Holiday Ficlet for Giles: Shopping for Presents on the Hellmouth
Giving my neglected Watcher some much-deserved holiday loving, I'm participating in the advent challenges at giles-shorts. Check it out, will ya? :) The following turned out a bit self-indulgent, as I surround Buffy and Giles with good books, bad puns and monster du jour. But it's the holidays, after all. :P
Title: Shopping for Presents on the Hellmouth
Author: feliciacraft
Characters: Giles, Buffy
Rated: G
Length: 1003 (But...3 prompts!)
Prompts filled: #1: shopping for presents, #2: gingerbread, and #4: making a list and checking it twice, with much thanks to il_mio_capitano for the wonderful prompts!
Feedback: Won't you please? :)
Since peace on earth and goodwill to all non-demons would remain an unfulfilled wish here on the Hellmouth, Giles decided that he might as well celebrate Christmas by embracing the commercialism that Anya had assured him was the American way. Zigzagging past sales clerks disturbingly enthused about free samples, fighting temporary blindness from LED lights-blazing trees dusted with fake snow, and grinding his teeth in response to the musak blasting at a volume certainly to have exceeded the subwoofer’s manufacturer recommended level, Giles navigated the sensory-overloaded Sunnydale Mall with a mission and a twice-checked shopping list. His destination: Books ‘n’ Gifts, the lone non-magic bookstore still in business in Sunnydale, in direct inverse proportion to the town’s need for knowledge.
As he rounded the corner of the Young Adults section at the atrocious embarrassment of a bookstore, flipping through a bestseller on prominent display, he realized just how very mistaken he’d been to fail to anticipate the perils of shopping for presents.
“Vampires that sparkle… Really!” he scoffed and returned the dubious bestseller to the shelf, moving right along. One thing was for sure: Buffy did not need to fill her head with any more romantic notions about vampires. A gaggle of girls pushed past him, chattering and laughing and overladen with shopping bags showcasing models wearing entirely too little merchandise for it to have been effective advertising. Yes, how foolish of him to consult popularity as determined by such a doomed generation when quality education was the end goal. To the Classics section, then.
“I beg your pardon.” He shuffled a side step when he thought he’d bumped into another patron. The unmistakeable spices of ginger, cloves, and cinnamon assaulted his nostrils, not entirely unpleasant but rather distracting. Had he somehow crossed over into the Gifts portion of Books ‘n’ Gifts? Certainly that would explain the abrupt shift in decor from the black sleek shelves to the honey brown padded wall decked out with jewel-toned, rounded cones, glistening in a thorough coat of granulated sugar-
The wall roared, eclipsing the boom of the holiday noise masquerading as music. Giles’s head jerked up to meet the horror of a gingerbread giant baring its pearly whites of frosting in a menacing Cheshire cat smile. The creature plucked off a foot-long neon green gumdrop from its chest and swung it down like a hammer of fury.
There was no time to wonder what kind of misguided holiday baker would decorate a gingerbread man with teeth as Giles tucked and rolled under its stumpy arm. A kick at full strength to the back of its knees inflicted no apparent harm on the creature, in part because, as Giles reflected ruefully, it had no knees. How in the world was the ten-foot tower of baked abomination moving and attacking despite its distinct disadvantage of complete lack of joints? This would make for fascinating research material were his life not on the line.
Speaking of which, the gumdrop was rushing towards his head again, and he held up the heftiest tome from the nearby bottom shelf as shield. As tremors from the impact cascaded down his out-stretched arms to numb his torso, Giles blinked at the title that’d saved his life: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. How apropos. Indeed the pen proved mightier than the uhm, sugar-coated confectionery?
“Giles, MOVE!” Buffy’s voice - urgent, commanding, close by - brought Giles back to the emergency at hand. Instinctively he leapt to the next section, Shakespeare safely clutched to his chest - it was only right for him to return the favor. “Careful, Buffy!” he shouted back. “It’s bewitched and stronger than -”
He didn’t have a chance to finish, when, with a single strategic roundhouse kick, Buffy toppled rows of bookcases to crash with a deep rumble, dominoes style, on the advancing gingerbread creature. “Take that!” she said, hands on hips and chin held high as the pile of books, shards of wood, and frosting stirred once with a dying moan, then all was quiet again.
