TITLE: Bob and the English Gentleman
AUTHOR: Fyre
RATING: PG-13, just in case
SUMMARY: It's plotless...silly fun :)
SPOILERS: Spiral, technically, but that's all. Apart from Angel S2 :)
DISCLAIMER: it isn't mine. I'm not a millionaire *sob*
NOTES: This is gloveslap 27 on YGTS? To think this all came from a poll I was doing to help me with 'Slap 24. *shakes head* Please note that no offence is meant by anything I say here. Well...not much. also, see how many references to films you can spot *looks ever so innocent* This might turn into a game for all my fics :)
DEDICATION: To Kat, you equally wanky little sadist! I hope you're satisfied. *grins* I know I am. *hugs Bob*


`Bollocks!'

Foiled once again, Ethan scowled around at the deserted apartment. Goldielocks and her chums had scarpered again, leaving him all spelled up with nowhere to go. Ripper wasn't even there to provide him with a ceremonial annual pummeling.

At this rate, he mused, I'll start thinking they might not like me.

A squeak caught his attention.

He frowned.

The squeak was repeated, more vehemently.

Then, he heard a cage rattling and blinked. Inside, a massive rat sat and stared balefully at him. It wasn't the size of the rat that surprised him, though. It was the feeding dish in was rattling along the bars of the cage.

If looks carried words, the rat was positively screaming `Get me the hell out of here you brain-dead arse-wipe!'

What a beauty it was though.

Ethan paused, bending to peer into the cage. The rat glared at him and he was sure he saw a flick of a tiny, claw-like middle finger.

It had been far too long since he'd had a familiar and now, this pissed-off rat was calling to him.

He hadn't been able to face having another one since...

A muffled sniff escaped him.

Hamfred, the Super Hamster.

Wearing his little pink cape with silver stars, he had tragically tried to do his Superman impression out of a second storey window. It went without saying that, from that day forward, it was decreed that no small and fuzzy critters would be used as rugby balls inside the house, especially near open windows.

Outside was another matter, though. Hedgehogs and bunnies galore!

Still, Hamfred, poor little sod that he was, was never found.

However, Hamfred had nothing on this marvellously evil-looking, foaming-at-the-mouth and snarling rat. True, he'd had a pink spangly cloak, but somehow that always made him look a like...well...more of a poofter than the other familiars.

Hamsters and rats were the only two rodents permitted as familiars, or so he recalled. Mice were strictly forbidden.

The Sorcerer could recall hearing something about hat-stealing, armies of brooms marching, uncontrolled and flooding castles. Probably a load of codswallop, he decided, but he wasn't about to take more stupid risks than usual.

`Are you evil, rat?'

One small paw rose in a mock-Nazi salute and he couldn't smother a snort of laughter. The rat glared at him again and stalked over towards the door of the cage, never taking its beady, dark eyes off the Englishman.

`You want out, eh?' Opening the cage, he was surprised at the speed at which the oversized rodent moved. Grabbing it's tail, he grinned down at it. `None of that. You owe me, rat. You belong to me now.'

The response involved fingers, falling, trouser legs, boxer shorts, nuts (of both varieties), blood, more blood and several teeth (homo sapiens and witchus ratticus).

Finally, the subdued rat was tied up in what Ethan assumed was some kind of skirt. Looked more like a belt, though. It was muzzled too, with a C-cup bra that seemed to have lain neglected at the back of a drawer for quite some time.

`All right, my hairy little bugger.' Raising the rat aloft, using the g-string wrapped around it's body, over the skirt, Ethan grinned at it. `We're two evil, villains, ready to bend down and let the world kiss our arses. All we need is a little direction and I just happen to know a man, who knows a demon...'

***

`You can't come in here looking like that.'

Ethan snarled. The rat - who he had named Bob - snarled too. Both noisily dripped foam from their mouths and snarled again. It truly was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, rabies shots not included. Hence the foam.

`No rabies victims allowed.' The Bouncer took a step back from the pair. He'd seen a lot of nasty things, but this took the cake.

Ethan placed Bob on his shoulder, still happily oblivious to little Bob's true gender and physical form. `Now look here, mate.' He took a step closer and knew that Bob was grinning. `You let Mucus demons in there...'

`Demon bar is for demons, `mate'.'

Ethan chuckled dryly. `I could protest my civil rights, y'know.' He drawled. `A Mucus demon could be pissing blood in there for all you know and you still say it's mucus. No harm, no foul. Me and my Bob, here, want to get sloshed, then we'll pass out and drool on the floor. That's foam, but runnier. Don't you get my point?'

The demon didn't, but nodded anyway. He was still trying to figure out why the rat was sticking it's tongue out at him.

`I think you ought to leave.'

`Hear that, Bob? He wants us to leave...' The rat dripped a glob of foam onto the nice, clean bouncer uniform. The bouncer pushed them away and Ethan raised his voice shrilly. `Come and see the violence inherent in the system!'

`Shut up!'

`Ooh! Did you `ear that?'

