crack_van | FIC: All Your Tomorrows by Jennifer-Oskana (R)

Title: All Your Tomorrows
Fandom: BtVS
Pairing: Giles/Anya
Author on LJ:

jennyo
Author Website: I'm Just Sayin'
Why this must be read:

It wasn't a world with maps, Giles, she replies in her next email. The cities of the world were so far away their names were almost unknown. Rome was a fairy tale traveling beggars might tell us. Mamma's brother had been taken to Odessos by the lord or possibly the Varangians. The priest had once gone to Constantinople to kiss the hand of John the Baptist. Kiev, I was told, was a month away in good weather. I don't know where it was. The Ukraine? Bulgaria? Poland? Romania? Hungary, even? I don't know. I never dreamed beyond the village. There was nowhere else to go.

Man, post-Tabula Rasa, Giles/Anya took off. And it was such an intriguing pairing--Anya is so defined by Xander and Giles by Buffy that putting these two characters together gives them a reality and depth that is not always seen. I like Giles/Anya, though I think it's best coloured through Tabula Rasa.

Here Jen tells a story with dialogue that's not dialogue, as if you're overhearing something said in another room. As Anya gives her history, Giles's opinion of her slowly shifts. It's not something often addressed except in humour that Anya truly is older than everyone else, and that her bluntness and abrasiveness aren't so much character traits as learned habits. The audience is changed as much as Giles is.

All Your Tomorrows