Piccadilly Circus
Disclaimer: Props go to Morrissey and Johnny Marr.
Note: Set after Spike has his soul (specifically, my fic "Trying"); alternate end-of-Season-6.God, he was tired. And lonely, still. He'd thought seeking the change, reclaiming his past self, would make him feel better. And indeed it had done, on alternate Thursdays and when it rained hard and cleansing.
Otherwise, he was tired and lonely.
Electronically enhanced color played over his face, which was turned to the night sky just visible above the buildings. He stood irresolute, in a crowd of humans drifing by without seeing him. He was used to this.
The change in his pockets jingled when he moved. A couple of pounds ready to hand meant a pint, a moment of peace. Yes, a long draught built just right, in a proper pub where voices had a music he'd missed during all those years of exile, sounded like bloody heaven.
Exile. What were they, what was she, doing? He hesitated to even think 'back home', because the people left behind didn't have to take him back. Some long-winded Yank writer had said something more positive--home was where they had to take you in? Ah, sod it. Maybe he didn't deserve to be taken back.
He laughed humorlessly in his throat, and a passing fat-arsed tourist brushed him and muttered something about crazy people on the pavement. He called on who he'd been, chilling her with a raised eyebrow and a dark hint of what he could do.
But that troubled him, what he could do, what he had done. A pint wouldn't be enough to bring him peace. So he took the filthy stairs down into the Tube station, to start the long journey back to his rooms to hide. He felt dead in the fluorescent light.
Of course he couldn't avoid humanity in the Underground. He fought against the crowd streaming up, seeking the starlight still barely perceptible through London haze and electrics. No, he went down, taking the first escalator to the Bakerloo line.
As he dodged the late commuters and theatre-goers, he could hear a busker below: jangly chords and mopey aggression. He knew this song-- yeah, the Smiths could always be counted on for a good cathartic whinge. The second escalator was broken, and he clattered down under his own power, his boots in rhythm with the unseen music-maker.
"See, the life I've had would make a good man bad" The busker, still hidden, had a pleasant and strangely familiar voice. As the singer implored "For once in my life, let me get what I want," he rounded the last corner. And skidded to a stop.
The crowd of sighing women almost obscured the black-clad figure, his battered Doc Marten propped on the open guitar case (filled with pounds and 50p coins, not your sad tuppences). The busker sang the last lines pleadingly, "Lord knows it would be the first time, Lord knows it would be the first time."
And as he struck the last chord, he raised his bleached-blond head. "Hullo, Rupes. Spare a quid for an old mate?"
Giles walked forward and threw his couple of pounds into the guitar case. "Of course. Do you know 'William, it was really Nothing'?"
Spike's laughter echoed off the tiled corridor, and Giles smiled for the first time that day. And although it was against all laws of Watcher and man, he felt a bit of home.