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BtVS Fic Prompt: Luggage
Shows: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Story Title: Baggage
Character/Relationships: Rupert Giles
Rating: PG
Warnings: Canon character deaths
He arrived with a suitcase, a trunk and a chip on his shoulder.
The suitcase had belonged to his father, the father who had spent so much of Rupert’s youth away from home. One of his first memories was of climbing up on the bed to watch Father packing. Mama had busied herself in the kitchen, making all Father’s favourite foods. He knew now how worried Mama had been, her eyes red from crying, her hands shaking from the fear that Father might not come home.
Mama hardly cried at all when Father’s broken hip meant he got pulled from field duty permanently.
The trunk was his great-great aunt’s, the only Slayer in a family of Watchers. He’d found it in the attic, in a dark corner where he’d hide from his father’s high expectations, his mother’s relentless optimism. A dark corner where he was far enough out of sight that neither of his parents would think of him for hours at a time. Just like his great-great aunt, apparently. He’d certainly never heard his parents speak of her, and based on the unlaundered clothing he finds tumbled about in the trunk, even her own parents had just shoved her things in this corner and forgotten about her. He emptied it out, and dragged it down to his room to store books in.
He didn’t know it at the time, but that’s when he decided to become a Watcher, just so he could read the diaries about Great-great Aunt Edith.
Every Watcher wanted a Slayer, but he hadn’t wanted this one. An untrained teenager brought up by her parents was not the dream. Especially an untrained teenager who’d already cost one Watcher his life. And California! Her parents were probably rich and stupid, with a spoiled and stupid child. There was little hope of her lasting the year.
But he’d do his best with her, try to keep her alive long enough to make some inroads into the vampire population. Surely she was capable of at least that much.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
He went home with a suitcase, a trunk, and a broken heart.
The suitcase was new. He’d found a drop of blood on his old suitcase, and remembered a beautiful woman cold and lifeless in his bed.
He’d burned his father’s suitcase and hadn’t regretted it for a moment.
The trunk was filled with the books he couldn’t bear to leave behind. Grimoires and demonologies were tumbled together with the cheap paperbacks he hid in the bottom of his desk drawer. Only Spike had ever found them, hunting for a drop of ‘the good stuff’.
Tucked into the corner was a stake, wrapped in a silk handkerchief. He told himself it was for protection, but he remembered her whittling this one in the RV, desperate to find something, anything useful to do.
He hadn’t expected to be in California this long. He’d assumed that lack of training and lack of discipline would doom her to a brief lifespan. He hoped to keep her alive for at least six months, maybe as long as a year. He hoped to list few dozen vampires dead at her hands. That would let him go home respectably, get him a placement with a young potential somewhere in Europe; a girl he could inspire and mould into a great Slayer.
He hadn’t expected her intuition. He hadn’t understood what an asset improvisation could be. He had no idea that more than simple strength and speed could be used against the demons and vampires that stalked the night.
He’d never realized how much it would hurt when she was gone.
Story Title: Baggage
Character/Relationships: Rupert Giles
Rating: PG
Warnings: Canon character deaths
He arrived with a suitcase, a trunk and a chip on his shoulder.
The suitcase had belonged to his father, the father who had spent so much of Rupert’s youth away from home. One of his first memories was of climbing up on the bed to watch Father packing. Mama had busied herself in the kitchen, making all Father’s favourite foods. He knew now how worried Mama had been, her eyes red from crying, her hands shaking from the fear that Father might not come home.
Mama hardly cried at all when Father’s broken hip meant he got pulled from field duty permanently.
The trunk was his great-great aunt’s, the only Slayer in a family of Watchers. He’d found it in the attic, in a dark corner where he’d hide from his father’s high expectations, his mother’s relentless optimism. A dark corner where he was far enough out of sight that neither of his parents would think of him for hours at a time. Just like his great-great aunt, apparently. He’d certainly never heard his parents speak of her, and based on the unlaundered clothing he finds tumbled about in the trunk, even her own parents had just shoved her things in this corner and forgotten about her. He emptied it out, and dragged it down to his room to store books in.
He didn’t know it at the time, but that’s when he decided to become a Watcher, just so he could read the diaries about Great-great Aunt Edith.
Every Watcher wanted a Slayer, but he hadn’t wanted this one. An untrained teenager brought up by her parents was not the dream. Especially an untrained teenager who’d already cost one Watcher his life. And California! Her parents were probably rich and stupid, with a spoiled and stupid child. There was little hope of her lasting the year.
But he’d do his best with her, try to keep her alive long enough to make some inroads into the vampire population. Surely she was capable of at least that much.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
He went home with a suitcase, a trunk, and a broken heart.
The suitcase was new. He’d found a drop of blood on his old suitcase, and remembered a beautiful woman cold and lifeless in his bed.
He’d burned his father’s suitcase and hadn’t regretted it for a moment.
The trunk was filled with the books he couldn’t bear to leave behind. Grimoires and demonologies were tumbled together with the cheap paperbacks he hid in the bottom of his desk drawer. Only Spike had ever found them, hunting for a drop of ‘the good stuff’.
Tucked into the corner was a stake, wrapped in a silk handkerchief. He told himself it was for protection, but he remembered her whittling this one in the RV, desperate to find something, anything useful to do.
He hadn’t expected to be in California this long. He’d assumed that lack of training and lack of discipline would doom her to a brief lifespan. He hoped to keep her alive for at least six months, maybe as long as a year. He hoped to list few dozen vampires dead at her hands. That would let him go home respectably, get him a placement with a young potential somewhere in Europe; a girl he could inspire and mould into a great Slayer.
He hadn’t expected her intuition. He hadn’t understood what an asset improvisation could be. He had no idea that more than simple strength and speed could be used against the demons and vampires that stalked the night.
He’d never realized how much it would hurt when she was gone.