Fic: A Missed Phone Call from L.A.
Title: A Missed Phone Call from L.A.
Characters: Giles, Wesley
Rating: PG
Setting: Between Buffy’s season 5 and 6, between Angel’s season 2 and 3
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, their concepts, and their characters © Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy Productions
Warnings: Spoilers for Buffy’s season 5 and Angel’s season 2, mentioned character death, implied suicide attempt, minor swearage
In a lonely apartment in Sunnydale, California, a phone rings.
He wonders if he should answer it. It’s probably Willow, or Xander, or Dawn, or somebody else calling to cry to him, wanting to ask him to distill their sorrow with hollow words of comfort.
He won’t.
They all have someone else to ask for those sorts of things.
Xander and Anya hug and kiss and shag and try to make it better.
Willow and Tara are always together, crying, sometimes silently and sometimes not.
And Dawn has Spike, oddly enough, and she comforts him in those late nights when he’s drinking himself into a stupor in his crypt.
And yet they all trust Giles to tell them it will all be all right. That everything will get better. Eventually, anyway.
They have each other. And they all have Giles.
But it's not like Giles has anyone.
He is always, always, alone, even when he surrounds himself with friends. Especially when he surrounds himself with friends.
And when his Slayer had leaped from the top of Glory’s tower and knowingly killed herself to save the world, to save her sister, she hadn’t given a damn about what this would mean for the rest of them. She hadn’t cared that she would leave them all broken.
That she had left her Watcher broken.
But, then again, she had also threatened to kill him. Maybe things would have been easier if she had.
In Giles’ lonely apartment in Sunnydale, California, the phone rings.
It is very irritating.
He wearily checks the area code.
L.A.
Angel has already gotten the news from Willow and gone off to some stupid retreat to ‘find himself’ or some such nonsense.
Who else would call for L.A.? Cordelia? Wesley?
They were the only other two from Angel’s team who had actually met the Slayer.
Or maybe not. Maybe it’s another one of his little group, calling for whatever stupid reason.
It doesn’t matter, he decides.
He doesn’t have the energy to talk right now. He doesn’t want to be anyone’s shoulder to cry on.
They want comfort?
Bugger that.
He’s had enough of giving comfort; he wants to keep some for himself.
In Giles’ lonely apartment in Sunnydale, California, his phone rings off its hook.
He wonders again if he should answer it. If he can.
No. He can’t bear another conversation about Buffy. About death. About hell dimensions and afterlives and Glory.
If he has one more talk to anyone, even Willow or Xander, about that kind of thing, he’s going to put an axe through his window.
Which would be a shame.
He likes that window.
He adjusts the sleeve of his sweater self-consciously, even though there’s no one in his empty apartment to see, to know, to care about the thin, angry red cut that tingles there on his wrist.
It’s a good thing he’d been crying too hard to hit the right vein.
It’s a good thing his hand had been trembling too much to hold the knife properly.
It’s a good thing Willow had unwittingly called just in time, before he could consider trying again.
It’s a good thing that he hadn’t gotten blood on his carpet.
It’s a good thing that Xander hadn’t noticed how pale he was when he visited for a short talk, man-to-man, thirty minutes later.
It’s a good thing he had missed.
It’s a good thing he had forgotten all about the 9mm he had put underneath his mattress when he had first arrived in Sunnydale. Not that it ever helped.
In Giles’ lonely, darkened apartment in Sunnydale, California, his phone rings incessantly off its hook, just to be annoying as it possibly can.
He wonders when it will stop, so the place can return to silence.
The silence isn’t really comforting; it’s just familiar.
He likes it better that way: familiar.
Besides, the ringing phone has been getting on his nerves for several minutes now.
He considers unplugging the damn thing, just to get away from it all.
But that would require moving, and he just doesn’t have that kind of energy right now.
In a lonely apartment in Sunnydale, California, a phone stops ringing.
A robotized voice asks to leave a message.
A mechanical beep punctuates the machine’s instructions.
A loud, breathy silence of someone not leaving a message fills the quiet and the phone clicks off.
In a lonely apartment in Sunnydale, California, a shattered man sits in utter silence.
But it’s familiar, that silence. He likes it better that way.
In a lonely hotel office in Los Angeles, California, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce puts down the phone and sighs.