`Darius, hon, what's all the fuss about? It's making the customers jumpy.'

Ethan threw his arms wide and gave a delighted yell that momentarily deafened everyone within a ten foot radius. `Lorne! You horny devil! Imagine meeting you here!'

The Host's skin went a sickly shade of ash-green. `E-Ethan?'

`One in the same!' Hugging the anagogic demon in an over-friendly way, the Sorcerer smeared foam all over Lorne's impeccable suit. The green-skinned demon winced in horror. It would cost at least $90 for dry-cleaning. `So, mate, gonna get me and Bob a pint? For old times sake?'

`Bob?' He heard his voice ask faintly, wondering what terrible thing he had done that brought Ethan Rayne crashing headlong into his life again.

The Englishman smirked wickedly and pointed to the rat on his shoulder. `Lorne, Bob. Bob, meet Lorne.' The rat extended a small paw. To both their surprise, he took it and shook it politely. After all, he was the host. He...kinda had to.

`Come in, come in...' Gesturing them hurriedly passed the doorman, he knew the less people saw of the rabid-looking Englishman, the better. Weaving between tables, he found one suitably dark, near the stage and gestured for the man to sit. Ordering a drink for both rat and human, the demon said little.

On the stage, a blonde - who might have been pretty, had she not known it - picked up the microphone and tapped it.

Everyone in the vicinity with audio receptors of any kind winced at the shrill whine. `Hello? Hello? Is this thing working?' She squinted around. `Oh! It is! Goodie!' tapping the mike again, to make sure, she didn't notice the communal shudder. `I'm Harmony and I'm going to sing a song called...'

`Come on, Harmony, show us yer legs!' A raucous yell rose from the front table, accompanied by loud and clearly entertained squeaking. `This isn't a school talent show, you dozy cow. Get on with it!'

Harmony vamped, growling at him. `as I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted, I'm going to sing a song that was written about a Princess who died...or something. It's called `Candle in the Wind'.'

`Don't be stupid.' The green demon near the loud-mouthed reveler frantically gestured for him to be quiet. Lowering his voice, the human rumbled. `He round it for Marilyn Munroe, not some fancy royal tart. He ruined a great song with this cack.'

The introduction began and harmony opened her mouth and uttered the first word. `Goodbye...'

`And good riddance!' The jovial voice put in again.

Stomping her foot, the blonde vampiress shot a glare at the Host. `Make him shut up!' She whined. `I want to know my future but he keeps interrupting my singing.'

`Singing?' With foamy grins, both man and rat cackled. `If that's what the bleedin' yanks call singing, God help us if they take over the world before the Japs.'

Hands on her hips, the vampiress looked petulant and pissed off. `You think you can do better?'

Rising to the challenge, ignoring the Host's low groan of despair about the impending bankruptcy he sensed in his future, Ethan placed Bob back onto his shoulder. `Course I can, you undead slapper.'

A hum of interest passed through the club. Of course, it was a no fight zone, but they weren't adverse to a good bitch fight between mortals and demons.

***

`Goodbye, silly tart!' Angel ducked as a leg sailed over his head and erupted into dust against the wall. A loud, English voice continued to sing. Badly. To the tune of `Candle in the wind'. `Wish we'd never...known you at all. You sing like a dying cat and it drives us up the wall...'

Cordelia stopped short behind her boss and blinked. Wesley gaped. Gunn snorted, but discreetly and Angel, the most mature of the ensemble, did what any other bi-centennial plus working towards redemption would do, when confronted with the sight before him.

He doubled over and giggled like a hyperactive school girl.

Harmony stared at the point on the wall where her fourth limb had erupted into dust, then glared up at the human who was holding her at arm's length by the hips. Then he started singing (if you could call it singing) again.

`Goodbye, fangy face, wish I could kill your dumb-arse sire...but I know he did the smart thing...saw you and set himself on fire...'

The limbless Harmony snarled up at the foaming madman and his rat. `I'm SO gonna kill you!'

`You and what army?' He sniggered, pausing as the rat tapped his ear. Seeming to listen to the rodent, he grinned and tipped the vampiress upside down, bouncing her head on the floor. `I'll bite yer legs off! That's what I'll do!' He mimicked the blonde's voice frighteningly well.

`Ooh! You are so dead, I've never seen deader...'

Turning her the right way up, he smirked. The rat bobbed up and down on his shoulder, squeaking frantically. The familiar-looking man then tucked the vampiress body neatly under his arm and retrieved the microphone, belting out the final chorus with gusto: `And it seems to me that you lived your life like a slutty little bint, Never keeping both your legs closed when a prick moved in... And I would have liked to have killed you, but you're already dead... So I'll do the next best thing...I'll take yer bloody head!'

As Harmony puttered into dust, there was wild applause and both man and rat took bows in several directions, heedless of the Host and his despairing sobbing on the lapels of his $100-to-dry-clean suit.

`Just a quiet night at Caritas, huh?' Gunn remarked dryly.

Angel gave the only reasonable response at that moment.

He doubled over for another giggle fit.


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