“Bewitched, huh?” Buffy threw a dismissive glance at the shattered, cinnamon-scented pieces, then proceeded to examine her brand new, knee-high, leather boots with the same intensity of concern Giles gave his life-saving Shakespeare. They must’ve passed the inspection, for in the next moment she flitted to Giles, beaming. “Well, menace level of this one? Half-baked, at best.”
“How fortunate for us. However-” With his handkerchief, Giles snapped off a piece of the not-so-mighty fallen, wrapped it up, then tucked it into his jacket pocket for further study. “This may not be a random occurrence. We must be vigilant.” With as much of a straight face as possible, he continued, “After all, we never know what the witches of Sunnydale might cook up next.”
Oh, but Buffy’s good cheer could not be so easily dampened by the threat of research. She shrugged. “That's the way the cookie crumbles. Lucky I’m around to smash their plan to pieces, huh?”
With a watchful eye on the rubberneckers that were beginning to gather, Giles ushered Buffy to a discreet exit. “Holidays on the Hellmouth is no piece of cake, but this certainly takes the biscuit.” Not to be out-punned, Buffy hmmed, heels click-clacking right along. “You might’ve seen a gingerbread biscuit or a gingerbread man, but I bet you’ve never seen a gingerbread crumble. Hey, wait a minute!” Her eyes widened at the doorstopper-sized Complete Works of William Shakespeare tucked under Giles’s arm. “You weren’t planning to gift me that for Christmas, were you?”
Good Heavens! Had he just committed a misdemeanor by walking off with the eternal words of the Bard, unpaid? Flustered, he could only try to, as the children would say, “play it cool.” “Why? Do you already own a copy?”
Buffy threw another furtive glance at the masterpiece, then stuck out her lower lip in a pout. Giles hid a fond smile for his Slayer and pretended not to hear as she grumbled, “I hope you at least got a gift receipt.”
(End)
Title: Shopping for Presents on the Hellmouth
Author: feliciacraft
Characters: Giles, Buffy
Rated: G
Length: 1003 (But...3 prompts!)
Prompts filled: #1: shopping for presents, #2: gingerbread, and #4: making a list and checking it twice, with much thanks to il_mio_capitano for the wonderful prompts!
Feedback: Won't you please? :)
Since peace on earth and goodwill to all non-demons would remain an unfulfilled wish here on the Hellmouth, Giles decided that he might as well celebrate Christmas by embracing the commercialism that Anya had assured him was the American way. Zigzagging past sales clerks disturbingly enthused about free samples, fighting temporary blindness from LED lights-blazing trees dusted with fake snow, and grinding his teeth in response to the musak blasting at a volume certainly to have exceeded the subwoofer’s manufacturer recommended level, Giles navigated the sensory-overloaded Sunnydale Mall with a mission and a twice-checked shopping list. His destination: Books ‘n’ Gifts, the lone non-magic bookstore still in business in Sunnydale, in direct inverse proportion to the town’s need for knowledge.
As he rounded the corner of the Young Adults section at the atrocious embarrassment of a bookstore, flipping through a bestseller on prominent display, he realized just how very mistaken he’d been to fail to anticipate the perils of shopping for presents.
“Vampires that sparkle… Really!” he scoffed and returned the dubious bestseller to the shelf, moving right along. One thing was for sure: Buffy did not need to fill her head with any more romantic notions about vampires. A gaggle of girls pushed past him, chattering and laughing and overladen with shopping bags showcasing models wearing entirely too little merchandise for it to have been effective advertising. Yes, how foolish of him to consult popularity as determined by such a doomed generation when quality education was the end goal. To the Classics section, then.
