blairprovence | FIC The Backup (1/1) (BUFFY)

Title:  The Backup
Author:  blairprovence
Prompt:  For

glimmergirl for the Every Slayer Needs a Watcher ficathon - requests: a happy ending that doesn't include marriage/children; perfume/scent; season 1-4 setting. This is post season 4 but pre season 5, so I think it qualifies.
Rating:  PG
Character(s)/Pairing(s):  Buffy/Giles
Warnings:  None
Disclaimer:  All things Buffy belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al.
Summary:  Weddings, curry and imported beer can lead to serious conversations - and snogging.

The Backup (1/1)
by Blair Provence

Willow, Giles saw only occasionally, as she had chosen to join Tara for summer classes at Sunnydale U. He saw Xander slightly more often – the young man would drop by in the evenings, sweaty and exhausted, after throwing himself wholeheartedly into the construction job he’d gotten via his Uncle Rory. It had been a quiet few weeks for Giles, which he found he appreciated – it didn’t have the feel of abandonment that the previous months had engendered.

Buffy called him every night.

She did not seem to be enjoying Iowa.

“Farmers, Giles!” she’d said, and he’d stifled a laugh at her gobsmacked tone. “Real ones! His dad has overalls – and a tractor! Granted, it’s about fifteen feet high and it has air-conditioning, but STILL-“

“I have no words of wisdom to offer, Buffy,” he had told her, reclining in solitary splendor on his couch. “I have never met a tractor.” A snort of laughter had escaped before he could stifle it.

“Funny,’ she’d replied sourly. “How’re things in the Dale? Do I need to bail on the incredibly uncomfortable weddingness? Because I totally will.”

“Your willingness to sacrifice so much for your calling is truly appreciated, Buffy,” he’d said. “But, no, everything is quiet here. Enjoy Riley’s sister’s wedding. Dance. Eat cake.”

“Tip a cow,” she had retorted. “You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.”

He smiled at the memory of their conversations, content with the new accord they seemed to have reached after the enjoining spell. It wasn’t their relationship of old – it felt different than their high school partnership, but he was satisfied nonetheless. Buffy needed him again, even if only as an Agony Aunt for her travails with her boyfriend’s family.

She was due back this evening. He wondered if she would call, or if their new understanding would fade away as everyday life reasserted itself. He pondered that thought as he ate curry, sipped Scotch and watched television.

A knock interrupted Doctor Who and his mellow Scotch haze an hour later. He opened the door to find Buffy on the stoop.

“Hi, Giles,” she chirped, breezing past him to flop down on the couch. “What’s up?” She frowned as the television screen caught her eye. “What is that?”

“It’s a Dalek. Nemesis of every British schoolchild of the past forty years.” He sat down beside her. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”

“Is that a toilet plunger?” she asked, still staring. “British TV is so weird.” She rolled her head to the side and smiled up at him. “Yeah, I just wanted to see how things were going – Mom had to go back to the gallery because of their new exhibit, so I had her drop me off after dinner.” She sat up and sniffed appreciatively at the bowl on the coffee table. “Ooh, is that curry? It smells awesome!” She grabbed the bowl and scooped out a large spoonful.

“Er, weren’t you just at dinner?”

Buffy rolled her eyes as she swallowed. “Yes, but Mom- shit, Giles!” The bowl clattered on the table as she jumped up and raced to the kitchen. He could hear the refrigerator door open and the rattle of bottles. She returned to the living room, red-cheeked and teary-eyed, gulping down one of his Cobra lagers, a second clutched in her other hand.

“Oh, sorry,” Giles told her, struggling not to laugh. “I should have mentioned it was Tindaloo. I think I overdid the spices a bit.”

“Ya think?” she asked around the lip of the bottle. “God!”

His lips twitched. “You were saying about your mother?”

She sat down on the couch and pointedly moved both beers out of his reach. She picked up the bowl of curry and gingerly chose another small spoonful. “The guy – the art guy in San Fran that I told you about? – he asked Mom to a new gallery opening, and she wants to wear the navy sheath, and so she’s in diet mode.” She swallowed carefully and sipped the beer. “I find it easier to eat salad along with her than to eat regular food in front of her while she’s dieting. She doesn’t really like to be reminded that I, basically, never have to count calories.”

“Yes, well, I’m on your mother’s side there,” Giles told her, picking up his scotch.

Buffy smirked at him.

The credits for Doctor Who scrolled up the television screen in front of them, segueing into the introduction to Rosemary and Thyme. “Um, no,” Buffy said decisively, grabbing the remote. She paged through his limited channel selection and paused on an episode of Friends. “Ah, a Richard episode. Excellent.” She set the remote down and picked up her beer, taking a healthy swig.

“What happened to ‘beer bad’, Buffy?”

“I decided that was just American beer.” She drained the bottle and smacked her lips. “This stuff’s wild, though.” She cut her eyes at him. “And don’t give me any guffiness about not being twenty-one. If you can save the world, you can drink a beer. It should be a law.”

He held up a defensive hand. “Not arguing. You would be quite old enough in England.”

“Yeah.” She picked up the second beer and subsided against the couch back, leaning her head against his shoulder. He could smell her vanilla-scented perfume, an odd mix with the curry spices. “It’s wacked that you can join the army at eighteen but not legally drink. You can get *married* at eighteen, but not be able to drink the champagne at the wedding.” She stared at the television screen for a minute, watching as the television show, in unconscious thematic agreement, showed the Chandler character declaring his intentions of marrying Monica.

“I cannot explain it.”

She shook her head. “Riley’s sister's new brother-in-law is eighteen, and his girlfriend is sixteen. And pregnant.”

