The Adventures of Captain Peroxide and Deadboy
The Angel/Spike Zone of the BtVS Writer's Guild
Title: Admittance
Author: Gypsy Queen
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own BTVS or Angel... I don't own Spike or Angel or Connor, but if I did I would probably not share them ... Yes, I'm selfish that way. but oh well. One more thing I would like to say. Bullocks! Yes, bullocks. It's a fun thing to say. Try it. See? Hehe... I never said I was sane. Anyway, on with the show.
Shock. That's what it was. The moment he waltzed (Yes, waltzed. Swagger is too crude a word for what he does.) through the hotel door, I knew something was up -- and, most likely, it was something nasty. Probably about as nasty as that sneer that had etched itself onto his sharply chiseled face, the moment he saw me behind the hotel counter.
The last time we had seen each other, I was hanging upside down and bleeding from the many different methods of torture he had methodically put me through. Granted, I probably deserved every single bit of it, considering all the terrible things I had done to him so many years before, but still... The demon in me wanted to jump on him and shake him until he was a quivering British mass of peroxide and whimpers, but seeing as how I am the king of containment, I just stood and watched him take in his surroundings.
I knew what he was doing. He was looking to see if anybody else was lurking in the shadows. Apparently, he didn't want anybody to intrude on us... on whatever he had planned, if he had anything planned. This confused me, of course. Spike always had some type of reasoning (no matter how crazy it was) behind whatever he did and there he stood, silently, as if he had no idea what do next. I figured the best thing to do would be to stand there quietly, until he decided to spill what was on his mind. Of course, I'm an impatient devil, so I didn't care what was for the best. "Spike..."
"Now, don't start, Angelus. I need you to be quiet a moment so I can think." I almost laughed at the audacity of the comment. Spike... thinking? Oh, and wasn't that a pretty picture? The brooding look written all over him. Tense muscles, eyebrows drawn tight in concentration, bottom lip worried with blunt teeth, arms crossed across an unmoving chest... What did Spike have to brood about? Spike doesn't brood... But apparently that isn't so, seeing as how there he stood, all glowery and dark. Now, who does that remind me of?
"Spike..." I started again just to be cut short with a soulful glance. Soulful? SOULFUL?! I jumped the counter, with a snarl, and hurled myself at the blonde vampire. I snatched him up and lifted him so that I could stare into his terror-stricken eyes. He hadn't even had time to cry out before I had him trapped in my grasp. Admittedly, this wasn't a bad thing. I wasn't sure what I had to be so angry and long-toothed about... Yet, by this time, I was in full demon visage and completely out of character.
"Angel..." Spike squeaked from his new home in the air. "Angelus..." He actually whimpered, that time. "Sire?" Oh, gods, I wanted to kill something.
I knew something was different about Spike the second he walked through my doors, but something wasn't different... something was changed. Someone or something had changed this creature, my *childe* -- my *favorite* childe -- into something alien to me. I know the things I have said to and about Spike in the past have been nasty and mean spirited, but really... Am I supposed to say I love him? Sure, I had allowed Dru to turn him (under complete supervision, mind you) and I had hunted with him, shared meals, thoughts, play-mates, stories, and hours of bloody massacring fun... I dropped Spike to the ground and turned my back on him as he groaned. Why was it that I was always so close to my demon side, and Spike was always so close to his human side? I stood there pondering until I heard a whisper from behind me.
"Sire?" I looked behind me and my gaze dropped to the vampire at my feet. "Please don't turn your back on me, yet."
I almost melted, at the statement. Yes, that's right. A pool of Angel goo, right there on the floor of the Hyperion lobby. (That *is* what he would think, too -- that I would turn him away without a word.) Instead of melting, however, I decided I should just take a seat before my weakened knees gave out on me and I fell, unceremoniously, in front of the boy.
