📓👀

Hello my beloved mutual teatimewithgiles! I have been trying to think of a single idea I have not already told you about, especially bc I know I've told you about all the ones I daydream about extensively lmao.

Anyway! I don't think I've told you much about "How to Be an Empty Nester (And Love Every Minute!)". Basically, it's set after Buffy goes to college and Giles has gotten this parenting/self-help book, which the fic is titled after, about how to cope with your child leaving for college. Each section of the fic begins with a piece of advice from the book-- stuff like "building shared routines or rituals can help you and your child stay connected while they're away" or "don't helicopter: give you child some breathing room to discover who they are"-- and is followed by Giles dramatically failing to implement the advice. Sometimes it fails because it's just ridiculous in the context of their lives and who they are as people, sometimes it's just because he interprets it in kind of a ridiculous way, and sometimes it's just because he tries it and Buffy is like "uhhh what is going on what are you doing why are you acting so weird".

This all comes to a head with the piece of advice that's something like "reconnect with your child through a shared activity: a common goal is a great way to bond!" because Giles interprets that as. Summoning a small, relatively harmless demon :) For them to fight together :) As a bonding activity :)) Let's all keep in mind this is s4 Giles when he is not exactly as his most mentally well lol, he's not making the most sound decisions at the time.

Of course, Buffy finds out that he summoned the demon on purpose, is not exactly pleased about that for many reasons, and they get into a bit of an argument where he confesses that he got this idea from a self-help book (and she's just like ... a self-help book told you to summon a demon...?) and he explains that, no, but he's been trying to follow the book's advice because he feels so disconnected from her but he had no idea how to best reach out to her and stay part of her life. She's still pretty unhappy in the moment so Giles thinks he's really messed things up until a couple days later when (and this is the final section) he comes home to find Buffy in his courtyard with a pot of (atrociously bad) tea and she says something like "you said you have tea down here sometimes so I thought maybe we could... have tea?" as her gesture of goodwill and trying to reach out to him too. And it ends with the final piece of advice which I haven't exactly figured out how to word yet, but it's basically "be yourself: near or far, your child loves you for you!". And it's extra cheesy because being what finally worked for him to reconnect with her was when he was honest <3

Will I ever write this? Hopefully someday...

Thank you for sending me this ask!

Put “📓” or some other version of a book emoji into my inbox and I’ll explain the plot of a fanfiction that I haven’t written but daydream about.