Crisis, Willow/Giles, PG-13

[punch_kicker15]

Title: Crisis
Author: punch_kicker15
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Relationships: Willow/Giles (established relationship)
Summary: Stopping two apocalypses was the easy part of the day for Giles and Willow.
Word count: 601
Notes: Drabble set in the universe of my story The Love Song of Anthropomorphic Nonsense and Frog Fears. What you need to know from that one: Willow and Giles are in a relationship, and they have sentient iPhones named Anthropomorphic Nonsense and Frog Fears. Hat tip to velvetwhip for making a suggestion in a comment to the earlier story that I adopted here.

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."

Comments

[gilescandy.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! Love this 'verse. Poor Giles is getting too old to deal with this apocalypse stuff. But it's totally them that that's the normal part of the day, and so is their magical phones wanting to get married. But the parents coming, that's the crisis! LOL. I can't wait for more.

[punch-kicker15.livejournal.com]

It is a lot to ask for Giles to still be out there on the front lines on Apocalypse days. Part of my headcanon for this universe is that the Scoobies and Faith still kind of think of the Watchers trained post-Chosen as "the new guys" even though it's been more than ten years at this point. No matter how much friction there's been with Giles over the years, the positive history they have with him is going to matter a lot when world's on the line.

There will be more, once I work out the plot. Weddings can be such a source of drama and hilarity. :)