ONE NORMAL LIFE / TWO EXTRAORDINARY LIVES
folder
BtVS AU/AR › Het - Male/Female › Buffy/Spike(William)
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
210
Views:
11,316
Reviews:
182
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
BtVS AU/AR › Het - Male/Female › Buffy/Spike(William)
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
210
Views:
11,316
Reviews:
182
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS), nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
WILLINGNESS TO LEARN
CHAPTER 51 – WILLINGNESS TO LEARN
His world was small.
William didn’t really wander from the cabin, except to the deck for meals, to the swing for ice cream, and even once to the little store, in the company of Buffy, of course.
Putting aside the Victorian mind-set of cleaning and cooking is women’s work; he would help clean up the cabin, when it was needed. It actually wasn’t so difficult, since after his mother had become mostly disabled, and help dismissed when money had grown tight, he had taken on that responsibility, much to his brother’s merciless teasing.
Dawn had shown him how to cook hamburgers and steaks on the deck’s grill, which he took to, saying it was much like cooking over old coal fueled stoves if one had only lifted the cover off of the burners and replaced it with a grill.
During the day, he would voraciously read the books that Willow had brought him on inventions. When he had further inquiries about a particular subject that they didn’t know the answer to, Dawn showed him how to use the Internet to research the subject.
Buffy was amazed by his willingness to learn the computer. He seemed to have less fear of it than she initially had. Fear of the real world outside the cabin, yes. Fear of the world as to be found on the Internet, no.
But Buffy feared it, feared the Internet and all that unbridled knowledge would present more questions for William than it would answer, than she could, or was willing to. She was afraid that he would find out things, without her explanation, that he’d be scared or hurt by what he found. Her head hurt with the loop her brain had taken. She’d wished that were the one thing that he hadn’t been introduced to. Not yet. Privately, she warned Dawn not to tell him too much about the capabilities of the Internet. Not now. Let him just think it was one giant encyclopedia, a giant library, but not the rest.
William found television spellbinding. At a distance he’d seen it in the common room at the hospital, but had been too depressed and too scared to give it much thought. But now, after learning all about it, he couldn’t get enough, to Buffy’s consternation.
He especially liked watching The History Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery, and Disney cartoons.
“Have we warned you that television is addictive?” Elizabeth asked him, as she flopped next to him on the couch one afternoon.
“Huh? What?” he asked her, still staring at the idiot box.
She sighed, “Liked you better before you discovered this, “ she muttered.
He picked up the remote and turned it off, “I’m sorry, it’s just all so…fascinating to me. Guess I can see why it’s addictive. It’s so…entertaining and educational!”
“Yeah, Passions, real educational,” she snorted.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing,” she sighed. He hadn’t been re-introduced to that, yet. She wondered if he’d still go for it. She half-smiled, remembering Spike and her mom discussing the finer points of the show.
“Elizabeth, nothing on these channels can even come close to how I feel when I look at you, talk to you,” he said, facing her and taking her hands, “you know that, don’t you?” he asked her with all sincerity in the depths of his blue eyes.
“I do now,” she told him softly.
She leaned over to kiss him. “I didn’t ask,” she said, pulling back and looking at him with a sly grin.
“I’m glad,” he said, smiling at their private joke.
Later that day, Willow and Dawn came back from town with rolls full of coins and bills. “Time to learn about money, William,” Dawn had told him.
It was very frustrating for him, trying to convert in his head the money of the realm that he’d been used to. Then hearing Willow tell him that almost most of that money he’d commonly remembered using, farthings, ha’pennies, thruppence half crowns, guineas (for special occasions and payments), shillings, sovereigns, florins, and a score of other coins and paper money didn’t even exist anymore.
Willow explained that in 1971, so she’d heard, Great Britain had gone to the decimal system, which is why there was a new money system. She didn’t ask why he would only remember the old system, which, when stopped to think about it, would have rather proved that he was more than just an expert in ‘all things Victorian,’ but rather had been a living, breathing member of it, too. But she didn’t ask, and William didn’t question her not asking.
Then there was the amount of money that things cost that really shocked him. For example, a cup of coffee at Suck’uck’s for $2.50 USD, equal to 1.63GBP
“A day’s pay,” he muttered.
“What’s that?” Willow asked.
“Um, nothing. Just that I, I mean those back in the late 1870’s, early 1880’s who worked as law clerks or English professors might only make that much a day,” he said, “based on a six day work week.”
She nodded. “They make a heck of a lot more now. Lawyers, or solicitors as you know them by, make probably $200 an hour in this country. Some a little less. Probably less in England. Professors always made a lot less than lawyers did.
He just looked at her, his mouth hanging open.
“But things cost so much more now, too, William,” said Dawn, trying to explain, “so it’s probably proportional to the extra amount of money one makes.”
“I don’t think so Dawn, some costs of things are hugely disproportionate to what their real value is. There’s been times that even though bread should have been 5 cents in the old days,” she said, glancing toward William, “it would be the equivalent of half a week’s pay. It happened like that with lots of things, depending on weird things like politics, wars, weather, I don’t know all of it, just weird economics!”
