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Author's Chapter Notes:
Hi all,

I know I promised this sooner and mea culpa but I wanted this to be good and not quick.
Chapter Seventeen – The Watcher’s Son

It had been a particularly good table session and like all the best sessions, no one noticed any time passing. They started in the afternoon and suddenly it was midnight. Raj was just packing up his things, bidding good night to his fellows. It had started to rain sometime in the night and now it was coming down in sheets.

“Glad I don’t have to go out in that,” Their dungeon master, a chubby Danish nurse named Bettina said as lightning flashed outside.

“Do all of you have a way home safely? You are free to stay here if you need to.”

“Where?” asked Carys Jones an administrator who worked with Bettina. She spread her arms and very nearly knocked over a lamp. Bettina’s apartment looked like an IKEA sample apartment. The Kitchen, living room hybird barely had enough space to hold the table.

“The couch pulls out.” Bettina said defensively.

All of then chuckled. The couch was under Bettina’s raised twin bed.

“Of course it does, Betts.” Carys said with a grin. “Of course it does,”

Raj laughed along with them. Bettina loved living in the tiny space, She was explaining the whole Danish concept of hygge to them but Raj had never understood it. A few hours a week at Betts’ was lovely but anything more than that he was sure he would start to get claustrophobic.

“Are you going back to the hospital, Bettina?” Asked Nigel Brooks, he was a friend of Raj’s from Oxford. He was now studying at the Royal College of medicine with a few others in the crew.

“No, I just finished a double shift.” Bettina said.

“Right, well next week then.” Nigel said he nodded at Raj and headed out. A few of the others left with him.

“Are you not going back to campus, Simoe?” Bettina asked.

Simon Zhang looked uncomfortable. “Actually, I need to head back home. Not looking forward to the hike to The Station.”

“My car is parked a nearby, I can take you to as far as St. Pancras.” Raj offered.

“Ta, mate.”

“Take this.” Bettina said handing Simon a tartan umbrella with a long, polished handle. “See you two next week!”

Raj and Simon thanked her and ducked out of the house and into a wall of water. They hurried off down the road feeling like a swimming pool was being dumped on their heads.

“The next block over!” Raj yelled over the sound of water. He was about to point when someone slammed into him. It felt like mroe than someone, like he h ran full tilt into a wall or a freight train. Raj tasted blood as he picked himself off the pavement.

“Simon?”

There were signs of a scuffle. There was a large snarling man with wild hair clearly going for the neck.

Raj froze. A vampire. The very first that he had ever seen in the flesh. Hecould see the ridge-line that was the best way to identify a vamp. There was also more snarling than he expected, the creature looked more animalistic than he had expected it to be.

“Raj, there is something wrong with this bloke!” Simon's voice was high and panicked.

The vampire didn’t seem to have noticed that Raj was even there. He shook himself out out of his clinical observation and grabbed his bag, heavy with D&D books and papers and his special metal die and swung it in the creature’s face. The momentary daze it caused was enough for Simon to knee it in the balls and shove it off of him. While the vampire writhed on the floor Simon brought a closed umbrella down on its solar plexus.

“Simon! Run!”

With no concern for the rain now, both men tore down the streets, they could hear it coming after them. Simon was a pretty athletic bloke and he was sprinting down the street but Raj was distractedly rummaging in his bag for the flask he knew he had packed this morning despite thinking it was a useless precaution.

“Raj, what the bloody hell are you doing?”

The vampire had apparently caught up with them but Raj triumphantly pulled out a large metallic flask full of holy water. He wrenched off the top and threw the contents in the vamp’s face. It sizzled and burned the creature cried out and covered it's face with its hand as if it had been burned by acid.

“What the bloody hell are we—you—”

“Run, Simon!!”

“Which one is your car?”

“Sod that! There’s a pub on the corner!”

