Cleveland
Fandom: Buffy
Canon Compliancy: Set between Seasons 7 and 8.
Character: Giles
Genre: Drama
Rating: G
Word Count: ~1350
Disclaimer: Not mine; no money.
AN: This fic is a very belated birthday present for sahiya, who asked for Giles and Cleveland. I worked with the supposition that Sunnydale is near Santa Barbara. Contains vague spoilers for S8, #5, 'The Chain' (and yet more geographical supposition).
It was also written for still_grrr's prompt to set a fic between Season 7 and 8 and is posted there.
Award winner - details here.
The bus hurtles due north, a blur of safety orange, or rather, Giles wishes it were a blur, because if it were a blur, they’d be getting somewhere other than endless tracks of flat land parched by a too-hot sun.
But a white F-150, red Civic, and silver Prius pass him on the left in quick succession, destroying any illusion of speed.
The steady pull of the steering wheel to the right begins to grate, the strain in his shoulder annoying, and he snorts at the banality of front-end alignment being a bother.
I’ve only just helped to defeat ultimate evil, and I’m already assailed by mundanity, he thinks, lips twisting ironically.
Glancing at the mirror designed to allow the driver to keep track of students, he can see that the frenzy around where Robin lies has calmed. Faith and Willow sit, both extremely still, looking over the seatback to watch the prostrate man. Small clumps of new Slayers are gathered around Dawn, Xander, and Andrew - three distinct groups all working to help each other finish cleaning and bandaging minor wounds. The low murmur of familiar voices tells him the Scoobies are already working to soothe nerves frayed by both battle and the previously loud weeping of Kira. After a sold half hour of attention from Buffy, the girl sits quietly, and Buffy remains with her, stroking Kira’s hair repetitively and staring out the window.
The sun begins to set, rays boring into the corner of his left eye, and he has to squint to see that the needle above the word ‘GAS’ hovers dangerously near the red.
A black Explorer and a green A4 pass the bus, slipping steadily ahead to disappear into the wavy horizon line of heat haze.
Movement in his peripheral vision causes him to look to the mirror again, and Giles sees Buffy stepping over Robin’s legs where they extend across the aisle and pausing to squeeze Willow on the shoulder.
She settles into the seat behind him, but doesn’t lean close.
“Kira?” he asks.
“She’ll get through it - she’s strong. It’s just her first time of almost dying, and almost dying is pretty much as scary as dying.”
“Indeed.” He offers a small smile.
“So …” She pauses to catch his eye in the mirror. “Were you serious about Cleveland?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” He looks back to the road. “The Hellmouth there has never been as active as Sunnydale’s - I have a good idea the Mayor had something to do with that - but it’s bound to become more so now that this one is closed.”
“Cleveland,” she says almost absentmindedly. Standing, she moves back to her seat beside Kira.
~~~
The reek of diesel fuel rises around him so thickly that he feels he should be able to see it, the smell less sharp than regular petrol yet more cloying.
Giles watches as the dollar amount on the pump spins past one hundred, hoping it stops soon. The Council credit card he took from Robson has an extremely high limit, but he’s been traveling on it for months now and can’t be sure anyone’s paying the bill.
Reaching a grand total of $137.42, the pump clicks off, and it’s while replacing the nozzle that Willow speaks from behind him. “I still don’t see why we didn’t head south to LA.”
Here we go, he thinks. Although I’d actually expected either Buffy or Faith.
He screws on the industrial petrol cap before turning to face her. “When you called, that Fred woman told you Angel has gone over to Wolfram and Hart. They’re … well, let me put it this way: Wolfram and Hart perpetrate the most extensive network of evil spreading across the entire globe and all of history. There is even talk that they are active in other dimensions. If it were just the original few of us, I might have risked it, but we’ve got new Slayers -”
Willow interrupts, pointing to punctuate her words. “Who are just that - Slayers!”
Holding up a placating hand, Giles says, “They’re still new and have already been through quite a bit. I’m not sure asking them to go into another potentially dangerous situation immediately is fair. Besides which, we don’t have time to become embroiled in something else - we simply must make rebuilding the Council our priority.”
“And Robin? Is he a priority? Because he didn’t get any Slayer healing from his mother.”
“My contact in San Francisco has already arranged for us all to be seen at a small, private hospital. We’ll be there in two more hours.”
“Fine.” She walks quickly to the door of the bus and a waiting Kennedy, who immediately leans forward to speak quietly yet animatedly. Their hands move in sharp, unhappy ways as they cast glances at him.
Sighing, he turns towards the store and cuts through a gaggle of new Slayers returning with what seems every junk food known to America - Doritos and Twinkies and Skittles and Kit-Kats and Coke and Mountain Dew. His brain refuses to keep processing the various clashing, gaudy packagings.
