chicating | Entries tagged with btvs

Veruca sensed Oz before she met him. Maybe she liked his scent, when he almost came to Shy’s rescue when they were booked in some place in East Sunnydale that clearly expected some kind of Tejano band and weren’t exactly thrilled with her quivers and quavers. She never found out if it was an accident or a prank that got them there, but she loved Oz for taking charge and busting out something(La Bamba? This would sound terrible in an interview or whatever, but she stopped listening…it was all she could do not to sniff him all over) the patrons could tolerate, and despite not being all that much masters of their instruments, Los Dingoes totally saved the day, and booked a gig or two…she hoped they had a few more songs. Still, not really her problem, right?

“I totally owe you. You saved our ass out there!”

He doffed an imaginary hat. “Weren’t nothin, ma’am. They were a pretty mellow crowd overall.”
“A mellow crowd that majorly hated us.”

He nodded, the spikes in his red hair seeming to concede the point without wanting to make a big thing out of it. “Yeah, I’d say Ruben had a wacky misunderstanding when he made that booking.”
“Totally.” She was sure that her color was bright and her eyes had the greenish glint that guys loved. “We’re gonna go out for drinks now. You know, for my constitution…wanna come?” She knew she was offering more than a drink, but she didn’t care.
Why fight it?
He blushed. It was cute…she hadn’t seen it in a long time. “Well, I would, but my girlfriend likes it when I tell her good night.”

Current Mood: surprised

Unlike most girls, well, young women, now, her age, Buffy has had many chances to think about the things she might want to think of for the last time. After all, she’s been there, if only briefly. She knows that both Willow and Giles feel majorly ripped off that she has no eyewitness accounts of any Other Side to bring them, but that, for once, came with no dreams or visions. Just wetness and some kind of algae
.(She was able to get the dress cleaned, but had her mom donate it somewhere for girls that couldn’t afford their prom dresses. She’d lost all enthusiasm for wearing it. But she didn’t think it was cursed or anything. She hoped not.)
Out of habit, even climbing the tower, she thought “I meant to ask Giles.” And realized she would soon be out of times to ask him anything, and that hurt a little.

As did the memory of herself being all Quippy Girl telling both Will and her Watcher that the next time she died, she’d take a pad and pen and record impressions along the way,
and laughing at how their expressions and even voices kind of matched when they said “Would you?
” Till they realized she wasn’t serious, that is.
Will even said “My mother would be kind of upset with me for asking, cause we’re Jewish, and an afterlife isn’t really on our menu, but I think I’d feel better if…”And she got all pink, in the way that announced a Major Willow Difficult Topic. “And you know, pissing off Dr. Sheila? Always kind of a bonus.”

“If I see Anne Frank,” Buffy said. “I’ll tell her hello from you. Without saying anything about that.”
“Thanks,” Will said. “But she might understand. She struggled with her mother, too. Also, keep an eye out for Jenny. I have dreams about her sometimes, but they aren’t like yours.”

“I do,” she’d replied. “A lot.” But she’d never thought much about it till she told Willow that.

Kind of random, as last impressions go, but at least on-topic. If anyone were reading her mind right now(never completely off the table in Sunny D, by the way) she’d hate for them to see that climbing all those steep stairs reminded her of the diving board at the public pool in LA, and how she was the first kid to jump in the deep end every summer. Even though they started going when she was six or something, and sometimes parents gave Joyce dirty looks to see her in there in her little pink suit. Which, to her credit, Joyce totally weathered in public, but she did get upset at home sometimes.
Her dad, ex-football jock before he was, like, ex-dad, almost wanted to take credit. Hard to imagine, now. She climbed things a lot, actually, tall neighborhood trees, mountain paths on girl scout hikes, and, just like during her ice-skating lessons, it was like her body told her not to be scared, that it could take most of what she dished out. Maybe the slayer thing shouldn’t have been such a surprise. But it totally was.

The climb seems both endless and not long enough. She is still surprised, that, say “Time of Your Life” or, even, and she hopes Oz, wherever he is, misses this part of her mental transcript, some version of Hallelujah isn’t playing while she flips through a slideshow of thoughts about Dawn, who is, after all, the object of this sacrifice, even more than this messed-up world that she is saving. Again. She tries to picture all the girl-talk they’ll be missing and closes her eyes, waiting for tears. Under her closed eyelids, she can see a green ball of energy.
She takes a deep breath, and plunges.