The last few steps seemed longer than the whole flight before it. Raj tried his best to keep up and once they were in the pub, they sagged against the wall breathing heavily. The burst of laughter and jeering at some sort of football game, all of this was so removed from the flight from the vamp that it took them a second to adjust. Raj was very glad that Simon had the good sense not to start shouting. He was staring at Raj with a quizzical expression and Raj was worried he may start if no explnation was forth coming.

Raj gestured to the booths and headed to the bar. A few second later he slid into the seat across Simon with two pints.

“You’re going to need this.” He said pushing one in front Simon.

Simon ignored the beer.

“Prasad, what the bloody fucking hell was that?” he hissed.

He looked angry as hell. But then, at least he wasn't yelling the conversation to everyone at the bar. Raj supposed that maybe it was because he was worried he would sound mad. Raj supposed anything about his world would seem mad if you didn't have the time to get used to it.

With a sigh, he decided there was no beating around the bush. “That was a vampire.”

Simon stared at him for a long time. And then, he took a long gulp of the beer in front of him.

“A vampire with the teeth and blood lust?”

“Yes.”

“We were attacked by a vampire.”

“You’re taking this awfully well.”

“I’m wondering who at the hospital put you up to this.” Simon said calmly.

“I’m not fucking with you.” Raj assured him. “It was a vampire, a blood sucker, a denizen of the night. Vampires are real and most other things that go bump in the night are real.” Raj said taking a sip of his own beer. “are you allright?”

“Not really, I was just attacked by a vampire.” Simon said with a chuckle.

“You are bleeding.”

Simon nodded. “Yeah, noticed that, actually. He seemed to miss the jugular.”

“Not for lack of trying.” Raj said shaking his head. "We lucked out, he must have been a fledgeling."

“I’m bleeding and your first thought is what level of vampire that bloke was?”

“Should I ask for a plaster for you or something?"

“I’m applying pressure, it’s not gushing so I’m not too terribly worried about it. Should I be worried about rabies?” he looked stricken as something else occurred to him. “Bugger, I’m not going to become a vampire am I?”

Raj nearly choked on his drink but then put down the glass. “To make a vampire, you need to drink his blood too.”

“Damn. I reckon I’d make a good le Stat.”

Raj studied him for a moment. Simon was shaken, a little confused and he was holding a little serviette to the wound on his neck but otherwise he looked like the implications were not permeating his thick scientist’s skull.

“I don't think you understand. Vampires are a very real danger.” Raj said seriously.

Simon nodded. “Don’t have to tell me twice I was just his bloody chew toy. You were there.”

“I know, I just...” Simon was looking at him suspiciously like he was doubting Raj’s assurances that he was not on orders from the hospital to give Simon a hard time. “I had thought this would be more difficult than this. Explaining about the supernatural world and all that”

“I work shifts at the ER some days, mate.” Simon said with a shrug. “This explains a lot about those patients who come in with ‘neck trauma.’”

Raj grinned. It actually felt good to tell someone about this. “I suppose that makes sense. I did always wonder about that”

They drank in silence for a little while.

“How did you know about this?” Simon asked.

“I—actually my family is part of a council that fights them—the vampires, the demons and forces of darkness.”

That seemed to finally get to Simon. “Wait—seriously?”

Raj grinned proudly.

“Well, then what the bloody hell are you doing playing dungeons and dragons?” Simon demanded. “If my family fought mystical forces I wouldn’t need to pretend to be an elf to get my rocks off.”

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” Raj said.

But Simon’s adrenaline was clearly already pumping. It looked like it had dawned on him just how close to death he had come.

“My umbrella has a wooden handle, you reckon we could’ve staked it?”

“Probably not.” Raj said. “vampires are stronger than humans.”

“Really? How many of them have you put down?”

“Well, it’s not just my family, and I don’t actually fight. I more aid in a data entry capacity.” Raj said chagrinned. “This was the first vampire I’ve ever fought.”



