Title: Talking Head 1/2
Author: Saint Buffy
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: B/G
Spoilers: Season Five
Feedback: is like a flower to a bee
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue
Distribution: Dee, Gabi, Dword, Dusty, anyone else just ask
Summary: The Scoobies gather for an evening at the Magic Box. Giles
is looking for missing weapons, but finds something far more exciting…
Author's Note: This is in answer to the challenge at the BGzone,
wherein Buffy and Giles have a conversation about spit vs swallow.
You guys are always so inspiring ;)
The Magic Box was quite full. Unfortunately, only two of the people in the shop were customers. Giles was running over an inventory of his weapons, searching out the axes left lying around the shops and the knives, sticky with demon gore, that had fallen behind equipment in the back room.
In the main part of the shop, Anya was holding forth to a captive audience of Willow and Tara, who sat at the table. They were researching a demon Buffy had been fighting the day before, while Anya told them about the argument she and Xander appeared to have had. In the back room, Xander was relieving his feelings with violence, in his own fashion- he was holding the punching bag as Buffy prepared for her night's hunt for this new demon.
Giles was looking for a sword. He could have sworn he took it on patrol last Thursday when Buffy wanted the night off to go somewhere with Riley. There had been two vampires and a small demon, handled very nicely by the rest of the team, and the gang had returned without any casualties to the weapons. Except Giles couldn't find the sword he had been using. He went over to check behind the shop counter, where he sometimes left things, walking back into the thick of Anya's lament.
"… and how was I supposed to know he only likes that on days when he's not feeling macho?" Anya was saying. "I'm not a mind reader. I couldn't even do that when I was a demon. Vengeance demons don't read minds…"
The sword definitely wasn't under the counter. Giles decided to have another look in the back room, pushing open the door onto a scene of violence.
"… but then I looked again and it was just a couple making out. Really, it can be hard to tell sometimes if a guy's kissing the girl or if she's in real danger," Buffy said, thumping into Xander's arm pads.
"I'm in pain," Xander groaned. Giles looked behind the pile of floor mats, wondering if his sword had fallen down behind them. He shifted a few onto the floor.
"One time I almost staked this guy because the girl was groaning so loud but then it turned out he had his hand on her-"
"Here it is," Giles said, half in triumph, half to stop Buffy from speaking. He held up his sword.
"You found it?" Buffy said. "And here I was, thinking we'd have to make another trip to Sword Mart."
"Real, real pain," Xander repeated.
"I must have dropped this mat on top of it after training," Giles said, and went back out into the main shop. He usually kept the sword in a chest beneath his desk.
Anya was still in full flow. "He didn't even tell me why he was so annoyed until this morning. Honest to God, I didn't think he would get so upset about it."
Willow and Tara were looking a little green. "Made any progress?" Giles asked as he put the sword away.
"Not unless Buffy starts speaking backwards and the temperature drops thirty degrees," Willow said reluctantly, closing another book.
"Keep trying," Giles said, pulling his weapons list out of his pocket.
Buffy tried her new kick again, trying to block out the sound of Xander's moans. He was such a baby when they trained. Giles put up with a lot more from her and only fell over when she deliberately tried to drop him, but Xander flinched and groaned sometimes before she had even kicked him.
It was good of him to offer, though. She never trained with Riley any more. In fact at the moment, with her mom sick and the worry about Dawn, she hardly did anything with Riley any more. He never really hung out with the gang, like they all were now, researching, training, or going over the weapons, late at night, the gang warm and kinda cosy together.
Somewhere inside her, Buffy knew the reason for this, but she tried not to acknowledge it, concentrating on her jabs. Giles came back into the back room.
"What now?" Buffy asked him, taking a break to stretch out the muscles in her shoulders.
"A small axe. Black handle. It has an engraving on the-"
"Lost it," Buffy admitted. Giles glared at her. "What? I threw it in a Korvach and it melted when the demon melted. That's so not my fault."
"I liked that axe," Giles muttered, crossing it off his list. Buffy hid a smile at his crestfallen face and went back to pounding Xander. Every month Giles went through the same routine, checking off all the weapons they had collected and working out which ones were broken or missing, and then finding replacements. And yet every month he greeted the loss of some weapon worse than he took the news of another death in Sunnydale. Sometimes, Buffy even found herself putting off telling him about the demise of some favourite axe or crossbow or other, knowing the hurt look that would appear on his face.
Watchers were funny guys. "Have Willow and Tara found my demon yet?" she asked.
"Not yet, but they're working on it," Giles replied, looking down at his list. He wandered back towards the front of the shop.
"You're going out again tonight?" Xander asked. Buffy nodded. "Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, we don't know what we're dealing with."
"I need to stop it before it kills someone," she replied. "Ready?"
"No, but don't let that stop you," Xander replied, holding up his pads again. Buffy started with her right arm. "You said it said something to you," he added.
"Yeah, but it wasn't English," Buffy said. "It was like, `creak, croak, whistle, whistle, spit.'" She paused, frowning. "Or maybe `creak, *creak*, whistle, whistle, spit.'"
"That could make all the difference," Xander replied.
"What I never know is," Buffy said, swapping to her left arm, "Should I say something back? I mean, is it polite to answer them?"
"What if you get it wrong?" Xander added. "You don't wanna creak when you should have croaked."
"And the whole spitting thing. Should I spit *at* them or to the side? We were kinda busy fighting so I didn't really notice what the other guy did." Buffy began to alternate arms, punching left, right, left again, her arms a lethal blur in front of her.
"I'm not sure if the whole thing's best avoided," Xander said. "You don't want to try to say, `I'm gonna kill you,' and end up with `I slept with your mother.'"
"I guess," Buffy said, and punched again.