“In any case, William,” said Buffy, “it’s a good thing for you to have knowledge of, even if you only ‘remember’ an archaic system of money, weights and measures.”
“They’ve changed weights and measures, too?” he asked alarmed.
Buffy shrugged, looking at Willow.
“Well, it’s the same here as it was there with pounds, ounces, etc. In England they’ve finally converted over to Kilos, Grams, etc. in keeping with the rest of Europe. The rest of Europe, well about 9 countries all converted to the Euro as their money in the late 1990’s, or early 2000, somewhere around there.”
“You mean there’s no more Francs? Lira? Deutchmarks?” William asked.
“Nope, only Euros. Guess it was to have a stronger, united currency against the dollar and the Yen. Japanese.”
“Japanese? Japan?”
“Yeah, they’ve kind of westernized a lot since after World War II, when the US bombed the crap out of them. Well, after they bombed Hawaii. Oh, but back to what I was saying, the British love their pounds, so they’re not on the Euro. Yet.”
William thought his head was possibly going to implode.
Buffy looked over at him, “Why don’t you try this money stuff later? You’ll probably just have to get used to handling it and using it, and not thinking in terms of conversions. Just take it for what it’s worth. In 2008.”
He looked at her with a lost expression and she felt bad for him.
William took her advice and went to take a nap. Afterward, he had recuperated from the onslaught of T.M.I. (too much information) and practiced playing store with Dawn, using paper and coins for his pretend transactions.
Buffy and Willow tried not to laugh, when Dawn, in all seriousness, told him that a roll of toilet paper would cost him $300.00.
“You should have seen your face,” Dawn said, teasing, afterward.
“Well, it’s expensive enough as it is! But wouldn’t surprise me if you Yanks thought $300.00 was a fair price to have soft paper in which to wipe your bums!” he said with as much dignity as he could.
The girls all were wiping their eyes, and eventually, William laughed, too.
Elizabeth would have stopped the silliness in a heartbeat, if she felt that he was taking the joke too personally, if it was hurting his feelings. Luckily that wasn’t the case.
That evening, before it closed, and with Elizabeth at his side, he went into the little store, ordered ice cream for them all, and used the correct amount of money, $7.00 to pay for their 4, single-dip cones.
“More than a week’s pay,” he grumbled, as he licked his Mackinaw Island Fudge ice cream cone.
“You have to get over it,” Elizabeth said.
He just grumbled some more, somewhat curmudgeon-like, and she had to grin, while patting him on the back.
“I’ll never understand these prices, even if I understand how to use the money.”
“You’re probably not alone in that William, you’re probably not alone.”
END CHAPTER 51
His world was small.
William didn’t really wander from the cabin, except to the deck for meals, to the swing for ice cream, and even once to the little store, in the company of Buffy, of course.
Putting aside the Victorian mind-set of cleaning and cooking is women’s work; he would help clean up the cabin, when it was needed. It actually wasn’t so difficult, since after his mother had become mostly disabled, and help dismissed when money had grown tight, he had taken on that responsibility, much to his brother’s merciless teasing.
Dawn had shown him how to cook hamburgers and steaks on the deck’s grill, which he took to, saying it was much like cooking over old coal fueled stoves if one had only lifted the cover off of the burners and replaced it with a grill.
During the day, he would voraciously read the books that Willow had brought him on inventions. When he had further inquiries about a particular subject that they didn’t know the answer to, Dawn showed him how to use the Internet to research the subject.
Buffy was amazed by his willingness to learn the computer. He seemed to have less fear of it than she initially had. Fear of the real world outside the cabin, yes. Fear of the world as to be found on the Internet, no.
But Buffy feared it, feared the Internet and all that unbridled knowledge would present more questions for William than it would answer, than she could, or was willing to. She was afraid that he would find out things, without her explanation, that he’d be scared or hurt by what he found. Her head hurt with the loop her brain had taken. She’d wished that were the one thing that he hadn’t been introduced to. Not yet. Privately, she warned Dawn not to tell him too much about the capabilities of the Internet. Not now. Let him just think it was one giant encyclopedia, a giant library, but not the rest.
William found television spellbinding. At a distance he’d seen it in the common room at the hospital, but had been too depressed and too scared to give it much thought. But now, after learning all about it, he couldn’t get enough, to Buffy’s consternation.
He especially liked watching The History Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery, and Disney cartoons.
“Have we warned you that television is addictive?” Elizabeth asked him, as she flopped next to him on the couch one afternoon.
“Huh? What?” he asked her, still staring at the idiot box.
She sighed, “Liked you better before you discovered this, “ she muttered.
He picked up the remote and turned it off, “I’m sorry, it’s just all so…fascinating to me. Guess I can see why it’s addictive. It’s so…entertaining and educational!”
“Yeah, Passions, real educational,” she snorted.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing,” she sighed. He hadn’t been re-introduced to that, yet. She wondered if he’d still go for it. She half-smiled, remembering Spike and her mom discussing the finer points of the show.