Fluorescent light bathes the inside of Moe’s Family Truck Stop. A startling contrast to the darkness outside, it adds a faint blue hue to everything, making the shadows under Buffy’s eyes a purple where she stands in line with Dawn.
Yet it is the hall leading to the toilets that strikes him as surprising. One whole side is covered in bulletin boards. The first contains a chaotic conglomeration of vacation photos from people who have traveled through, another a mixture of drawings done by local children to thank Moe for buying their softball uniforms. The last says ‘Swap Board’ at the top in hand-printed letters and is covered in colorful brochures - Disneyland, the Grand Canyon, the Bellagio Casino, a historic streetcar ride in San Francisco, the Walk of Stars in LA. Giles looks back up and finds a subtitle to the sign: ‘Leave a dream you’ve lived and take a new one!’
Come to the Sunnydale Crater, he snarks in his mind. Fun for the entire family!
Snorting, he starts to turn when a pamphlet half covered by one promoting Alcatraz catches his eye. It shows the bottom of a red Gibson Les Paul and, when uncovered, reads ‘Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.’ The inside talks about the wonders of seeing John Entwhistle’s bass and Robert Crumb’s portrait of Janis Joplin done on an acid blotter sheet. As if that weren’t enough, the special exhibit on The Psychedelic Era, 1965 - 1969 promises over 500 artifacts from ‘The Beatles, the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, the Who, the Byrds and the Jefferson Airplane.’
Music, world-altering music, streams through Giles’s mind, and his heart speeds in excitement to match it.
Unclipping the brochure from the wall, Giles lets his finger trace over the words at the bottom, Cleveland, Ohio, before folding and placing it in his jacket pocket.
~~~
By the time he reaches into that jacket pocket again, standing in his front hall about to go down the pub, months have passed and he’s half a world away.
He’ll be going to Cleveland next week, but only for the few hours it will take to give Rona’s group the speech about what it means to be a Slayer, about the Chain.
The brochure reminds him that there may be something more to see in that particular city, and he opens it to read the list of names again: Cream, the Who, Janis Joplin, more. He smiles, the notes of Cream’s “White Room” running through his mind, and thinks, I could stay an extra day instead of flying immediately on to Chicago.
It’s only when he turns the paper all the way over that he sees the dates printed on the back: May 10, 1997 - February 28th, 1998.
Moving into the sitting room, he sinks onto the sofa as his knees weaken from laughter, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deeper inside of him than his chest, causing an ache in his gut.
I was never going to get to Cleveland on time, he thinks, gasping for breath.
Canon Compliancy: Set between Seasons 7 and 8.
Character: Giles
Genre: Drama
Rating: G
Word Count: ~1350
Disclaimer: Not mine; no money.
AN: This fic is a very belated birthday present for sahiya, who asked for Giles and Cleveland. I worked with the supposition that Sunnydale is near Santa Barbara. Contains vague spoilers for S8, #5, 'The Chain' (and yet more geographical supposition).
It was also written for still_grrr's prompt to set a fic between Season 7 and 8 and is posted there.
Award winner - details here.
The bus hurtles due north, a blur of safety orange, or rather, Giles wishes it were a blur, because if it were a blur, they’d be getting somewhere other than endless tracks of flat land parched by a too-hot sun.
But a white F-150, red Civic, and silver Prius pass him on the left in quick succession, destroying any illusion of speed.
The steady pull of the steering wheel to the right begins to grate, the strain in his shoulder annoying, and he snorts at the banality of front-end alignment being a bother.
I’ve only just helped to defeat ultimate evil, and I’m already assailed by mundanity, he thinks, lips twisting ironically.
Glancing at the mirror designed to allow the driver to keep track of students, he can see that the frenzy around where Robin lies has calmed. Faith and Willow sit, both extremely still, looking over the seatback to watch the prostrate man. Small clumps of new Slayers are gathered around Dawn, Xander, and Andrew - three distinct groups all working to help each other finish cleaning and bandaging minor wounds. The low murmur of familiar voices tells him the Scoobies are already working to soothe nerves frayed by both battle and the previously loud weeping of Kira. After a sold half hour of attention from Buffy, the girl sits quietly, and Buffy remains with her, stroking Kira’s hair repetitively and staring out the window.
The sun begins to set, rays boring into the corner of his left eye, and he has to squint to see that the needle above the word ‘GAS’ hovers dangerously near the red.
A black Explorer and a green A4 pass the bus, slipping steadily ahead to disappear into the wavy horizon line of heat haze.
Movement in his peripheral vision causes him to look to the mirror again, and Giles sees Buffy stepping over Robin’s legs where they extend across the aisle and pausing to squeeze Willow on the shoulder.
She settles into the seat behind him, but doesn’t lean close.
“Kira?” he asks.
“She’ll get through it - she’s strong. It’s just her first time of almost dying, and almost dying is pretty much as scary as dying.”
“Indeed.” He offers a small smile.