*****


Devraj Prasad woke up in the grip of a massive hangover, the likes of which he had not seen since freshers week. His head was pounding and his mouth was dry and fuzzy. He was also lying in a room he didn’t recognize. His brain was working very sluggishly but he managed to piece together the events of the night before. He had gone on a fool's errand. He had been fully prepared to dietrying to find out what had happened to his father and what thiscraziness was about and after the fruitless planning and the cryptic leads, after risking his life, after all of it, they were back in England. He was less than a mile from where this had all started.

Raj threw back the sheets and rubbed his face. He had never really been able to grow much of a beard, but it felt like the stubble he did get had grown on scraggly. He needed a shave and some chips.

Thinking about chips was a bad idea. Suddenly, all the foods he needed suddenly paraded across his eyelids, but he was in Belgravia an a hundred year old house that had seen no one but vamps since 1880. So, that was going to have to wait.

Except that he really wanted chips.

He pushed that thought from his mind, and forced himself to swing his feet to the ground. He expected it to be freezing, but it was surprisingly warm in the house. His phone’s display told him the reason there was no sunlight bearing down on him was that it was early in the evening. He had been asleep at least 12 hours which was why he felt like someone had shoved sawdust in his brain and flubber down his throat—or maybe the other way around. There was a bottle on the nightstand. It looked suspiciously like the bottle of champagne he had been drinking the night before. It had a sign on it that said “drink me.”

Accustomed to his own weird ability to foresee his own hangover, Raj picked it up and took a long swig. It was as he suspected, water, and it tasted fucking fantastic.

He had no idea who this room belonged to but it, like the rest of the house, was a very strange mishmash of modern and Victorian. The old fashioned scones had modern bulbs in them like some sort of Victorian fun factory. Perhaps that was why it was warm, whoever was in charge of the place saw about central heating.

In the corner of the room was a washbasin stand, Raj fervently hoped whoever had seen to the rest of the upgrades they had at least thought of bathrooms. Of course he would settle for anything cool and soothing on his face. Deciding not to take his chances on the bathroom, Raj poured the rest of the champagne bottle’s contents into the basin and splashed it onto his face.

Feeling almost like a regular human being he pulled on his shirt and trousers and headed downstairs.

The house, though posh, was very strange. He knew that it probably cost a fortune now, the carpeting and the fixtures all looked like the kind of thing people paid an enormous amount to duplicate. The over all effect though was too crowded for Raj who oddly, felt a pang of homesickness for his own home on Blenheim road.

He ran his hands over a switch, all the modern things about the place looks out of place like a careless set designer had forgotten to dot the I’s and cross the t’s—forgetting to black out power sockets and light switches.

As Raj padded down the stairs he was careful to listen for anyone else, but everyone else was still asleep, he didn’t hear Spike and Buffy fighting anymore either. He wondered what his plan was if he was the only one awake.

Always a follower. A mean little voice said in his head, a little voice that sounded like his father telling him he never pushed himself. He shoved it to the back of his mind, he was not that person anymore. Now, he was in the thick of it. He was fighting with the slayer and Wesley and William the fucking bloody. Raj ran a hand distractedly through his hair. William the fucking bloody had protected him and knew his name. A vamp he had only ever read about.

In his distraction he had made it to the ground floor, he hesitated, listening again for any stirrings in the parlour where Spike and Buffy had been remodeling the night before. Satisfied that they were no longer there, Raj turned the corner and stopped short. The room looked like a warzone, which, he supposed, in a way it was. Everything was in shambles and Spike was laying on the edge of a ruined ottoman covered in his duster. Buffy was no where to be seen. Raj made a mental note to check Spike for splinters later and continued to the kitchen.

The light was on and Buffy was sitting wrapped in one of the blankets they had taken from the airplane. She was holding a bone china cup in her hands but not really drinking from it. Instead, she was watching something happening outside through the French doors that lead to a court yard. After a moment he realised that it was snowing.

“Morning.”

Buffy started and then looked around. She relaxed when she saw who it was.

“It’s morning already? Where was I?”