“Elizabeth, nothing on these channels can even come close to how I feel when I look at you, talk to you,” he said, facing her and taking her hands, “you know that, don’t you?” he asked her with all sincerity in the depths of his blue eyes.
“I do now,” she told him softly.
She leaned over to kiss him. “I didn’t ask,” she said, pulling back and looking at him with a sly grin.
“I’m glad,” he said, smiling at their private joke.
Later that day, Willow and Dawn came back from town with rolls full of coins and bills. “Time to learn about money, William,” Dawn had told him.
It was very frustrating for him, trying to convert in his head the money of the realm that he’d been used to. Then hearing Willow tell him that almost most of that money he’d commonly remembered using, farthings, ha’pennies, thruppence half crowns, guineas (for special occasions and payments), shillings, sovereigns, florins, and a score of other coins and paper money didn’t even exist anymore.
Willow explained that in 1971, so she’d heard, Great Britain had gone to the decimal system, which is why there was a new money system. She didn’t ask why he would only remember the old system, which, when stopped to think about it, would have rather proved that he was more than just an expert in ‘all things Victorian,’ but rather had been a living, breathing member of it, too. But she didn’t ask, and William didn’t question her not asking.
Then there was the amount of money that things cost that really shocked him. For example, a cup of coffee at Suck’uck’s for $2.50 USD, equal to 1.63GBP
“A day’s pay,” he muttered.
“What’s that?” Willow asked.
“Um, nothing. Just that I, I mean those back in the late 1870’s, early 1880’s who worked as law clerks or English professors might only make that much a day,” he said, “based on a six day work week.”
She nodded. “They make a heck of a lot more now. Lawyers, or solicitors as you know them by, make probably $200 an hour in this country. Some a little less. Probably less in England. Professors always made a lot less than lawyers did.
He just looked at her, his mouth hanging open.
“But things cost so much more now, too, William,” said Dawn, trying to explain, “so it’s probably proportional to the extra amount of money one makes.”
“I don’t think so Dawn, some costs of things are hugely disproportionate to what their real value is. There’s been times that even though bread should have been 5 cents in the old days,” she said, glancing toward William, “it would be the equivalent of half a week’s pay. It happened like that with lots of things, depending on weird things like politics, wars, weather, I don’t know all of it, just weird economics!”
“In any case, William,” said Buffy, “it’s a good thing for you to have knowledge of, even if you only ‘remember’ an archaic system of money, weights and measures.”
“They’ve changed weights and measures, too?” he asked alarmed.
Buffy shrugged, looking at Willow.
“Well, it’s the same here as it was there with pounds, ounces, etc. In England they’ve finally converted over to Kilos, Grams, etc. in keeping with the rest of Europe. The rest of Europe, well about 9 countries all converted to the Euro as their money in the late 1990’s, or early 2000, somewhere around there.”
“You mean there’s no more Francs? Lira? Deutchmarks?” William asked.
“Nope, only Euros. Guess it was to have a stronger, united currency against the dollar and the Yen. Japanese.”
“Japanese? Japan?”
“Yeah, they’ve kind of westernized a lot since after World War II, when the US bombed the crap out of them. Well, after they bombed Hawaii. Oh, but back to what I was saying, the British love their pounds, so they’re not on the Euro. Yet.”
William thought his head was possibly going to implode.
Buffy looked over at him, “Why don’t you try this money stuff later? You’ll probably just have to get used to handling it and using it, and not thinking in terms of conversions. Just take it for what it’s worth. In 2008.”
He looked at her with a lost expression and she felt bad for him.
William took her advice and went to take a nap. Afterward, he had recuperated from the onslaught of T.M.I. (too much information) and practiced playing store with Dawn, using paper and coins for his pretend transactions.
Buffy and Willow tried not to laugh, when Dawn, in all seriousness, told him that a roll of toilet paper would cost him $300.00.
“You should have seen your face,” Dawn said, teasing, afterward.
“Well, it’s expensive enough as it is! But wouldn’t surprise me if you Yanks thought $300.00 was a fair price to have soft paper in which to wipe your bums!” he said with as much dignity as he could.
The girls all were wiping their eyes, and eventually, William laughed, too.
Elizabeth would have stopped the silliness in a heartbeat, if she felt that he was taking the joke too personally, if it was hurting his feelings. Luckily that wasn’t the case.
That evening, before it closed, and with Elizabeth at his side, he went into the little store, ordered ice cream for them all, and used the correct amount of money, $7.00 to pay for their 4, single-dip cones.
“More than a week’s pay,” he grumbled, as he licked his Mackinaw Island Fudge ice cream cone.
“You have to get over it,” Elizabeth said.
He just grumbled some more, somewhat curmudgeon-like, and she had to grin, while patting him on the back.
“I’ll never understand these prices, even if I understand how to use the money.”
“You’re probably not alone in that William, you’re probably not alone.”
END CHAPTER 51