out the concepts of Shadows and Vorlons are fun enough on screen, but when you’re the one being treated as a lab rat by the older races, it doesn’t quite have the same appeal.
He hates himself. It’s easier to lash out, to convince himself that someone else is to blame, but they’re not.
The temper’s a trope, really. “Mess not with the wizard, for they are subtle and quick to anger.” But there’s an in-universe reason, too, the promptings of the Shadows, just code they’d left behind but none the less potent for their absence, whispering temptations.
He wants badly, to ask Galen questions. How he’d even managed to start to find a balance, a serenity that as far as he could tell none of the others had found, however imperfect. Whether smiling more helped with that.
Looking at the results, how he’s not human anymore and how that’s something he can’t even bring to accept and how the anger’s threatening to drown him, it seems impossible. If anything, he knows it is. But technomages are masters of accomplishing the impossible, and he can’t drown in this and die or become a Big Bad, so accomplishing the impossible it is.
So he has to plan. It’s not his strongest suit, but he can manage it somehow. If nothing else, he can lean on his brief memories of Tsandar, who had definitely been more put together. It’s not a shock, really; he’d plucked Tsandar out of the air, various threads woven into a mesh and given texture, form, a spell of his own making. Ironically, Tsandar had been the one who would’ve been okay with becoming an ‘alien’, but that’s only to be expected. Tsandar was supposed to be the best of him, the person he wants to be but can’t quite attain. Tsandar, he bitterly admits, is a better friend than he’s been in years, because everything’s falling apart and he’s losing the ability to pretend everything’s fine, to act like everything’s normal. He’s so lost in the feeling of drowning, he’s forgotten to check if Willow needs help, too.
And when he looks at Giles in this light, it’s impossible not to sympathize, so it’s probably a good thing they can’t find him to talk to him tonight. Because he’d run away or hide if he could. He can’t blame Giles for having done it first. The anger’s still there, but it’s muted, controllable. He can work with it. Which is good, because he needs to be thinking if he’s going to manage this planning thing. First things first, mastering some illusion spells overnight. Honestly, he’s a little worried, involving Willow, just like Tsandar was, but at this point he needs the enthusiasm to conjure up something that can pass muster.
Buffy/Babylon 5 AU (same as The Ushari): Agents of Chaos AU
Chapter Summary: Xander tries to deal.
Word Count: 625
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Xander is not in the best headspace rn.
Giles is nowhere to be found during the night. Xander registers that as suspicious, because Willow had confirmed he feels, just a bit, like chaos magic, the same thing that had Buffy believing the whole thing last night was the work of rogue Technomages and he has to believe Giles knows how to hide even if there’s no Circle, here, to hide from. He’s giving the man the benefit of the doubt, because if there was another—Ethan, probably—involved with the same type of magic, then Giles is probably just hiding from him, even if he had managed to kick the guy out of town. But the anger simmers. Distracted by the fact that, exhausted or not, they’re still casting spells to figure out what this is and how to reverse it.
He knows exactly why, of course. Of course he does. Worse, he knows that he’s the one that inflicted all of this on the others, much less himself. Turrns out the concepts of Shadows and Vorlons are fun enough on screen, but when you’re the one being treated as a lab rat by the older races, it doesn’t quite have the same appeal.
He hates himself. It’s easier to lash out, to convince himself that someone else is to blame, but they’re not.
The temper’s a trope, really. “Mess not with the wizard, for they are subtle and quick to anger.” But there’s an in-universe reason, too, the promptings of the Shadows, just code they’d left behind but none the less potent for their absence, whispering temptations.
He wants badly, to ask Galen questions. How he’d even managed to start to find a balance, a serenity that as far as he could tell none of the others had found, however imperfect. Whether smiling more helped with that.
Looking at the results, how he’s not human anymore and how that’s something he can’t even bring to accept and how the anger’s threatening to drown him, it seems impossible. If anything, he knows it is. But technomages are masters of accomplishing the impossible, and he can’t drown in this and die or become a Big Bad, so accomplishing the impossible it is.
So he has to plan. It’s not his strongest suit, but he can manage it somehow. If nothing else, he can lean on his brief memories of Tsandar, who had definitely been more put together. It’s not a shock, really; he’d plucked Tsandar out of the air, various threads woven into a mesh and given texture, form, a spell of his own making. Ironically, Tsandar had been the one who would’ve been okay with becoming an ‘alien’, but that’s only to be expected. Tsandar was supposed to be the best of him, the person he wants to be but can’t quite attain. Tsandar, he bitterly admits, is a better friend than he’s been in years, because everything’s falling apart and he’s losing the ability to pretend everything’s fine, to act like everything’s normal. He’s so lost in the feeling of drowning, he’s forgotten to check if Willow needs help, too.
And when he looks at Giles in this light, it’s impossible not to sympathize, so it’s probably a good thing they can’t find him to talk to him tonight. Because he’d run away or hide if he could. He can’t blame Giles for having done it first. The anger’s still there, but it’s muted, controllable. He can work with it. Which is good, because he needs to be thinking if he’s going to manage this planning thing. First things first, mastering some illusion spells overnight. Honestly, he’s a little worried, involving Willow, just like Tsandar was, but at this point he needs the enthusiasm to conjure up something that can pass muster.