“I beg your pardon.” He shuffled a side step when he thought he’d bumped into another patron. The unmistakeable spices of ginger, cloves, and cinnamon assaulted his nostrils, not entirely unpleasant but rather distracting. Had he somehow crossed over into the Gifts portion of Books ‘n’ Gifts? Certainly that would explain the abrupt shift in decor from the black sleek shelves to the honey brown padded wall decked out with jewel-toned, rounded cones, glistening in a thorough coat of granulated sugar-
The wall roared, eclipsing the boom of the holiday noise masquerading as music. Giles’s head jerked up to meet the horror of a gingerbread giant baring its pearly whites of frosting in a menacing Cheshire cat smile. The creature plucked off a foot-long neon green gumdrop from its chest and swung it down like a hammer of fury.
There was no time to wonder what kind of misguided holiday baker would decorate a gingerbread man with teeth as Giles tucked and rolled under its stumpy arm. A kick at full strength to the back of its knees inflicted no apparent harm on the creature, in part because, as Giles reflected ruefully, it had no knees. How in the world was the ten-foot tower of baked abomination moving and attacking despite its distinct disadvantage of complete lack of joints? This would make for fascinating research material were his life not on the line.
Speaking of which, the gumdrop was rushing towards his head again, and he held up the heftiest tome from the nearby bottom shelf as shield. As tremors from the impact cascaded down his out-stretched arms to numb his torso, Giles blinked at the title that’d saved his life: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. How apropos. Indeed the pen proved mightier than the uhm, sugar-coated confectionery?
“Giles, MOVE!” Buffy’s voice - urgent, commanding, close by - brought Giles back to the emergency at hand. Instinctively he leapt to the next section, Shakespeare safely clutched to his chest - it was only right for him to return the favor. “Careful, Buffy!” he shouted back. “It’s bewitched and stronger than -”
He didn’t have a chance to finish, when, with a single strategic roundhouse kick, Buffy toppled rows of bookcases to crash with a deep rumble, dominoes style, on the advancing gingerbread creature. “Take that!” she said, hands on hips and chin held high as the pile of books, shards of wood, and frosting stirred once with a dying moan, then all was quiet again.
“Bewitched, huh?” Buffy threw a dismissive glance at the shattered, cinnamon-scented pieces, then proceeded to examine her brand new, knee-high, leather boots with the same intensity of concern Giles gave his life-saving Shakespeare. They must’ve passed the inspection, for in the next moment she flitted to Giles, beaming. “Well, menace level of this one? Half-baked, at best.”
“How fortunate for us. However-” With his handkerchief, Giles snapped off a piece of the not-so-mighty fallen, wrapped it up, then tucked it into his jacket pocket for further study. “This may not be a random occurrence. We must be vigilant.” With as much of a straight face as possible, he continued, “After all, we never know what the witches of Sunnydale might cook up next.”
Oh, but Buffy’s good cheer could not be so easily dampened by the threat of research. She shrugged. “That's the way the cookie crumbles. Lucky I’m around to smash their plan to pieces, huh?”
With a watchful eye on the rubberneckers that were beginning to gather, Giles ushered Buffy to a discreet exit. “Holidays on the Hellmouth is no piece of cake, but this certainly takes the biscuit.” Not to be out-punned, Buffy hmmed, heels click-clacking right along. “You might’ve seen a gingerbread biscuit or a gingerbread man, but I bet you’ve never seen a gingerbread crumble. Hey, wait a minute!” Her eyes widened at the doorstopper-sized Complete Works of William Shakespeare tucked under Giles’s arm. “You weren’t planning to gift me that for Christmas, were you?”
Good Heavens! Had he just committed a misdemeanor by walking off with the eternal words of the Bard, unpaid? Flustered, he could only try to, as the children would say, “play it cool.” “Why? Do you already own a copy?”
Buffy threw another furtive glance at the masterpiece, then stuck out her lower lip in a pout. Giles hid a fond smile for his Slayer and pretended not to hear as she grumbled, “I hope you at least got a gift receipt.”
(End)