“No. sorry.” Raj said. “figurative morning.”

She looked relieved.

“Is there anything to eat?”

She nodded. “Actually yeah, there are some cookies and stuff. I guess the cleaning committee has a sweet tooth.” she gestured to the cabinets all of which were painted a smart white and had tiny black iron handles. “There’re beers in the fridge too if you’re looking for some hair of the dog.”

Even the thought of more alcohol made Raj queasy.

“I think it’s safe to say no bloody way.” He said.

Buffy grinned. “Yeah, I’m sorry there’s nothing stronger in a pharmaceutical sort of way but you’ve got your fill of blood in the fridge and for some reason milk.” she looked genuinely puzzled about the milk. “Do you think maybe they were worried about their fangs?”

When he didn't reply, she pointed at her teeth. Milk. Calcium. Fangs. He had never really given thought as to how vampires absorbed nutrition. But that was a question for when no one was tap dancing in his head. He knew why they had milk.

“Americans.” He said derisively. “The milk is for the tea.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose, but held out her cup in a gesture towards an old fashioned kettle sitting on the range.

“I made hot water for tea. Help yourself.”

Raj saw about making a proper cup of tea. The first sip reinforced what the water in the champagne bottle started and Raj felt the hangover properly start to fade. Some food would be rather perfect. He started rummaging through the cupboards for a gift from McVities. He took another quick sip of his tea and got an actual look at the cup he was holding, even his unpracticed eye could tell from the delicacy of the bone china that this was an exquisite piece and just like that the enormity of what had just happened to him, of everything that was going on really hit him. This was William the Bloody’s house. This was William the Bloody’s China. Raj nearly dropped the cup.

“Raj?” Buffy’s voice was worried.

“I’m alright.” He lied. He put the tea cup on the table where it rattled a little. “It’s nothing.”

“Slayed by a really bad hangover.” She said with a wry smile. “Watcher’s gone wild.”

“Sorry?”

“Watcher’s gone wild?”

“I’m not a watcher, Buffy.” He said. “I work for the council but I’m not a watcher. I’m a data entry clerk. I sit at a desk all day and digitize reports that watchers make—or lobby for the privilege—because none of them exactly trust digital files.” He shook his head bitterly. “I’m no where near being the rank of watcher. I never really thought I wanted to be a part of it--you know? I never really wanted to go on crazy adventures. I fought a vampire once and I basically pissed myself. I didn’t think that I could ever handle anything close to what we just—I wanted it when it was a story. When it was not even close to being real and-- and all that ended when I saw my father dead on the kitchen floor. And suddenly I have this mission and I’m being shot at and sprinting, sprinting! for trains! I’m infiltrating secret organizations and working with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and William the fucking Bloody!” He felt himself start to get slightly hysterical as he said it out loud. He quickly put his teacup down on the counter. “Oh my fucking God, I’m working with William the Bloody.” He dropped his face into his hands.” I thought I was going to die. I thought for sure I was going to die.” He raised his head and saw Buffy as if for the first time. “and now I’m a mile from my bloody house!”

Buffy stared at him spooked and wild-eyed and very clearly not expecting that outburst.

“I was more talking about the drinking and the purloined fur coat.” she said.

“Oh.” Raj said deflating after his outburst. He took a long drink of his tea, draining the little cup. “Sorry. I suppose I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Buffy shook her head and touched Raj’s hand, it was friendly gesture that Raj was not used to.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’m giving off confide-y vibes. Just getting’ all sorts of insight into the mysteries of the male psyche.”

Raj studied his shoes missed completely Buffy’s sudden embarrassed gulp of her own tea.

“I was just sort of resigned to the fact that I was going to die.” He said with a sigh. “and now I’m back and I’m not really sure how to go about it. Going after the Package was sort of a suicide mission.”

“Yeah well, I’ve had plenty of practice with those--and I'm still kicking.” Buffy said seriously. “It's of the good that you’re home though. I’d want to be.”