Offering comfort is so much harder when you can’t get someone to just pick up the phone.
Characters: Giles, Wesley
Rating: PG
Setting: Between Buffy’s season 5 and 6, between Angel’s season 2 and 3
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, their concepts, and their characters © Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy Productions
Warnings: Spoilers for Buffy’s season 5 and Angel’s season 2, mentioned character death, implied suicide attempt, minor swearage
In a lonely apartment in Sunnydale, California, a phone rings.
He wonders if he should answer it. It’s probably Willow, or Xander, or Dawn, or somebody else calling to cry to him, wanting to ask him to distill their sorrow with hollow words of comfort.
He won’t.
They all have someone else to ask for those sorts of things.
Xander and Anya hug and kiss and shag and try to make it better.
Willow and Tara are always together, crying, sometimes silently and sometimes not.
And Dawn has Spike, oddly enough, and she comforts him in those late nights when he’s drinking himself into a stupor in his crypt.
And yet they all trust Giles to tell them it will all be all right. That everything will get better. Eventually, anyway.
They have each other. And they all have Giles.
But it's not like Giles has anyone.
He is always, always, alone, even when he surrounds himself with friends. Especially when he surrounds himself with friends.
And when his Slayer had leaped from the top of Glory’s tower and knowingly killed herself to save the world, to save her sister, she hadn’t given a damn about what this would mean for the rest of them. She hadn’t cared that she would leave them all broken.
That she had left her Watcher broken.
But, then again, she had also threatened to kill him. Maybe things would have been easier if she had.
In Giles’ lonely apartment in Sunnydale, California, the phone rings.
It is very irritating.
He wearily checks the area code.
L.A.
Angel has already gotten the news from Willow and gone off to some stupid retreat to ‘find himself’ or some such nonsense.
Who else would call for L.A.? Cordelia? Wesley?
They were the only other two from Angel’s team who had actually met the Slayer.
Or maybe not. Maybe it’s another one of his little group, calling for whatever stupid reason.
It doesn’t matter, he decides.
He doesn’t have the energy to talk right now. He doesn’t want to be anyone’s shoulder to cry on.
They want comfort?
Bugger that.
He’s had enough of giving comfort; he wants to keep some for himself.
In Giles’ lonely apartment in Sunnydale, California, his phone rings off its hook.
He wonders again if he should answer it. If he can.
No. He can’t bear another conversation about Buffy. About death. About hell dimensions and afterlives and Glory.
If he has one more talk to anyone, even Willow or Xander, about that kind of thing, he’s going to put an axe through his window.
Which would be a shame.
He likes that window.
He adjusts the sleeve of his sweater self-consciously, even though there’s no one in his empty apartment to see, to know, to care about the thin, angry red cut that tingles there on his wrist.
It’s a good thing he’d been crying too hard to hit the right vein.
It’s a good thing his hand had been trembling too much to hold the knife properly.
It’s a good thing Willow had unwittingly called just in time, before he could consider trying again.
It’s a good thing that he hadn’t gotten blood on his carpet.
It’s a good thing that Xander hadn’t noticed how pale he was when he visited for a short talk, man-to-man, thirty minutes later.
It’s a good thing he had missed.
It’s a good thing he had forgotten all about the 9mm he had put underneath his mattress when he had first arrived in Sunnydale. Not that it ever helped.
In Giles’ lonely, darkened apartment in Sunnydale, California, his phone rings incessantly off its hook, just to be annoying as it possibly can.
He wonders when it will stop, so the place can return to silence.
The silence isn’t really comforting; it’s just familiar.
He likes it better that way: familiar.
Besides, the ringing phone has been getting on his nerves for several minutes now.
He considers unplugging the damn thing, just to get away from it all.
But that would require moving, and he just doesn’t have that kind of energy right now.
In a lonely apartment in Sunnydale, California, a phone stops ringing.
A robotized voice asks to leave a message.
A mechanical beep punctuates the machine’s instructions.
A loud, breathy silence of someone not leaving a message fills the quiet and the phone clicks off.
In a lonely apartment in Sunnydale, California, a shattered man sits in utter silence.
But it’s familiar, that silence. He likes it better that way.
In a lonely hotel office in Los Angeles, California, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce puts down the phone and sighs.
Offering comfort is so much harder when you can’t get someone to just pick up the phone.