That Old Grand Sire of Mine Chapter 2: Tea Break, an angel fanfic

Disclaimer: Don't own, etc., etc. Joss Whedon rules supreme and retains pretty much everything. Only written for personal enjoyment and because this plot bunny just wouldn't die, even after some serious staking…

Summary: Sequel to Vampirus (Non) Domesticus. Wherein there is a lot of heated debate and pithy comment…Rating PG13.

THAT OLD (GRAND) SIRE OF MINE

Chapter 2 – Tea-Break

Possibly because of some mystical irony, at the same time on another continent, a stocky, inconspicuous man was standing in front of the desk of what many would consider to be a beautiful blond woman. Beresford – that was his name – wasn't so moved, however. Ffion Wilkes-Booth superficially resembled Meryl Streep, having aristocratic features, perfect rosebud lips and a graceful long neck that complemented her discreetly curved slender figure. Dressed conservatively as the "accountant" she ostensibly was, Ms Wilkes-Booth projected an image of the cool English Rose, pure and serene. Cold as a polar icecap, Beresford thought derisively, emotionally as well as in the sack. Can't imagine how her fiancé gets any further than second base with her…what am I saying? They're perfect for each other…

He came back to reality as she began to examine his report. He struggled to hide his amusement when she merely sniffed at Wyndham-Pryce's open involvement with the vampire with a soul and passed on, and merely sniffed again at the ex-Watcher's very private – that had been very difficult for Beresford to discover - sideline in collecting books and objects of extremely dangerous mystical attributes…only to go as grey as old socks when she came across his report of the two men sharing an apartment. She pressed a hand to her chest. "Are you sure?" She asked him in a tone that implied he'd discovered Wyndham-Pryce was a serial killer.

"Two men, one bed. The math isn't all that hard." Beresford commented, again hiding his derision at her reaction. Ms Wilkes-Booth had seen far worse, she had to have done - she was an accountant sure, but she was also one of those Watcher Council geeks, her uncle and aunt and sundry other relatives being amongst the few of those pompous windbags who hadn't been blown to smithereens by the First Evil last year. And it couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch, pity that Caleb guy missed a few…

"There." Without preamble or thanks, Ms Wilkes-Booth handed him an envelope full of English pounds sterling in small denominations and used notes as he had requested. "I shall have to sort this out."

Leaving without further ado and aware that he had been dismissed as irrelevant the moment he walked out the door, Beresford exited the posh Victorian façade building in the heart of London's most affluent business area and then walked briskly two blocks East with a grin on his face, where he entered another equally graceful building.

Ushered into the office by a dried up stick of a secretary who looked like she'd been born sixty and sucking lemons, Beresford found himself in an imposing wood panelled office. Heavy oil paintings adorned the walls, thick velvet drapes framed the Georgian windows and the ornate stone fireplace had logs laid ready in the grate. A priceless bone china tea service resided atop a side table, and next to it was a huge, very valuable antique globe that was really a drinks cabinet.

Beresford wasn't impressed. The room and its fittings were props, chosen as ego-boosters by the tall young man who was now rising from the plush leather chair behind the desk. His features were momentarily contorted as he tried to appear regal, yet couldn't hide his anxiety. "Well?" He demanded sharply.

For a second, Beresford didn't answer, comparing his second employer unfavourably with his target. Wesley Wyndham-Pryce's spectacles gave him a studious appearance, but emphasised grey eyes full of steely resolve. His physique, though not as powerful as that of Lorne, Charles Gunn or Angel the Vampire With The Soul, was lean and purely muscular. His quiet reserve was the silence of strength and character, and his flashes of goofiness were an endearing revelation that he knew when to unclench and not take himself too seriously.

Nigel Wyndham-Pryce was like a wishy-washy reflection, or a cheap knock-off painting from a superior original. About the only thing he had in common with his elder brother was height. In place of the spiky brunette crop that Beresford had seen Wesley often run his fingers through in agitation as he tried to help Angel save the next imperilled innocent, Nigel's hair was meticulously styled, bespeaking the time to spend many hours at an exclusive salon plus a distinct lack of worry in his life.

The contact lenses he wore over spectacles made him blink rapidly and look like a startled rabbit, and highlighted his facial flaws: small eyes and a rather podgy nose. His jaw lacked the definition of Wesley's and his mouth was petulant. Unlike Wesley, who got and kept his fitness from daily battles with gruesome nasties like that Ethulak thing Beresford had seen Team Angel slaughter, Nigel spent two hours a day in a members-only health-spa gymnasium. His excellently cut suit was four or five times more expensive than anything Beresford had witnessed Wesley wear, but couldn't quite hide the subtle hint of developing paunch and sagging butt.

When Beresford had tracked Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, his impression had been one of firm resolve, quiet integrity, and an unpretentious individual who would be very, very dangerous if provoked. Looking at Nigel now, the first word that sprang to his mind was: callow. Followed immediately by whiny, sulky, petulant, sly and brat. For a moment he enjoyed the way panic infused Nigel's eyes, then held out his report.