I don't care what some people say, being dead has its advantages. Like, when you sit on a cold hard floor and realize, even though it would probably be freezing to someone with warm blood rushing through their veins, it is temperate to your unusually cold, pale skin. I looked up from the 'cold' floor and straight into those eyes. Pale blue eyes that incited a riot of emotion in me only moments ago. "Spike..." I was starting to sound like a skipping CD and I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about that. If I only had a one-word vocabulary, I'm pretty sure Spike would not be the word I would take on.
"Sire, I have to tell you some... things." Why wasn't he hating me? Why wasn't he hitting me? Why was he choosing a very uncomfortable place to sit and tell me something that made him so obviously uncomfortable? Well, the last one I could answer myself. I had chosen this place the moment I had dropped him there and he wasn't up to fighting over it. Why? "Angel, are you here?" The confused look on his face almost made me burst into giggles. No, I don't giggle -- but, if I did, I would have at that exact moment.
"Go on." See... Now that wasn't so hard, was it, Angel? No more one word sentences for me, no sir. I could put two words together and make something of it.
". ..and this quest that I had to go through, until I found the cave and the large demon man... big as a bloody building he was... and told me to go through tests and there was fire and knives and fighting until I couldn't see straight... reminded me of that time in China... but when I was almost ready to crawl out of the bleedin' cave... heh, that's funny seein' as how I was the only one bleedin'... and I almost felt like hurling myself into the sunlight when the demon thingie came back and zapped the thing right into me." Spike sat there, staring at me.
He was probably hoping for a reaction of some sort, but apparently I had none to give. Well, first of all, I had missed the beginning of his story. Secondly, even if I hadn't, I don't believe I would have understood a single word the boy said. I shook my head and sighed. What do men say when their wives have been babbling and they don't know what to say? (Ohhh, if Spike knew I had thought that, he would have thrown himself on a stake.) "What?" Uh-oh... Apparently not that.
Spike picked himself up off the ground and screeched, "I just spilled my bleedin' soul out to you and you didn't listen to a bloody word I said?!"
I jumped to my feet. "What?" I said it with a little more agitation this time. "What?" I almost screamed at the boy. If it was possible, he turned even paler at the sound. I swiped my hand over my forehead just to make sure my human face was still intact.
Spike cowered for a moment and then tried, in vain, to regain his footing. He straightened his shoulders and puffed up his chest. "I said..." It came out a very manly squeak, at best. After clearing his throat, he started again. His shoulders weren't as straight and his chest was not so puffy as before, but his voice came out as clear as Evian water. "I said, 'I just spilled out my soul and you didn't even bother to listen'... ya ponce!" He added the last bit, because of that stupid thing with his pride. Always feeling that he needs to have one up on me, and all. I let it slide.
"I think you took a bit of artistic license on that last bit." I narrowed my gaze and pulled Spike close enough to sniff... Yes, I sniffed Spike. I guess you should know that animals know another animal by their scent, and so do vampires. Yes, we have eyes, but I had eyed my childe many times since he walked through that door and nothing looked different, but his scent... That had changed. First of all, the scent of Buffy was all over him. I wasn't even going to acknowledge that, but unbeknownst to me I had emitted a growl and he had heard.
Apparently, the boy has always been smarter than I have given him credit for, and I've always been pretty observant. "I was going to mention that..."
"Shut up." But I never said I was patient. Another sniff. Cigarettes, sweat, blood, whiskey, and girl -- no, lots of girls, young girls. I gave him a quick glance and arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. Another sniff. Willow, Xander, Anya, Giles, Buffy, Buffy, Buffy... I was growling again. After a deep cleansing breath, I bent in one more time. Fear, doubt, sadness, awe, grief, guilt... lots of guilt. I bent back and patted Spike's shoulder, in what I hoped would be taken as a comforting fashion. His shoulders rose and fell, from the deep shuddering breaths he took. He was always so human. Now, more than ever. "Spilled... your soul?"
Spike nodded. His face betrayed every emotion he felt. Every emotion I had just scented on him. Every emotion, except one... need. I could only assume it was the same need I carried around all of the time. Not the need for atonement. Spike is too smart for that.
