Flashficathon: "Sans les Chaussures Appropriées", by LJ, for Wolfling, spoilery for everything through BTVS 7 and ATS 4

"Sans les Chaussures Appropriées"

Part One

"Marks and Spencer, Footwear, Victoria speaking. How may I assist you? ...I’m sorry, could you please repeat-"

Her question was split in two by sudden shrieking and the mysterious appearance of a short, blond and naked man falling from the sky.

This wasn’t a usual occurrence in Men’s Footwear, Marks and Spencer, 16-18 Stall Street, Bath, Avon BA11QB, England.

"-That? Er, ma’am, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to call back. Good day....Hello, security? I have a...er....an intruder of sorts here in Men’s Footwear...Uh-huh...Yes....Eh, well, sir, he’s naked...Yes, thank you."

******

"He fell through the ceiling?"

"Not through, from."

"Anything else?"

"He shrieked."

"Shrieked?"

"Shrieked. He didn’t yell, didn’t shout; he gave this little cry of surprise. He shrieked."

"Hm."

"And then the shoe boxes tumbled down on him and he shouted."

"What did he say?"

"I’m not sure. I think it was French."

"He’s French?"

"No, sir. He spoke in French."

"What did he say?"

"‘Je noye dans les chaussures inappropriées!’"

"Well, that’s certainly helpful. Anything else?"

"No, sir. He passed out. We left the boxes as they were, to not...disaccomodate our more conservative shoppers."

"Excellent."

******

Rupert Giles had had to endure quite a bit as a Watcher. Torture of various forms, demon attacks, meddlesome teenage girls. This was the first time he had been required to fetch an amnesiac who had appeared suddenly and sans vêtements in the middle of a Marks and Spencer. But his contact with the police thought it might be a situation for the local ghostbuster, rather than the authorities, and so he went to hospital, filed the appropriate forms, and the poor fellow was entrusted into his care.

"Do you remember anything?" he asked his passenger, clothed in hospital surplus.

The man wrinkled his forehead. "There was a dream. Two men – one English, like us, the other an Irishman – were talking of prophecies. Water and fire, rebirth, humanity. The Irishman said something about new sight, new moccasins.

"The Englishman?"

"Blood. Apocalypse. Revelation."

Giles frowned. "I see. And your sudden appearance? Any thoughts, clues?"

The amnesiac shook his head. "I wish I did."

*******

Shrieking.

‘Je noye, je noye...Les chaussures...Oh, non! Non! M’aidez! Ma femme! Vous devez l’aider! Oh, ma belle!’

"Wake up!"

Sleepy blue eyes, half-hidden by unruly blond curls. "Oh, god. I’m starting to remember."

*********

They were English, so naturally there was tea.

Two pots full, and the last round was spiked by a flask Giles kept hidden behind biscuits and curry powder.

"Another Hellmouth, you say? In California, of all places?"

"Yes, near Los Angeles. It’s still a bit of a muddle, but that’s one thing that’s quite clear. A Hellmouth in southern California."

"What else do you remember?"

"A girl."

"A girl?"

"A girl. A blonde. A real California girl – you remember the Beach Boys song, I’m sure. Hell, I remember it and I’m the one with amnesia. A thin Californian girl who’s probably better suited to sunbathing than a Hellmouth." He wrinkled his nose at the bitterness and added sugar to the cooling darjeeling. "Beautiful. Oh, you should have seen her! Her fighting was like a dance! Extraordinary! Brilliant! Effulgent, she was. Absolutely glowing."

Giles hesitated. "Do you remember what Slayers are?"

The man paused his stirring. "Slayers? Ah,-" Memory. Fights. Glowing. It’s gotta rhyme. Monsters and men. "The Chosen One – a girl to each generation, fighting evil? Am I right?"

Giles nodded. "Is this girl a Slayer, do you think?"

Little sips. Cold, sweet tea. Blargh. "Yes, absolutely. She is a Slayer."

*******

The photograph was in full color. Sunlight transformed the girl’s hair into gold; her skin was tanned, her face shining. "Is this the girl you saw? The Slayer?"

He nodded. "Yes, that’s her."

"Hm."

"Hm?"

"Oh," Giles said, adjusting his glasses, "it’s just that we’ll have to wait before approaching her."

The man gave him a look. "Don’t put it off too long. Who knows what might happen."

*********

"Let’s work on those meditations, see if we can pry a few more of your memories loose."

Candles, crossed legs, closed eyes. Wonderful: more chanting. Lovely-

‘-Worn by a champion.’

Champion, he wasn’t a champion. Just a guy with his ear to the ground, wanting to help, wanting to love her. Just a guy.

‘I love you.’

Panic. She finally said it – of course the world’s ending, and him along with it. Clasped hands burning. Burning.

The world glows, and turns to dust-

"No!"

*********

"Calm yourself, man! Dear God, what will the neighbors think?"

"Oh, god, no..."

*********

"An apocalypse-"

"Stop with the coyness, Giles! You remember! You were there, mate! You. Were. There!"

"I assure you, sir, I have never been to California, let alone to some Hellmouth! I had never even laid eyes upon you until that day at the hospital!"

He pulled at his hair. "Look, I know you. Your name is Rupert Giles. For some reason yet unknown to me, you are occasionally called Ripper. You’re a Watcher. You don’t often use magic, but you’re old hand at it. You disgrace the rest of Her Majesty’s subjects by preferring Italian over curries. You have a wicked album collection. In the evenings, when you’re alone, you play ‘Tales of Brave Ulysses’ in honor of a woman you wish you could have gotten to know better."

"Well, all but that last – not to say I don’t like ‘Ulysses,’ quite the contrary – but, yes, that’s all true-"

"Waiddaminute. Show me your hands."

"I beg your pardon!"

"Your hands. Show me your hands."

"Fine! Here! Look at them if it helps!"

He had not often looked at Giles’s hands. He had never made a study of them, catalogued every wrinkle, hair, scar. But he knew enough:

This Rupert Giles had never been subject to the wrath of Angelus.

"What year is it?"

"What?"

"What year? What’s today’s date?"

Giles blinked at him. "It’s September. The tenth, if I’m not mistaken."

"The year, you dolt!" said the man formerly known as Spike, gasping for air, his heart beating.

"1996, of course."

Part Two



“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 agaain. 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]



A/N: Provided that my French is correct, as I’m only in the second term of first-year French at the college level:

(1) ‘Sans les Chaussures Appropriées’ = ‘Without the appropriate shoes’

(2) ‘Je noye dans les chaussures inappropriées!’=‘I’m drowning in the inappropriate shoes!’

(3) ‘sans vêtements’=’without clothing’

(4) ‘Je noye, je noye...les chaussures....oh, non! Non! M’aidez! Ma femme! Vous devez l’aider! Oh, ma belle!’=’I’m drowning, I’m drowning....the shoes...oh, no! No! Help me! My woman (wife)! You must help her! Oh, my beautiful one!'