A Certain Ruggedly Handsome Resemblance

by perletwo

 

Genre: Drama

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Joss is God! Mutant Enemy rocks! Grr, arrgh! (please don't sue me, 'k?)

Summary: Spike has a plan. Giles isn't in on it. Spoilers through Wrecked.



 

The UPS guy met the customer at the service door of the magic shop as usual. "Thank you, Mr. Giles," he said, as the Britisher signed for the package with his usual flourish. "Same time next week, I guess?"

"What? Oh." He looked up from the box he'd already begun ripping into. "Oh. Yerse, probably. Thanks, mate."

"See you then, then." The deliveryman finished punching the time-and-motion records into his little handheld PDA and bustled off to his truck. Once there, he scratched the name "Rupert Giles" off the clipboard suction-cupped to his dashboard and tucked the flimsies signed with the big R, the slurry cursive ending in a t and a perfectly legible Giles into the proper file, right next to all the others he'd delivered, one a week for the past three months.

****

It's amazing what kinds of things you can pick up when you share living quarters with somebody. Includin' a coupla those bleedin' credit card offers that seem to multiply in the mailbox.

What Rupert doesn't know won't hurt him. The bills for this account go to one'a those private mail drop places where I've got a box; he'll never see the receipts. An' as long's I keep cleanin' off the slate each month, I'm not gonna hurt Giles's credit rating any. Why should he be the only one to benefit from his responsible credit history?

An' it's not like I'm usin' the shop's accounts or takin' this stuff outta their stock. Why should Anya care if I use the shop to pick up my parcels at?

I just hope they never find out what I've been buyin' with this credit card. I'd never live it down.

****

Spike unpacked the shipping box at the newest addition to the upper level of the crypt, a big walnut worktable not unlike the one at the back of the Magic Box. Working carefully with the old leather bindings, he gently placed the new antique volumes into the angled desktop bookshelf he'd found to hold his purchases and slid the adjustable ends in to hold them upright.

Idly he ran a fingertip along the spines, and his mind ran through the titles again. Encyclopedia Demonica. Spells of Necromancy. Witchcraft of the 15th Century. Alchemy and Magic in the Roman Empire. Golem, Shibboleth, Beast. Burial Ritual and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt. Rebirth, Reincarnation and Resurrection: A Spellcaster's Guide. Lots of others he hadn't gotten to yet.

Then he pulled up his chair, turned the reading rack around toward him and opened the book it held, and pulled up the yellow tablet he'd been making notes on. It was time to get back to work.

****

Thank the Powers for the Internet. You mortals finally did somethin' right. I'd never've found these books without it.

Cor, my eyes are stingin'. Time to take a li'l break, watch some Passions on the telly, let this stuff simmer in my 'ead for awhile.

Be nice if these eggheads wrote in English sometime. The ones in archaic English are easier to suss out than the ones the college types write. Wonder if they've got a special editor checkin' to make sure they never slip up an' say somethin' plain?

Then again, this stuff's prob'ly a lot easier to slog through when you've actually met a Fyarl Demon....

****

Spike's eyelids gradually drooped southward as Tabitha and Timmy schemed to wreak mischief, watching the results of their deeds magically from a safe distance.

That's what the Slayer needs now, he thought, is somebody watchin' over her. She's lost her old Watcher an' they're not sendin' her another - best thing, prob'ly - so she needs Tabitha an' Timmy at least....

He'd never be the adept at this Giles was, of course; the vampire in him was too in love with the physical, the experiential, to put up with book-dust for long. But somewhere in there, or out there in the market he finds through online shops and auctions, is the answer to what the littlest witches had done to Buffy; why she came back wrong, and how to fix it.

Unlike Rupert, Randy Giles has all the time in the world to look for it. And every reason.

####


The End



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