I find G/B skeevy generally, though I could see them as an "old" settled couple in SA's story and not be disturbed by the idea.

I picked that up as well. I think the problem I have with B/G is the same problem I have with 'shipping any trainee/mentor pairing, especially the ones that have such a strong parent-child feel to them. Plus, there's the fact that Giles and Joyce slept togther, which makes the whole idea of B/G just that much more squicksome.

Yup. As someone said about Woody Allen? You're not supposed to fuck the children.

You'll be taken care of by a young magician and his trusty dragon Gleep?

Pervert! I mean, Pervect! (Mythconception.....)

Irl, I agree. But fantasy is not much like real life...I wouldn't really do it in a garbage dumpster or a cuffoon, probably. Maybe...ok, the Dumpster is a huge "no."

KAY

I went to the online phone book and located the “Camarillo Factory Outlets”, forty minutes away.Sounded like the place, if these visions had a service area. “He looks like Chewbacca on steroids,” Cordy said.

“Sounds like a Krevloch demon. “ Wesley said. “Let me consult my books and see what I can find out.”

“No offense, Wes, but I think we’d just better be going. We’ve got a forty-minute drive already, huh? And he’s gonna stick out. Just a little, don’t you think?”

“But you know very little about it...its vulnerabilities and so on. How will you manage?”

“We’ll wing it. I’ll be in touch in forty minutes, huh?”

“Not the way I drive,” Gunn said.

“A man after my own heart,” I said, and noticed Wesley frowning. “It’s okay, babe. You look after Cordelia and if I need anything out of the Dungeons and Dragons playbook, you’re my guy.”

“I still think ‘winging it’ is incredibly ill-advised. Don’t come running to me if you get killed. What? I don’t even know what I’m saying any more.”

”That makes two of us, hon. Look, though, besides my ordinary Earth weapon, Mr. Smith and Wesson, I’ve got four stakes and this sharp axe-thing you gave me. Just when I couldn’t get any cuddlier, huh? Check me out...Xena the Warrior Flatfoot. But I’m not gonna start dressing like her, though.” I showed off my full gunbelt.

”Too bad,” Gunn teased. “That’d make it real easy to come to work."

“I think life might be hard on a blind demonfighter, Gunn.”

“ I’d manage. My other senses would take over, right?”

“How much of a coincidence is it that this outlet mall has the same name as your prison for the criminally insane?”

Gunn drummed his fingers on the rental car dashboard. “You just light up rooms wherever you go, don’t you?”

“I try,” I said. “I was precinct Miss Congeniality three years in a row.”

“Scully, you’re full of it.”

“You’re like a cop with all the nicknames. Why Gunn?”

“That’s real original. My last name. My first name is Charles. Do I look like a Charles?”
“About as much as I look like Katherine Marie,” I admitted. “No offense.”

The glare was getting to me, I fiddled with the sun visor. The California sun was relentless...hard to get used to after Balmer. Maybe I’d go the Munchkin route and get dark glasses. I still found myself thinking about him a lot, though the dreams tapered off with the work at AI. But I still didn’t sleep often. I knew the doctors would think I was driving myself too hard, but I’m not the crocheting type. And you know doctors, they always think you’ve got nothing else to do but watch your plumbing.
Gunn was as good as his word. We hauled ass down that freeway. “We make a good team,” I said. “Flatfoot and Leadfoot. Damn.”

“Just doing what had to be done.”

“We can’t get a ticket though.”

”What? You can’t work some of that ‘professional courtesy’ mojo?”

“More likely in Balmer. It didn’t do much good with Detective Lockley.”

And I found myself making pouty lips like Detective Blondie did. Immature, yeah. Catty, probably. But really funny to me at that moment as I was trying to sort through what Tim would probably call my “Russert issues"

“I think I just have the wrong equipment to get through to her, if you know what I mean..”

Gunn drummed his fingers on the rental car dashboard. “You just light up rooms wherever you go, don’t you?”

That is so Gunn.

Thanks. I'm glad he's ok.We couldn't be much more different. And yes, thanks to TV and reading, I know the names of a surprising number of lockups and psych hospitals. Ours is just ASH for Arizona State Hospital. But the first time I visited an Anthony Head site...I didn't understand anything for a minute.Edited for important missing word.

And yet? You're still not squicked by Cordy/Angel. Freak.

Because they had a chance! A snarky, ooh-lets-have-sex but not angst about it chance! But it was squandered!

Got a case of Same Bunny Different Hutch today. This is the beginning of the Law And Order Calendar case. Cause I promised sj ages ago...
I have no idea if Lenny and Mike were actually bunkies during this period, but Logan's pretty, so who cares? Lenny's had too damn many partners.

