Fic: The More Things Change, Buffy/Giles, PG
The More Things Change
By Barb C
Pairing/Characters: Buffy/Giles
Rating: PG
Setting: Post-Chosen, comics-what-comics?
Author's notes: This ficlet was written for an informal challenge I posed for myself: I asked people to give me prompts for pairings I didn't like and/or didn't get, and I would see if I could write a ficlet that would pass muster for shippers of that pairing. So if you happen to be a Buffy/Giles shipper, let me know what you think. (And if you don't think it works, don't be shy about saying so. I promise that when I say concrit is welcome, I really mean it.)
They've been poring over the paperwork for hours. Deeds, plans, schematics, bank records, spread higgledy-piggledy over the wood-grain of the Motel 6 table. All that's left of the Watcher's Council. Willow ferrets out more documents every day, and whether the magic she uses to do so involves spells or cracking software, Giles hasn't cared to ask. Only scavenger's scraps, he assures Buffy, but she's nonetheless impressed at the number of zeros they have at their disposal.
She's sitting in the hotel chair (scratchy, mustard yellow), poring over the papers for a Swiss account. "I should have hit them up for a salary myself," she mutters.
(Perhaps she's a trifle bitter, and perhaps he can't blame her.)
"I think they've been punished sufficiently for their lapse." His tone's a touch more acid than intended. She looks up, startled, and bites her lip.
(Perhaps he's a trifle bitter, too. Nor can she blame him.)
Un-made-up, the circles beneath her eyes are darker than he remembers, and fine lines that she's surely too young for etch her frown. "I..."
Their eyes meet. "Yes, well." And that's as close as they'll ever get to "I'm sorry your entire life got blown up and I didn't really care," and "I'm sorry I abandoned you when you needed me most," in so many words. Really, Buffy Summers has an almost British talent for repression.
"We can do it, then," Buffy says, back to business. Her voice is husky from lack of sleep. She's been so focused in the last week: Get the girls out of the ruins of Sunnydale. Find money. Find food. Find lodging. "Find all the new Slayers. And then - " Her sentence trails off uncertainly and she leans back in the scratchy yellow chair, as if without some goal to drive her, she fears that she will simply evaporate.
"There are established procedures for inducting Potentials into Council training," Giles begins, almost gently, but she cuts him off, impatient.
"No. It's got to be different." She combs stray hair back from her forehead, plaiting the tawny locks with her fingers. "These girls have lives. Friends. Families. If that's what's made me strong, it would be stupid to tear it away from them. So it's got to be...I don't know. Different. Not the way you and I started out."
"I see." The words hurt. More than he expected. It's understandable - the last two years have been full of betrayals and misunderstandings on both their parts - but it stings nonetheless. Buffy catches the distance in his voice and shakes her head in swift denial.
"That's not what I mean. I mean... it needs to be more like the way we've ended up." She reaches across the table and lays her hand upon his, her grave gray eyes searching his face for a guidepost to her next words. "If there's one thing I've figured out, it's that I don't need a Watcher anymore. But I do need a Giles."
And he can see, suddenly, that things are different now. Very different indeed.
End
End Notes:
I picked Buffy/Giles for my first experimental ficlet because it's a pairing that just doesn't resonate for me at all on an emotional level. I've seen B/G types explain what they see in it, and I can nod and go, "Uh huh, that makes sense given your starting assumptions of X, Y, and Z," and I know that mentor/student fic is a Thing, and all that... but emotionally? Nada. I don't see the slightest whiff of sexual tension between Buffy and Giles in canon, and the way I do see their relationship (father/daughter, metaphorically speaking) makes the idea of romance between them mildly squicky to me. Incest, even metaphorical incest, not my thing.
My own estimate of what I've written above is that it's entirely too dry and passionless to appeal to fans of the pairing. It's really more pre-B/G than a full-fledged shipping fic. But if I'd written it set any earlier, I'd have had to resort to alien sex pollen. *g*
Rants Talk to me
By Barb C
Pairing/Characters: Buffy/Giles
Rating: PG
Setting: Post-Chosen, comics-what-comics?