“You have a mom and sister waiting for you there.” Raj countered with a little more hostility then he meant to. “I don’t. I have Jadwiga. I suppose she counts. She’s been working for us since I was ten.”

“Wow, Keep all this angst bottled, British boy, and that stiff upper lip is going to cramp up.”

“It does makes sense to go back.” Raj said blushing again at the sudden anxiety he couldn’t help. “I’m sure they’re observing me and I’m going to have to emerge eventually. The last week without any movement was pushing it.”

“Do you know how to sneak in and out?”

Raj arched an eyebrow at her. “just how much of a knob do you think I am?”

“Sorry, a knob?” Buffy asked with a grin clearly she had expected him to be at a loss to get passed the Project’s surveillance. Raj, however, sent her a look so wounded she giggled a little. “Hey in my defense, I don’t actually think you’re all dweeb. I used my super-secret sneaky way to get out of the house mainly to go patrolling. Y’know, Sacred duty and all.”

“I was mostly sneaking out to find more bandwidth.”

Buffy cringed.

“Shoulda just let yourself be a badass.” She said. “More tea?”

Raj smirked and nodded.

“I can be a bad ass in your eyes after my girlsh shrieking?”

“Your stylish and silent shoe choice has garnered my respect.” She got up and fixed hem both another cup of tea wrinkling her nose a little while pouring out the milk muttering about wanting zesty over dairy. Raj accepted his gratefully.

“I don’t know how you do it, Buffy.” Raj said seriously. “All that adrenaline and danger. I thought I was up for it, but I don’t think I was prepared.”

“Lucky ol’ me, I get to be the chosen.” Buffy said with a sigh. “And not so much the chooser.”

They sat in companionable silence for a little while, watching the snow fall softly into the courtyard. Raj thought about Buffy as the chosen one, he had heard that term and her name so many times, but he had thought that the actual girl would be different. He thought she’d have more gravitas, perhaps she would ooze quiet power. He watched as she pouted at her empty cup and watched her debate leaving the warm cocoon of her blanket to fill it.

“I’ve read about you, you know? You and Spike.”

To his surprise every inch of Buffy suddenly went taut.

“What about me and Spike?” she demanded.

“I’ve read about you?” Raj repeated uncertainly, wondering suddenly what had spooked her.

“Oh.” Buffy sat back down and hid behind her tea cup. “All glowing references I’m sure?”

“Not as bad as you think.” He replied studying the slayer carefully. He had seemed to hit some sort of nerve. He decided to try and distract her. “Was your mayor really a giant snake?”

“Yeah, of the pure demon variety.” She said shaking her head as if to shake off a bad memory. She looked a lot more at ease talking about slaying. “Apparently there’s demon and there’s demon.”

“That must have been fun.”

“Sure if you like arranging your school friends into a makeshift army to fight against your keynote speaker who had a hundred years to practice his speech.”

“Was it any good?”

Buffy shrugged. “Well, he ate the principal so that was Buffy approved. And also I live to tell the tale so I guess dying the first time was a definite learning experience and hey! No more HIgh school.”

Raj felt the reply on his lips and it was frothy and witty and gone in an instant replaced by his only firsthand account of death. His father's. Buffy seemed to readhis face and looked horrified.

“Oh God, Raj! I’m so sorry! You were just talking about that and I made a stupid joke and I don’t know why people are telling me things. I’m not good at the whole meaningfully saying things back part!”

Raj smiled at her ruefully and drained his tea.

“The listening face helps though.” He said. He glanced at the clock and steeled himself. “I should head out. Cover of darkness and all that.”

“Do you want me to come? I can be supportive stealthy Buffy.”

“Nice as that would be,” Raj said. “We shouldn’t risk them recapturing you just because I’m a little shaky.” He paused and decided on a small experiment. “Spike would have my balls.”

Buffy tightened a little at the mention of his name.

“Do you know if my regular coat is anywhere? I reckon that blond monstrosity upstairs might be the fur you were talking about.”