From BTVS
The power isn’t the only thing that lets Tara know she’s different, though she is very careful to float flowers and herbs under her mother’s protective and affectionate eye. Later on, in the sixth grade, she wonders if it’s the same power or a different one that makes her flutter with something besides envy when pretty, blonde, Charlotte Crowe has a cousin that sent her an expensive bathing suit from Florida. Char was always something to look at, but now Tara feels something drop out of the pit of her stomach that she doesn’t think the other girls notice. She is too shy to ask, though, even though they used to be close in the early grades, being such a small class. Other students don’t notice Tara in school, but her teachers have sometimes: The careful yet beautiful drawings in her notebooks, too meticulous to be called doodles, too lightly regarded by their artist to appear in the school magazine or Culture Night.
Tara’s father thinks any talk of her being gifted and talented is demonic, too, and the polite wall of resistance Tara herself puts up when asked to do a solo sometimes causes Mrs. Magnuson,choir instructor to three schools in their district, to lose more sleep than all the miles she puts on her Ford Escort. “You have a gift,” the teacher prods, trying to be gentle, but she had a lot of voice lessons and is twice Tara’s age and has still never managed the clear, pure sound that comes from Tara McClay’s mouth. “a God-given gift. It would be a sin not to use it.”
“That’s not what my father says,”Tara shrinks into herself again.
“Fathers don’t know everything,” Mrs. Magnuson said, and Tara looked delighted. The choir instructor knew better than to push, though. Sometimes parents moved rather than answer questions about their kids, even ones about their talents. Over the years, she wondered if she’d done the right thing.

Faith doesn’t exactly haul ass across the country once her call comes in. She’s living by her wits in Boston, keeping half an eye on her mother more than her mother kept on her. It’s pointless; they do nothing but fight, so she ends up meeting some stuffy Brits in a motel room that smells like adultery, musky aftershave and instant coffee. She doesn’t think they are the same stuffy Brits, though, that explained why she was so much faster, and so fucking fearless, compared to the other kids in her nabe. (She hoped they didn’t remember Ma, with her bubble-gum lipstick all around her mouth but on her lips, trying to make peace since deep down, her mother knew just why she’d shattered “Uncle Ray’s” fucking stubby fucking fingers.)

That day, though, it had been like a sick kind of birthday wish. If neither of them admitted it, maybe they can go on in the same way. Maybe even pretend they are like other families and the next time Mom stopped drinking it would take, instead of being measured in days or weeks.

All of this is on Faith’s mind as she faces the pasty Brits, male and female, glasses on both. “Yeah?” she says, knowing they’d hate it. She is torn about whether to slouch or stand super-tall and thrust her tits in their faces. She slouched.

“Mz. Lehane, we need you to get to California, post-haste. The previous Slayer just drowned.”
Faith smiled, not at the thought of someone’s death(Not except Ray’s; she will never feel bad about that. Except that she didn’t cause it, maybe. Nasty little perv.) But she was finally going to get her turn.

“Happy birthday to me.” The Watchers made a face, then, as if they blamed her for the smell of the place. It only slightly dampened the feeling, like a birthday candle of pride, at getting her turn.

“Pardon?” The man said. “Frightful odor in this place.”
“Maid’s day off. If I’m gonna cross the country, I’m gonna need some money.”
“I hardly think…” the woman said, then closed her mouth and opened it again.

Current Mood: lazy

to write a Pelecanos-style backstory with, say, Mr, Trick and Derek Strange. Because, for a hot minute, it kind of crossed my mind last night. But that's nuts, right? Last thing I need is more hundreds of words that appeal to me and three other readers.

Giles sent everyone on ahead of him and said he needed some air. He walked rapidly through the cemetery, trying not to think about the latest addition, the freshly-turned earth ready to receive the best part of his life’s work---god, he wished he still smoked. Suddenly, a waft of tobacco floated through the air. Giles looked left and right, uncertain whether something had heard him speak a wish out loud.

Instead, he saw Spike, smoking with one hand and holding Giles’ battered leather billfold with the other. Quicker than a flash, the blond vampire pulled two twenties out and folded them in his jeans pocket.

“Some Watcher you are. You were a million miles away when I…saw you drop this.”

