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The sleek, rectangular box landed on the worn oak of the library table with a definitive thud. Rupert Giles looked up from a leather-bound grimoire, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"What is this?" Giles asked, eyeing the box with the same profound suspicion he usually reserved for newly discovered Hellmouth artifacts.
"Welcome to the twenty-first century, Giles," Buffy announced, beaming as she pulled up a chair backwards and sat on it. "I got you a smartphone."
Giles let out a long, aristocratic sigh. "Buffy, I have a telephone in my office. I also have a pager. When exactly did my methods of communication become obsolete?"
"Around the time pagers became things only doctors and drug dealers use," Buffy said brightly, ripping the plastic off the box. "Look, it’s easy. It’s got apps, internet, and a camera. No more lugging around giant encyclopedias of demonology when we patrol. You can just Google it. You could even move all of the books into the cloud, now that Willow has finished digitally archiving them.”
"I do not Google," Giles muttered, though he hesitantly reached out to touch the smooth glass screen of the activated phone.
For the next hour, Buffy patiently ran him through the basics. She taught him how to swipe (which he did with a stiff, pointed index finger), how to open the internet, and, most importantly, how to text.
"See the keyboard?" Buffy pointed. "Just tap the letters. It’s smart, so even if you mess up a little, it figures out what you’re trying to say. Give it a try. Send me a message."
Giles frowned in deep concentration. He held the phone at arm's length, squinting at the screen as his thumbs awkwardly hovered over the glass. Tap. Pause. Tap. Tap. Pause.
Across the table, Buffy’s phone buzzed. She looked down and giggled.
Giles: Greetings Slipper.
"Slipper?" Buffy asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I typed Slayer! Bloody sausage fingers…" Giles protested grumbling, adjusting his glasses. "The machine changed it! It’s entirely insubordinate."
"That’s just autocorrect, Giles. It thought you misspelled it. You just have to keep an eye on it."
"Right. Well. It’s highly presumptuous," he grumbled, slipping the phone into the pocket of his tweed jacket. "But I suppose I will endeavour to learn its quirks."
Later That Evening
Buffy was sitting on her bed, painting her toenails, when her phone lit up with a rapid succession of messages.
Giles: Buffy, I have been translating the text from the mausoleum.
Giles: It appears we are dealing with a very dangerous lemon.
Buffy: A lemon? Giles, did it shoot citrus juice at you?
Giles: Demon! I typed DEMON. This infernal device is conspiring against me.
Buffy: Sure it is. What kind of demon?
Giles: A Gorlach. You must be prepared. Bring a steak.
Buffy: Medium rare or well done?
Giles: A wooden STAKE. Honestly, Buffy, this is not the time for jesting. The halibut is opening!
Buffy: The halibut? Giles, I'm a Slayer, not a fisherman.
Giles: HELLMOUTH. The Hellmouth. If I could throw this telephone into the fiery chasm myself, I would.
Buffy fell back onto her pillows, laughing so hard she nearly smudged her nail polish. She tapped out a quick reply.
Buffy: Don't worry, Giles. I'm grabbing my steak and heading to the halibut to fight the lemon right now.
A full three minutes passed. Buffy could practically see Giles across town, taking off his glasses and polishing them in quiet, simmering rage before painstakingly typing his response.
Giles: Just don't die.
Giles: Please.
Giles: Wait. How do I delete the 'please'? I meant to sound authoritative. Buffy, stop laughing. I know you are laughing.
Buffy smiled, locking her screen. The twenty-first century was going to be very entertaining.
——
Three Days Later: 3:14 AM
The graveyard was dead quiet, except for the squelching sound coming from the creature pinned beneath Buffy’s boot. It was a bizarre, lumpen thing with three eyes, neon purple skin, and tentacles where its ears should be. It wasn't turning to ash, which meant it was a major cleanup job—and a total mystery.
"Giles is never going to believe this," Buffy muttered.
She pulled out her phone, tapped the screen, and hit the FaceTime button. If she was going to be up at three in the morning dealing with a purple tentacle-monster, her Watcher was going to share the joy.
In his dark apartment, Giles’s phone began to blare a cheerful, digital chime. Groaning, he fumbled blindly in the dark, his hand slamming into his nightstand before his fingers finally wrapped around the device. He swiped at the glowing screen randomly until the ringing stopped.
"Hello?" Giles croaked, immediately pressing the glass flat against his cheek.
On her end, Buffy looked at her screen, expecting to see a sleepy Giles. Instead, the display filled with an extreme, blurry close-up of something pink, wrinkled, and slightly hairy.
"Giles? Why am I looking at a macro-shot of your ear canal?" Buffy asked, holding the phone out so she could see the screen while keeping the camera pointed at the purple monster.
"Buffy? What? I can't hear you! The line is dreadful!" Giles shouted. The image on the screen shifted wildly as he pressed the phone even tighter against his head, completely oblivious to the fact that he had answered a video call.
"Giles, it's a video call! Put it in front of your face!" Buffy yelled over the sound of him shuffling around his bedroom. "I’m trying to show you something. Look at your screen!"
"Hold on, let me turn on a lamp, I can't see a bloody thing," Giles grumbled.
The camera spun in a dizzying blur. Buffy saw a flash of his ceiling, a blurry stack of books, and then the camera violently jerked downward as Giles lowered the phone to inspect the glass.
Suddenly, the video feed came into sharp, agonizingly clear focus.
Buffy stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening in sheer horror. There, brightly illuminated by the bedside lamp, was Rupert Giles. Or, more specifically, the lower half of Rupert Giles. He was standing at the foot of his bed, wearing absolutely nothing.
"Oh! Oh, I see your face now," Giles said, his voice dropping to a normal volume as he finally peered down at the screen. "Now, Buffy, what was it you wanted to show me—"
"My eyes! Giles, my eyes are burning!" Buffy shrieked, instantly flipping her phone over so it faced the grass, while simultaneously covering her own face. "Tweed! Where is the tweed?! Put the tweed back on!"
There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line.
Then, a quiet, horrified gasp.
"Good lord!"
There was a frantic fumbling sound, a loud crash that sounded suspiciously like a bedside table lamp being knocked over, and the camera feed tumbled wildly through the air before landing face-down on a rug. The screen went black.
Buffy cautiously peeked through her fingers at her screen, which was now just showing the darkness of Giles's floorboards. "Giles? You okay there, Flash?"
"I am going to throw this device into the sea," came his muffled, thoroughly mortified voice from somewhere above the phone. "I am going to smash it with a hammer and throw the remnants into the Atlantic."
"Just tell me if a three-eyed purple demon with tentacles means the world is ending," Buffy laughed, unable to contain the giggles bubbling up in her chest.
"It is a Sub-Gorgon! Harmless scavenger!" Giles barked from across the room. "Now hang up! Hang up the infernal machine, Buffy, I cannot figure out how to make it stop looking at me!"
"Alright, alright, I'm hanging up," Buffy snickered, her thumb finally finding the red button. "But just for the record? I didn’t hate it."
Click.
Buffy slid the phone back into her pocket, grinning from ear to ear as she kicked the purple demon. She couldn't wait for the next Watcher's meeting.