The Adventures of Captain Peroxide and Deadboy
The Angel/Spike Zone of the BtVS Writer's Guild
TITLE: Blood Roses & Rats
AUTHOR: Ducks, the Angel Ho. ;)
DISCLAIMER: Blah, blah, legal garbage that states the obvious, blah blah.
PAIRING: Wm/Aus.
TIMELINE: Present/Flashback to 1900
SPOILERS: BtVS: Fool For Love/ AtS: Darla
SYNOPSIS: After comforting the Slayer, Spike thinks about what he didn't tell her about the Boxer Rebellion.
DISTRIBUTION: Anybody who'd like to archive it, feel free. Just let me know where. :)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Just a quick, angsty fic that popped into my head while listening to Tori Amos (hence the title). As Kita, my most beloved Slash beta and Dark Goddess pointed out, this is sort of AU, as I tend to disregard pretty much anything created in the Whedonverse that I don't like. Like, say... Darla. ;) So... it's AU, kay? *grin*
FEEDBACK: It's like cigarettes, you know? Okay... I won't quote Angelus again. *grin*
RATING: NC-17
CONTENT: Slash (m/m), angst
DEDICATION: To all the wonderful Slashers who've given me such a warm welcome. Kita was right -- you guys RULE!
Blood Roses & Rats
Spike sat with the Slayer for a good, long while, uncertain quite what to do to comfort her, beyond that tentative pat on the shoulder. She sat and cried and told him about her mum, and he listened like a good little wanker. Then she said thanks, went off to bed, and left him sitting there feeling like a right ijit.
He finally got on his way, taking his time on the walk back to the crypt. Telling her his story set off a whole chain of thoughts and memories in his chipped brain, and he was in no hurry to get back to Harmony, and have her start right in running her mouth. Hell, if he was honest with himself, he was never in any hurry to get back to that brainless twit. Most of the time, he couldn't for the unlife of him figure out what he was doing with her. He guessed that she was something to do, like watching telly or drinking, or harassing the Superfriends. Harmony was another hobby. A pastime. Something to bang until he got bored of her at last. Which was about six months ago.
She was something to keep his mind from slipping back.
The downslide was his own fault, telling Buffy about his first Slayer kill and all. He'd dragged his own heart back to turn-of-the-century China, and those last few perfect nights before his world disintegrated, and nothing was ever that good again.
There were things he didn't tell her about that night... or many of the nights before, come to think of it. Nights when he danced and laughed, hunted and shagged with his family. And that last night... the last time he saw Him...
Two years, He'd been gone. The longest He'd ever spent away from him and Dru since they were made. William never found out why... not until a century or so later. Darla had simply come home alone from the hunt one night while they were in Romania, obviously distraught, and took to destroying their house with her bare hands. She wouldn't tell he or Dru what her problem was. Then she dragged them to some ratty Gypsy camp, where they spent the evening killing every last one of the spicy beggars... cruelly... almost ritually, at his GrandSire's command.
She never explained. And when he or Dru asked after Angelus, she dismissed their questions with a shout or a slap. After a time, they stopped asking. But William never stopped wanting to know. For two years, he mourned and dreamed and wondered...
Where did his Sire go?
Beijing was burning all around them the night He returned. William felt His approach like a cool breeze in the doorway to his chamber, and was compelled to look up, not quite certain his instincts were correct. Angelus stood there, unusually subdued, and just gazed at him. William was so glad to see Him, he didn't care--the why's and the how's were instantly gone, and he was once again looking into the deep mahogany eyes that he adored more than unlife itself. Nothing else mattered, in that moment. Not his Sire's lack of distinctive grin, not his distressed posture, not the distinct scent of misery and rats emanating from beneath his fine suit. Only that He was there, at long last.
William stood in awe as he always did, and watched Him approach, barely noting the weary shuffle in His usually proud step, or the strange light in His eyes.
My Sire... My beloved... These were his only thoughts.
And Angelus stopped just inside the chamber doorway, staring at William sadly for what seemed like forever.
"How fare ye, William?" He asked, his voice soft, and edged with languor.
"Sire..." William breathed, quite unable to gather his thoughts beyond, "Where've ya been, then?"
He was asking a question he knew he had no privilege to the answer for, but all those long, lonely nights missing Him, longing for Him, holding Dru while she wept for Him... all these washed his good sense and decades of brutal training away in a moment.
In better times, no doubt Angelus would have struck him, or barked that his business was none of the whelp's concern, but now... Now He just stood there, his broad frame sagging as though his spine had melted.