Rupert Giles was excited that Saturday night, even before he got to the trail of pink rosepetals. They were just the sort of touch he thought Jenny might favor. It had been a long time since he’d been with a romantic. A long time, full stop. He followed the flowers to his door, which was rather more unlocked than he remembered. Giles, old man, you’re getting scatterbrained in your old age, he thought.
Although maybe Jenny found the spare key. He stepped in. “Hello? Jenny?”
The quiet struck him as odd, but he found another flower and the note saying “Upstairs. And then he saw something nobody’s fantasies are made of. Bloody hell, he might’ve known it was that bastard Angelus. There was nothing else for it, after more Scotch. And here comes his bleeding neighbor walking her damned Chihuahua.
“Mr. Giles,” Mrs. Murgatroyd said.
He was a real nice fella, foreign and stuff. Had a real nice accent, like James Bond.

“Mrs. Murgatroyd.”

”Lorraine.”

“Lorraine.”

“Would you like to come to my place? I’ve got satellite.” She asked, none too subtly.

“I’ve got a bit of a personal crisis at the moment.”

“I’m a good listener.”Lorraine looked in Giles’ window. Not because she was nosy but because he worried her, she told herself. “Oh, my God! Call the police!”

Detectives Briscoe and Logan, SPD, arrived a while later. “What d’you think?” Logan asked.

“Kind of reads like trouble in Paradise, but something doesn’t feel right. The window’s open, for one. “

“Maybe he caught her banging somebody.”

“Yeah, but look, genius, it’s his house. Not everybody lives on the edge like you. Not since I got sober, anyway. And who says romance is dead? Banging. God.”

This is the beginning of the Law And Order Calendar case. Cause I promised sj ages ago...

Thank you!

I have no idea if Lenny and Mike were actually bunkies during this period, but Logan's pretty, so who cares?

I am not going to argue with this fine logic.

“Yeah, but look, genius, it’s his house. Not everybody lives on the edge like you. Not since I got sober, anyway. And who says romance is dead? Banging. God.”

This is so very Lenny. Great start.

More V!Giles

Buffy walked slowly along the dark streets of Sunnydale, shadowed by a trio of Watchers Council commandos and with Quentin Travers, head of the Council, silently at her side.

She hadn't been able to answer his question about Giles, and not just because she'd very carefully kept herself from knowing exactly where he was. She knew that Vampire Central these days was out in Sunrise Grove, but no one had specifically ever said, "Rupert Giles, using the professional name of Ripper, is doing business here."

She should have expected someone to wonder where he was. She'd demanded that he be reinstated to the Council, so of course they'd be in contact with him. The reports might be reluctant and incomplete, but the reports were still being made.

"How did you know he was--missing?" she asked.

Travers didn't blink at the sudden breaking of over an hour's worth of silence. "He'd been reporting every week, even if it was just to say 'Situation continuing.' When the reports stopped, we assumed things were becoming more complicated, and we decided not to bother him. The two of you have proved the match of any number of crises, and we expected we'd get a long summary before too much longer."

He fidgeted with his walking stick. "We did hear about the last fight with Glory, though the tales were third hand and worse. It was a story of magic and blood and very unlikely alliances. And every story mentioned two vampires. William the Bloody and a compatriot of his. How long has William the Bloody been--fully capable again?"

Buffy gave him a disbelieving look for his phrasing, imagined Spike's reaction for a moment, and forced back a snicker. "He's been--back to normal for several weeks now."

"And you've left him alone?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

She stopped and gave him a very level look. "Didn't we have this conversation already, about you telling me what to do?"

Travers raised a calming hand. "Please, Miss Summers, I'm not--I would really like to know what circumstances would prevail that would allow a Vampire Slayer of your skill to ignore so vicious a vampire as William the Bloody."

"I'm not ignoring him. It's more--an understanding. I patrol every night, and if I catch them I slay them. To go after Spike now I would have to declare war, and I'm not ready for that."

"Sure you had the opportunity once Glory was finished."

"Mr. Travers, we would not have beaten Glory without Spike's help, or without--" She really did try to say his name, really. "Spike could have sold out to Glory, but he didn't. He stood on the side of the humans instead of a hellgod."

"For his own selfish reasons, I'm sure."

"Mr. Travers, you weren't here. There was so much going on. And Glory nearly tortured Spike to dust trying to get him to tell where her Key was."

Travers frowned. "Really?"

She nodded. "There were pieces missing when we rescued him."

"Rescued? 'We'?"

"You weren't here. You odn't know."

They walked along quietly for several minutes. Buffy led the way into one of the busier cemeteries, and the commandos spread out, like hunting dogs looking for a sent.

Travers broke the silence. "In a war, strange alliances are often necessary. But those alliances are finished when the war ends. There is no shame in that."

Buffy didn't answer.

"I first met Rupert Giles when he was eight years old. His father brought him to the Council for a tour. He didn't seem impressed."

She smiled sadly. "He wanted to be a fighter pilot."

"Did he?"

"Or a grocer." After a moment, he handed Buffy his handkerchief and studied the surrounding tombstones himself for several moments.