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punch_kicker15Chapter: 1/?
Author: punch_kicker15
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Relationships: established Willow/Giles, other relationships to be named later.
Summary: When Willow and Giles' iPhones decide to get married, and an ill-timed wish gets made, chaos inevitably ensues.
Word count: 596
Notes: This is a sequel to my story The Love Song of Frog Fears and Anthropomorphic Nonsense. People with long memories may remember that I wrote and posted the first chapter of this story to Summer of Giles a few years ago.
Chapter One: Crisis.
Giles paused halfway up the stairs to his flat to catch his breath. Exhaustion had finally overcome his earlier adrenaline rush. These competing-dual-apocalypse days were becoming a real nuisance. They required at least four times as much work on strategy and organization as a single-apocalypse day. Also, they meant that Giles spent the day half a world away from some of the people he cared about most. He knew, from Willow’s terse text messages, that she and Buffy and Dawn had survived and thwarted the apocalypse in Oregon, but that was all.
After forcing himself up the stairs, he opened the door to discover Willow sitting on the couch, with an open bottle of Glenlivet and a plate full of oatmeal cookies on the table. That was disturbing. Willow didn't like scotch. And Willow never drank alone..
She managed a wan smile for him. "Hi, sweetie. How was Copenhagen?"
He collapsed on the couch beside her. "Dodging the rain of fire was a bit hectic, but Faith and Rona killed the Teha’q’lan demon before he could start the final ritual. What about your apocalypse?"
"Oh, it was no big deal really." She took a sip of scotch and scrunched up her face in a way that would be adorable under less worrisome circumstances. "Buffy beheaded the ogre king with his own sword while he was monologuing. You'd have been proud. It was classic Buff. Once he was dead, the mind-control spell he put on all of those Watchers and Slayers came undone. There really wasn't much for me or the other witches to do, except to check the mind-controlly people for any side-effects, and help them fill out the Affidavits of Temporary Change of Consciousness. Seriously, the paperwork was the worst part of the job today."
He watched her repeat the sip-of-scotch-and-scrunched-up-face routine. "So what's got you in this state?"
She sighed. "Anthropomorphic Nonsense proposed to Frog Fears."
How on earth could their iPhones to be the source of Willow's angst? "Proposed what?"
"Marriage," she said, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. "They want to get married next weekend. So I need to get the mechanical division to speed up the remote-control robot bodies we’re building for the phones. Once those are done, Buffy’s going to find wedding dresses for both of them. Dawn's ordained as a Universal Life Minister, and can perform the ceremony. And I had a conference call with Gunn about setting up fake identification papers so that their marriage will be recognized legally.”
One of the things he loved about Willow was that when faced with a situation like our sentient iPhones want to get married, Willow jumped immediately to handling all the practical details. He waited patiently to for her to get to the part that was troubling her.
Willow gulped down more scotch, triggering a coughing fit. When it subsided, she put a hand on his arm and said, "So after all that, I found out that the phones kinda invited my parents to the wedding. And told them they could stay with us."
That got the adrenaline going again. Giles stood up and made for the door.
Willow put down her tumbler of scotch and followed him to the door. "Hey, where are you going? You just got home!"
"Shopping for scotch." If he hurried, he could make it to Downtown Liquor before they closed.
"But we still have three bottles here!"
He grabbed his jacket and keys and opened the door. "That's not going to be enough to get us through this crisis."
Chapter 2