Title: Sans les Chaussures Appropriées 2/?
Author: LJ
Spoilery for everything through BTVS 7 and ATS 4 Season Finales
The adventure continues....

Notes: Thanks to Psyche’s for the “Becoming, Part 1” dialogue snippets.
I think I’m gonna keep with the 1000 word limit for each part. That’s a good, decent goal, I think. I think I can manage that on a semi-regular basis.
And there will be more. Count on it.

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and any content pertaining to, are the property of Fox and any other holders of said properties. No infringement is intended.

“1996, of course,” said Giles.

Spike fainted.

*****

He awoke to find himself sprawled out on the couch, a young woman watching him. “I thought you’d never wake up,” she said.

“Who the hell are you?” he growled. It seemed less effective without the actual growl.

“Alicia Mithwade.”

“And?”

“I’m Rupie’s cousin, and yes, I know what he does for a living. I’m a Watcher myself. Well, Watcher-in-Training.” She gestured to the table. “Tea?”

He nodded. Rupie. No wonder Giles had been so annoyed during that spell. He smirked. “Thought he went by Ripper,” he said, accepting the warm cup.

Alicia’s face turned cold. “There’s no one here by that name,” she said in a low tone.

“Sounds like bloody Angelus to me,” Spike muttered.

“Angelus? You know about the Scourge of Europe?”

Stupid evil nicknames. Bloody hell. Good names, evil names, names to scare the humans, names to scare other vampires. What was the point?

“Why,” he asked, remembering the nervous girl of a Watcher who had visited him with an entourage of crossbows, “you writing your thesis on him?”

“Not him,” she said, serving herself. “Darla. Everyone knows Angelus was staked in China by the Slayer William the Bloody killed. Nothing new to say about him. Oh, there’ve been reports from America that Angelus has been seen, all highly suspect. No one takes them seriously.” Alicia squinted at him. “I just realized I don’t know your name. Cousin Rupert kept calling you ‘the unfortunate fool’.”

Spike raised his infamous eyebrow. What to tell her? “You can call me ‘Will,’” he said. ‘Spike’ was clearly out of the question. He took a sip of tea. “You certainly seem to know a lot about Angelus and all,” he continued, returning to a more comfortable subject.

More comfortable than his true identity, at least.

“You mean the Order of Aurelius? Maybe. It’s for my research on Darla, of course. And my roommate’s writing her thesis on William the Bloody. I keep telling Lydia-”

Spike choked.

*****

“I look like the bleeding curator of the British Museum!”

“Rupert would take that as a complement, you realize,” said Alicia. “He’s worked there off-and-on for about five years. Translations and things.”

Spike scowled at the mirror in Giles’s bedroom. Alicia, it had turned out, had been placed in charge of not only babysitting him but also finding him some new clothes. She had proposed a shopping trip. Unfortunately, the hospital hand-me-downs were a few days worse for wear. Alicia had decided, then, to raid the closet of one Rupert Giles, mild-mannered Watcher and King of Tweed.

The tweed wasn’t really that bad, aside from the fact in itself that it was tweed, and he actually looked rather handsome in it, if he did say so himself. A slightly less geeky 1880 him.

If you took into account the fact that Rupert Giles was a much taller man than he and the trousers were pooling at his ankles. He had long since lost sight of his hands.

And the unbleached hair helped. He wasn’t as scrawny as then, or as ill at ease in his body. But there were the curls. Joy. At least folks weren’t relying on bear grease and such to tame hair anymore. He’d deal with it all soon enough.

That’s a plan. New clothes. Then hair care products.

“Let me see,” she called through the door. Spike shrugged at the mirror. “Come on in, then,” he told her and turned around so that she could mock him freely.

She stepped in, the door creaking just a little. “Oh, my,” she said, raising her hand to her mouth to cover a giggle. “Well, if we fold up the ends of...well, everything, it ought to be all right for a short trip,” Alicia told him. “And then next time you could wear some new things instead...”

Spike pursed his lips.

It wasn’t worth the argument.

*****

Ugh. What was it with this guy? You’d think he’d never heard of a shower.

Whistler put his hat back on. He didn’t care what other folks usually had to say about it. It completed the image, hello.

And these speeches the Powers kept sending him? Jeez-louise. Talk about bad. But it was part of the job.

“She's gonna have it tough, that Slayer. She's just a kid. The world's full of big, bad things,” he said, reading off the teleprompter. Thank the Powers for those acting classes when he was a kid.

“I wanna help her. I want... I wanna become someone.”

Sheesh. “God, jeez, look at you.” At least he could ad lib sometimes. “She must be prettier than the last Slayer. This isn't gonna be easy. The more you live in this world, the more you see how apart from it you really are. And this is dangerous work. Right now, you couldn't go three rounds with a fruit fly!”

“I wanna learn from you.”

“All right,” said Whistler with a nod.

“But I don't wanna dress like you.” Stink Guy – Gods, he’d have to start using the guy’s real name. It wouldn’t do to call a supposed potential Champion ‘Stink Guy’ to his face. And who the hell had though he looked like an angel? Hulk was more like it.

If he ever put on a couple of pounds. Stupid vampires.

“Again, you're annoying me. You're lucky we need you on our side,” he said-

-When suddenly the teleprompter glowed again. It always reminded him of Quantum Leap. Now that was television.

The message appeared slowly. The vampire stared at him silently.

What the hell? He already had a charge: Stink Guy. Sure, teleportation wasn’t a big deal, but England? No. No freakin’ way. He had enough work already. Next free moment he had, he was having a serious face-to-face with the PTB. They suddenly had Champions coming out their ears? Fine. That’s their problem.

He was on a schedule, and no one, no how was gonna make him deviate from the Plan.

[TBC]
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