“Well, I did say I found ‘too nice’ frustrating…maybe I’m due to go the other direction.” Giles replied. Part of him wanted to get upset about the dosh, but his mind was doing that cotton-wool codeine thing again, and anyway, it wasn’t like explaining this to Dawn. He couldn’t quite imagine sitting with Spike and explaining how hard he worked to make forty dollars. Maybe somebody should have, but that somebody was bones somewhere, thousands of miles away; even after all this time, an eerie thought. “Just tell me you didn’t stick your hands in my pockets."

Spike’s eyebrow went up. “Been a while, has it? Is that why you dropped the ball?”

“ I did not…drop any ball, and it hasn’t been that long, either. It’s just a matter of professional pride. Ethics, and responsibility, and…” Giles was surprised then to hear the vampire humming something that sounded like John Lennon’s “Whatever Gets You Through The Night” and making cheeky little pelvic motions that would not be out of place on Dawn’s favourite video channel.

“Relax, Watcher. Strictly hands-free, just a simple glamour…I’m not very good at it. And,, you know, gravity. Cause you really did drop it, but I had you open your hand first. Like you were some giant schnauzer and your wallet was my shoe.Not like Dru, but then, I haven’t been round the bend quite as far, either, right? Just needed a distraction, and maybe some lolly to drown my sorrows properly. Coin of my adopted realm…”

Spike shook his bleached head as if to clear it. “Christ, Rupert, is that the bollocks that is in your brain all the time? Even when you’re not a bloody mess? It’d be a miracle if one day you don’t build a tower and end it all, too.”

Giles smiled a wintry smile, protestations of his being all right dying before they even reached his lips. “Probably. Hank Summers is back at the house on Revello. Which is why I’m not. In a rather cowardly breach of decorum. Buffy did not ‘end it all’, Spike. She committed a completely selfless act. You wouldn't understand."

“Whatever you have to tell yourself. But if she got Deadbeat Dad to resurface, she performed miracles, too. I’ll tell you, it’d be worth a bit of headache to get some revenge back for Joyce and the little bit."

Current Mood: creative

Giles hadn’t realised he was counting the hours until Summers returned to the continent until Tara, of all people, took pity on Buffy’s father and invited him back to Revello Drive after the brief but still unendurable service. Tara was a lovely girl and mostly he admired both her maturity and her tendency to feel that every stranger was a friend she just hadn’t met, but sometimes she was just too bleeding nice.
“It’s your own fault, old man” he mumbled under his breath.—whatever else there was to fear about cemeteries, they were an excellent place to mumble piteously. But hadn’t she asked him, as if they were a family, and he were its head, and wasn’t she worried enough about his feelings that that little stammer came out again? It was a mixture that made him feel terrible.

“I think it’ll be good,” and though her voice was hesitant as usual, the tilt of her head was confident. “ For Dawn. He looked so lost, and I think he really has a chance to make it right.”

"Sure. Fine. “ Tara’s eyes looked surprised because he couldn’t quite keep the roughness out of his voice. Maybe she thought it was unshed tears. Maybe it was.

“Whatever you want.” Thinking about it now made him want to rip his tongue out, but at the moment, it was both Tara’s reply of “I just didn’t want to overstep—you know, it’s not my house,” and, even darker thoughts, how easy he might have found it to…dispatch Dawn, if his slayer had seen her as the accident of mystical history that she was--that led him to relent.

The end itself might have been easy, like gutting a trout. Or like pulling the guts out of the turkey for that infernal Thanksgiving she’d insisted on. Just one of the million little jobs Buffy had wanted an adult around for. He'd felt guilty, then, and caught Dawn’s eye, trying to look reassuring and not sorry she was alive at all. He never thought he would pick up this particular American linguistic habit, but, God, it did suck. For a moment, Rupert Giles wanted an adult to call on, too.

“It’s not my house, either,” he’d pointed out, more to get his mind of its sinister track than to encourage Tara, but Watcher habits died hard. Two birds, one stone, and so forth. “You have as much right as anyone.”

Tara beamed, in her understated way. “Yes, but, Giles, you’re so…adult. And I always felt that you and Joyce…kind of had an understanding. She’d trust you to decide what went on in her house. She loved you, Giles. Both of them had. “ She flushed, and was almost beautiful. Which made him even more susceptible, of course, even at his age. “Not the same way, of course.”

(rewatching season Buffy 6...I swear Christmas joy doesn't make me think of funerals...that's more an easter vibe, right? even for cafeteria Christians.)