"Lost," He said. "I've been lost, these two years past. And now I'm home."
A foreign pain shot through William at the agony in those simple words. He found himself frozen to the spot, uncertain how to respond to this defeated creature that looked for all the world like his indomitable Master.
"Lost..." William parroted, flustered. It could be some game. A trick to goad him into some impropriety... give Angelus an excuse to flog him or bugger him dry for his indiscretion.
But He made no move to do so. He stood, looking as He had said He was. Lost. Lost, tired, and wounded. Every instinct in the young vampire was at war over what to do: Should he offer comfort? Drop to his knees? Run?
It was Angelus who finally answered the question, covering the short distance between them in two long strides, and smashed their mouths together in an embrace equally violent and tender, with plundering tongue and nibbling teeth, hands tearing at his Childe's clothes with a snarl.
William was washed away by this strange attack... that touch so long dreamed of, and now... so foreign. Like some other creature in his Master's skin. Angelus laid him bare and dropped to his knees before him, and all he could do was stare down in wide-eyed astonishment as his sire traced the lines of his body with gentle hands and trembling mouth, tears spilling down His face.
Where had He *been*? And what had done this to him?
"Will... my Will..." He cried, taking his First Made's penis into his mouth, sucking the younger vampire straight into bliss.
His Master... on his knees... taking him. Strong hands squeezing his buttocks, urging his throbbing member deep into his cool throat. Gentle hand brushing down, delving long fingers into his entrance...
Making love to him. Never in thirty years or more, had Angelus ever... ever made love to him. Gentle sometimes, yes. But He was always in control. Always dominant.
Never prostrated on his knees.
Will was torn between terror and absolute ecstasy as his sire suckled him. His brain objected loudly - WRONG! WRONG! ALL WRONG!
But his unbeating heart... his humming body... his Blood... didn't care, and before he could form a word or full thought, his hands were tangled in his Sire's thick chestnut hair, and he wailed as he climaxed, thrusting instinctively into the waiting, welcoming mouth.
Angelus wept. Cried his name like a prayer as He pulled William to the floor before him. Sobbed as He divested himself of his own clothes, and wrapped his big body around his Childe's smaller one.
William wondered if maybe he was dreaming. Or perhaps Darla had thought it would be amusing to put an overdose of Absinthe in his whiskey again... his Sire's whiskey, that he had taken to drinking in ever larger amounts to dull the pain.
The pain that Angelus' cool, desperate touch was currently erasing as though it had never existed.
His Master went on weeping, now breathless too, with a passion that seemed too desperate, as if He were seeking something He had misplaced in the silk of his scion's skin.
Something was amiss. Will knew it. Something was ominously not as it should be. His usually stout, hearty, virile Sire seemed far too thin, as if He hadn't been feeding. He sobbed like a child. He was shaking with what seemed as much weakness as desire.
But William's blood -- their blood-- pounded through his brain, a gust of storm wind through his ears, and he couldn't find the inclination to care.
Angelus took him gently, crying out his Childe's name as He entered him, thrusting deep and hard, clutching William's body close and burying His face in his hair.
Now it was Will who was lost. If this was a dream, or a hallucination, he prayed it would never end, as Angelus filled him again and again, stroking him gently, lovingly... perfect rhythm, perfect touch, until they both exploded together, his Sire's roar choked with tears and pain as He collapsed against him.
"I love ye, Will. Never forget that," He whispered.
He'd never said that before, either. Spike didn't remember if he replied. He wonders, sometimes, if he did. Would anything he could have said in that moment made a difference?
He never found out. That night, he killed his first Slayer, and fucked Drusilla raw in the pool of the Chosen One's charmed blood. The next night, Angelus disappeared, and William had become Spike before he saw him again.
The crypt was in sight, now. He could smell Harmony's Red Door on the night breeze. But if he concentrated hard enough, he could remember the scent of spice and fire, desperation and love, good-byes and rats from a century past.
He'd left that part out, when he told the Slayer his story. He didn't imagine it was something she would really want to know. 'Specially not knowing the way she felt about the poufter.
Besides... that night was his and his alone, and he cherished it more, even, than the memory of hard-won Slayerblood on his tongue.
Not good for a mind to slip back too often. The thing was to keep from being bored. He pushed open the crypt door, and smirked at the crossbow Harmony aimed at him.
"Hey, pet. Game for a shag?"
~Fini~