“So …” She pauses to catch his eye in the mirror. “Were you serious about Cleveland?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” He looks back to the road. “The Hellmouth there has never been as active as Sunnydale’s - I have a good idea the Mayor had something to do with that - but it’s bound to become more so now that this one is closed.”
“Cleveland,” she says almost absentmindedly. Standing, she moves back to her seat beside Kira.
~~~
The reek of diesel fuel rises around him so thickly that he feels he should be able to see it, the smell less sharp than regular petrol yet more cloying.
Giles watches as the dollar amount on the pump spins past one hundred, hoping it stops soon. The Council credit card he took from Robson has an extremely high limit, but he’s been traveling on it for months now and can’t be sure anyone’s paying the bill.
Reaching a grand total of $137.42, the pump clicks off, and it’s while replacing the nozzle that Willow speaks from behind him. “I still don’t see why we didn’t head south to LA.”
Here we go, he thinks. Although I’d actually expected either Buffy or Faith.
He screws on the industrial petrol cap before turning to face her. “When you called, that Fred woman told you Angel has gone over to Wolfram and Hart. They’re … well, let me put it this way: Wolfram and Hart perpetrate the most extensive network of evil spreading across the entire globe and all of history. There is even talk that they are active in other dimensions. If it were just the original few of us, I might have risked it, but we’ve got new Slayers -”
Willow interrupts, pointing to punctuate her words. “Who are just that - Slayers!”
Holding up a placating hand, Giles says, “They’re still new and have already been through quite a bit. I’m not sure asking them to go into another potentially dangerous situation immediately is fair. Besides which, we don’t have time to become embroiled in something else - we simply must make rebuilding the Council our priority.”
“And Robin? Is he a priority? Because he didn’t get any Slayer healing from his mother.”
“My contact in San Francisco has already arranged for us all to be seen at a small, private hospital. We’ll be there in two more hours.”
“Fine.” She walks quickly to the door of the bus and a waiting Kennedy, who immediately leans forward to speak quietly yet animatedly. Their hands move in sharp, unhappy ways as they cast glances at him.
Sighing, he turns towards the store and cuts through a gaggle of new Slayers returning with what seems every junk food known to America - Doritos and Twinkies and Skittles and Kit-Kats and Coke and Mountain Dew. His brain refuses to keep processing the various clashing, gaudy packagings.
Fluorescent light bathes the inside of Moe’s Family Truck Stop. A startling contrast to the darkness outside, it adds a faint blue hue to everything, making the shadows under Buffy’s eyes a purple where she stands in line with Dawn.
Yet it is the hall leading to the toilets that strikes him as surprising. One whole side is covered in bulletin boards. The first contains a chaotic conglomeration of vacation photos from people who have traveled through, another a mixture of drawings done by local children to thank Moe for buying their softball uniforms. The last says ‘Swap Board’ at the top in hand-printed letters and is covered in colorful brochures - Disneyland, the Grand Canyon, the Bellagio Casino, a historic streetcar ride in San Francisco, the Walk of Stars in LA. Giles looks back up and finds a subtitle to the sign: ‘Leave a dream you’ve lived and take a new one!’
Come to the Sunnydale Crater, he snarks in his mind. Fun for the entire family!
Snorting, he starts to turn when a pamphlet half covered by one promoting Alcatraz catches his eye. It shows the bottom of a red Gibson Les Paul and, when uncovered, reads ‘Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.’ The inside talks about the wonders of seeing John Entwhistle’s bass and Robert Crumb’s portrait of Janis Joplin done on an acid blotter sheet. As if that weren’t enough, the special exhibit on The Psychedelic Era, 1965 - 1969 promises over 500 artifacts from ‘The Beatles, the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, the Who, the Byrds and the Jefferson Airplane.’
Music, world-altering music, streams through Giles’s mind, and his heart speeds in excitement to match it.
Unclipping the brochure from the wall, Giles lets his finger trace over the words at the bottom, Cleveland, Ohio, before folding and placing it in his jacket pocket.
~~~
By the time he reaches into that jacket pocket again, standing in his front hall about to go down the pub, months have passed and he’s half a world away.
He’ll be going to Cleveland next week, but only for the few hours it will take to give Rona’s group the speech about what it means to be a Slayer, about the Chain.
The brochure reminds him that there may be something more to see in that particular city, and he opens it to read the list of names again: Cream, the Who, Janis Joplin, more. He smiles, the notes of Cream’s “White Room” running through his mind, and thinks, I could stay an extra day instead of flying immediately on to Chicago.
It’s only when he turns the paper all the way over that he sees the dates printed on the back: May 10, 1997 - February 28th, 1998.
Moving into the sitting room, he sinks onto the sofa as his knees weaken from laughter, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deeper inside of him than his chest, causing an ache in his gut.
I was never going to get to Cleveland on time, he thinks, gasping for breath.