At a loss to where Buffy was going with this line of conversation, Giles merely said, “Mmm?”

“Everyone was talking about it at the wedding. And they all seemed to agree that her parents should let them get married. Apparently if you’re sixteen or seventeen you have to have permission.”

‘That would seem…like a difficult solution.”

“It’s loony,” she agreed. “I kept waiting for someone to SAY it, but no one did. Then again, they were all over the moon about Riley’s sister and her husband, too, and that barely even makes any more sense. She was eighteen, Giles. And I didn’t hear one single person say, ‘What the hell is she doing?’ And he’s just twenty, learning to farm from his dad. Everyone was so happy for them, so…so confident about them, and I kept wanting to say, ‘This is NUTS! What are you doing?”

“People do make it work, supposedly,” he replied, sipping the Scotch.

“Oh, yeah? If you’d have gotten married at eighteen, who would it have been to?”

He nursed his drink for a moment, debating. “Hmm. Ethan, I suppose.” He gave her credit for not choking on her beer as she gave a startled laugh.

“My point is made for me,” she said. “And my choices would be…Angel, I guess. Or Riley. More point-making, I think.” She drank more beer. “And I think Riley sees it more their way than mine.”

“You don’t think he’s going to propose, do you?” Giles congratulated himself at keeping most of the horror that idea engendered out of his voice.

“Not anytime soon, no. But even if he waited until I was twenty-five or something, I don’t think it would work.”

“Oh?”

“It’s part of a package for him, you know? Wife, kids, farm…Not that I think he wants to be a farmer, or thinks women should stay barefoot and pregnant or something, but I can’t see him being willing to have his wife be an active Slayer. Not a lot of Iowa or casseroles or PTA in that scenario.”

They were silent for a moment, as Friends played out on the screen. Ross and Joey (Giles would never admit to knowing their names, not in a million years) were upset to find out that Phoebe had signed them both up as her backup should she fail to marry by age forty.

Buffy ran her tongue around the rim of the bottle, and then pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Do you think it’s weird that I don’t want that?”

“What? The PTA and such? No, not at all. But it is part of what a lot of people would term ‘a normal life’ – and you have voiced some desire for that.”

“I think I just wanted to be able to choose it.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “And I guess I always felt the clock ticking, you know? Like that,” she gestured toward the television, “like having a backup for when you reach forty – not a husband, just somebody to be with, you know? I haven’t worried about what I was gonna do at forty since I was called.”

“But that’s changed?” he asked. He felt uncomfortable discussing this, as he tried not to even think about it, generally. But it was nice to think she had hopes for the future.

She smiled, eyes still closed. “Well, maybe not forty, still. But I’m evolving plans for thirty.”

“I’m sure Xander would be quite willing,” he told her.

She laughed. “Then I definitely wouldn’t reach thirty, ‘cause Anya would grind me into slimy paste.”

“Point.”

“I’ll have to look elsewhere.” She took another drink and blinked up at him. “How ‘bout you, then? You’re in the Slayer know, you don’t want Iowa, seem okay being wife-less, haven’t ever said anything ‘bout children.”

“Hmm.” He took another burning swig of Scotch, wondering a bit muzzily at the turn of conversation. She couldn’t possibly be serious. “I hate break it to you, but…” he tilted his head toward her and lowered his voice to a whisper, “I’m already thirty.”

She erupted into giggles. “Really?” She sucked the last few drops out of the second bottle of beer, and it occurred to Giles that they were both quite tipsy. “That’s not the important part of the deal, though,” she said.

“It isn’t?”

“Nope,” she told him, staring soulfully into his eyes. “It’s th’ friends part.”

He stared back. “Oh.”

She reached up to curl her hand around the back of his neck. The tips of her fingers were cool from the beer bottle, and he shivered. She pulled him toward her.

“So‘ve we got a deal?” she asked, her breath ghosting over his cheek.

“Umhmm…” What?

All thought left his mind as her lips met his.

The sound of the door opening some time later made them jerk apart automatically. Xander swept in, hopping awkwardly as he toed his muddy boots off onto the porch, muttering a string of profanities under his breath. “Bathroom,” he called, not even sparing them a glance as he shot through the apartment.

Giles stared, wide-eyed, at Buffy. She stared back at him, breathing hard, as she fumbled with the buttons of her shirt. “Xander hates the Porta-Potties,” he informed her nonsensically.

“Who wouldn’t?” Buffy replied, touching her fingers to her lips. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Buffy-“

“No, it’s good, we’re fine, I’ve just…I need to go.”

He reached for her arm but she backed out of his reach, nearly colliding with Xander as he came back from the bathroom.

“Ooh, curry,” Xander said, snatching up the bowl and turning for the kitchen. “Mind if I reheat it? Hey, Buff, welcome back.”

“Hey, Xander,” Buffy said as she opened the front door. Giles felt his heart sink, but then she turned back toward him and he saw the blinding smile on her face. “So, a very happy thirtieth, right, Giles?”

He smiled back at her.

“It’s a date.”

END

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: bedroom
Current Music: Johnny Cash

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

antennapedia.livejournal.com

This was fabulous. I love Buffy's burn-first encounter with Giles's curry, and her rationalization about the beer. The whole evening is built from such believable details (Giles most definitely not knowing the names of the characters on Friends, Buffy's reaction to shoestring Daleks, Riley's family and their connections). And of course the cultural gap Buffy can't get past with Riley, and the heartaching reason why she can't contemplate those futures. Enjoyed every line of this.

From:

His face said, "It's been a long day and now there's you..."

FIC The Backup (1/1) (BUFFY)

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