Still Grrr

It was a bright morning, as most morning are in Southern California. Almost unbearably so, Giles thought was he made his way inside the high school and gratefully welcomed the dim fluorescent lighting, saving his eyes from the dreadful UV radiation. The prior evening had been dreadful. A pipe in his flat burst, and he’d spent a good deal of time trying to get it in a state of repair decent enough to let him sleep. However, once he was certain he would sleep without drowning, his alarm clock went off.

Oh well, a Watcher must persevere. Well no students would visit the library, clearly, and Buffy had spent the evening in the library studying with her friends so there was likely little to no paranormal activity and perhaps he might get an hour or two of shut eye. He allowed himself a hopeful smile at the prospect.

However, his dreams of a nap would be dumped into a blender on high speed and liquefied, and poured down the drain as he rounded the corner towards the library and saw Cordelia, Xander, and Willow both standing outside looking rather irritated. Well, for Cordelia that look was nothing new. Few things gave Willow that look of irritation, mostly the inability to get proper studying done, and Xander rarely ever looked irritated, so whatever was going on must certainly have been extreme.

Cordelia was the first to spot him, “Hey Giles? You don’t actually have to pay for the stuff in the library, you know if it gets broken or anything?”

“N-no, not as a rule,” he replied, ever more suspicious.

“Okay good,” Cordelia said. “Cause it’s like… like… god I can’t even come up with a reference it’s so bad.” With a disgusted wave of her hand, she waved the situation away and headed off down the hall.

“Xander? Willow? What on earth is going on?”

Xander looked up at Giles, “Just start cleaning the glasses now, it’ll save time later.”

Willow’s look of irritation melted into one of sadness and guilt, “Giles it’s all my fault. We were studying but then we got hungry and had a donut break and when Xander went on the donut run I asked him to pick up a copy of the Weekly World News and then… badness ensued.”

“What happened? Portents of the apocalypse?” he asked, his voice perhaps too eager, which earned him bewildered looks from the teens.

Xander shook his head. “No worse. Crack pot nonsense. ‘Vegan Vampire Attacks Trees’.”

“So I posed a theoretical question- to Slay or not to slay?” Willow clarified.

“That was the question… that kinda got the library… um… let’s just say Hiroshima looked neater.”

“Oh lord. How? Why?” Giles asked.

“Well Buffy said that she wouldn’t. Slay it I mean.” Willow clarified. “It wasn’t actually killing anyone, it was a good vampire. Like Angel. Only, drinking sap and not pig’s blood.”

“But Faith,” Xander spoke up, “Wasn’t to keen on the idea. She said that a vampire’s a vampire.”

“Which got Buffy super angry, cause, you know, Angel. She said they were good guys and it wasn’t their job to destroy things for the sake of destroying them. That’s what bad guys do.”  Willow gestured wildly with her hands.

Giles removed the glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “And then what happened?”

“Well Cordy, Queen of Thoughts, said that the vegan vampire should be slayed because… and I quote, sap is sticky and gross and things that live in the woods smell bad.” Xander shook his head, “This is the girl I’m dating. But I digress. Faith was overjoyed to have someone on her side.”

“And so Buffy looked at me,” Willow piped up, “Doing the whole best friends need to stick together and back each other up pout thing and I can’t stand up to a Slayer! Even if it’s just a pouty Slayer! The power of the pout is too great, Giles.” She whimpered. “So I sided with her and said that if a vampire wasn’t harming people, it didn’t merit staking. I mean we don’t go around killing bears that don’t hurt people just because they might hurt people, do we? No, it’s wrong, it’s inhumane!”

“Faith gets all flippy and asks, ‘What are you two? People for the Ethical Treatment of Vampires?’” Xander adds. “Which makes Cordelia just crack up. And so the teams are tied and both of them are trying to get me to pick a side. So Cordy’s playing the girlfriend card and Willow are Buffy are playing the best friend card and so I ate the last donut and ran out to go get some more.”

Willow was more than eager to finish the rest of the first hand account of the story. “And anyways, Buffy got kinda immature and stuck her tongue out at Faith. And Faith called her a vampire lover… which no. Well yeah I mean she did… with Angel but that’s a different story. And anyways long story short words got mean and punches started flying and we kind of cleared out… it’s not pretty in there Giles. Not at all.”

Giles sighed and placed the glasses back on his face. His lips set in a straight line and his brows fell into a stern authority figure Watcher-type glare. These two girls were the fate of the entire world and they couldn’t be so childish over something as frivolous as imaginary vegan vampires. He was going to have to set them straight.

With a deep breath he steeled himself for the destruction of Hurricane Buffy and Hurricane Faith, and trying to keep his hand from shaking threw open the door to the library. He made it two steps into the room before he stopped dead in his tracks. Willow and Xander had said it was a mess, but he hadn’t imagined this. Dear lord. There were… streamers… and balloons… and a cake…

“Surprise!” Buffy and Faith called from behind the counter, and Xander and Willow called from behind him. “Happy Birthday!”

Dear lord, there was no hope of getting a nap today.