“Christmas cards…” Giles repeated, disbelievingly. “ Don’t suppose there was any Yuletide treasure in those.”

Summers blushed. “Oh, um, sometimes. I was trying to start a business and Joyce was doing all right for herself…I wouldn’t believe everything you hear, if I were you…I’m sorry I didn’t, you know, have a crystal ball.”

Giles drew himself up to full height. Slightly taller than Summers, he was pettily glad to notice, and said in his most reasonable, plummy tone. “I shouldn’t wonder about that…in your place, I’d be surprised if you have any.” The tiny flash of victory, mixed with the ancient thrill of transgression, was cold comfort, but comfort, nonetheless. Next the Watcher turned his attention to Dawn, who seemed almost determined to joylessly eat her weight in biscuits. “Dawn, stop that…you’ll get sick, and that won’t do anyone any good. Especially not Buffy….maybe you should spend a little more time with your father. He’s bound to be leaving again soon.” Not like him to rub it in, but he seemed most unlike himself, these days.

“I know, Giles,” Dawn replied. “I don’t even want them. Not really. But when I have them in my mouth and I notice what they taste like, for a minute, I feel almost normal. Cause I mean, here are the grody ones that Buffy always liked…you know, that taste like coconut? And I found myself thinking, like, ‘more for her’ except there won’t be. Or that Mom will be mad that I’m making a total pig of myself, except if she is, I doubt she’ll be sending a Ghost-o-Gram to let me know about it, right?”
“I shouldn’t think so.” Giles smiled reassuringly. “But I’d ease off them just in case.” The girl’s tear-stained face brought back one of his spliced-together memories that he had of Dawn. Namely, that when he’d first met the family, Dawn had been frightened of him, because she thought he’d be watching her all the time. He had seen a lot of her at her most freaked-out and tearstained.

Current Music: Mom watching Katy Tur

my attempt to answer this no-longer burning question begins here.

Buffy’s father arrived for the funeral, young blonde in tow. Giles, usually not one for gossip, thought “He has a type,” but the woman was more tentative than the Joyce Giles knew, although, polite at least.
One thing about death rituals, Giles mused, gutting as they were(Although he had to admit to thinking ahead on that front, his own emotions hadn’t really kicked in yet, much like when he’d been on codeine for a bout of bronchitis. He hadn’t been properly high, but, rather, it was like everything he felt were in a balloon somewhere above his head.) Where had he been going with that? Yes, well, one could usually get through a funeral on sheer will, overladen with courtesy.

That had been Giles’ intention at least. He couldn’t even remember what it was that Hank did, what small gesture rather cemented his opinion, because after all, he was primed not to think much of the man, both from seeing the occasional struggle—both financial and emotional- in the Summers’ house, as well as the fact that, when Giles himself neglected his duties all over England and then swanned off for just one(comparatively brief and cut-rate) winter break in Ibiza, Giles paid the prize, didn’t he? Of course, there might not have been demons involved in what Hank did…something in property development.

Well, okay, Giles thought. Minimal demons, not exactly zero demons. Demons love cash, after all. Fewer demons than my lot. But I never left any kids. The living beings who counted on me in those days chose me as their leader, more fools them. The Watcher heaved, what even to his own ears, sounded like a gusty sigh, but was prepared to stiffen his upper lip again. But then, Hank ran his hand through his farm-boy hair, or looked at his expensive watch, and Giles could feel Ripper’s energy moving through what felt like his empty heart. Are we keeping you, you arrogant tosser? The Watcher flushed as if he’d spoken aloud. Maybe he had, but Summers still faced him with an outstretched hand, so probably not.

All the more reason to make an effort, Giles thought. Civility in times of crisis, and all that. “Mr. Summers,” he said, smoothly, subconsciously digging up his poshest tones. “I’m Rupert Giles. Friend of the family, erstwhile librarian…sorry we had to meet at such a tragic moment.”
“Call me Hank. Yes, Mr. Giles, Joyce wrote me about you and your shared interests,” Hank smiled, but it didn’t show in his eyes. The young woman, Tammy Something, was practically yanking on Hank’s hands to get him to join another knot of mourners…fancy going all the way to Spain to end up with a quiet little Tammy. Not that Pilar might have changed the story in any way at all, except for giving Joyce’s pride the sense the other woman had something she didn’t. “Christmas cards and whatnot.”
Don’t think I’ll be calling you Hank, Summers.