Going Underground - Part One
DISCLAIMER: Love to Paul Weller, whose work I like in all its incarnations, no matter what Spike says.
SUMMARY AND NOTES: One night in London with Giles and Spike, following directly from 'Piccadilly Circus'. Part of the alternative end-of-Season-6.At Spike's laughter echoing off the corridor leading to the Bakerloo (North) platform, 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.
"So, Dad, you just going to stand there?" Spike asked, with an accompanying chord on the guitar.
Dad... that's right, the last time he had seen Spike was during that thrice-accursed forgetting spell of Willow's. The spell had haunted him ever since. He'd had a son. Much more, he'd had a-- partner, that's all he could allow himself to call her. He'd had what he wanted. Home.
And he couldn't forget what he didn't have now. Seemed as though Spike wasn't the only dead thing in the Tube.
***
Quentin Travers growled, "He's going to regret this. He's going to PAY for this," as he dug in his suit pockets for change. He pulled out a ten, a five, three pound coins, and a half-eaten roll of Polo mints, then glared at the assortment.
"Oh, that's good, sir! You can make it back to Oxford on that, if you're sure to ask for the Cheap..." Travers's assistant Imran Cumberbatch trailed off at the boss's intimidating stare. He coughed, then added weakly, "Of course Mr. Giles was very, very wrong to have destroyed your car, even if there was a nest of baby Shrod demons in the boot ready to hatch and take out half of St. James."
The head of the Watchers and his lackey stood in the middle of Jermyn Street. There were automobile parts and glass shards everywhere, along with quite a lot of putrid and undefinable demon bits scattered over the street and two luckless passers-by. Travers himself had a tear in his suit jacket. Still, he managed to command, "Cumberbatch, what do YOU have?"
The assistant silently presented his LT Travelcard and a pound twenty. When Travers glared at him, Cumberbatch said, "Well, sir... I didn't expect the Dodger demon to have stolen your wallet in the demon pub. And I-I-I didn't think to get cash this morning."
Even Quentin Travers knew when he was beaten. The Watcher headquarters in Bloomsbury were closed for renovation; his wallet had been lifted when he had gone to supervise that renegade, Rupert Giles in his search for the rumoured Shrod infestation; now he had no car. Of course, after killing the demons in such an unnecessarily theatrical manner Giles had disappeared somewhere-- he'd become so unpredictable after all those years in Sunnydale with that terrible Summers girl. And Travers had to get back to the Oxford outpost tonight. "Fine, fine. Show me to the Underground; I suppose I'll survive it."
As Cumberbatch shepherded Travers towards Piccadilly Circus, a full- grown Shrod demon-- humanoid, but dripping green acid from its clawed fingers--stepped out of the deep shadows behind them and followed.
***
A train noisily arrived at the next platform, and half of Spike's crowd left. The remaining women, however, pressed uncomfortably closer to their bleached-blond troubadour and the hapless man in the way.
Giles found himself backed against the wall, next to Spike. "No more of those Smiths!" said the most forward of Spike's admirers, as she lasciviously fingered the duster. "What about a nice Robbie Williams tune, yeah?"
"Don't bruise the leather, ducks. Um, I don't think my friend knows any of that wank-- er, that gentleman's songs. But Giles here is nevertheless a fabulous entertainer and a great humanitarian," Spike said smoothly, pouring on the charm. Out of the corner of his mouth he added, "Know any good punk tunes, old man?"
Sighing, Giles remembered in full why one had always found Spike so exhausting to know, even when he had not been trying to kill one. And yet--Giles also realized that the depression which had lived in his bones since he'd gotten on the plane all those months ago had lifted. It didn't bear thinking about, so he didn't. Sod it all. "I've always been fond of Paul Weller's work."
Spike's eyes twinkled at Giles's answer. He wrapped his long fingers around the guitar neck, ready to play. "I'm assuming you're talking about the Jam, not that Style Council shite... right then, what's your pleasure?"
***
Travers wiped his hand across his forehead. He hated being this close to so many people all at once, but he'd had to queue-- actually queue!-- to get through the ticket stile in the damp, smelly, human-infested station. Cumberbatch seemed unperturbed at the press of so many bodies not his own, however, as he cheerfully said, "This way, sir! The Bakerloo will take us to Paddington, where you can catch your train."
The two Watchers pushed to the first of the two escalators which led to the correct platforms. Travers jibbed a bit at the first step, then he called on years of discipline to force his well-shod feet on to the machinery. There was... something nasty... on the toe of his brogue. And what was that racket starting below? Oh, Rupert Giles would be paying for this for decades to come.
Neither Travers nor the devoted Cumberbatch noticed that behind them, the Shrod demon silently shredded the heart out of a London Transport staffer, replaced the body on the man's stool, then slipped through the Oversized Luggage stile.
Of course no one else noticed either.