“Alex put them in the entrance place.” Buffy replied relaxing when it looked like Spike wasn’t going to factor any more in the conversation. “are you sure you can go alone? You could wait a little and bring Wes along.”

“Seriously.” Raj said. “You can face a giant headmaster eating snake demon. I reckon I can walk back to my house without much incident.”

“Well, not now that you’ve jinxed it.” Buffy said with a grin. "Give my best to Jadwiga."


*****


The closer he got to the house he grew up in the more Raj was convinced that this was a mistake. The last thing in the world he wanted was to walk back into the house and have all the memories of his father dead in the middle of a pool of blood. One thing was for sure, he was never eating in that kitchen again. He was going to turn around and head back but before he was really aware of it he was facing the back door to the house, unsure of how he had really gotten there.

He went in he sent off quick text to Yuki to sign off.

The house was still and silent, but that was nothing new, Raj had always been on his computer and Ravi sometimes wore headphones when he read, the house was often quiet.

It looked nothing like a watcher’s house should look like. There were no mystical artifacts used as paper weights or mysterious masks on the walls. There was no clutter at all. It was artfully bare, all modern Scandinavian furniture and what his mum had called “clean lines.”

His mum had loved open spaces and clean lines. And when she was first diagnosed, his father had stopped refusing her anything. She had changed everything in the house so it looked so chic and modern it was almost absurd that Ravi and Raj lived there now. She had even remodeled Ravi’s library so it was all floating shelves and an abstract aluminium desk that she always called “an exquisite piece.”

Raj was 13 when she died.

The day she left for the hospital the house froze. From when Raj was a little boy she had tired easily with the furniture layout and she was constantly rearranging things. Raj was accustomed to coming home to find rooms changed and sofas were reupholstered.

It was a week after she died, Raj had gone to school in the morning and seen a large truck pull up with a fancy Danish chair that she had ordered for his dad’s birthday. And when he returned at the end of the school day, Raj found it sitting in the foyer where the delivery men had left it looking very out of place in his mother’s meticulously designed home.

He had not realized until that moment that he had been excited to come home to see where it would go.

It sat, untouched, in the foyer for the better part of a year.

Raj had come to equate death with that chair standing in the entrance, he and his dad moving around it, neither acknowledging that it was still there and why. As if not mentioning it would somehow negate the face that she wasn’t there to put the chair in its place. Maybe if they didn’t say anything the other might not realize that she was gone.

Raj avoided the kitchen, He didn’t think he could handle the ruined kitchen that was the scene of his father's murder.

Yuki had signed off WoW and sent him a dissapointed text since she had been in the middle of something important. Raj ignored it. He put on a large red coat to go out and conspicuously shop for supplies. He returned a few minutes later with a truly absurd amount of Ramen and pinged Yuki to sign back on.

His feet automatically took him to the kitchen to put the food away. He realized the significance of it just as he opened the refrigerator and realized that the kitchen was pristine. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, a pool of blood or a stale crime scene, left over police tape maybe? Perhaps a hastily thrown away box of donuts? He had expected the house to have frozen like it had frozen years ago.

Jadwiga had always been something of an over achiever. The only miniscule evidence that anything had happened was a small note she had left offering her sincerest apologies and a Tupperware full of dumplings in the fridge.

He had come in here the day after Christmas to see his father lying in a pool of blood form a gunshot wound that caught an artery. He was dead in minutes. Raj had called the police and had been told, later that it was a burglary gone wrong, a few expensive pieces of art and the TV had been taken as well. Someone, it seems had replaced them. Someone had eradicated all evidence that Ravi Prasad was murdered in this room. The house felt cold and uninhabited suddenly. It felt like a place that was just for show, it hadn’t been lived in in a while. It had been washed clean of all evidence that anything had happened there.

Raj found himself sitting at his kitchen table. He put his head down into his hands and, for the first time since it happened, Raj wept.





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