I took a sip of something poisoned, but I'll hold on tight
Sleep has not been kind to Rupert Giles lately. He's been plagued with nightmares that shake him out of bed in the dark hours of the morning, skin prickled with cold sweat. The themes are ever recurring: Buffy, Sunnydale, Jenny, the Hellmouth, the friends he's made in this world-all collapsing, dying, ending in a violent rush. He dreams in blood and flashes of metal and gaping blackness.
So he's come up with a solution that the rational part of him knows is very unwise, but his wits have all but vanished in the wake of these constant dreams: He's just not going to sleep.
Not that his plan is working.
His thoughts keep drifting to Buffy. He can't stop himself from thinking that even though Buffy is here, she's not his Slayer anymore, not really. She's older, more experienced, different. She's been through more things with another him, and she's grown in this world in his absence. It's not the same, and he wonders if that's why they haven't seen each other. Has she been avoiding him? It's more likely, he thinks, that he's been avoiding her.
And what kind of Watcher does such a thing?
He sinks into the cushions of one of the couches in the Kashtta's main lounge. Through bleary eyes he glances at his watch, which reads 4:37 AM, and sighs.
At some point, consciousness slips from his grasp and he finds himself, again, entwined in the fingers of another nightmare.
So much for his plan.
In his sleep, he twitches and whimpers.
David Stutler hasn't had any problems with sleeping; he just doesn't want to do it. Instead, he's been keeping himself busy with building little robots. They roll around and crash into things and their existence would be totally pointless if not for the fact that Tesla, Dave's recently acquired Corgi, loves to destroy them as quickly as Dave makes them.
This is where the entertainment comes from.
"Seriously," he says, poking at one of the robots with a thin screwdriver as Tesla looks on, large, black ears up and head cocked to one side, "I don't understand. This place, or the people in it, or you. I still don't know where you came from."
In reply, Tesla flops onto his side. There are no robots to chase, so he's not interested.
"Weird, fairytale dog. Why can't you talk? Shouldn't you be able to-ow!" A rogue spring shoots out and misses Dave's eye by millimeters. Frustrated, he tosses what he was making across the room, and stands. "C'mon. Let's go for a walk."
It's nearly 6 AM when Dave and Tesla set out on a walk around the streets near the Tower. He has an hour to kill before he needs to head off to Looney, so he'll spend it in the freezing cold Chicago morning with a dog he still isn't entirely convinced is his.
So he's come up with a solution that the rational part of him knows is very unwise, but his wits have all but vanished in the wake of these constant dreams: He's just not going to sleep.
Not that his plan is working.
His thoughts keep drifting to Buffy. He can't stop himself from thinking that even though Buffy is here, she's not his Slayer anymore, not really. She's older, more experienced, different. She's been through more things with another him, and she's grown in this world in his absence. It's not the same, and he wonders if that's why they haven't seen each other. Has she been avoiding him? It's more likely, he thinks, that he's been avoiding her.
And what kind of Watcher does such a thing?
He sinks into the cushions of one of the couches in the Kashtta's main lounge. Through bleary eyes he glances at his watch, which reads 4:37 AM, and sighs.
At some point, consciousness slips from his grasp and he finds himself, again, entwined in the fingers of another nightmare.
So much for his plan.
In his sleep, he twitches and whimpers.
David Stutler hasn't had any problems with sleeping; he just doesn't want to do it. Instead, he's been keeping himself busy with building little robots. They roll around and crash into things and their existence would be totally pointless if not for the fact that Tesla, Dave's recently acquired Corgi, loves to destroy them as quickly as Dave makes them.
This is where the entertainment comes from.
"Seriously," he says, poking at one of the robots with a thin screwdriver as Tesla looks on, large, black ears up and head cocked to one side, "I don't understand. This place, or the people in it, or you. I still don't know where you came from."
In reply, Tesla flops onto his side. There are no robots to chase, so he's not interested.
"Weird, fairytale dog. Why can't you talk? Shouldn't you be able to-ow!" A rogue spring shoots out and misses Dave's eye by millimeters. Frustrated, he tosses what he was making across the room, and stands. "C'mon. Let's go for a walk."
It's nearly 6 AM when Dave and Tesla set out on a walk around the streets near the Tower. He has an hour to kill before he needs to head off to Looney, so he'll spend it in the freezing cold Chicago morning with a dog he still isn't entirely convinced is his.