Snatching it off him, Nigel sat down at the desk and began to pore over it. Unlike Ffion who had freaked over the elder Wyndham-Pryce's domestic arrangements, Nigel dismissed them summarily, his mouth twisting in scorn as he looked at the photograph of Wesley and the blond man in their parking garage, getting out of the Barracuda. What really agitated Nigel was Wesley's new position at Wolfram & Hart as Director of the Occult (& Mystical Research) Department now that Angel was CEO, a hardly surprising promotion since the elder Wyndham-Pryce brother had been the vampire's right hand man and best friend for nearly five years. Nigel Wyndham-Pryce, however, seemed to be taking Wesley's good fortune rather badly as the younger man mumbled to himself. "Absolutely shocking, vile, vile! That a Watcher should willingly serve a vampire and protect him against his own kind, even a Slayer…coward! Quisling! Perversion. Disgusting. Shameful."

After listening to synonyms of the same words for a good five minutes as Nigel, in increasing agitation, worked his way through the report, Beresford had had enough. "Ahem, I do have another appointment."

"What? Oh yes." Holding out the envelope of cash, Nigel looked at him with considerable anxiety, "I can count on your absolute discretion?"

Realising that the kid had no idea he'd just given Beresford a major insult, Beresford merely nodded and escaped as quickly as possible into the street, where he retired to a quiet café and discreetly secreted his cash in his clothing. Yes indeed, Ffion Wilkes-Booth and Nigel Wyndham-Pryce thoroughly deserved each other. It had been fun working for both of them, secretly watching them coo at each other, fiancé and fiancée each unaware that the other had hired him. Obviously each one had a different agenda from their reactions to Beresford's information, but he squashed his burgeoning curiosity. Getting involved in the story of the target was a sure road to ruin.

Not that Wesley Wyndham-Pryce likely needed any help from the likes of him. The Brit had survived half a decade as the Lieutenant of the Vampire With A Soul - including at least two up-close-and-personal encounters with Angel's murderous alter ego, Angelus - plus an entire array of human and mystical psychopaths. Nor was that blond guy to be trifled with; Beresford knew a bad dude when he laid eyes on one, and for all the flippancy and casual demeanour displayed by "Spike" as the blond seemed to be called, Beresford had taken heed of the man's subtly proprietary attitude towards Wyndham-Pryce. While careful to keep well back, Beresford had been able to tell even from a safe surveillance distance that those pale ice-blue eyes betrayed a carefully tamped down capacity for unimaginable violence.

Beresford finished his drink and made plans to take his next job somewhere more neutral, like France. That the Queen Slayer Buffy Summers should decide to reconstruct the Watcher Council after defeating the First Evil had astonished many in mystical circles, but made sense to Beresford. For all their stuffy claptrap and conceited twaddle, the Watchers had over the millennia of their existence provided a vast resource for the Slayer line – after all, the First Evil hadn't had them blown up just because it disliked the décor of their London HQ.

Having made every Potential in the world an actual Slayer, Summers now had to train and educate them in all the history and lore of their kind, a task that would be monumentally easier if she didn't have to keep re-inventing the wheel. It would also be beneficial to recreate the Council without the flaws of its predecessor, such as the baffling misogyny of the Council. They had been created to serve the Slayer, but somewhere along the line, they had become more interested in preserving their society and traditions than helping the current representative of the Powers That Be.

Who, by the way, had yet to make any sign manifest on how they viewed a world full of Slayers where there had once only been the Chosen One. In the brief lull immediately following the defeat of the First Evil by some Champion of Light Buffy had come up with over the expected favourite, Angel, some guy who had been charcoaled by the actual event, Buffy Summers and her Watcher Rupert Giles had seized the initiative and instigated their wholesale reorganisation plan. The Scooby Gang entire were even now attacking their Slayer's pet project with their customary zeal, and everyone else had been left either sitting in the dust or frantically playing catch-up.

Beresford wasn't a foolish man and he could see the conflict bubbling along nicely. Some factions in the remnants of the old Watcher Council were entrenching against what they viewed as an attack on their culture and a besmirching of those that had been killed by an upstart girl who didn't know her 'place' and the Watcher they saw as a traitor to their creed. Other factions just as eagerly jumped on the modernising bandwagon, eager to drag the Watchers out of the Stone Age, and now the players on each side were polarising to one standard or another.

The conservative faction had been dealt a recent blow when Mr Zubuto, the hugely respected Watcher of the late Slayer Kendra Latbala Faisal, had thrown in with Buffy, but there were other powerful Watchers, whose lineage in the organisation went back to before the time of Christ, who were firmly in the conservative camp. Families were being split along ideological lines, and when that happened, things got ugly. Having worked as a 'heavy' for a mid-level Yorkshire crook during the bitter Miners Strike of 1984 in England, Beresford had no intention of sticking around for this conflict.

Summers' new regime had set up home on the rim of the crater/valley where Sunnydale had actually been, since Buffy's view that the new Slayers needed to get used to a Hellmouth as quickly as possible had obvious merit (and nobody really wanted to move to the next nearest Hellmouth in Cleveland). Beresford made a mental note to stay out of England and the United States of America for the foreseeable future. Things were already getting Ugly and the Shanshu Prophecy claimed that another Apocalypse was in the offing…

Beresford had to smile at himself as he realised he was now at the stage where he could actually use the words 'another' and 'Apocalypse' one after the other with equanimity. Shanshu stated clearly that the Vampire With A Soul would be restored to humanity should he triumph for the Powers That Be and everyone knew that the Vampire With A Soul had one true love: the Slayer-Queen, Buffy Summers…

To be continued in Chapter 3…