He knows that there is no way he can ever atone for shoving spikes through people's skulls and ripping out throats, breaking people's necks and wills, bending them to his will and nothing more. Killing children and driving nuns crazy, just to turn them into a monster who speaks of singing star dust and little fairy people who run around lighting fires and eating cats. Hurting the ones you love and loving the ones you hurt, because you're hurting them and you are making them hurt, for you. Need you. You can't atone for it, and you can't fight that feeling that it gave you, but you can damn well try.
I stood there lost in my reverie for minutes on end, before Spike woke me up from that horrible place. "Sire? I know it's a lot to take in, but if you go crazy I don't know what I'll do. That is way too much irony for me, ya know. Taking care of one crazy vampire was enough for any number of lifetimes."
I started and realized I was still holding... no, gripping his shoulder. It looked like it hurt, so I let the pressure off slowly and pulled my hand back to my side. And did he just say taking care of...? Acceptance. You know. That need I was talking about before I went off into crazy Angel world, that place where only the bravest enter and no one survives...
And maybe I do need someone to take care of me. To watch my back and make sure that I'm not getting staked in it. Of course, I can't trust Spike... Not yet. There is that whole torture thing and... Well, didn't I do the same when I was soulless? And what about when I was soulless and crazed? Spike hadn't been around the last few times Angelus had come out to play, but what if he had been? Would it have been better? So many things to think about.
I started to laugh, as I realized how long Spike had been away. Since I had last saw Spike, Gunn had killed a man and slept with an electrical outlet, Wesley had grown a pair, Cordelia had become a Higher Being, tried to destroy the world, and had become pregnant by my son... HA! I was giggling furiously. Who said that I don't giggle? Of course I giggle! My son and heir, who came from Darla! Darla, who was brought back to life and sired by our very own Drusilla! Darla, who with a soul inside -- no matter that it was that of our unborn child -- killed herself so that a baby could live. My son, of whom Spike had no idea. I stopped laughing for a second and thought about how it would be if my two children were to meet. My favorite childe... meeting my biological child... and back to the laughing.
So that brings us to where I am now. Giggling like mad and rolling around on a big, leather couch like a Irish Sheep Hound waiting for its tummy to be rubbed. (Humor me, please.) Spike is sitting in a chair, head in hands, probably wondering why he even came here in the first place, and I have the answer. If I could stop laughing a moment I would tell him, but I'm not sure that's going to happen any time soon.
The truth is, it's the blood. It runs through us and we are linked; no matter how different we are and how far apart we may grow, we are connected. So, whether I like to be linked to this Billy Idol, poetic mamma's boy from London commons, or not... Too bad. Whether he wants to be connected to a 'ponce' and a 'wanker' (with perfectly gelled hair, mind you), or not... So sorry. But the truth is, we have no choice. I couldn't stake him if I wanted to, and he... Well, if he were going to stake me, he would have done it when I was hanging from that ceiling downtown. When I was helpless, when he was soulless. I've stopped laughing.
I look over at him and I can see the searching look on his face. Acceptance. Eh? What do I have to gain... but what do I have to lose? As if on cue, the hotel door opens and in steps my scandalously handsome son, if I do say so myself. Gets it from his mother's side; I'm sure... Hehehe. Hey, I never said I wasn't vain. Connor, or Stephen, whoever the hell he is today, stops in the doorway and looks over at me, laying prone on the couch, and then at my bleach blonde friend, who I have not forgotten, although he probably wishes I would. The boy takes in as many details as his mortal eyes can, and starts to speak. He stops just to look again. He's almost as perceptive as his dad.
I almost think he knows that Spike is a vampire, just by looking. I mean, Spike does look the part. All dark and porcelain, all at the same time. Connor takes a step into the lobby and then, less gingerly, finishes his walk to the edge of the couch. He's looking down at me and I can feel myself grinning like a fool. "What's wrong?" he asks, as he looks over at Spike. Connor has been through a lot. Stolen as a baby, twice. Helped start an apocalypse, and helped stop said apocalypse. I almost don't think I should throw this one at him, just yet. "Connor, my boy, meet your brother." Hey, I never said I was smart.
THE END ...or not.
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