***
"Some people might say my life is in a rut, But I'm quite happy with what I've got--" Giles lifted his voice to chime with Spike's guitar, with both buskers (oh dear Lord, how did this happen?) drumming with their boots on the wall behind them. "People might say that I should strive for more, But I'm so happy I can't see the point--"
Two women in the back, obviously a little worse for alcohol already, began to hoot along. The original leader, or brazen hussy as Giles had silently deemed her, was shimmying along as if they were playing music in a belly-dancing establishment. A rain of coins accompanied the music, and Spike grinned. He raised his voice to harmonize with Giles in the chorus: "The public gets what the public wants, But I want nothin' the society's got, I'm going underground, going underground--"
Singing, Giles had barely enough attention left to examine and name the feeling of life coursing through once-dead cells. He was happy.
Then Quentin Travers and the minion Cumberbatch edged down the corridor, and Giles went numb again. His voice faltered, at which Spike shot him an inquiring look.
"Giles." Travers said nothing else, but he didn't have to. There was the weight of centuries of tradition, of propriety, of righteousness, in that tone. Watchers didn't sing for pounds and pence down in the Tube, it said. And Rupert Giles, who when young and wild had not only worshiped chaos and raised evil but done a fair bit of busking, had disappointed. Again.
Spike, reading the signs of impending confrontation, wrapped up the song with a well-clanged chord. At the questioning murmur from his ladies, he said, "Ah sorry, pets, it's the authorities come to shut us down." When the women started to mutter under breaths and one of the drunkest turned to glare, he added, "Nobody's fault, dears, mustn't grumble. I thank you for listening." He dropped the guitar in the case, then moved amongst his crowd, laying on hands and giving each woman something delicious to talk about when they got home. Almost imperceptibly he also urged each listener toward the platform, leaving the Watchers to face each other in the emptying space.
Giles, meanwhile, leaned back against the wall. He could feel the cool tile under his fingers. He was here. It was real. For a couple of breaths he longed to go Ripper--to use the power he had once gained to show that pompous arse the dark truths which underlay Travers' superficial judgments, to show the administrator the blood and solitude and deadness which tortured one who worked in the field. He'd been feeling that way more and more lately. When he could feel, that is.
Travers said, "Giles. I presume you're making your way to Oxford, to give your report? How you so carelessly destroyed private property in your quest to kill the Shrod hatchlings?"
Spike came back to the group at that point and (unsurprisingly) opened his mouth. "What? Giles, you just killed some Shrod young?" He crouched down to secure the guitar and cash, but he kept one eye on the two suited figures. "Those are vicious little killing creatures-- what'd you do?"
"Used Travers's car to blow 'em up. They were hiding there at the time." Giles's voice was soft, chilly.
Even so, his heart warmed at the way Spike's eyes sparked blue at the words. "Blew 'em up? In the service of Good? Oh Giles, be my Yoda!" The smaller figure stood and put his hand on Giles's shoulder as he had done at Halloween, a gesture of solidarity. Spike continued, this time to Travers and Cumberbatch, "I once had an Old One, right, an instructor in all things wrong and unholy, but I've given up the Big Bad and need new training. Also, my previous teacher was a pillock of such magnitude that I am frankly staggered he's still walkin' about, polluting the world with the smell of his hair gel. Should have had his, er, hair washed long ago."
"You're William the Bloody. Vampire." Travers said the names with dark, ill-repressed glee. "Giles, you extend friendship to this unclean thing?"
"Aren't you a git," Spike said before Giles could stop him. "First, Giles hates me-- will never ask for my opinion, thinks I should have been staked long ago, blah blah blah. Second, who in bleeding buggery hell are you to be using my old name without permission?"
"It's Travers. Head of the Council, Spike." Giles knew he should corroborate the rest of the other's remarks, but he was rather thrown by the sudden impulse to correct-- he in fact didn't hate Spike at all. Really, he needed to sit down. He must be getting old.
"I knew it! Council of Wankers, indeed--" Spike stopped himself. His hand tightened on Giles's shoulder. "Gentlemen, we have a rather large Shrod on the premises."
The demon stepped off the broken escalator, walking heavily toward Travers and Cumberbatch. It did not speak. It merely moved forward, dripping claws ready for murder.
Giles and Spike glanced at each other, then at the platform where Spike's crowd still waited for the next train. "Other platform," they said in unison, and they exploded off the back wall into action.
Spike grabbed up the guitar case, and the two sprinted past the transfixed Watchers. When they got close enough, Spike threw the case to Giles, who then rammed it against the Shrod's claws. The demon shrieked once, then pulled its claws away. Spike, ready for its moment off-balance, hurled it toward the second corridor.
"Are you going to help?" Giles growled to the other two. They seemed locked in place. He shrugged and followed Spike, who had just spun- kicked the demon to the end of the hall.
Strangely, he felt happy again.