Author's notes: This ficlet was written for an informal challenge I posed for myself: I asked people to give me prompts for pairings I didn't like and/or didn't get, and I would see if I could write a ficlet that would pass muster for shippers of that pairing. So if you happen to be a Buffy/Giles shipper, let me know what you think. (And if you don't think it works, don't be shy about saying so. I promise that when I say concrit is welcome, I really mean it.)
They've been poring over the paperwork for hours. Deeds, plans, schematics, bank records, spread higgledy-piggledy over the wood-grain of the Motel 6 table. All that's left of the Watcher's Council. Willow ferrets out more documents every day, and whether the magic she uses to do so involves spells or cracking software, Giles hasn't cared to ask. Only scavenger's scraps, he assures Buffy, but she's nonetheless impressed at the number of zeros they have at their disposal.
She's sitting in the hotel chair (scratchy, mustard yellow), poring over the papers for a Swiss account. "I should have hit them up for a salary myself," she mutters.
(Perhaps she's a trifle bitter, and perhaps he can't blame her.)
"I think they've been punished sufficiently for their lapse." His tone's a touch more acid than intended. She looks up, startled, and bites her lip.
(Perhaps he's a trifle bitter, too. Nor can she blame him.)
Un-made-up, the circles beneath her eyes are darker than he remembers, and fine lines that she's surely too young for etch her frown. "I..."
Their eyes meet. "Yes, well." And that's as close as they'll ever get to "I'm sorry your entire life got blown up and I didn't really care," and "I'm sorry I abandoned you when you needed me most," in so many words. Really, Buffy Summers has an almost British talent for repression.
"We can do it, then," Buffy says, back to business. Her voice is husky from lack of sleep. She's been so focused in the last week: Get the girls out of the ruins of Sunnydale. Find money. Find food. Find lodging. "Find all the new Slayers. And then - " Her sentence trails off uncertainly and she leans back in the scratchy yellow chair, as if without some goal to drive her, she fears that she will simply evaporate.
"There are established procedures for inducting Potentials into Council training," Giles begins, almost gently, but she cuts him off, impatient.
"No. It's got to be different." She combs stray hair back from her forehead, plaiting the tawny locks with her fingers. "These girls have lives. Friends. Families. If that's what's made me strong, it would be stupid to tear it away from them. So it's got to be...I don't know. Different. Not the way you and I started out."
"I see." The words hurt. More than he expected. It's understandable - the last two years have been full of betrayals and misunderstandings on both their parts - but it stings nonetheless. Buffy catches the distance in his voice and shakes her head in swift denial.
"That's not what I mean. I mean... it needs to be more like the way we've ended up." She reaches across the table and lays her hand upon his, her grave gray eyes searching his face for a guidepost to her next words. "If there's one thing I've figured out, it's that I don't need a Watcher anymore. But I do need a Giles."
And he can see, suddenly, that things are different now. Very different indeed.
End
End Notes:
I picked Buffy/Giles for my first experimental ficlet because it's a pairing that just doesn't resonate for me at all on an emotional level. I've seen B/G types explain what they see in it, and I can nod and go, "Uh huh, that makes sense given your starting assumptions of X, Y, and Z," and I know that mentor/student fic is a Thing, and all that... but emotionally? Nada. I don't see the slightest whiff of sexual tension between Buffy and Giles in canon, and the way I do see their relationship (father/daughter, metaphorically speaking) makes the idea of romance between them mildly squicky to me. Incest, even metaphorical incest, not my thing.
My own estimate of what I've written above is that it's entirely too dry and passionless to appeal to fans of the pairing. It's really more pre-B/G than a full-fledged shipping fic. But if I'd written it set any earlier, I'd have had to resort to alien sex pollen. *g*
Rants Talk to me